Selfishness Leads to Conflict

Transcript

GR 1652
09/30/2012
Selfishness Leads to Conflict
James 4:1-3
Gil Rugh

Alright, we’re going to the book of James and you might stop in chapter 1 just so we remind ourselves how James opens up the letter. “James, a bond-servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes who are dispersed abroad,” these are the twelve tribes of the dispersion, Jewish believers scattered outside the land of Palestine, “Greetings, consider it all joy, my brethren.” So he’s writing to them not only as fellow Jews but as fellow believers in Jesus Christ, but it’s a rather stern letter. He’s drawing a contrast because he’s concerned about inconsistencies that he knows about in their lives. And while he doesn’t say that he thinks some of them aren’t believers, he raises questions for evaluation, if you will. And that comes early, it comes throughout the letter.
If you come back over to chapter 3. We concluded chapter 3 in our last study and here James was contrasting true wisdom with worldly wisdom, God's wisdom and man’s wisdom, beginning with verse 13 of chapter 3, “Who among you is wise and understanding? Let him show by his good behavior his deeds in the gentleness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth. This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic. For where jealously and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy. And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.” And that’s the lead into chapter 4, this contrast between true, godly wisdom and worldly wisdom. And the idea that there would be, in verse 14 of chapter 3, bitter jealousy, selfish ambition in their heart would lead to conflict among them, would indicate that they’re being influenced by the devil and his demons, not by the Spirit which should be transforming their lives. Jealousy, in verse 16, and selfish ambition bring disorder and every evil thing. And the contrasts on that was that emphasis on peaceable and peace in verse 17 and 18. The righteousness that God produces in a life, that produces the characteristics of righteousness in a life and the fruit that goes with that.
That helps us to appreciate how chapter 4 opens up. “What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you?” So that’s what he’s been talking about. He led into this by drawing the contrast between godly wisdom and demonic wisdom and the wisdom of this world, the wisdom that is natural, as he expressed it in chapter 3 verse 15. We know that soulish that does not have the work of the Spirit of God in it produces what? Conflicts, disorder, all kinds of evil. So when he opens up chapter 4 and says, “What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you?” he’s rephrasing the question. In light of what he’s just said, here’s what worldly wisdom produces in a life and that includes things like quarrels and conflicts, disorder. Now the question, what is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? You’re supposed to be believers, you’re supposed to have the wisdom which is from above which is peaceable according to chapter 3 verse 17, it’s sown in peace by those who make peace. Now what’s the source of the war going on among you? And he’s primarily concerned with the conflicts among believers, something is not right here. So he’s laid the groundwork for the question that he raises to start what we have as chapter 4 verse 1. You have to consider your true spiritual condition. He’s writing to Jews, he’s writing to Jews who profess to be followers of Christ and that is a costly thing. Chapter 1, he encouraged them to have endurance, verse 4. “Let endurance have its perfecting result, so that you may be perfect.” They’re undergoing, according to verse 3, the testing of their faith but their behavior raises questions about the genuineness of their faith. Here’s the kind of wisdom the world has and its source can be traced back to demonic activity. And he’s going to show in chapter 4 the unregenerate heart.
So “quarrels and conflicts among you,” these are words that would be used to describe a literal battlefield where there is actual war going on. It is used also to describe the conflict going on among these believers. What is the source of the warfare that is going on among you? The battles, the conflicts, and the plurals of these words, they’re both plural -- the quarrels, plural, the conflicts, plural. There’s just not an isolated incident. There’s a disagreement in this area over this matter. They have an ongoing war with all the battles and conflicts that go with that and it’s “among you,” somethings wrong. I’ve told you the two kinds of wisdom, now I ask the question, what about the warfare going on among you, what’s the source of it? Well, he said what? It can’t be from above because the wisdom that comes down from above, that would be motivating and controlling and directing the conduct is peaceable and it’s sown in peace by those who make peace. The other alternative is the wisdom which is earthly, natural, and demonic in chapter 3 verse 15. That’s not a good indication. Wisdom that is earthly, natural, and demonic. But where do quarrels and conflicts come that exist among you, you, my brethren, fellow professing believers? Somethings wrong. They may have been tempted to blame it on the pressures of their situation. Don’t we all think we’re right in a battle, right? That’s why we have a battle, one person fighting for this, one person’s fighting for that, maybe they think that they’re not being treated fairly. We know there was a disagreement in the early church in Jerusalem over the care of widows and one group thought that their widows weren’t being fairly treated and that had to be taken care of. There are things that always have to be worked out, even among believers. Sometimes they are not dealt with properly and the result is conflicts.
James is going to answer his question with a question that gives the answer to the first question. “What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members?” From within your own body, carrying it back to their heart, mind, their desires. Isn’t the source of the conflict your pleasures? I don’t know if you’re familiar with this word in English, the Greek word is hedonon. We get the word hedonistic from it, pleasure. Here he is emphasizing on their self-centered desire for their own way, their own selfish desires, it’s what I want. Isn’t that where conflict comes? Among believers it comes, among our families it comes, in all the conflicts it comes. One person sees it this way, one person sees it this way, this is what I want, this is what I want.
You’re not talking about a doctrinal issue here because if it was a doctrinal issue James would resolve it with the clarity of what the scripture says on it. There was a doctrinal issue among the leadership when they met in Acts 15 at the Jerusalem counsel that James was the leader in. They resolved that consistent with the word of God. But these are personal issues, “your pleasure that wage war in your members,” within ourselves. So the battle going on within and our selfish desires and figuring out how we can get our way, what we want, leads to conflict within and that spreads to without. He’s going to develop it.
“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 lust and you don’t have so you commit murder. This internal conflict traced back to our lust, our desires. So you see he’s taken it back within, just like he did at the end of chapter 3 on earthly wisdom and heavenly wisdom. It comes from within, selfish ambition, bitter jealousy. These are attitudes, desires from within that are waging war, a lust within our members and the desires to satisfy our selfish desires. Come back to chapter 1 of James. Remember he often talks about things in a brief way and expands on it more fully later in the letter. In chapter 1 verse 14, verse 13 for the context, “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust.” So James has talked about that. Where does sin come from? It comes from within primarily when we are carried away and enticed by our own lust. “Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished it brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren.” He is writing to them as professing believers, but don’t be confused. Now you are a believer you have to have a clear understanding and know it is a terrible thing that a believer would sometimes maybe think that God is leading me to this ungodly behavior. That can never happen but what happens when we are carried away and driven by our own lust, our own selfish desire? Come back to chapter 4.
You lust, you have this desire for what you want and you don’t have it so you murder, you commit murder. Now, doubtful that he’s talking about actual murder going on among believers but the picture here is viewing what is the ultimate end, just like he showed in chapter 1. The ultimate end of lust is sin and death. Here the ultimate desire is murder. We treat others, even though we may stop short of actually killing someone in our heart, that’s the condition that we have we’re driven in that way.
Turn over just past James toward the end of your New Testament to the first epistle of John, 1 John chapter 3, look at verse 14: “We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death.” In the context, you don’t love the brethren, you’re still in your dead spiritual condition. “Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.” James has the same concern as John has expressed. Something is wrong with this attitude of animosity that is really a hate because we’re determined we have our way whatever the destructive result is. We’re willing to have war among believers because what? I want my own desires, this is what I want. Well, John and James put that on the level of murder, same thing Jesus did.
If you want to come back to Matthew 5. Some of you are probably thinking of this passage. Matthew chapter 5 verse 21: “You have heard that the”, and we’re on the Sermon on the Mount here if you’re familiar, “You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not commit murder’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.” Then he goes on to talk about forgiveness and making things right. Because you know what happens, the animosity that settles in the heart it grows, it doesn’t get better. I’ve shared with you my experience in former pastoring. The animosity gets into the church between the two factions and trying to say, “Well, can’t we resolve this? We have to resolve,” but, “Oh we can’t resolve this, this goes back 35 years or so whatever.” Terrible, it doesn’t get better, it gets worse, we get hardened. You know, sort of like in your personal relationship in your marriage something happens and you don’t talk to one another. Well, it doesn’t get better the next day and the more hardened you get in your position the more difficult it becomes. Same in the church, this gets settled and we seethe on the inside, we think of how they wronged us, what they did, how what they did to my family or this or that. That gets deeper and deeper and we talked about how it eats away at us. Jesus, James, John -- that’s an attitude of a murderer that kind of animosity. “Well, I wouldn’t go that far.” But we really destroy one another. Hinder the work of God in our lives over these kind of conflicts. Sad isn’t it that the Christian church gets noted for those kinds of divisions. I’m not talking about standing for the truth or doctrine. James has done that, did it at the Council of Jerusalem, here’s the line. But these personal things that come out of our own desires. Back to James, “You lust and do not have; so you commit murder.” Again, it’s not actual murder, it’s in their heart, this is what’s going on when you don’t resolve it. It’s where Jesus went with it, it has to be resolved, you go and make it right, you resolve the conflict and if you don’t it becomes more settled and it’s the same in the heart whether it’s carried out as murder.
“You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel.” Back in chapter 3 verse 14: “But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart,” that bitter jealousy, translation of the same basic word as we have translated envious here. So you see where we are, we’re in a heart that is functioning in an earthly, natural, demonic way when he can say to them in chapter 4 verse 2, “You are envious.” Now he told us back in chapter 3 verse 15, if you have bitter jealousy, if you have this envious spirit. One is a verb and one is a noun but same basic word. Look in verse 16 of chapter 3, “For where jealousy,” there’s our word again, this envious spirit. So when he says to them in chapter 4, “You are envious,” read a little earlier in my letter, what are you manifesting? You are manifesting a wisdom that has nothing to do with God and what He produces in a life. You’re acting like a person that doesn’t have the Spirit of God. What chapter 3 verse 15 calls natural and soulish, it’s the person apart from the Spirit of God, that’s how they function. Now, you are envious, jealous, and you don’t get what you want, you don’t get your way so you fight and quarrel. Same words in reverse order from verse 1, quarrels and conflicts, conflicts and quarrels. So He’s taking them back, where did these disagreements come from? They come from selfish desires, from jealousy, envy, wanting my way and not willing to yield and when I don’t get it, it turns into a battle, a war. It happens among believers, it happens among believers in their homes, it happens among believers in the church. To resolve the frustration of not getting our way; my way, my way. Now we justify it; he did this, she does that, it’s really what they’re doing to me that’s causing this. James is saying that it’s not, it’s coming from within you. We try to excuse it; well, if they hadn’t done this I wouldn’t have responded that way, if they would do this. Now wait a minute, what are we saying? If they would do it my way then we wouldn’t have to have the fight or quarrel. But if we’re not going to do it my way, I’ll make it a battleground. This whole area of lust and selfishness repeatedly comes up in the scripture.
I want to run through a few scriptures with you. Come back to Romans chapter 1, Romans chapter 1. You know, the Scripture deals with life in a very firm, clear way and that’s true for our lives as believers and our relationships together. God says the way things are to be and He requires them to be that way. The church being God’s family, it’s like your children. They can fight among themselves, especially when one doesn’t get his way. Then he wants to argue why it wasn’t fair or why what happened wasn’t his fault or her fault because of what they did and you as a parent see through it. Well, God’s dealing with His family and He’s telling us what is required of us. He’s not giving suggestions or ideas we might want to take into consideration. We often don’t take the word of God as seriously as we say we would. In Romans chapter 1 verse 24 you see the characteristics of those manifesting these lustful, selfish, envious desires. Verse 24, “God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity.” That’s the same word we had translated lusts in James 4 verse 2 earlier, “You lust and do not have; so you commit murder.” You see the unbeliever, the person who doesn’t know God, is driven by his own desire to have his way, not God’s way. It’s a root issue in sin, isn’t it? Refusal to submit to God, to obey Him. “God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts”, and what did they do? They pursued what they wanted, what they desired. In Romans chapter 6 verse 12: “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts.” Same word we’re talking about in James 4:2. Believers, you don’t let sin rule in your body so that you’re driven by your own lust and selfish desires cause now we are to be a people who live in obedience to God and His will as He goes on in this chapter. In chapter 7 verse 7, just to note there, the translation of the commandment you shall not covet, the word covet is the same word translated lust in James 4:2, you shall not lust, the idea that covetous, lust, that desire for what you selfishly want. Come over to chapter 13 of Romans, look at verse 8, “Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. For this ‘You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet’ ”, you shall not lust, it’s the same word as we have in James 4:2. “If there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.” This is the opposite of that selfish desire to fulfill. The love that the Spirit produces in the life makes me want to do what’s best for you. That fits with what we talked about in marriage, the emphasis like in Song of Solomon, the desire to please the other person, fulfill them, becomes a characteristic of the life of a person and all they do in living in obedience to the Spirit of God. Let’s see, come to 1 John 2 again and then I want to go to Jude and then we’ll come back to James.
1 John, all the way back to the back of your New Testament. 1 John chapter 2 verse 15, “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world is lust, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world,” the same kind of contrast James was drawing. “The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.”
Come to Jude, very similar to James in this section, Jude verse 16. But the verses leading into this, verse 14 and 15, talk about the time when Christ will come with thousands of His angels to execute judgment on the unbelievers. You note the word ungodly, maybe you have it marked in your Bible in Jude in verse 15, “to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things in which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.” Ungodly, ungodly, ungodly. “They are grumblers, finding fault, following after their own lusts”, which James is talking about in chapter 4 verse 2. “They speak arrogantly, flattering people for the sake of gaining an advantage. But you, beloved, ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, that they were saying to you, ‘In the last time there will be mockers, following after their own ungodly lusts.’ ” Jude just wants to drive home, we’re talking about ungodly people, people who do not know God, who are living in rebellion against God, who are driven by their own selfish desires. What happens with these people? “These are the ones who cause divisions, worldly-minded.” That word worldly-minded, remember we talked about in chapter 3 verse 15, soulish, natural, they’re soulish, they don’t have the Spirit. So this next statement, “They are devoid of the Spirit,” not having the Spirit they cause division. What are you talking about? Ungodly people who pursue their lusts and don’t have the Spirit of God dwelling in them, they cause divisions. Now something’s wrong, James is writing to professing believers and they are at war with one another. The Spirit of God doesn’t produce this. Is your goal as a parent to create warfare in your home, to have your children being in a battle with one another? No, you want to put a stop to that. Something’s wrong, something’s wrong in God’s family. I’ve produced my character, I’ve produced the fruit of the Spirit in a life, and you’ve got a warfare going and yet my work in a life produces peace. Something’s wrong.
So come back to James 4. You see this is a repeated emphasis through the scripture and many, many of the divisions in churches are caused by those who have come in among believers, have made professions to be believers, have given manifestations of certain characteristics you might expect in a believer, but they are driven by their own selfish lusts. The desire for power, the desire for influence, the desire to have their way, and the church ends up in battle not over doctrine but over selfish desires. So in James 4:2, “You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel,” and the root problem, “You do not have because you do not ask.” So it’s not that a believer can’t have whatever he needs from the Lord, he can’t have everything he selfishly wants. When I move over to allow my selfishness to rule, that brings conflict, brings conflict in our homes, doesn’t it? I mean, if a husband or a wife is going to function selfishly over what they like, what they want, the way they think things ought to be, what they think the other person ought to do, pretty soon, what? You have conflict. It happens in the church, it is the same thing. And the deceptive thing about sin we deceive ourselves into thinking there is good reason why, there is good reason for me to feel this way, I have truly been offended, I have truly been wronged, I have truly, I, I, I. There’s the problem, isn’t it? It’s what I want. But you don’t have because you don’t ask. Go to the Lord, He delights to give you. Come back to James 1. Again, you go back to what James talks about early in the letter, now he picks up again, James 1 verse 17: “Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.” So all good things come from God. Come back up to verse 5 of chapter 1. “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.” I mean, so you don’t have because you don’t ask, come and seek from God, His wisdom. Now you have to come with a willingness and readiness to do His will.
Come back to Matthew 7, Matthew 7 verse 7, Jesus speaking. Much of what James writes is drawn from Christ’s teaching, particularly the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew 7:7, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? 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!” So, go to your heavenly Father, ask Him, it’s what James said in chapter 1, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives generously to all” who ask Him. They “must ask in faith,” James went on to say, “without any doubting” that the instability of a man who doesn’t know whether he can really trust God to do what he asks and trust that God will do what is best and right as I ask Him for the desires of my heart.
So James elaborates now on that in chapter 4 because what do we say? Well, I asked for a lot of things I didn’t get. Well, verse 3 of chapter 4 of James, “You ask and you do not receive, because . . .” What’s this answer that I get for my failure to get what I have asked? “You ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.” God’s not in the business of satisfying my selfishness. You make the same decision with your children, those of you who have children or who have had them and they’re grown. But your kids may ask for a lot of things. Some things you don’t give because they wouldn’t be good for them. You don’t give them because you know it’s for selfishness and to give them what they’re asking, even though you could, would just develop the selfishness. So James says you don’t get what you ask because your motives aren’t right.
You have to ask out of a desire to please God, honor Him. No, you’ve asked because you have selfish desires. Lord, I’m asking you to give me a nice car because if I had a nice car with a reasonably sized motor, it would be a better testimony when I go to share the gospel with people because I would be showing how You bless those who serve You. So you see my real desire is to be able to share the gospel with people and remove any obstacle. That’s not so! My real desire is to have a nice car with a big motor and I’m trying to adjust my selfishness. My nice house, Lord if you would give me a nice house I could have a Bible study and if I had a Bible study I’d have people over and they would see how God blesses His children and it all would be for You, Lord. Preferably be 2500 square feet and a fireplace, Lord, but whatever, and preferably over in this section of town. This doesn’t mean the Lord doesn’t give us nice things, but when I come asking for selfish desires. We even pray for people and we really want the Lord to manipulate people so we get our way. We pray for the Lord to change someone. You know, I often ask for the Lord to change Marilyn in an area, so what? I get my selfish desire. Is that kind of prayer going to get answered? What kind of God would He be running around, what kind of parent would you be, running around to fill the selfish requests of your children all the time? We see some of those kids as the world carries out that. God doesn’t do that. No, He delights to have us come and ask Him, but when we come with selfish motives to fulfill our own selfish desires that is not pleasing to Him, so we don’t get what we ask.
We ask with wrong motives. That word translated wrong. Sometimes I think we’d do better to translate a little more forcefully. The word is kakos, sort of an ugly word, kakos, it’s that which is evil, means in an evil manner, badly, it’s evil intentions. Wrong motives gives you the idea. But we ask evilly, we ask with evil intentions, that’s what selfishness is. Isn’t it something? Here we’re talking about people who are driven by their own selfish lusts, they claim to have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. And they’ve given some evidence because they’re Jews and for a Jew to profess faith in Jesus as the Messiah of Israel and the Savior was a costly thing. James started out by encouraging them in their trials. Here these same people, James is concerned, are driven by selfishness, evil motives. They even turned their prayer life into a time to express their selfishness before the throne of God. How we delude ourselves even as God’s people!
Even my prayer life and I come before God with evil motives, have the audacity to come before the God who searches the hearts of men. He says, Jeremiah 17:10, that He is the only One who can truly search the depths of the heart which is deceitful and desperately wicked. I come before Him and think, that I can come with evil motives and ask Him to do something that will fulfill my selfish desires so I get my way, often in dealing with others. A warning about the seriousness and deceptiveness of sin. And you know it’s possible to ask for good things with bad motives. You say, well, there’s nothing wrong, this would be a good thing. You know, Lord help me to present the message today, powerfully, clearly, but in the end what I would really like to have is people to think that I am a good preacher, I’m exceptional or something like that. So really, I’m driven by selfish motives and I could be asking for something good through a wrong motive. So you ask with evil motives, “So that you spend it on your pleasures.” Your own selfish desires is what he’s talking about here. So quarrels and conflicts, they will come, they are there, we are still growing. We need to nip it in the bud. What is wrong? I have to ask myself, is there a doctrinal issue at stake, is there a matter of standing for the word of God? Or is this just the way I would like it to be, is this the way I want it, this is what I would want for myself? What James is really challenging them . . . and he never directly says it, he just tells them here’s what an unbeliever is like, here’s what a believer is like. Now where are the quarrels and fightings coming from among you? The answer is if it is going on and is not dealt with, you know the answer is that you’re living in the realm of an unredeemed person. Not producing the character of God.

Come over to Galatians chapter 5, we’re back to Galatians, towards the front of your Bible, Galatians chapter 5. You note James doesn’t allow anything, James understands as a Jewish believer the pressure that is on a Jewish believer in Jesus Christ but he cuts no slack for their behavior. I understand under the pressures you don’t respond properly, I realize that you’ve had family that has turned against you, that this has happened, that has happened. You know, God does not cut us slack for not functioning the way He says we are to function as His children and He graciously provides the Spirit to provide the enablement for us to function. So we look and say, “Well, you know, I couldn’t help it and I was under a lot of pressure and things are difficult.” Well, what’s that got to do with anything? Here’s how believers function. Galatians chapter 5. The contrast again, Paul is writing to the Galatians and is kind of concerned, something is wrong. Verse 16, chapter 5 verse 16, “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.” Very simple isn’t it? Walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh, there is a battle. “The flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another . . . But if you’re led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law. Now the deeds of the flesh . . .”
Now we see a contrast, here’s what a person who is under the control of the flesh does, then we’ll talk about the Spirit. “Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you,” as those who have professed faith in Christ even under my ministry. Paul had ministered to the Galatians at prior occasions. Those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. “That’s you know, well, I just think I’m not always functioning like I should.” Something’s wrong, something’s wrong, contrast the fruit of the Spirit. So you see we talked about those who are natural, Paul talks about the flesh, controlled by their selfish desires, their flesh, they don’t have the Spirit of God enabling them.
They are not living a life submissive to the Spirit of God. “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires”, its lusts. Carries back to James, same word, you lust and do not have. Now those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its lusts, no longer living, we have died to that. Now, there are times we go back, we do things. I mean, you know, we are involved in factions, dissensions, jealousy that comes up in our life. If we see that there we have to nip it in the bud, it will grow. James just says, “You’ve got to examine yourself, something’s wrong. You’ve got to say, ‘Hey, I realize, I’m functioning in a way I should not function, it’s got to stop.’ “ We sometimes confuse ourselves and say, “Well, I’m working on it.” What’s that mean, I’m working on it? Paul doesn’t say work on it. James doesn’t say work on it. What’s he say? Do it! “I mean, it’s going to take me time to stop losing my temper.” Well, let’s see, will 15 seconds be long enough, twenty seconds? “Well, I can’t do it.” Then don’t sit here and tell me you’re a believer. My counseling sessions are short, it’s not because we want to be unkind, but we want to be true. What do you mean you’re going to work on it? I understand there are areas where we work on it, there are areas that all of us battle with, it’s not the same area, but things that are more a temptation for us to resort to the flesh. I need to recognize those, build a barrier around them, I’m not going to have that come up in my life. And if I see it beginning to try to intrude in my life I’m going to deal with it right away, I’m not going to make excuses for myself. “Well, I’m under a lot of pressure at work or I have people who have done things to me and if you knew what they did to me, you would understand why I conduct myself.” What’s that got to do with it? I mean, we’re talking about what Christ has done for us and to us and that’s what makes the difference. We’re talking about what Christ and God through the power of the Spirit produces in our life as the result of the work of Christ. That’s what James is talking about, you’re not saved by your conduct but your conduct is transformed when you’re saved and that’s the consistent pattern. It’s not honest to treat one another any other way. You ought to have this expectation of me, I ought to have it of you, you ought to have it of one another, we should as a body. We ought to be honest, your behavior does not fit what the scripture says is true of a godly man, a godly woman, something’s wrong. Then we hear the excuses, “well, wait a minute, we don’t need to talk about that, let me tell you all that’s happened.” I don’t need to hear all that’s happened, here is where we are today. Have you been crucified with Christ? Those who have been crucified with Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts. So we don’t have to go back and dig in the muck and mire. So I understand why you are sinning because there is no excuse for me to be sinning, right? Isn’t that a liberating thing? It’s proof, I don’t have to be. It’s not my family, it’s not the way I was raised, it’s not the pressures of my life. In Christ I can be everything that God says He intends me to be as His child so it ought to be manifest. We ought to have a congregation of harmony and peace, right? Unless some infiltrate and bring false doctrine, we’ll have to have a battle over it. Or unless those driven by the flesh are determined to have their selfish way, then we’ll get driven by conflict. But either way we have to come back and say here’s what the scripture says, here’s what’s required, get in line, God’s grace enables us.
Let’s pray. Thank you, Lord, for Your grace. Thank you for the power of Your salvation. Lord. It’s so important that we not delude ourselves, we not pretend our lives either conform to the beauty of Your character or they don’t. Lord, none of us have reached perfection yet, Lord, there is no excuse for us to tolerate in our lives those things which are not consistent with what You say we must be. Thank you for a salvation that is so powerful it changes us at the very core of our being, it breaks the power of sin, sinful passions, and sinful lusts and desires, sets us free for obedience to You. Thank you for the presence of Your Spirit who enables us, empowers us. Lord, how sad it is that in times we revert to those behaviors which are rebellious, which are destructive. Lord, may we deal with our own lives carefully and clearly, examine ourselves to see indeed if we be in the faith, if we are committing ourselves to living faithfully day by day for You. Use us in the days of this week to honor You in all we do. We pray in Christ’s name, amen.