The Battle That Should Not Be Fought, by John

THE BATTLE THAT SHOULD NOT BE FOUGHT (JAMESBS7.SER)
James 4:1-12

1. How does a person become a Christian?
(1) God’s part.
a. He provides the payment for our sins.
b. He offers it without any cost to us.
c. He receives us when we meet His terms.
d. He changes us into the image of His Son.
(2) Our part.
a. We’ve sinned - so we already have something to be saved from.
b. We meet God’s conditions.
aa. We must repent.
bb. We must acknowledge Christ our Lord.
cc. We must acknowledge Christ as our personal Savior.
2. Romans 8:1 says it well: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
3. So where does all this conflict our text talks about come in? It is The Battle Which Should Never Be Fought!

I. THE CONFLICT IS WITHIN US.

ill. It has been said that when Martin Luther came out of the Catholic church, he came out just like Lazarus came out of the grave. He still had the graveclothes on him. A Catholic man was talking about the Catholics and Lutherans where he grew up and how friendly and helpful they were to each other. He said, “Of course, Martin came out of the church, but he never got far away!”
1. We all have a built in thirst for pleasure. v.1.
(1) Pleasure is not necessarily evil.
(2) James wasn’t condemning pleasure at all.
(3) He was condemning the practice of sin! And pleasure is sin when it breaks God’s laws, and it becomes sin when it is more important to us than God’s rule in our lives!
2. Such inordinate desire is called epithumia, lust!
(1) The way of the world is for every tub to stand on its own bottom and to get what we want by hook or by crook!
(2) “Murder, fight, quarrel (war)” in v 2 can’t be taken literally here. What a church that would be!
(3) The right way for Christians is to ask God!
a. Every desire of our hearts should pass the prayer test!
b. God will not give us evil gifts, or gifts which will harm us or others.
c. If we don’t know that, we don’t know God or His Word well!
3. Sometimes we ask, and God refuses because our motivation is wrong. ill. Father heard his little boy’s prayers. He prayed for a bicycle over and over again. Then one night his prayer changed. His father was pleased to hear him ask God for a bicycle for his friend Jimmy. “Now that’s a better prayer, son! It’s better to pray for someone else.” “Yessir,” his son said. “I’m bigger than Jimmy, so I can ride it all I want to!” That’s the wrong motivation!
4. God’s never fooled by our tricks! He knows our heart’s motivation!
5. And that’s where our conflict comes from! Our hearts!

II. HANGING ON TO THE WORLD MAKES US GOD’S ENEMIES.

ill. Christ made no difference between His apostles and the world in this. When Jesus said He would be crucified, Simon Peter took Him aside and said, “God forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen to You.” And Jesus said, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.”
1. v.4. Longing for and seeking to gain the world’s way of life shows an inner hostility toward God!
2. Gaining it, makes us God’s enemies!
3. v.5. God doesn’t like that! But His Spirit yearns for us to really be one with the Father!
4. v.6. He, having started a good work in us continues it! (Phil 1:6).
(1) He gives more grace!
(2) But only after we are humbled! Whatever it takes!

III. THE CURE FOR OUR CONDITION IS REPENTANCE!

1. Some count 8, some 10, but there are 8 imperatives here. In Greek, they have different endings. We use vocal stress most of the time for an imperative. There’s all the difference in the world between saying, “Stop” and “STOP!”
2. In v 7.
(1) Submit yourselves to God!
(2) Resist the devil! He will flee! Who says you can’t resist temptation? Not someone who knows this verse, or I Corinthians 10:13!
3. In v 8.
(1) Draw near to God He’ll draw near to you.
(2) Cleanse your hands (means to confess and change your ways!)
(3) Purify your hearts (Obviously means to to become single-minded in serving and desiring the Lord!)
4. In v 9.
(1) Be miserable, mourn and weep. (I think this means as far as the things of the world are concerned! Shame the devil by refusing his goodies! Paul used the same word in Romans 7:24 when he cried out, “O wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death!”)
(2) “Let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy to gloom” refers to the things that the world laughs about and the world rejoices in!
5. In v 10.
(1) Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord!
(2) I see a lot of people who are defeated and humbled by their defeats, but not in the presence of the Lord! All that lies ahead for them is more defeat!
6. Meet God’s conditions of repentance, and He’ll give you all the grace you will ever need!

CONCLUSION:

1. I want you to notice James didn’t say if you meet God’s conditions you can still get all the world’s pleasures! (A lot of people do think that. It leads to a doctrine of being saved by works! And that doctrine is not true!
2. We shouldn’t ever fight a battle with the Lord over the world’s way of living!
3. Our inner conflict which reveals itself externally comes from a love of worldly living!
4. That puts us into the enemy camp! We become God’s enemies!
5. There is just one solution! Repentance!
6. Are you content to live like Satan? He’s God’s number one enemy. Or do you look for a better way?

Emmanuel 03/13/2005

Cleaning up the Tongue by John

CLEANING UP THE TONGUE (JAMESBS6.ser)
James 1:5, 3:6,8,12,13,18

1. The Jews always considered wisdom as coming from God. (Perhaps they learned that lesson from Adam! There’s no OJT for wisdom!)
2. James says fruits reveal their parent trees in 3:12.
3. In 3:18, James says “the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.” (We’ll discuss this verse later).
4. These verses only contain clues about how we should go about “CLEANING UP THE TONGUE.”
5. Let’s use these, and see if we can make some practical applications. We’ll look at some of the other statements, too.

I. GET READY TO CONTROL YOUR TONGUE.

1. The tongue is a fire. It can cause a raging inferno in moments. ill. When I was in high school during the early years of WWII, I camped out a lot of weekends so I could hunt. The first time at supper time, I gathered everything I needed to start a cooking fire, laid it, and lit it. I was thinking about bacon and eggs when I discovered the leaves had caught fire all around! As quick as I stamped out one place another blazed up. I remembered a movie where they made a fire-break to stop a forrest fire. That’s what I did. After that I always swept the leaves away before I built my fire!
2. Our text told you what your tongue can do. Get ready to control it!
(1) Learn to avoid situations you know will spur you into using bad language, telling bad stories, or gossiping to other’s harm!
(2) When you know you are going to be in a situation where you would ordinarily have used bad language in the past. Be determined! Keep your cool!
a. Pray about it!
b. If you fail, don’t give up, confess your sin, and start over. ill. Have you ever seen an ant lion? They make little cone shaped holes in the dust, and they trap and eat ants. If they can’t catch an ant when he falls into their trap, they throw dirt at him and knock him back down. I watched an ant one day. He would almost get away, and then he would get knocked down by the dirt that lion threw at him. After about 10 times, I was betting on the ant lion. After all, the ant was playing his game! But that ant lion went hungry because the ant never gave up! He got away!
(3) Learn to express yourself better!
a. Build your vocabulary up. Read the dictionary. Work cross-words.
b. Learn to use inflection for emphasis.
c. Learn how to gesture.
d. Learn to change the volume and pitch of your voice. ill. A 4 yr old boy wandered into my yard and proceeded to help me work. In a few moments his mother called him. He ignored her. (repeat 2x). I said, “Don’t you think you had better go? Your mother must want you.” “No she doesn’t!” he said, “If she wanted me, it would be a lot louder!”
3. Deep feelings need to be expressed, and if we know the language, we can do it without cursing.
4. If we have good motives, we can do it without harm! We must remember that curses come out of the heart and intend harm to
someone.

II. THE BEST DEFENSE IS A POSITIVE OFFENSE.

1. No natural man could have walked around the city of Jericho and made the walls fall down! Neither can a natural man tame the tongue!
2. Christians are not natural, worldly people. I Cor. 2:14 says, “But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.”
3. Christians are supernatural people saved by Jesus, indwelt by God’s Holy Spirit! Christians can tame the tongue!
4. How? Imitate Jesus! It’s not easy, but it is possible! ill. I never ever heard my father use a curse word. I did hear him call a man a dirty name face to face! I’m sure it came back to haunt him. Several years later, he heard me call another man that same name! I had a problem with my language. In the Navy I learned to talk like a sailor, then Jesus saved me, and I had to learn to use godly language! I don’t think my children have ever heard me use a curse word, but I’m aware they still may, if I forget to be like Jesus for even one moment!

III. POSITIONS OF STRENGTH MAKE STRONG ATTACKS POSSIBLE

1. Now we are back to the tree! If you want to control your tongue, you’re going to have to attack the devil. He’s the tempter, and you have to beat him.
2. The only way to do that is to change sides! You have to join Jesus! He is the only one Who has the strength to defeat Satan, but He can and will do it every time!
3. He is the Vine, you are the branches! When you abide in Him you have His strength. He gives it to you.
4. What happens then, when Christians can’t control their language? They’ve pulled loose from the Vine!
5. How can you guard against it?
(1) Fellowship with Christians a lot! (Not exclusively) You get strength from them.
(2) Develop a daily prayer and devotion time.
(3) Ingest the Word of God every way you can.
(4) And the fourth one is in v. 18.
6. V. 18. Become a “fruit” sower. We think of planting seed in the ground, not the harvest, but the Greek here really says, “But the fruit of righteousness is sown by those that make peace.” “Seed” in Gk is sperma, literally “a remnant.” “Fruit” is ˇkarpon.ˇ

7. We, as Christians, sow the fruit we bear in the world. The world sees the fruit of our lives, hears the fruit of our lips, and these become the seed which bear the fruit of salvation in their lives.
8. When we begin to take responsibility for others, we will find we have good enough reason to prepare our language, to imitate Jesus, to make strong attacks upon the world and the devil from our position of strength in Jesus!

CONCLUSION:

1. Be sure Jesus is your Lord and Savior.
2. Begin to prepare yourself to talk His language.
3. Do all you can to learn about Jesus, and imitate Him.
4. Stop being on the defense! Strike out at the world and the devil from your position of strength in Jesus!

Emmanuel 3/6/2005