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James Series | How do we receive from the Lord |James 4:1-10

 Verses from ESV

Intro: 

We have been looking at James, the brother of Jesus writing to believers who are from a Jewish background, living as Church away from the places. 

As we have been reading we are clear what James is intending us to have:

REAL ACTIVE FATIH

  • We have seen how
    • faith is build in trials
    • faith is used to separate
    • faith is based on Word of God
    • faith is based and build by doing the word
    • faith is based by building control - tongue
    • faith is based by openness
    • faith is shown by our works
    • faith is shown in humility and teachability

James 4

  1. What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?
    • The early Christians were like us. They too were people. They too had issues. 
    • James is saying that we have passions, our happy agendas that we want to achieve. And this creates in us a war. Even in the Church this is the case. Look, see this situation, imagine there are two brothers teaching, if they are competing to be better than the other then there is a problem. There has to be a place where you are ready to lay down your life for the brother, Would you do that when you know that you would be crushed down?
    • This not just the inward struggle we face. James says that these struggles come from our carnality. We are rebellious to learning.
    • Don't get this wrong. There are times we have to face oppositions internally. Jesus knew how and where to expose sin. Jesus did that in the temple. We do not have to always live a non confrontational Christian life.
    • Let's see what James is pointing us to.
  2. You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask.
    • James told us about the desires in James 1:12 … like a tiny worm in an ocean catching big fishes, so does our desires trap us in sin.
    • James talks about two things.
      • Covet: you want to someone else's thing. You desire for it.
      • Murder: You have unsolved anger -- Jesus said Matthew 5:21-22
    • I was listening to a sermon and he was explaining these thing
      • I want to feel righteous
      • I want to feel superior
      • I want recognition
  3. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.
    • We do not have because we don't ask
    • But you say we pray and we ask
      • But then James says that if you ask you ask that your will be made powerful
      • Charles Spurgen says this about a bad prayer like this
    • This is why there has to be the right reason to pray. 
    • Lets take a bad example
      • Prophecy
        • We have looked at this in detail at least three times in this Church over the last one year.
        • Now we see that there are many who prophecy wrongly
        • One common character is that they see the need of Prophecy wrongly.
        • They think that it is meant to make them big - just like James said they want to be recognised.
        • No, the gifts of the Holy Spirit are meant to be loved and shared among brothers and believers. It is meant to build one another up.
      • Teaching
        • We have bad teacher. How do we judge them? By the word.
    • James is saying that when we live and desire things, we need to ask God to provide it in His will for His people. This is how we are to live.
      • We spoke on tithing. Should we only give 10% away? Should we not give more to God? Was it not God who opened up the opportunities for you and the doors for you to reach this place? Does not everything belong to God? Then tithing is 100%.
  4. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
    • This is amazing how James gets angry here. Has James got angry before? I am not sure
    • James says that we are adulterers
      • Why?
        • James says the same thing he was saying before. If we look at faith as means to fulfil pour bellies then faith is just means to your belly and not to God.
        • How does he mean that?
          • James is saying that when our eyes are focussed on the world, when we chance recognition, passions and greedy desires, we are becoming like the world.
          • We love and see what the world does and we want it too.
          • Many people have fallen to this. There are Christians pastors who trick their way to be the best seller list... why it is because their eyes are not the eyes of faith but of the world.
      • Why does James use the world adulterer?
        • God sees his Church - you and I as his wife. Is 54, Jer 3
        • See the Hosea's wife's story.
        • This is why it is called an addultry.
      • This is why James puts the world against God.
  5. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”?
    • God years for his Holy Spirit to work in us
    • The Holy Spirit yearns and pushes us into being changed into his image.
    • God wants our allegiance to him
  6. But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” 
    • James is back to soft uncle again. He understands that we make mistakes. This is why He says to those who humble and go to the Lord.
  7. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
    • Therefore come to god
    • Not to our books
    • but rather to God and tells him to change us
    • We then will resist the devil
      • How? in humility to the word of God.
  8. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
    • Draw nearer to god and He will draw nearer to you
    • Cleanse your heart - have faith - have faith without doubting
  9. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.
    •  I love this verse. It says be wretched - unhappy
      • about what?
        • your Spiritual condition
        • mourn for your souls
        • come poor and then receive
        • If you come as rich you will leave poorer from the word of God
  10. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
    • This is how we receive. We receive it all from the Lord.


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