contending for spiritual wholeness – Abraham Gin

James 4:1-10 Page 1

I.source of pain: unmet longings of your heart (4:1-3)

 1What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures (passions)that wage war in your members?  2You lust(desire, covet) 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.  3You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.

Fact (1a): Quarrels and conflicts. The greek words refer to military battle, fight, and war. They serve well to define the dissension and conflict in the community of faith James addresses. Disputes are the externalization of unresolved inner conflicts.

Now in chapter 4 speaks of wars, fightings, passions (1), desires, covetousness (2), unfaithfulness and friendship with the world (4). What are all the causes of unrest, bad feeling, hostile relationships?

Condition (1b): Pleasures (passions) that wage war in your members. We have longings and needs that control us and leads us into illegitimate means that produces death and brokeness that disconnect us from ourselves, others, and God. It is rooted all in a self-centered heart.

Results (2a): Lust or desires that leads to nothing but murder, envy, fights and quarrel.

“What did Jesus speak about anger, derogatory, dismissive remarks, and namecalling? Was Jesus over exaggerating by calling it spirit of murder (Mt. 5)? Or do you think John was going overboard when he called people who failed to love their brother Cain(1 Jn. 3:11-12)? It is we who diminish the importance of right relationships, not the Scriptures which exaggerate the importance of quarrels” (Motyer, The Message of James).

Solution is prayer (2b): You do not have because you do not ask. Absolute dependence on God vs. self-sufficiency. The righteous knows that all their possession comes from God, who knows their needs and provides for them. Humility enables the righteous to depend upon God and gratefully accept what God gives.

 7"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.  9"Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! (Mt. 7:7-11)

Reason of unanswered prayers (3a):You ask with wrong motives. The motivation is filled with self-indulgent and self-seeking. Pleasure is not innately wrong but true pleasure is a by-product produced by seeking a “higher good” – one that pleases the Lord and bring His Kingdom onto earth. James does not say that God does not hear but that we can’t receive.

Fights and quarrels (1a) come from unmet needs, producing wrong desires (1b). Basically, external war is rooted in internal war of desires. Frustrated desires (2a) lead to quarrels and fights. Part of the desires to “have” is met with frustration because they do not ask (3). However, when they ask God, they ask with self-indulgent, wrong motivations.

The whole movement of James’ thought, therefore, is to reveal that public problems (a disrupted fellowship) have private causes (self-pleasing heart), and that if the highest (the good life) “spiritual wholeness” is to be achieved, there is a need of a deep, penetrative work of transformation to touch the individual heart (Motyer, The Message of James, pg. 146). Then there is a shift to a different context, yet related. “For with his cry adulteresses! his concern is not that we have played false with each other, but that we have played false with God, and that in befriending our own interests we have become friends of the world and the Lord’s enemies (4:4). Our problem is really a spiritual one: how to get right with God and how to stay right with him” (Motyer).

II.Jealousy for Wholehearted Bride (4:4-5)

 4You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility(enmity) toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.  5Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: "He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us"?

You adulteresses(4a). The prophets frequently compared the covenant relationship between God and Israel to a marriage. Breaking the covenant was compared to adultery (Is. 1:21; Jer. 3:6-10, 20; Ezek. 16:15-52; Hos. 2:5-7; 4:12;9:1). This image emphasizes the theme of singular devotion to God and God’s law. Jesus said, “You cannot serve God and wealth” (Matt. 6:24).

The Lord is our husband and the church, his wife. Idolatry is akin to adultery. This imagery is found in Hosea’s marriage with the prostitute, so that her unfaithfulness might poignantly and painfully reveal through Israel and their foreign gods. NT accounts see the church as an adulteress who is unfaithful, going after other lovers.

World vs. God(4b). Friend or enemy? We must not deceive ourselves into thinking that we can live in intimate fellowship with him when we set our hearts towards the world.

God’s jealously desires(5). God’s people are indwelt by God’s Spirit and there is no way in which the living presence of that Spirit is compatible with those sinful yearnings and promptings to self-interest which are destructive of the peace of the church.

…for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God…Exodus 20:5

2For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy; for I betrothed you to one husband, so that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin. (2 Cor. 10:2)

God’s three divine graces: marriage(4a), reconciliation(4b), and indwelling(5b)

We may be unfaithful in our marriage vows, live in contradiction to the work of his reconciliation, and strive against the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit – but he give more or greater grace! God’s grace always requires a response. God’s indwelling presence through the HS doesn’t make us robots who are subjugated by puppet-like, automatic controlled impulses, but we are required to position our heart in a way to receive. It is never an instant and effortless sanctification.

III.Heart of Repentance (4:6-10)

 6But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, "GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE."  7Submit (active allegiance, enlistment) therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.  8Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.  9Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom.  10Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.  

The benefits of grace and more grace are ours along the road of obedience and more obedience. The God who says ‘Here is my grace to receive’ says in the same breath, ‘Here are my commands to obey.’ In the Scriptures we see what is true and how to respond to the truth (Motyer).

Submit: 1)Resist, 2)Draw near,3) Cleanse and purify, 4)Be miserable, mourn and weep

Deliberately cultivated relationship

The battle for regularity and discipline in Bible reading, prayer, private and public worship, fasting, feasting at the Lord’s Table, devoting ourselves to Christian fellowship, cultivating appointed avenues where we can draw near to him.

Cleanse your hands = right conduct=change in external behavior

Purify your heart = right motivation=change in internal attitude

Double minded=separation of faith and works

Humility is the attitude of worship. One must seek what God gives rather than what one takes for one’s self from others through conflict. The way of humility, becoming lowly before God, leads to being exalted or lifted up by God.

Take his side that leads us into his presence. This makes us to become like him. More we pursue him we realize our brokeness and shortcoming. In this downward path of humility, we truly find His grace. There is no other way up!

IV.Conclusion

Realize that your pain in life(personally, relationally, spiritually, etc...) comes from self-indulgent, self-centered, desires.

You don’t have because you don’t ask(prayer/communicate with God) because of your self independence and active rebellion. However, when you ask you have bad, selfish motives.

These motives are connected to adulteress connection to the world. God is a jealous husband that desires a wholehearted bride for himself; He essentially wants to fulfill all your longings of your heart. He will not relent and gives us grace (help).

Grace is given to those who voluntarily come to obedience with heart of humility and repentance; these ones will be exalted by God.

V.Ministry time

1. Quarrels, conflicts, covetousness, lusts, spirit of murder, envious, fight, quarrel, anger, selfish motivations (friends of the world)

2. Do you pray?

3. Receive answered prayers?

4. Do you know the Jealous fiery love of the Bridegroom that wants to fulfill the needs of your deepest longings of your heart?

5. Walk in humility and repentance (this is a lifestyle

   1. Submit: 1)Resist, 2)Draw near,3) Cleanse and purify, 4)Be miserable, mourn and weep

Calvary Korean Presbyterian Church EM Ministry

EM Updates: www.xanga.com/calvary_insight

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