James 4:1-5
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ILLUSTRATION
It’s been awhile now, but a popular television show aired years ago called Diff’rent Strokes. It was a rather funny show. It was about two little boys named Arnold and Willis. The boys’ mother had been the maid for a man named Mr. Drummond, but she died. Not wanting those boys to be left to meander and wander in the projects, he adopted them and brought them to live in his penthouse.
The whole show revolved around these two boys from the projects trying to learn how to live in the penthouse. Much comedy surrounded them bringing old ways into a new environment. There was great entertainment in seeing Mr. Drummond try to educate these young men in the finer things of their new environment. The question of the show was whether or not you could take boys out of the projects, put them in the penthouse, and expect them to leave the projects behind. The whole show was about how difficult it is for people to get rid of old patterns once they have been established.
When God found you and me, we were in the spiritual projects. He has now seated us in heavenly places. We are in the penthouse, but many of us have drug along with us a lot of the old patterns from the old neighborhood. Those patterns are called the flesh in the Bible. The flesh is not merely the body, but it is the body with its old patterns.
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SERMON TITLE
“ HOW TO WIN THE FIGHTS AND WARS OF LIFE!
And that is important to understand, because all of us know that there are A LOT OF Fights and wars in this life! Amen?
There are wars and fights that we have to face as Christians today!
There are wars and fights in marriage!
There are wars and fights in the home with our children!
We can experience fights and wars at work, at school, even in our church!
People will fight and war over just about anything, politics, sports, business, you name it, people will fight over it!
So what can we do about our own personal fights and wars of life?
Points / Slide
5 spiritual keys to win the fights and wars of life!
What are the fights and wars that you are fighting in your life today?
If you will take these 5 Biblical keys and apply them to the fights and wars that you are involved in, you will begin to experience change and transformation and victory!
Let’s Open up our bibles
James Chapter 4.
And we will begin by reading the first part of verse 1.
Slide
1a- Where do wars and fights come from among you?
So the author, who is Jesus’ brother and a Pastor named James, begins this chapter by talking about fights and quarrels.
Another Bible version translates this verse this way… What is causing the quarrels and fights among you?
This brings up an important truth about the Christian life… and that is… that life is full of wars and fights and then quarrels and more fights!
Have you found that to be true in your own life personally?
This is nothing new, the Christian life has always been difficult, it was difficult for the believers living back in the days of James and it’s still difficult for us as Christians today.
And in this we see the first of our five spiritual principals that teach us… How to win the fights and wars of life?
And that is
SLIDE
#1-Understand that life is a battleground not a playground.
(REPEAT)
If we don’t understand that life is a spiritual battleground, we will live in continual defeat and continually be taken down by the enemy.
So whether we like it or not, whether we believe it or not, each morning when we get out of bed, we walk into a SPIRITUAL BATTLEGROUND!
So the question is… HOW DO YOU ENTER INTO THE SPIRITUAL BATTLEFIELDS OF LIFE?
HOW DO YOU PREPARE For them?
Some Christians enter into the spiritual battlegrounds of life looking like that!
SLIDE / PHOTO
We will not experience victory on the Spiritual battlefields of life if we walk around unaware and unprepared like that!
Since life is a spiritual battlefield for us as Christians, we need to enter into the battle prepared and ready to fight spiritually!
So we all have fights and wars and struggles… and that is the bad news…but there is good news too!
And that good news is that if we will put these five spiritual keys that we are going to see in God’s word today and apply them to our lives, things will get better.
We will begin to grow, and experience more victories and fewer defeats!
So how about you, How would you answer this question… What causes fights and quarrels among you?
What do you think the cause is for your fights and quarrels, for your problems and difficulties?
The temptation for us is TO BLAME our problems and our fights and our quarrels on the people around us or on our difficult circumstances.
It’s my spouses fault, it’s my kids fault, it’s because I don’t have any money!
But what does God’s word say?
Where does God’s word place the blame for all of our fights and quarrels?
We are going to find out the answer to that question as we continue on by reading the 2nd half of verse 1 and verse 2 together.
(SLIDE)
1b-2a-Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? 2 You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war.
So here at the end of verse 1, the Bible answers the important question OF WHERE our own personal wars and fights of life come from.
The Bible tells us this…
They come from your desires that battle within you?
God’s word is BEING BRUTALLY HONEST with us in telling us that YOU and ME are the source of our own fights and wars of life.
Do you believe that?
Do you believe what God’s word says here? That ultimately YOU are the cause of the wars and fights that are raging around and inside of you?
What James does next here is he gives us some examples of how we are to blame for the fights and wars in our own lives.
Look at Verse
slide
verse 2… You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and [war.
We don’t get what we want, so we feel upset and frustrated, and what do we do, we start quarreling and fighting.
And so to answer this question of WHO IS THE CAUSE for the quarrels and fights in my life, the Bible brings up the word… “YOU”, five different times here in verse 2!
So if I was to ask James, who is responsible for the fights and wars in my life, here is how he would answer me… YOU YOU YOU! (5 times-pointing at me)
We see our 2nd spiritual principal that teaches us… How to win the fights and wars of life? (SLIDE)
And that is…
SLIDE
#2- Recognize their main source! (YOU!)
(REPEAT)
James brought up this same Biblical truth about our own responsibility for our troubles earlier in this letter.
(SLIDE)-
James 1:14 But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.
For most of us, we need to RE-TRAIN OUR MINDS to line up our thinking with the truths of the Bible in this very important area.
And we need to stop playing the blame game!
We need to stop blaming everyone else for our fights and wars of life, and here are two reasons why.
SLIDE
#1- When we blame others, we are going to be looking for our solutions in all of the wrong places.
If we start our search for solutions to our fights and wars in the wrong place, we will not come up with the correct solutions.
But then
SLIDE
#2- We need to stop blaming others because we can’t control other people anyway.
Instead, what we need to do is to start trusting the Bible and looking at ourselves, and then taking personal responsibility and acknowledging our part of the problem, and then working hard at allowing God to change us.
And as we do that, we will see less and less fights and wars raging around us.
Let’s continue on by reading the 2nd half of verse 2 and verse 3 together.
(SLIDE)
2b-3- Yet you do not have because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.
The Bible continues in this section by giving us a few more examples of difficult life situations that often cause us to go into BATTLE MODE!
You know what the BATTLE MODE OF LIFE is don’t you?
What do we do when life doesn’t go our way, when we don’t get what we want or feel we deserve, when we aren’t being treated the way we want to be treated?
We say… LET’S FIGHT! (not usually literally hopefully, but verbally and emotionally) and that’s BATTLE MODE!
Now here in our text, the main example that James brings up is the example (once again) of us NOT GETTING WHAT WE WANT!
Sometimes we even pray for something, and we don’t get it!
Well let’s read what the Bible says here about that again in the middle of
SLIDE
verse 2… Yet you do not have because you do not ask.
When we don’t get what we want or feel that we need or deserve… it is easy to get frustrated, and start fighting and warring against the people around us.
But that doesn’t have to happen, and it shouldn’t happen!
But listen to this good news, are you aware that God has promised to answer all of your prayers!
Listen to what Jesus said about that over in… John
(SLIDE)- “
John 14:13 And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. -Jesus-
God won’t only answer our prayers, He will give us what we ask for IF… we ask according to His name. (but what does that mean)
To ask for something in Jesus’ name isn’t talking about that old false theology of “name it and claim it” or “blab it and grab it”… NO WAY!
Asking according to the name of Jesus speaks of asking things that line up with His nature, His will, and His desires.
SLIDE
See, the purpose of prayer isn’t to get God in line with your will, but to get YOU IN LINE with God’s will!
And in this we see our 3rd spiritual principal that teaches us… How to win the fights and wars of life? (SLIDE)
And that is
SLIDE
#3-Line up your will and desires with God’s will and desires.
(REPEAT)
Now again, one of the most important areas to do this is through prayer, and that is why, here in these verses James brings up our prayer life.
Lets look at what James says about prayer here in verse 3…
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Verse 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.
AMISS - wrongly or improperly
If we are honest, all of us have felt at times that God hasn’t answered our prayers because we haven’t received what we prayed for.
Three reasons why God may not have given you what you have asked Him for in prayer.
First, since the Bible teaches us that sin separates us from God, if there is unrepentant sin in our lives, God will not hear our prayers.
So we always need to pray with a clean heart, and that means that we might need to repent for our sin before we pray.
Secondly, when we pray, we may be asking God for something selfishly. Have you ever done that???
EXAMPLE OF SELFISH STORY
But third, God may have answered our prayer by saying no!
Sometimes God answers our prayers by saying, “what you are asking for wouldn’t be good for you, so as your loving Father, I am not going to allow you to have that!”
God saying No, is an answered prayer, no one likes to hear it but NO is an answer.
Should we make our requests known to God? Yes!
God wants to hear them, God wants to bless us and God wants to answer our prayers, but we always need to end our prayers with the same words that
Jesus ended His prayer with when he facing his brutal death on the cross.
Listen to what Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, Luke 22:42
(SLIDE)- 42 saying,
Luke 22:42 “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.”
Lets read verses 4 and 5 together. (SLIDE)
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Verse 4-5- 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. 5 Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”?
Now James DOES NOT BEGIN this section very nicely does he?
He begins by calling us what??? YOU ADULTEROUS PEOPLE!
What James is saying here is that people that call themselves Christians, yet live chasing after the world are actually adulterers because they are cheating on God with the world.
We can’t love Jesus and the world… they don’t mix, they don’t go together, never have, never will.
And James brings that up here in the middle of verse 4 let’s read that again:
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
Now the “world” mentioned here speaks of the world system that stands against God and against God’s people.
Listen to the description that Jesus gave of the world and the world system that we live in back in… (SLIDE)-
Matthew 7:13 Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it.
One of Satan’s main tactics against us as Christians is to get us distracted by making us focus on and desire the things of the world.
But the end result of mixing God and the world is a miserable mixed up life that is full of fights and wars!
And in this we see our 4 th spiritual principal that teaches us… How to win
the fights and wars of life? (SLIDE)
And that is…
SLIDE
#4-Have a correct view of and relationship with the world.
(REPEAT)
Listen to what the Apostle Paul said about our relationship with the
world over in…
slide
Romans 12:2 “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Story: Japan they grew watermelon in cubes
Don’t let the world conforming you into this little box.
Next up, here in verse 5 James writes…
Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”?
This is a reminder that in every one of the fights and wars in our life,
Jesus is there, calling us back to Him and calling us to peace.
And as we read here in verse 5, there are TWO MAIN WAYS that Jesus calls out to us and wants to deliver us out of our fights and wars of life,
The two ways that Jesus normally calls us back and leads us into truth and away from the fights and wars of life is
#1- through the Scriptures,
and
#2- through the Holy Spirit.
And in this we see our fifth and final spiritual principal that teaches
us… How to win the fights and wars of life?
(SLIDE)
And that is…
#5-Line up our lives and desires with the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit. (REPEAT)
Question is how are you doing in the fights and wars of your life?
Are you here this morning feeling beat up and weary, do you need a change, are you searching for victory?
Well this morning we have seen encouraging truth’s in the scriptures.
And God’s Word has reminded us of 5 spiritual keys to win the fights and wars of life!
slide
#1-Understand that life is a battleground, not a playground. #2- Recognize their main source! (YOU!) #3-Line up your will and desires with God’s will and desires. #4-Have a correct view of and relationship with the world. #5-Line up our lives and desires with the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit.
If we will put these spiritual keys or principals into
practice into our daily lives, we will experience more and more victory in our own personal fights and wars of life.
And F2S, that is today’s good news about How
(we can) win the fights and wars of life!” Amen?
GOSPEL - PRAY-
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