Singleness of Heart - James 4 - James Series Konrad Stauffer

To be effective soldiers for Christ, we need to be in tune and aligned with our fellow soldiers and in constant communication with our captain. Then, and only then, can we succeed at resisting the devil and actually putting him to flight. That's a possibility: putting Satan to flight.

But we're not going to do that by ourselves. We're going to do it collectively.

Good morning to y'all. It's good to be here again this morning. It feels like it was a terribly long time since I did this, so I'm trying to work with my nerves a little bit this morning.

This morning, I'd like to continue with our study in the book of James. Some time ago, I'd started on this study, and I think the last time I shared from this book was back in the summer when we were meeting at the park. We looked into chapter 3, where it talks about the tongue. Today, we're going to be looking at chapter 4 in the book of James, and I'm going to try to keep it fairly concise. And if you have any thoughts to share, you can share them afterwards and see and tell maybe what I left out.

I hesitated to share this book. I had another message in between this time and the last time because it's a little bit more negative. And yet, as I looked at it, I thought, you know, we can look at the positive side of it too. Jesus often did that. He said, would say, "Don't do this, but do this." And so I'm going to do some of that through this chapter, just to show the opposite side of it, what we can do to counteract some of what he talks about here.

In James 4:1-10, we're going to start with those verses. And today, for a title, I have called it "Singleness of Heart."

From where do wars and fightings come among you? Is it not from this, from your lusts which war in your members? You desire and do not have, you murder and are jealous and cannot obtain. You fight and war, yet you have not because you ask not. You ask and receive not because you ask amiss, that you may spend it upon your lusts. Adulterers and adulteresses, do you not know that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever desires to be a friend of the world is an enemy of God. Do you think that the Scripture says in vain that the Spirit that dwells in us yearns to envy? But he gives more grace.

Therefore, he says, "God resists the proud, but he gives grace to the humble." Therefore, submit yourselves to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, sinners, and purify your hearts, double-minded ones. That's where I started to think about the thing of singleness of heart.

Be afflicted and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness. Be humbled before the Lord, and he will lift you up. I want to look, first of all, at this first phrase here, "From where do wars and fightings among you come?"

And the old King James says, "From whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?" This word "lust" is an old word. The dictionary, Webster's Dictionary, calls it obsolete. I think you hardly ever hear it in society other than in, like, church services sometimes. Here and there, you'll hear a person use it, but it's almost obsolete.

From what they say, it seems like it's an old, a combination of an old high German word which means pleasure, and the other part of it has to do with a Latin word, "lascivious," which means wanting. So it's like you want pleasure, and you can't get enough of it.

And you're just always desiring, always desiring. You can't stop desiring. So that's what kind of the idea get. And then a little bit more concise definition is pleasure, delight, personal inclination, wish, and intense longing, craving, a lust to succeed, enthusiasm, and eagerness. I hardly ever hear this word used in a positive sense, especially in Scripture, but I guess there might be that aspect to it.

This message given by the Apostle James was given in the context of the body of Christ, the church. We all expect these kinds of things in the world, but he's talking to the church today. Each member plays a vital role in promoting either contentment or strife. So whatever is at work in each one of our hearts will, in one way or another, end up affecting the rest of the body. There is great potential in the context of the body to foster contentment and goodwill, which is what God wants to see in the church. We do have that potential. I believe it is safe to say, with what we read here and from my own personal experience, that the number one cause of unhappiness and discontent we experience with others comes from our own frustrated desires.

It is hard to think well of others when one is stewing in disappointment over one's own unrealized hopes and passions.

James says, "You desire and do not have. You murder and are jealous and cannot obtain. You fight and war, yet you have not because you ask not." Most of us would not think of murdering someone, but many Christians today don't think twice about murdering another person's reputation.

This is often the result of unhappiness over our own failures. James goes on to say that we do not receive what we desire because we will not ask of God. Here again, we have the alternative. If things are not going well for me, I have the option. I have the power within my power to bless and encourage others in the body of Christ.

That may be hard to do, but it will help. You ask and receive not because you ask amiss, that you may spend it upon your lusts. So often, people do ask something of God. It is selfish, stemming from a desire to inflate their own ego or simply to expend it or waste it on themselves. Therefore, God often refuses to grant petitions that are brought before him.

I believe it is safe to say that we are even less likely to receive something from God if we assassinate the characters of other people. We may not be doing this out loud, but if it's in our hearts, it affects the body. It will leak out in some way or another. It'll end up affecting the body of Christ.

And that's what James is looking at here. This is something he's really striving and pleading with these people. Adulterers and adulteresses, do you not know that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Much of the discontent among Christians today stems from the fact that many have forgotten that we cannot maintain dual citizenship. We cannot be a part of God's kingdom and be deeply involved with the earthly kingdoms. To be pleasing to our society, we must in some way gain their admiration.

And to do that, we must become involved in the things that are important to them. The result of all this is that we become adulterers. We struggle to maintain a relationship with God while prostituting our mental and bodily energy to the values of this world.

This is spiritual adultery. The option, the other option, the only option for spiritual prosperity is to seek first and foremost God and his kingdom, thus cultivating singleness of heart. As put very clearly by James, friendship of the world is enmity with God.

Then he goes on. He has this strong, really strong phrase in here. And I'm going to pause here to say that if you look at some of the newer translations, I tended to lean that way a little bit more, but after talking to with some of the brothers, I think I'm going to take the older translation back again on that.

It says, "The spirit that dwells in us yearns to envy." If you look at the ESV, it gives it a total different rendering. It says, like, it makes it sound like God's spirit within us is doing something. It makes us yearn for something better, or it makes us yearn towards God or whatever. But it's not quite, it's not quite in the right context for that. I think what James is saying is exactly what it says here. "The spirit that dwells in us yearns to envy."

This verse does not leave me with a very positive feeling about myself. And yet, in evaluation of past experience and even sometimes present battles, I would have to say amen to what James says here. All we need to do is to get lax in our walk with the Lord, and we begin to look around us, and then we begin to long for the things that pertain to others.

Some long for things. Some long for position and recognition. Some struggle with jealousy over what they see to be the ideal family. I'm just taking some random things here. This is especially a problem in our day of social media. People put their things, family activities on there, which is great. It's fine, but it causes, it actually ends up being a thing of a little bit of conflict there. So that's another thing. I think that James is trying to, what James is trying to do is to make us aware of the potential that all of us have in ourselves, especially as we relate to the body of Christ. We tend towards envy. It's something that's in us that tends to happen.

I think it takes some, it takes a concerted effort to get beyond that. On the flip side, we can make the choice to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. This will drive away the tendency to envy or covetousness. This may not be 100% right, but I tend to be proud of my brothers and their accomplishments. This does help to get the focus off of myself. And this is something I'm saying that I, something I've been trying to do, especially in more recent years, just trying to, when things don't look as bright on my side of things, I try to look around and see what I can find that other people are doing and be excited for them and be proud of them.

I don't know if that's the right word or not, but I tend to be proud of my brothers. I tend to be proud of you brothers because I see what you're doing. I see you progressing, and I say, "Wow, I want them to keep doing that." And this, and trying to keep that kind of frame of mind combats against this whole thing that James is talking about.

I'd like to read a passage from Romans 12:3-21. And I like this passage because it's one of the most concise and yet complete statements of what our Christian life should look like or how we should practice it. "For by the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you to think of himself, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

For as in one body, we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, individually members of one another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them if prophecy in proportion to our faith, if service in our serving, to one who teaches in his teaching, to the one who exhorts in his exhortation, to the one who contributes in generosity, to the one who leads with zeal, to the one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness.

Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil. Hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal. Be fervent in spirit. Serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope. Be patient in tribulation. Be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.

Live in harmony with one another." I just love that picture. We have these different parts. It's like a song that's going on, and we all are singing a different voice. Not, I can't sing high soprano. I have to sing bass or tenor, and that barely sometimes. But we are going to blend our voices together and make a beautiful song to God. We're going to do that with our lives in the congregation. He says, "Live in harmony with one another. Harmonize your different gifts and your qualities and make it a beautiful song to God. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all.

If possible, so far as depends on you, live peaceably with all men. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine. I will repay,' says the Lord. To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink, for by so doing, you will heap coals of fire on his head.

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." James says God resists the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. If we allow our own ambition and ego to pit us against others, we will find ourselves in opposition of God.

However, if we stop and listen and learn, if we lower ourselves and see how we can support and strengthen the image of others in the body, others in the body of Christ, and yes, lift up others to support others, we must lower ourselves. We must do that. When you go to pick up a little child, you have to get down to do it.

You might have to hurt your back sometimes to do it if you're like me. We will find that God is good. He is gracious. If we're living this kind of way, we're going to experience the grace of God. He is loving, and he's forgiving. The principle set forth by Jesus, our Lord, that says, "You must forgive to be forgiven" applies to all sorts of other things and situations we find ourselves in as Christians. He that forgives will be forgiven. He who is merciful will obtain mercy. He who humbles himself in the body of Christ will be exalted. Yes, he or she will be raised up to reign with Jesus when he comes to claim his bride.

Therefore, submit yourselves to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. I believe it is no coincidence that James has set these two things down in this order. First, we have submission to God, our Father, and his will. Second, we resist the devil.

Before we can even think about succeeding in our resistance of Satan and his schemes, we need to make sure we are truly on the side of the kingdom of heaven. We are not lone renegades warriors. It is possible to think that we are resisting the devil and yet be playing right into his hands because we are lone warriors on our own little tangent. We may actually be making havoc of the body of Christ if this is the mentality we have. We can be in a church. We can be in a body and have that mentality.

We need more of a more collective mentality in the body of Christ, not just the single, single beings doing their thing, you know, kind of. I don't know if that makes sense to you. That's something that's just coming more and more clear to me. The longer I experience church life, that's the only way you experience the blessing in church life. To be effective soldiers for Christ, we need to be in tune and aligned with our fellow soldiers and in constant communication with our captain. Then, and only then, can we succeed at resisting the devil and actually putting him to flight. That's a possibility, putting Satan to flight.

But we're not going to do that by ourselves. We're going to do it collectively. Be afflicted, mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness. There is only one effective way to turn the evil tide in our minds once we've begun to pit ourselves and our desires and passions against others. We need to realize full, deep cleansing repentance. What James depicts here is not just a flippant, "I'm sorry," but a complete stop and a deep evaluation of our own motives and allowing that realization of what we have become to penetrate deeply into our minds.

Be afflicted, mourn, and weep. Why? Because before God, it is a serious thing to destroy the body of Christ through personal lust or ambition. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. Verses 11 and 12, "Do not speak against one another, brothers. He who speaks against his brother and who judges his brother speaks against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law, but a judge.

There is one lawgiver who is able to save and destroy. Who are you who judges another?" In what way is speaking against the brother like judging a law, or should we say criticizing the law? In Romans 14:4, it says, "Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his master that he stands or falls, and he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand."

God created man in his own image, and he also created each man and each woman with unique abilities. God has also ordained the law of love because he is the God of love. When we rail against our brother and criticize him, we are railing against God who created that brother.

In a sense, we set ourselves up as judges of God's work, which is, I'm going to say, is probably one of the most narrow-minded and one of the most arrogant things we can do, especially if we call ourselves followers of Christ.

Let's think about this in another way. What happens when mankind resists the laws of God that God has set in place? For example, one man and one woman are to come together and form a union and raise a family. What happens if one man decides he wants more than one woman? It always creates confusion and problems. We can look back at the Old Testament if we want to see that.

Let's say that it goes the other way around. Let's just decide that one woman wants more than one husband. That's going to be a problem too. Let's say another thing of a way, this is really extreme, but let's just say I decide that somehow in myself, I feel like I have what it takes to jump off the Empire State Building without a parachute.

We all pretty much know what's going to be the end product of that. But it's like that sometimes. We know that those laws are in place. We know God, what God wants from us. We know what he desires, and yet we think somehow we're going to go above that and we're going to go past that, and it's not going to hurt us.

But if I jump off the Empire State Building, it doesn't matter how high my emotions are, I'm going to be street pizza. That's just the truth of the matter. And all of God's laws are for man's prosperity and protection. That's the thing about God's law. Whatever God has set in order is for man's prosperity and protection. It's for the benefit of God's kingdom. If man tries to defy God's law, he is fighting against his own prosperity and health. In like manner, in the context of the body of Christ, criticizing my brother is like fighting against all that has been set in place for our own good and prosperity, both spiritually and physically.

Once again, we can choose to prefer our brothers above ourselves. That means we put him first and work on encouraging and blessing him, then we ourselves will experience the benefits of the law that God has set in place.

The result of picking apart a brother, even in our minds, brings calamity, confusion, corruption, spiritual disease, and ultimately spiritual death, not only for ourselves, but for the whole body of Christ.

Verse 13 through 17, "Come now, those saying, 'Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city and spend a year there, and we will trade and we'll make a profit.' Who do not know of the morrow? For what is your life? For it is a vapor which appears for a little time and then disappears.

Instead of you saying, 'If the Lord wills, we shall live or do this or that,' but now you boast in your presumptions. All such boasting is evil. Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.

Come now, those who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city and spend a year there, and we will trade and make a profit.'" This segment of the passage may seem kind of random. It's almost as if James suddenly jumps to another subject, but I believe he is addressing a prevailing attitude or a way of thinking that tends to plague all of mankind, even many Christians. I know it. It's something I deal with. Too often we have big, complicated, extended plans for our future, and many times we forget our own mortality.

We forget that there is a God in heaven who longs jealously for our devotion and friendship, and truly he has something so much better he wants to give to us in return. We can't even imagine it. I think James is saying, "Don't waste your life. It is a fragile vapor." Turn that little wavering energy you have towards God.

I would like to repeat what I said earlier on. Many times as humans, we become upset because something or someone frustrates our plans or passions. What is even more damaging is when you have two individuals who bump into each other while both pursuing their own dreams.

The fallout of this kind of situation can be very devastating, especially in the context of the body of Christ. And this is what James is talking about. Instead, you ought to say, "If the Lord will, we will live and do this or that." James is pleading with the believers. He's begging them to change the way they approach life. And that message rings out clear to us today as well. Here is the remedy for much of what we talked about before. James is saying we need to become more God-conscious and less self-conscious as we embark on each new day. We need to cultivate that kind of thinking. We need to stop and evaluate and ask ourselves, "Is this for God, or is it yet one more thing to help me feel like I'm on top of things?

If the Lord wills, we will do this or that." That's the attitude that we need to have in our hearts. It's not just saying it. It's having that attitude in our minds. "Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin."

It means if we don't do what we know is the best thing to do right now, we're going to fall short of the mark. That's what sin is. We're going to fall short of meeting that mark. James says simply that if we know in our hearts that we ought to choose or to turn in a certain direction with our plan for life and we allow our own ambition to dissuade us, that becomes sin to us. If we have before us a brother or sister who needs our support or encouragement, now is the time to do something about that because this life is like a vapor that will soon dissipate.

If you are holding on to something in your life that you know is in your heart of hearts is not pleasing to God or it goes against the growth of Christ-like character in you, now is the time to begin doing something about it because your life is like a mist that will vanish. And I know this is not the most positive way to come to the end of a message, but I'd like to return and just read one of the verses we read earlier on. It says, "God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you."

And that's all I have to share. Does anyone have any thoughts they'd like to share? I really encourage you in the message. Thank you. Very practical and very broad on each. Yeah. I just think this is a real clear picture of spiritual warfare. We don't maybe often see it this way. We tend to go different avenues when it comes to that, but this is a clear picture, I think, of how to he says it very clearly. We're going to resist the devil when we submit to God, when we humble ourselves, when we draw near to God, when we cleanse our hands.

You know, like as you were saying, when we start to lift up our brothers that are putting you down, there's so much power in that. And that thing of God, this is something that hit me years ago, this thing of, "Is God fighting for me against me?" It was really that question is kind of up to me to choose whether God's going to fight for me or against me.

And if we sense that God is fighting against us, right, here's a clear, a really clear teaching on how to turn that around. I really appreciate what you shared. Yeah. Thanks for that thought because that is the way it is. It's actually a very simple choice to make as we can decide which side we want to be on of this whole thing. If we want grace from God, we need to show grace to our brothers.

Anyone else? How does this relate to when I hear a fitty sermon from Fathers of the Way or David Brousseau, they make references to Luther or John MacArthur, John Piper, current modern speakers, and sort of a negative fashion as examples of what not to listen to or what not.

Whose job is it to put people in their place? Robbie Zacharias, the whole situation that just happened. It says, "Brothers, stop speaking against each other. Whoever speaks against a brother judges a brother speaking against Torah and judging the Torah." Whose job is it if that's going on in the church, people that call themselves Christians representing themselves? Because I know a lot of people that don't want to have anything to do with Christianity because of that type of thing.

That's a good thought. I'm not sure where to put all of that. I do know this, that, and you could say, "Well, that is the Apostle Paul." The Apostle Paul actually did call out some people by name and said, "Beware of this or that person because they have been misleading the believers." And I think when we clearly see something like that, sometimes it might need to be brought up clearly so people know, "Okay, that's what that's about." But I think we need to be very sure of that. I tend to shy away from using names and stuff like that, but yeah, I'm not sure. I'm not that old, so I still have a lot of years to go ahead of me yet before I can say what's the best way to approach that.

I don't know if that answers your question, but it. Well, I'm asking whose job is it? So a leader in the church? It could be our congregation. If you're a part of this place and you stay here long enough, we see something. I feel very confident somebody will walk across the aisle and say, "Hey, what's up with this?" And if you responded improperly, two people would come to you. I didn't even know who Robbie Zachariah was until just recently.

I didn't know he had a problem, but somebody should have stepped up for me. Somebody from his church, you're saying. Or somebody in his circle. Right. I certainly invite anybody, if I'm doing something wrong, to step up for me. Because if you were doing something wrong, I'd most certainly step up to you.

And I don't mean that in an intimidating way. It's just who I am. Thank the Lord.

I was going to say one of the things anyone who's attended here very long knows we do tend to be forceful in attacking false teaching. We try to be very careful on making personal attacks against individuals because I'd say most of the people teaching false doctrine, they're sincere. They don't realize they're teaching what is wrong.

I think we should speak out about the errors, but yeah, be very careful we don't get into just mudslinging, making personal attacks on people, trying to draw a distinction there. Absolutely.

It's interesting to me the examples that came up with one, that Robbie Zachariah has to do with a personal failure in sin, apparently long-standing.

Some of the things he said over the years were very interesting. Somebody like John Piper, I don't think anybody has ever had any cause to say that he lives an immoral life. He seems to be actually a fairly upright person, a very optimist.

But he teaches some things that are just wrong. They're unscriptural. And I think that one of the things that we have to be careful about is to accurately describe what the false teaching is and not characterize it, not exaggerate it, not make it something that isn't, try to understand what it is he's saying, and see what really is the problem here, and then add a corrective to that.

And somebody like Robbie Zachariah apparently did. I just simply can say he was a hypocrite and we'll have to leave him in God's hands. It just, in some ways, like in a situation like that, I wish he could have known about some of those things before his death because the body of Christ could have prayed for something like that.

And I don't know what his response was. I don't know whether he repented of that or not. That's my only desire for him now is I just hope somehow he repented of that. I actually had some respect for him, even though I wouldn't quite agree with everything he said. I did appreciate his demeanor and when he was sharing and such. So I don't know. It just grieves me to hear that about someone.