Conflict with God: Part 1

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Conflict with God: Part 2

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Good place to start right there. That's where our text has taken us this morning is because if you're at friends with God and reconciled to God and at peace with God, then you're out of danger.
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But if you are an enemy of God, then you're in severe danger.
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And this is what the text is talking about today before us. If we're a friend of the world, then we're an enemy of God.
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But I like to flip that, and there's a verse that Jane speaks about this later on, we'll be looking at it.
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But we want to be like Abraham, we want to be a friend of God, not friends with the world.
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So we're going to be looking at this morning, what does it mean to be at war with God, enmity against God, conflict with God, hostility toward God.
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So the text that is before us is James chapter four, so go with me please to James chapter four.
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Now I'd like to read just three verses, and let me read,
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I'm going to give you some different translations here. I'm going to read two translations,
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I'm going to give it to you from the authorized old King James version, and then I'm going to give it from the new
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King James. And I believe it would help us in a great way of what the
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Word of God is saying to us this morning, as we hear these powerful verses of Scripture.
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And this is the heart of this epistle. This is what I would say the gospel according to James.
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And he comes on very strong as a doctor, as a physician, as we were talking, almost in a surgical way that he does surgery.
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And boy does he do surgery. And the sword is two edged, it's very sharp here.
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So hear the word of the living God, I'm going to first read from the old King James, then I'm going to read it from the new
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King James. Just three verses of Scripture beginning with verse four. So hear the word of God.
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Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?
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Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. Do you think that the
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Scripture saith in vain that the spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?
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Verse six, but he giveth more grace, wherefore he saith,
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God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. And then the new
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King James reads this, adulterers and adulteresses, very similar, but there is some slight differences.
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Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity or hostility with or toward God?
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Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
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Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, the spirit who dwells in us yearns jealousy, but he gives more grace, therefore he says,
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God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. That's the word of God to us this morning.
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Let's pray. Our Father, we would pray that your blessed Holy Spirit would give each and every one of us this morning in this room an unction from the
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Holy One. Because, Father, my words are nothing, your words are everything.
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Your words are spirit and they are life. There is the power in your word to give eternal life.
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Father, we call on your name. Be glorified in every word that is spoken. Honor your word.
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Glorify your word above all things. And as has already been spoken this morning, your word goes forth and it does not return to you void.
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It accomplishes exactly what you have sent it to do. So Father, may it produce good fruit.
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May it fall on good ground this morning. And Lord, may it not only convict the comfortable, but also comfort the afflicted.
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Lord, we thank you for this word. And above all, may we apply it to our hearts that we may be doers of the word and not only hearers.
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So help us by your Holy Spirit, Lord, as your servant hears this morning. Attune our hearts to hear that we may give glory to Jesus Christ.
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In his name we pray, amen. Amen. There is the effects of the conflict here, and the conflict is with God.
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My two points is basically, we have the conflict and we have the cure. I'm going to focus on the conflict more than anything, then we're going to go to the cure and what does the word of God have to say about that.
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No doubt, within the text that we have presented before us, in these three verses, is a great deal of what
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James is saying about pride promotes strife, but there is dangers of being friends with the world.
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And that's what we're going to focus on this morning. I'm going to do this, this is a part one of a three part series. And then,
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Lord willing, I believe Brother Keith is going to have a word to say probably in those lines. I'm not sure what text he's going to,
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I'm going to be out of town as the Lord wills at the end of the month, the last Lord's day of the month, and I believe he's going to have a word, be praying for Brother Keith on this as well.
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But this is, I'm breaking this up in different parts because there is so much that needs to be said or so much that can be said about being, the dangers of being friends with the world.
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There is a severe danger. So the text before us is, in verses four through six, we have that nature of the choice.
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The real issue that's really given to us by the inspiration of God's Holy Spirit through the pen of the
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Apostle James, who's the servant of the Lord here, is whom will
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I love or whom do I love? What is the love of our heart?
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The word of God has a lot to say about love and hate. And the question is this, do
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I love God or do I love the world? That's really the issue here.
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That's really the question. And that is the severity of this question and it's the seriousness of this question is so important and that's what
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James is driving at. The commentator, one commentator by the name of Mayer puts it this way, quote, in the simplest sense of the word, the world is in each man's natural environment, that into which he enters at birth and from which he departs in death.
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It is the immediate present, the seen, the temporal, in which our senses bear witness in contrast to the unseen and the eternal, end quote.
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So true is this. Now the word world, let's go right into the word study here.
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The word, the world is in the Greek cosmos, cosmos.
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He's speaking of the world order. That's what he's talking about. He's not talking about the trees, the grass and the fields and everything that God's made.
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He's talking about the world order. It is the adorning, it's culture, it's the values and the morals that he's speaking about here, that he talks about the world and urges us to love this world that urges each and every one of us to love ourselves more and to put our pleasures before God's pleasures.
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Let me say that very close because there is pleasure in loving God and serving
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God. There is delighting in God and there's also a delight in the world.
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So which direction is our desires going, our heart going? So we need to search our hearts and this, is it the world's desires, the world's pleasures or is it
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God's desires and God's pleasures and the difference is regeneration.
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That's the difference and if we agree with that idea, speaking of the world, we are unfaithful as the
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Lord's spiritual brides and this is where I want to go here. We have deliberately chosen to follow the world's philosophy rather than God's will and God's desire and what
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God delights in. We cannot be on friendly terms with the world and God at the same time and this is what the scripture is speaking about.
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If we follow God, we will follow God's ways. It's almost as if Elijah says, who's on the
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Lord's side or yeah, it was Elijah that said that. Step over here.
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Who's on Baal's side? Over here. I believe Joshua said the same thing.
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Joshua, all these men of God, there's a line of demarcation and what's so sad about this and tragic about this in our day in churches is that people that call themselves
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Christians have tried to gray the area. They have polluted it.
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They have corrupted it and we see this in the name of God and there's blasphemy and there's people that try to justify their sinning and try to gray.
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It's almost like they're trying to rub out the line of demarcation but God says there's a line of demarcation.
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Jesus drew the line of demarcation. Now, by the philosophy and definition of the world, again, it's meaning the general laws and the knowledge of the general laws and the principles of nature of the world.
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And again, Jesus said this and on Jesus when he was preaching on the Sermon on the Mount and I really do believe that this is where James' mind is.
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He's thinking and reflecting upon Jesus' teaching. So what did Jesus say and this is a very strong verse and I've always thought that this verse is one of the most striking, the most powerful verses.
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All the words of Jesus, of course, is like that. But this one, Jesus draws a line of demarcation.
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In Matthew 6, verse 24, Jesus said this, no man can serve two masters for either he will hate the one, notice what he says, either he hate the one and love the other or else he will hold to the one and despise the other.
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You cannot serve God and mammon, money. So basically
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Jesus is defining love and hate. He says more about love and hate than anyone else could ever say it.
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He says it clearly too, doesn't he? You see, the world wants us to exclude God. The world wants us to exclude
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God from every aspect of our life and the world does a pretty good job at it too.
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The devil is very busy about it as well. And on the contrary, God desires and wants us to include him in life, include him in every aspect of our life because he, after all, is all about life.
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And he is life and Jesus says, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the
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Father but by me. He is life to the Christian. He is everything.
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It's interesting that there was a truck driver, and I know him, he professes to be a
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Christian, and I pray that he is, but he posted on Facebook one time and he said,
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I've just been contemplating the question about what is life about?
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And I'm thinking, a Christian should know that. A Christian should know what that is.
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And I tried to be very, and I answered it, I jumped on that one right away, and I tried to be very careful, not trying to sound pharisaical, but I said, now how can
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I do this in a way that would not come across like, oh, you know, I'm self -righteous,
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I know all the answers. Here. And I just started giving God's Word. I said, the
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Christian basically looks to Jesus, John chapter 10, verse 10.
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Jesus says, I am come that they may have life and have it more abundantly. Now, that doesn't mean that we live it up in riches and everything in this world, but Jesus is talking about that abundant life is in Himself.
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So, and of course, Jesus said that the thief comes to kill, steal, and destroy, but I have come that they may have life and have it more abundantly.
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But I did try to divide the line here, and I said, okay, now when
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I'm talking about life, when Jesus talks about life, there's a Greek word. We get the word zoe.
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Zoe is God's life. God is the life of God because life is in God. And praise
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God. And then I said, okay, whether you have the life of God or you don't have the life of God. Okay.
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I said, the life that now, are you trying to define that the life that you're talking about is bios?
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That's where we get by biology. Brother Keith knows what I'm talking about here because he's studied in this field.
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But that's where ology, of course, is to study up. Bio is, that's where we get the
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Greek word, and that's another Greek, the other Greek word of bios, bios.
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So that means in which life is derived from. It's that word that we go through every day.
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We live. We breathe. We get up. We go to work. We get caught up in all the things that we do.
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Now I said, you take zoe, zoe is God's life.
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It exceeds our life that we go through in this world. I said, and then
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I basically said, and I put those two words side by side, and I compared them.
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And I said, you see, I said, you're not going to understand what bios is until you know what zoe is.
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Because the life in which God gives is real life. And that's the life that he came to give through Jesus Christ, his son.
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When Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and life. And I like the way
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Ravenhill put it. I am the way, without him there's no going. I am the truth, without him there's no knowing.
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And I am the life, and without him there's no growing. Now I said, I like that. Because in Jesus is everything.
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He's all in all. He is our life. And that's what the text is talking about. You know, and the apostle
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Paul says, Christ who is our life. We're ahead with Christ in God.
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And one commentator says this, one man who makes worldly success his aim can be also a friend of God, I'm sorry, no man who makes worldly success his aim can be also a friend of God.
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So what he's saying is, you cannot be a friend of God and a friend of the world at the same time.
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So really that's what our text is talking about. So if you look at verse 2, here in chapter 4,
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James the apostle, the servant of the Lord continues to talk about the effects that the lust, or you could say, another word for lust is basically worldly desires.
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If you're going to define lust in the old King James, he's basically talking about worldly desires.
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Beloved, can I say this, that is an enemy of God. That is the enemy of the true
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Christian, is the worldly desires. And that's what we've got to fight against.
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Now it was having on these believers in James' time. In verse 2 he says this, you lust, you do not have.
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You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war, yet you do not have because you do not ask.
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And then he says that when you do ask, you ask out of the wrong motives. You see their fighting and their quarreling impacted their relationship with each other.
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And that's what was happening. They were at war with each other. And now he moves in on this verse here, now he says if you're at war among each other, more than likely you're at war against God.
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And now here in verse 4 we see that the lust was having an impact on their relationship with God. And usually if it is with each other, there's something wrong with your relationship with God, guaranteed.
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And that's where James goes. So first we see James says, you're unfaithful.
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That's what he says. Now this is strong, strong truth. Now, pastor,
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I don't see where he says unfaithful. When he basically says ye adulteresses or adulterers, he's basically saying you're unfaithful.
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That's what he's saying. Their selfish desires has led to spiritual adultery.
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That's what he's talking about. Adultery has been used throughout the Bible as a metaphor, or to use one of the words for another in a figurative sense, to describe spiritual adultery or unfaithfulness to God.
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Now keep in mind, the Jewish Christian understood this because the prophets Ezekiel and Jeremiah and even
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Hosea used it when rebuking Judah and Israel for their unfaithfulness.
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You know, you see this, and through Jeremiah the prophet, you see this in Ezekiel the prophet that spoke of Judah as an adulterous wife.
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That's what he said in Ezekiel 1632. And he says, who takes strangers instead of her husband.
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See here's an object lesson, the Lord even commanded Hosea the prophet, and Hosea won too.
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I'll quote it. When the Lord began to speak, the Lord said to Hosea, could you imagine this, go take yourself a wife of harlotry.
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Yes. And children of harlotry, for the land has committed great harlotry by departing from the
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Lord. Yeah, right. So he did this to teach a lesson.
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So if you go back to James, what he's talking about here, the oldest manuscripts omit adulterers.
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Isn't that interesting? The oldest manuscripts omits adulterers and basically reads, ye adulteresses, you adulteresses.
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God is, in other words, God is the rightful husband. That's what he's talking about.
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See we have to go back into the Old Testament to see what James is doing. See that's what James, when he speaks of this, his audience is being
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Jewish. They get this. They know exactly what James is talking about.
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So when he's talking about adulteresses, he's saying, you know, God is your rightful owner, the rightful husband of you.
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The men of the world are regarded collectively and as one adulteresses and individually as adulteresses.
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Now I'm going to quote a good bit from Albert Barnes here because I've been studying Barnes's commentary along with MacArthur's commentary.
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Now I want to confess to you something this morning, brothers and sisters in Christ, and I tell you, this pastor gets tempted sometimes to plagiarize, but I'm not going to go there.
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I'm telling you. Now you may hear a lot of quotes from me, but I will not plagiarize.
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I got a heavy schedule on me and that temptation has hit me sometimes. And I said, no,
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I'm going to stay pure and I'm going to stay clean and I will not go into falsehood. I'm going to keep it truthful and I'm going to say,
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Lord, I'm going to get on my face before you and I'm going to hear from you. And I said, this has got to be from a pastor's heart to God's people's hearts.
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So pray for this pastor, okay? Right now the schedule is really heavy on me, the milk route.
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It's going to be leaner later on. But I said, no, I'm not going to enter into that temptation.
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So God's helping me, but I tell you, I praise God for that.
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But if I'm going to quote you something, I want to say quote. I'm going to give you commentator and I'll let you know.
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But it's not going to be plagiarism, okay? So I just wanted to confess that before you and I'll honestly be keeping in prayer on that, but I'm not going to enter into that temptation by God's grace and help.
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Albert Barnes, I'm telling you, this man right here lays it down. And I've got a few quotes from him on this sermon here, but listen to what he says here.
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This is what he says about spiritual adultery. Quote, it is not necessary to suppose that the apostle meant that those to whom he wrote were literally guilty of the sins he refuted to.
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But he rather refers to those who were unfaithful to their covenant with God by neglecting their duty to him and yielding themselves to the indulgence of their own lust and passions.
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He says this, the idea is you have in effect broken your marriage covenant with God by loving the world more than him and by the indulgence of your carnal worldly inclinations.
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You have violated these obligations to self -mortification and self -denial to which you were bound by your religious engagements.
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And then he goes on to say this, to convince them of evil of this, the apostle shows them what was the true nature of that friendship of the world which they sought.
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It may be remarked here that no terms could have been found which would have shown more decisively the nature of sin of forgetting the covenant vows of God for the pleasures of the world than those which the apostle uses here.
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He goes on to say this, it is a deeper crime to be unfaithful to God than to any created being and it will yet be seen that even the vedation of the marriage contract great as the sin is a slight offense compared with the unfaithfulness towards God.
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You see where he is getting at? Your unfaithfulness to God by loving the world is really what is at stake here.
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This is the key, you are hurting the heart of God. No wonder
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Jesus gave the rebuke and we will see after a while that whoever
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Jesus rebukes in the seven churches in Asia in Revelation, he goes to them and he commends them to the certain things and then in one of the churches he says, but nevertheless
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I have somewhat against you. You have left your first love and I am telling you that is a sobering thing and it makes me search my own heart.
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I said Lord, I want to make sure is there anything else in my heart that is taking the place of you.
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Oh God, strip it from me. May I mortify it. May I take it down and let
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Jesus be the first love of my life. But this is what we have to watch out for, there are so many things in this world that distracts us away from Jesus.
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We must guard our hearts for out of it is the issues of life. As believers in Jesus Christ, we are the bride of Christ according to the ancient
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Hebrew betrothal of a couple that was a covenant in Ezekiel 16 .8.
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This is what the Ezekiel the prophet says, when I passed by you again and I looked upon you, indeed your time was the time of love.
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So I spread my wing, that means the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness.
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Yes I swore an oath, this is God speaking, I swore an oath to you and I entered into a covenant with you.
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Now listen to the intimacy here, and you became mine says the
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Lord, says the Lord. You know think of that, that is what communion is about.
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You see that is why Paul says to the Corinth church, there is no light and darkness mix here.
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There is no idol and God you can serve at the same time.
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And that is why he goes on to say, and we will see this in another sermon, but he says come out from among them and be separate.
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And then he gives his Old Testament scripture, says the Lord of hosts and then God will say hey
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I will be your God and I will be a father to you and you will be my sons and you will be daughters to me.
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And this is what, see you notice how the apostles do this, they go back to the prophets.
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And we are not going to understand what James is talking about here until we understand what the prophets are saying.
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Jesus did this. You see the prophets spoke this word and there are great lessons in the
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Old Testament about this. So there is a belonging to God. Now notice there is another statement here, which
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I will refer to, the corner of my garment. The time of love refers to a marriageable state.
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And notice here, spreading his wing was a custom of a spousal.
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Now listen to this, Ruth, how do we know this? Because Ruth 3 .9. Now we can go to Ruth here and we are talking about something beautiful in an intimate relationship with God.
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He, Boaz, said, who are you, you know where I am going.
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And she answered, I am Ruth, your maidservant. And then what does he say, take your, in other words, your garment, spread the corner of your garment over your maidservant.
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In other words, under your wing. Do you see the intimacy there? See the communion, see?
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That's what God wants us to see. For you are a close relative. That's what he is saying.
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You are a close relative. The word close here in the Hebrew, you know what that word means in the
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Hebrew, redeemer. Now I could stop right there and preach all day.
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Now we are talking about God's word, it's just not just another book to read.
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This is God's love letter to his bride. You see the intimacy here?
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The word close means redeemer. Jesus is our redeemer.
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Jesus has bought us off the slave market of sin and that's why God says I am jealous over you.
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You start being friends with the world, God's coming after you. He's going to take the rod out and chasing us if we go straying after the world.
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You see how God paints these pictures and don't you love these word studies?
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I'm telling you, these word studies just blow it up. I said wow. When I was studying this,
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God walked all over me by the Holy Spirit. I said, you know, I need to be closer to the
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Lord. I said, Lord, forgive me for the times my heart, I might not have been doing it outwardly, but my heart was somehow having an inclination toward the world in some way.
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It's like God was just taking that pruning hook or something, just knocking it out of me.
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Think of this too. The families of the bride and the groom met here in Ruth and some witnesses.
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The young man would give the young woman either a gold ring, and we're talking about here something intimate, or some article of value, or a simple document in which he promised to marry her.
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We're talking about betrothal here. And then after a short speech, he would leave until the time the actual wedding came.
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This is the Old Testament, how they did the bride and groom deal of covenant.
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But in a betrothal. So if the bride was found to be unfaithful, now listen to this.
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If the bride was found to be unfaithful, then he would give a bill of divorcement to break off the wedding. How do we know that?
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Because it goes back to Deuteronomy and 24 -1, that's why the
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Pharisees, they try to trip Jesus up on this. Why would they give a bill of divorcement? And Jesus says, because of the hardness of your hearts.
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But originally, in the beginning, it was not so. And that's where Jesus always took it.
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He'd go back to Genesis. He just wouldn't take one verse. Jesus would take one verse and go again to another verse, and he'd take it to its context.
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He was a master at that. After all, he was the Word. But here's another example here.
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Remember in Matthew 19, verse 8 and 9, then Joseph, her husband,
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Matthew 1 .19, I'm sorry, 1 .19, is a good example. Joseph, her husband, speaking of Joseph, Mary's husband, being a just man, was an upright man and not wanting to make her, speaking of Mary, a public example, was mindful to put her away secretly.
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And God had to speak to him in a dream. You see, and in this case, he got it.
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But which, according to the Jewish custom, back to what it was referring to, was necessary to dissolve a betrothal.
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Now this leads to what James is really saying in verse 4. This is a powerful verse, beloved.
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I've got to watch my time here because I can really get carried away. So that's why
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I'm going to try to break these up in parts. So I'm telling you, there's a lot here. And it's strong.
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Now the old King James says, know you not that the friendship with the world is enmity with God.
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New King James, do you not know? Every time it says, do you not know? Now the old
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King James starts with, know you not. The new King James says, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?
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Saying the same thing, just in a different way. The new American Standard Version says, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God?
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Now we're talking about being friends with the world. This is serious. This is no doubt one of the most powerful, sobering questions that you can find in the pages of Scripture.
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This is the question of all questions. You think about what he's asking here. What a truth.
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The truth of God spoken in question form. That's the way, I believe James learned it from Jesus.
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James being the servant of God, he answers his own question, doesn't he? And it's black and white.
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There is no gray here. The point he gets to, he said, whosoever.
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Now I want you to think of that. Whosoever. Therefore it would be a friend of the world is an enemy of God.
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Now I'd like to compare that verse. I don't want to be an enemy of God. I want to be a friend of God.
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Now who's the friend of God? Look at James 2 .23. He talks about this in the previous chapter.
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Go back to James 2 .23, and the Scripture was fulfilled, which says, Abraham believed
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God, and it was imputed, it was put in his account, the way we come to Christ.
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Unto him for righteousness. We have the imputation of Jesus' righteousness on our account.
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Isn't that beautiful? Justification by faith alone. And by the way, Luther says he preached that every single week to his audience.
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And they asked him the question, and he asked himself the question, why do you preach justification by faith alone every week to your audience?
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He says, because they forget it every week. I said, that is so right.
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We need to hear it. And by the way, it is the pillar of the gospel.
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It is the chief cornerstone. Justification by faith alone, and get this,
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James, he refers to this, what does he say in verse 23?
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Abraham believed God, it was imputed unto him for righteousness, and he was called what?
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The friend of God. Now, this man was justified.
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He's a friend of God. And then James talks about his works. Now isn't that interesting?
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Now he was justified by faith alone, but his works demonstrated that he was justified by faith alone.
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You see? He's not saying that his works in of itself justified him, but what he was saying by faith and what happened, it showed, he obeyed.
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You see, this is the whole epistle of the gospel of James. He's saying, okay, if you're a friend of God, then it's going to show in your obedience to God.
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That's what he's saying. Now here's the question. Are you a friend of God or are you a friend of the world?
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This question needs to be asked in every church in this nation. This is a serious heart question.
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The answer will really determine our destiny. Let's look at this important word, friendship.
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Now let's look at it. This is important. I've got more to say about this later. I want to try to squeeze this in. The word friendship translates the noun phileia, phileia, or phileia.
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Let me say it, phileia, where we get Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love, phileia.
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It means fondness in the Greek. It means to be fond. It is used here in the
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New Testament as a verb, phileo, which is often rendered love.
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You have other verses of scripture in this. But you also, it even is used of the father's love for Jesus.
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Now, as you well know, there's different Greek words for love. You have agape, you have phileo, and erios.
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And as you do a word study on each one, one's God's love, which is above all loves.
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That's agapeo. Then you have phileo here, friendship love, which is affectionate.
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Then you have erios, which is more emotional. Now, but here, James is using phileo.
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He speaks, and here in this word, he speaks of the father's love. And you can find this in John 5 20.
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Jesus spoke, this is the kind of fatherly love for the son he had in 5 20.
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I quote it to you, for the father loveth the son, and showeth him all things that himself doeth.
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And he will show him greater works than these that you may marvel. I don't know about you, I want to marvel, don't you?
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At God, at what God does. And he speaks of that kind of love toward Jesus.
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And for those who have saving faith, that's in the family of God, he speaks of this love in John 11 3.
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Speaking of Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha.
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He says, therefore his sisters, Mary and Martha, sent unto him Jesus, saying, Lord, behold, whom thou lovest is sick.
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That word lovest, or love, there is phileo. It's the friendship love.
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It's a deep, intimate friendship love. And also in John 16 27,
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Jesus said, for the father himself loveth you, because you have loved me.
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And I have believed that I came out from God. Revelation 3 19, the scripture here says, as many as I love,
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I rebuke and chasten. Be zealous, therefore, and repent.
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That's where love leads us, to repentance. The goodness of God, the love of God leads us to repentance.
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And if you look with me very quickly, look at this, the same is being used in John 15.
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Go with me there. 15, chapter 15, notice this.
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There's many, many scriptures I can go to here, but just let's look at two. Chapter 15, look at 15 and 16.
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Now, by the way, in your devotional time, if you read verses 18 through the end of the chapter, or should
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I say to verse 25, Jesus is speaking about the relationship of believers to the world.
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So if you look at that in that context, but right here, Jesus is talking about the relationship of believers to each other.
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But notice what he says here in verse 15 and 16. No longer do I call you slaves.
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Now I'm reading from the New American Standard Version. For the slave does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends.
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You see, James is using the same word here. Friends, for all things
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I have heard from my father, I have made known to you. Verse 16, you did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit and that your fruit would remain so that whatever you ask the
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Father in my name, he may give it to you. And then in verse 17, this
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I command you. Jesus put the command on it, that you love one another. You see,
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James is using this word where he says, Jesus says, friends, I've called you friends. I want to be a friend of Jesus.
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And when we're a friend of Jesus, we're not going to be friends with the world. That's all there is to it.
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But getting back to what James... So often used as synonyms in the New Testament, see, more common and stronger verb for the love, agape, charity is
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God's love. It seems to be more a volitional, whereas the word phileo here is more emotional and intense.
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Apostle James uses phileo to describe the intense, deep affection for the evil world system.
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Now, that's what he's talking about. In other words, what he's saying, you're not to have this kind of affection toward the world.
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That's what he's saying. The related noun phileo's friend was used of close personal relationships.
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Perhaps the clearest definition was what I just gave you from John 15, 13, and you can read it on through verse 19.
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This is the highest volitional love, voluntarily love, which goes with agape, but the highest emotional affectionate love is the phileo.
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The phileo are both willing to give the ultimate sacrifice for those who are loved.
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And Jesus said it in verse 13, greater love. Agape, what he says, agape has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends, phileo.
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And Jesus said this, I've called you friends. See, he explains that love for him.
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It was tested by obedience to his word. In verse 14, you are my friends, phileos, if you do what
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I command you. There's the if, if you do, if you do.
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See, it comes down to obedience, doesn't it? Really, the Christian life comes down to that.
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Am I a doer of the word, or do I just hear it and do nothing? And Jesus taught it.
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Now, where does he get that? Now, he gets that from Jesus on the servant on the mount. He closes everything Jesus said in all those chapters, chapter five and six and seven, and he closes it down right in the end of chapter seven.
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And then he says, you've got, I've already talked about it in previous weeks before, but he talks about the parable of the foundations, right?
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The parable of the house, the house builder. And one's the foundation upon the rock, the other one is on the sand.
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The one that's on the rock is the one that what? He hears the word and does the word. Jesus then goes to the one that builds the foundation on the sand.
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You know what happens when you build a house on sand? The thing's gonna sink. That's what
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Jesus is saying. And he said, those that's built their house on the sand are those just hears
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God's word. They're just professors. They just saying they're Christians. But Jesus said, the one that builds his house on the rock are those that just don't say it, or just those that just don't hear it, they do it.
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That's what he's saying. James is reflecting to that. So he explains this love.
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At the highest, both loves involve, talking about agape and phileo, the bonds of self -sacrifice and obedience.
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They involve personal intimacy, personal intimacy. You know, Jesus is true friends of those who have received him as Lord and Savior.
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And common objectives, share a common cause, a common interest.
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They have things in common. You see that? You saw that in the New Testament. That they have all things in common.
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They're like -minded. There's a common cause. There's a common interest.
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There's common objectives. There's common desires. That's why we can sit in this room and we talk about Jesus.
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We're not talking about just a person that we're gonna see one day and we're going to, as you hear people say, the man upstairs.
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We know better than that. Matter of fact, when you go to Revelation, we have the apostle
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John that knew Jesus and leaned on his breast and he saw Jesus in his glorified state and he fell on his face.
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Come on, man. Now, when we see Jesus, it's not gonna come up back slapping and all this stuff, oh, the man upstairs.
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But what I'm saying is we have things in common. When we talk, when we say the name of Jesus, there is a deep reverence and a deep respect in our hearts that we have in common.
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You see what I'm saying? So, isn't it great to have things in common with one another and we understand where we're coming from?
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Common interest, common calls, common desires. Verse 17, and those who truly love
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Jesus will also love one another. Finally, it explains that those who truly love him will not love the world or be loved by the world.
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As a matter of fact, the world will hate you. And since the world is hostile and enemy against God, Jesus confirmed that reality when he said this in John 17, in verse 14.
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Listen to what he says. If the world hates you, and he refers to this in not only John 17, but also in verse 18 and 19.
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If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you.
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If you were of the world, listen to this, the world would love its own. You know, it really should cause us to rejoice when the world hates us.
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Come on, man. Because they hated Jesus. And then, by the way, a lot of people get upset about this personally, and they say, well, you know,
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I'm being hated by the world. I rejoice. Amen. Not because they just hate you, but if they hate you, it's because they hate the
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Jesus in you. You see, that's what Jesus is saying. If you were of the world, the world would love its very own.
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But because you're not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this, the world hates you.
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You're different. And you know something? This really gets people by surprise. It really upsets me that they hate me.
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Well, rejoice because they hate you, because you stand for the truth. There's something wrong if the world's wrapping you up, and loving you, and hugging you, and kissing you, and everything.
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There's something wrong. They hated the master. Jesus said that.
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They hated the master. How much more the servant? Well, you know, the
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Apostle John said this, and this is the command. I'm gonna say more about this later on, but this is one of the strongest commands in Scripture.
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1 John 2, 15 through 17, chapter two, verses 15 through 17.
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This is one to memorize. Love not the world. Listen to what he says.
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Neither the things that are in the world. Notice what he says. If any man, any man, loved the world, listen to this, the love of the
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Father is not in him. And you know something?
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A lot of people don't like to hear that. No, they don't. Because it's black and white.
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So in other words, if we're loving the world, and our affections toward the pleasures of the world, then where's my affections toward God?
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So I'm loving the world. And then what does he say? What's all in the world? Then he describes it. What's all in the world?
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Just in case we don't get that there, he says, the lust of the flesh.
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That's the pleasures of the flesh. The lust of the eyes. It's the pleasures of the eyes.
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Isn't that so true? The flesh, the pleasures of the eyes, and the pride of life, the pride.
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What does he say? Is not of the Father, but is of the world.
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Then he goes a step further. And the world passeth away. It's gonna pass, it's gonna burn.
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It's gonna go. And the lust thereof, but, where do you think
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John gets this? Jesus. Listen to this. He that doeth, that's obedience. He that doeth the will of God abideth forever.
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I was thinking about this the other day, just not in the aspect of the pleasures of this life.
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It's all going to vanish, and it's all gonna be gone. But the pleasures in God, it's gonna go live on and on for eternity to those who love
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God and obey God. But I was thinking about, you know, one day, I said, this is sober.
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And I said, I was looking at my hands, I was looking at my feet, and all that I am, I said, one day, this flesh is gonna lay it down unless Jesus comes back, and something's gonna take place, transpire there.
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It's gonna be miraculous. But you know what I'm saying? There's a reality that our flesh is going to that grave.
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We are going to go back to the grave because our time is short. A lot of people don't like to think about this.
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Oh, I wanna live it up. I heard someone the other day say, well, you might as well live up to the pleasures of this world because you got a short time.
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And I thought to myself, I was listening from a distance, I said, yeah, your time is short. And I almost wanted to say, hey, mister, what about eternity?
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That's not short. But anyway, I probably would have gotten kicked out of the store if I did that as a milkman.
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They probably wouldn't let me bring no more milk. But you know, it is a sobering reality, isn't it?
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If you think about it. Amen, the milk of the words, amen.
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But you know, you think of it, we're talking about being an enemy of God, being a friend of the world.
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But I would rather be an enemy of the world and be a friend of God. Yeah, that's what
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I'd rather choose now because I was thinking about this sermon when
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I was driving down the road with a milk truck and I was thinking, you know, it pays to live for Jesus because there's great dividends on the other side.
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There's a great investment. I'd rather take the crosses and losses now than rather than going to eternity without God forever.
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You see what I'm saying? See, we do not belong to the world.
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We belong to Christ. But yet you got professing Christians today that want to say they belong to Christ and oh yeah,
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I got one foot over here in the world. And they're trying to have both. Well, God says you can't have both.
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Amen, choose you this day, amen. They have, you know, people have a longing to be involved with the world's drives, the world's impulses, the world's attractions, the people, the values from which they have determined a habitual attachment and for that reason.
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But James cannot be referring to believers who are temporarily attracted by the things of the world and fall into sin for a while.
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He's not speaking of an occasional spiritual weakness here in Christians.
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But you know what he's talking about? This is what he's talking about. He's talking about a continual willingness, a continual enjoyment, a continuing ungodly drives that unbelievers have.
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But a believer, no. A true believer in Jesus Christ would never, never be called an enemy of God.
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Guaranteed. Well, my time's gone. I gotta wrap this up. But actually, a true believer is opposite.
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He's a friend of God. He's a friend of God. Let me bring you down to this application.
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I'm gonna have to skip a lot, but I can pick it up next week, Lord willing, amen? What does the word of God say?
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Notice what he, what sayeth the scriptures? That's really what matters, right? What does the scripture say?
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Well, Jesus said, Matthew 624, no man can serve two masters. As I said previously, either he who hate the one, love the other.
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I love the way Jesus speaks. If you really wanna know what true hate and what true love is, go to Jesus.
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He will tell you what true love and true hate is. Oh, I'm telling you.
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And I've thought about that down through the week, brother Michael, because I have to search my own heart. Either you would love the other or hate the one, you see?
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And then he said this, or else you will hold to the one and despise the other. And then he says, you cannot, you cannot serve
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God and mammon. Isn't it so true?
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People, and that's why Paul talked about the love of money, the love of money.
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How many times does scripture speak about love and money? Jesus, I'm telling you,
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Jesus spoke a lot about this. Outside of the kingdom of God, that is probably his biggest bench point,
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I guess you can say, the main thrust that he hits more, because he knew the Pharisees was like that.
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The religious people, they had the love of money. And what's something else they loved?
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They loved the praises of men. Isn't that the truth? Jesus said, hey, it's opposite.
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You love God. God's gonna be praised. We're the ones that's nothing. You know, we're nothing.
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But what about the apostle Paul? Philippians 2 .12, Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with what?
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Revere and trembling. That's sanctification. And I'm telling you, beloved, that's true sanctification.
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What about the writer of Hebrews that speaks about Moses? That's one of my favorite verses. Chapter 11, verse 24 and 27, by faith.
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That's what we walk by, by faith. Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter.
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What did he do? Choosing rather. To suffer affliction.
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That's the Christian right there. Jesus said, you come after me and you follow me.
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You lay down your life. And then he basically said it like that. He said, you lose your life, you find it.
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You find your life, you lose it. You know what it does to people in the world, how they talk? Find yourself.
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Did you hear that? Love yourself. We live in a world, love yourself.
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Give all the pleasures to yourself. It's all about self. Look around you, look at TV.
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It's about the love of mind, the things of this world, the lust of the eyes, the lust of self, the lust of everything, the pleasures.
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All that's not of God, not of God. But yet Moses refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.
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Why? I'll tell you why. Scripture says it. Because esteeming the reproach of Christ.
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Don't you love that? He esteemed. I love that word. Because he pointed, he said, that's higher than the world.
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The reproach of Christ. And don't you love the next phrase? Greater riches.
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Greater riches than the treasures in Egypt. For he had respect unto the recompense of the reward.
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In other words, he saw the other side. Amen. He saw the other side. It's a recompense of the reward.
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There's a great reward. There's greater treasures. Now folks, you gotta realize,
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Moses came out of Egypt. He was lifted up as a prince. Yeah, come on, man.
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He had it all offered to him. Yes, sir. But yet, by faith, he forsook Egypt.
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That was the world. That was his world. Not fearing the wrath of the king.
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He didn't fear man. Why? For he endured as seeing him who's invisible.
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You see? That's the key. Paul says it like this. If you then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above.
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Where Christ sits on the right hand of God. And what does he say? Here's the key word. Seek those things above.
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Set. You gotta seek and set. I think about that word set.
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It's like taking a piece of, how can you help me out here? Take something like, you set maybe a compass or something, or you set something on the north, or you say, it's locked in.
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You gotta be locked in. You gotta be locked in. Toward Jesus.
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In other words, we're in this world, but not of the world, but we gotta be locked in on heaven.
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We gotta be locked in on Jesus. We gotta be locked in on our affections on things above, not things on earth.
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The problem is, we're too much in the flesh. Yes. We're too earthly minded.
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We're not enough heavenly minded. But Paul says, well, if it's like this, then you're dead.
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Notice what he says. Your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ is our life, shall appear, and shall you appear with him in glory.
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Well, two important questions. Are you dead to the things of the world? Are you alive to Christ?
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Are you dead to the world? Paul could say this in Galatians 2 .20. I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live.
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Yet not I, but Christ lives in me. And the life, which I now live in the flesh, and he's talking about the flesh and his body.
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I live by the faith of the Son of God. I love that in Old King James. The faith of the Son of God. And what does he say?
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Who loved me and gave himself for me. You know, I go to Calvary, because that is where we must go.
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And by the way, we'll look at this Lord willing next Lord's day. But the key to having this locked in, setting our affections and things above is having a humble heart.
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What is the cure from being in conflict against God? It's humility.
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Humility. James 4 .6. You see, he gives grace unto who?
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The humble. Not the prideful. Let me close with this.
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C .H. Spurgeon says this of this verse. Humble hearts seek grace.
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Humble hearts seek grace, and therefore, they get it. Humble hearts yield to sweet influences of grace, and so it is bestowed upon them more and more, largely.
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Humble hearts lie in the valleys where streams of grace are flowing, and hence, they drink of it.
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Good, huh? Humble hearts are grateful for grace, and give the
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Lord the glory of it. And hence, notice what he says. It is consistent with his honor to give it to them.
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He goes on to say this. Come, dear reader. Come, dear reader. Don't you love that?
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Take a lowly place. Be little in thy own esteem that the Lord may make much of thee.
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Perhaps the sigh breaks out. Well, I fear I'm not humble.
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He says this. It may be that this is the language of the true humility. Some are proud of being humble, and this is the one of the worst sorts of pride.
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We are needy, helpless, undeserving, hell -deserving creatures, and if we are not humble, we ought to be.
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Let us humble ourselves because of our sins against humility, and then the
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Lord will give us the taste of his favor. It is grace which makes us humble, and grace which finds in this humility an opportunity for pouring in more grace.
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Let us go down that we may rise, and let us be poor in spirit that God may make us rich.
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Let us be humble that we may not need to be humbled, but may be exalted by the grace of God.
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Amen. May it be so. In Jesus' name, let's pray. Father, we thank you for this time,
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Lord, and for your word. There is so much more that can be said in the context of this great, great verse.
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Oh, what a sword it is, the sword of the Lord. The sword of the Lord. Father, this is your word.
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You have honored it. Lord, this pierces my heart. This helps me to say what
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David said. Search me, oh God, and see if there be any wicked way in me, oh
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Lord, and lead me into the way of everlasting. Amen. Lord Jesus, our
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Father, search us. Search our hearts. Lord, enlarge our hearts.
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Father, help us if we need to be so. Lord, let us return to our first love, and that is you.
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Lord, forgive us for the times that we have strayed as that sheep from the fold.
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Lord, and you love us so much that you take out the chastening rod. You bring us back to yourself.
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Oh, what great love this is. Oh, what great love. We are your bride. Lord, you're the husband, the
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Lord Jesus. Father, you've loved us with an everlasting love, and to make us holy, you will go through lengths beyond our imagination.
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Lord, to even keep us holy. You do all this. Father, we must humble ourselves before your mighty hand that you may exalt us in due time.
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So, Father, help us to come in true humility and know our great need, and our great need is to love
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Jesus even more and more. Guard our hearts, Lord. Keep us as we go throughout this week.
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Lord, keep us in your grace, and we will give you the glory in Jesus' name.