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If you say you love God and you're a follower of Christ, then you are His bride. The church is the bride of Christ. But if you're still in friendship with the world and pursuing worldly things, that makes you an adulterer when we understand the text.
You're listening to When We Understand the Text, an online Bible ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty. Find videos and more at our website, www .wutt .com. Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes.
Thank you, Becky.
Greetings, everyone. We continue our study of the book of James today in chapter 4. We'll go back through the first few verses. I think we got as far as verse 3 on Wednesday, and then keep going from there.
I think we'll be able to get through verse 10 today. Always a pleasure to be able to open up the Bible and read with you. James 4, let's begin in verse 1. What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you?
Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions.
You adulterous people, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the scripture says, he yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell within us.
But he gives more grace. Therefore, it says God opposes the proud, but 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.
Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you.
We come back to verse 1 here, reviewing what it was that we covered last week. What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this that your passions are at war within you? So as I pointed out last week, it is not possible for you to sin in such a way that doesn't affect anybody else.
And this is a common argument that we hear come up in the world. Well, you know, I can do this and it doesn't hurt anybody else. It always hurts somebody else. Sin will always have an effect on the people around you.
Consider Adam's sin in the Garden of Eden. The man ate a fruit that God told him not to eat from and it sent the entire universe into upheaval. The cosmic disorder that we experience, the chaos around us, the destruction and the decay, death and suffering, all of these things are a result of one man's sin in the Garden of Eden.
All of us are born into sin, into Adam's sin because of what he did. So you see, that sin had an effect on the entire human race for all of human history. So by that example, we can know it is not possible for you to sin in a way that will not affect somebody else.
You consider some of the arguments leading up to the legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States. People that were saying, well, you know, this is just two people that love each other. This is not going to hurt you in any way.
And clearly, we are seeing how that is affecting everybody. Even when you're talking about a man who sits in a room by himself in front of a computer and looks at things that he should not be looking at.
He is applying his eyes, his mind, even his body to a fantasy when those things are supposed to belong to his wife. Even when you're talking about a man who is not married, he is still pursuing something selfishly instead of pursuing God.
And in his pursuit of God is looking toward ways that he can better other people by the advancement of the gospel. It is in Psalm 119 where David said, turn my eyes away from worthless things and preserve my life according to your will.
So when we are devoting ourselves to things that are against the righteous, perfect law of God, we are breaking God's law. We are sinning. It will destroy us unless we turn from that sin and seek the righteous, holy perfection of God.
And James will go on to talk about that here as he says, cleanse your hands, you sinners and purify your hearts, you double minded. We'll get to that here in just a moment. But I come back to this point again, that it is not possible for us to sin in a way that doesn't affect other people.
Now, oftentimes when we talk about a problem with pornography, which is what I was alluding to when I talked about a man looking at a computer screen, men are the ones that we talk about. But this affects women too.
There are women in our culture who are getting sucked into this lie. Some of the books and novels that women will read, that will tease the passions that they have even in their own minds and sinful hearts.
We must turn away from these things and devote ourselves to the Lord. For by pursuing these sinful passions, it puts us at odds with other people. Always. It will always do that. In Titus chapter three, Paul said that before we came to Christ, we were hated by others and hating one another.
But if we have been transformed in Christ, we've been reconciled not only to God, but to his people. So therefore we need to be following the instructions as Paul put it in Philippians chapter two, putting others needs ahead of our own.
So the quarrels and the fights that we, that we fall into are because of sinful, selfish pursuits. You desire and do not have, James says. So you murder, you covet and cannot obtain. So you fight and you quarrel.
You do not have because you do not ask. The reason why you do not have contentment. The reason why there is not peace in your life is because you're not asking God for those things. What you do ask him for, verse three, you do not receive because you ask wrongly.
You are asking for things that you can spend on your own passions. Yes, there is a way that we can pray wrong. And the Lord will not listen to our prayer. Psalm 66, David prayed, if I had cherished sin in my heart, you would not have heard my prayer.
And so we must ask of the Lord with right motivations. Jesus did indeed say, Matthew chapter seven, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find, knock and it will be open to you. For everyone who asks receives and the one who seeks finds.
And to the one who knocks, it will be opened. But we have to understand what this means. And the intentions that Jesus was saying, we must have in our hearts. When we ask of the Lord, we are asking for his will to be done.
We are submitting ourselves completely to the Lord, not seeking our own desires unless those desires are for God. And if that is what our hearts desire, then God will give us the desires of our hearts.
As it says in the scriptures, if our focus is upon the Lord, if we ask for his glory and not our own, then indeed the Lord will give to us. And if we are asking with wrong intentions, with selfish motives, sinfully, then the Lord will not give to us, will not respond to those prayers.
So James goes on, as we go on today from there, you adulterous people, okay? He's coming out of talking about how we are pursuing our own passions, which are at war within us. And we do not receive when we ask of the Lord because we ask wrongly to spend it on our passions.
You adulterous people, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? James is basically saying that because you are friends with the world, you are claiming to be the bride of Christ, and yet you're in bed with the world.
You are an adulterous people. We read in Isaiah 54 5, for your maker is your husband. The Lord of hosts is his name and the Holy one of Israel is your redeemer. The God of the whole earth he is called.
Just last week, we finished up the story of the book of Ruth, finished up the story of Ruth in the book of Ruth, which we were reading on Thursday. Boaz is referred to as Ruth's kinsmen redeemer, and he is a picture of Christ who is our redeemer.
So Christ is the groom of the church, his bride, which we are a part of. Christ is our maker, our husband, the Lord of hosts is his name. This is Isaiah 54. This is the picture that we're given in scripture.
Paul uses the same thing in Ephesians 5, where he says that the picture that we've been given on earth of the relationship of a husband and a wife is supposed to be a picture to us of the way that Christ loves his church.
Whether you're married or not, that picture still applies. You can look at a marriage and see an image of the way that Christ loves his church and has laid his life down for her, purifying her by the washing of water with the word, as it talks about again in Ephesians 5.
So this is what the earthly relationship of marriage is supposed to be a picture for us of the way that Christ loves his church. Jeremiah 2 .2, go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem, thus says the Lord, I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness in a land not sown.
So we have in Isaiah 54 .5, God being referred to as a husband and Jeremiah 2 .2, we who are his followers described as his bride. So this was in the Old Testament as well as in the New Testament that God is our husband and we are his bride.
He who is the husband of the church and we who are the bride of Christ. We have this picture of our relationship with God given throughout the scriptures. So then if we claim to be in that sort of a relationship with God and yet we're in bed with the world, we are an adulterous people.
For James says here, friendship with the world is enmity with God. It's separation from God. Whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. This is serious stuff here. As Votibachim has said, I think I said this last week.
Votibachim has said, if you can't say amen, you ought to be saying ouch. It is said to us in the scriptures, 1 Corinthians 10 .12, you cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons.
You cannot have both. You cannot have a foot through the gate of heaven and a foot that is still present here on earth. As Paul says in Colossians 3, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
If therefore you are with Christ who is seated at the right hand of the father, seek the things that are above where Christ is, not the things that are here on earth. Jesus said to his disciples in John 15 .19, if you were of the world, the world would love you as its own.
But because I chose you out of the world, therefore you are not of the world and the world hates you. And so we cannot have this friendship, this collusion with the world. We must be separate from the world.
And this is precisely what Paul meant when he said to the Romans that in view of God's mercies, present yourselves as a living and holy sacrifice unto the Lord. This is your spiritual act of worship. Present your bodies as living sacrifices, he says.
And then in Romans 12 .2, do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And then you will see God's good, pleasing and perfect will. Whenever we talk about in the scriptures, the circumcision of the heart, it is that understanding that we are separated from the world.
We are cut off from the world and we are united instead with Christ. That whole covenant of circumcision, God was saying to his people, if you unite yourself to me, I will unite myself to you. But if you unite yourself with the false gods, if you unite yourself with a people that is not my people, I will cut you off.
And so it applies spiritually when we talk about the circumcision of the heart. We are united to God and cut off from the world. So we must no longer be in this partnership with the world. We are the bride of Christ.
For to have friendship of the world, friendship with the world would make us an adulterous people. We would be cheating on our husband who is Christ, since we are his bride. 1 John 2, 15 through 16, do not love the world or the things in the world.
If anyone loves the world, the love of the father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes and the pride of life is not from the father, but is from the world.
So if you are pursuing the things of the flesh, you are pursuing worldliness. You are pursuing your own passions. You are an enemy of God. You are not a friend of God. This is said to us in Galatians 5, 24.
Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. And some of those passions Paul even articulated sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.
I warn you as I warned you before that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But he goes on, the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
Against such things, there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the spirit, let us also keep in step with the spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, and envying one another.
Because again, that's what will happen if we're pursuing the things of the flesh. We will be at odds with one another. We will be causing quarrels and fights among those with whom we should be experiencing peace and encouragement, admonishing with goodness, but still having friendship and love and showing grace to one another as the Lord our God has shown grace to us.
And that's where we go next in this passage in James, talking about the grace of God. Verse 5, Do you suppose it is to no purpose that the scripture says he yearns jealously over the spirit that he is made to dwell in us?
And indeed the scriptures say to us in 1 Corinthians 6 that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. In 2 Corinthians 6, it says you are a temple of the living God. This is the spirit of God dwelling within us.
Therefore he yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us, but he gives more grace. It is said to us in Matthew 13, 12, for the one who has more will be given and he will have an abundance.
The grace that God has given to us through his son, Jesus Christ, we will have grace all the more. Therefore it says God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble, which is James quoting Proverbs 3, 34.
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. How is it that we flee from the work of the devil? We draw near to God. We don't turn to the devil and rebuke him.
Okay, that charismatic Pentecostal thing that people do like, devil, you can't have anything to do with me. I rebuke you in the name of Jesus. The Bible doesn't tell us to do that anywhere. It says if we are going to avoid the schemes of the devil, we draw near to God.
Draw near to God, he will draw near to you. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. How do we resist the devil by drawing near to God? It could not be stated any more plainly. Paul says something similar to the Corinthians.
1 Corinthians 10, verses 13 and 14. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. In other words, you're not going through anything that has never been experienced before. God is faithful and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability.
But with the temptation, he will also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it. Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. So how is it that we flee from idolatry? Well, it's being implied there that we turn to God if we are worshiping something other than God, that's idolatry.
But if we are drawing near to God, then we're not doing the idolatrous thing. We are not pursuing our own selfish passions. Instead, we are drawing near to God and resisting the devil who will flee from us.
This is the way that we are able to escape temptation, that we are able to get out of the wiles of the devil, that we draw near to the Lord, and he will draw near to us. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
This is the second time that James has used that term, talking about the double-minded. Because we've read this earlier in James 1, verse 5. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.
But let him ask in faith with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord.
He is a double-minded man, unstable in all of his ways. So the person who is pursuing their own selfish passions will not get anything from the Lord. He is a double-minded man. And so here we come to that again, where James says that those who are sinners, those who have been spending their pursuits on their selfish passions, they must purify their hearts and no longer be double-minded.
Be wretched and mourn and weep, he says. And this goes with the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus said, blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted. And he's talking about those who will mourn over their sins.
They know that they will be comforted by God, by his grace. And so James gives that as an instruction here. Be wretched and mourn and weep so that you might receive the grace of God. Let your laughter be turned to mourning, your laughter in your pride, your boastfulness, your ha-ha's, okay?
Let it instead be turned to mourning over your sin, your joy. Speaking here about the excitement and the satisfaction that you find in your worldly pleasures, let that instead be turned to gloom. Mourn over those things that had been drawing you away from God and into worldliness.
Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you. The apostle Peter said the following in 1 Peter 5, clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.
That sounds pretty familiar, right? Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him because he cares for you. Be sober-minded, be watchful.
Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. Resist him firm in your faith knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.
And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion forever and ever.
Amen. I can't think of a better way to conclude there. And then we'll pick up where we left off in James 4 tomorrow. Our great God, we thank you so much for the grace that you have shown to us. And I pray that we would be mournful over our sin, that we would not be so prideful to think that we have some sort of strength or ability to handle things on our own.
Hey, I can dabble in this a little while and stop doing it whenever I want. No, you desire all of us. You have said that we must love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. And so Lord, I pray that we would be convicted of our sin, that we would mourn over it, turn from it, seek you for your grace and your forgiveness, and you will comfort us in the peace of Christ that surpasses all understanding.
Thank you for the grace that was displayed to us through the cross of Christ at Calvary. And may we not forget what greatest sacrifice was needed for us to be able to be reconciled from the sinfulness of this world into the holy righteousness of God.
Be with us as we pursue your holiness, being shaped more like Christ in whose name we pray, amen. You've been listening to.
When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. We hope you are a part of the church family committed to gospel teaching and we thank you for including us in your Bible learning. If you would consider a gift to this ministry, please visit www .utt .com and click on the Give tab in the top right corner of the page.
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