Thank you for being here; it is good to be with you as we continue our study in James. Today, we start chapter 4. The title is a question, “Are You Getting What You Want?” Think about that, are you? What do you really want? We are very good at justifying ourselves and making Scripture say what we want it to say so we can have our way. Here is one example of the gymnastics someone used to “get what he wanted.” In Matthew 18:19 Jesus said, “If two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven.” He said all you have to do is get someone else to pray with you for what you want, and it’s done; God will answer. Imagine if that was the way it worked! That would be chaos real soon.
He should have balanced this verse with today’s passage. Listen carefully to today’s teaching, and you will discover why his way of thinking doesn’t work. Bible teacher J Mark is here to give us three observations that help us determine what is best for us.
Before the days of firearms, the native people of that time had a unique way of killing a wolf. First, they would coat a knife blade with animal blood and allow it to freeze. Then, they’d add another layer of blood and another until the frozen blood completely concealed the blade. Next, they secured the handle of his knife in the ground with the blade up.
When a wolf followed his sensitive nose to the source of the scent and discovered the bait, he licked it, tasting the frozen blood. He began to lick faster and more vigorously, lapping the blade until the keen edge was bare. Feverishly now, the wolf licks the blade. So great becomes his craving for blood that he does not notice the razor-sharp sting of the naked knife blade on his tongue, nor does he recognize the instant at which his insatiable thirst is being satisfied by his warm blood. His carnivorous appetite craves more–until dawn finds him dead in the snow!”
Only God’s grace keeps us from the wolf’s fate. Our text today alerts us to the danger our sensual appetites pose for us. Let’s read that text now, James 4:1-6.
1 Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members?
2 You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask.
3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.
4 Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever, therefore, wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
5 Or do you think the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”?
6 But He gives more grace. Therefore, He says: “God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.”
Our text provides three OBSERVATIONS that help us determine whether or not what we want is best for us.
The First OBSERVATION is,
Carnal Distraction
The previous chapter closes with a discussion of how divine wisdom brings peace into the life and relationships of the Believer. Chapter four begins with wars and fighting!
So, James raises the obvious question: where do these battles and aggressive behavior come from? His follow-up question is rhetorical. “Isn’t it true that this kind of behavior springs from lusts battling each other in your body?” The word lust is translated from the Greek word hay-don-ay, the root of the English phrase hedonism: the con...
