And what causes fights among you? Is it not this that your passions are at war within you? Now, notice the way he follows that up. He says that it's your passions are at war within you. So he puts it this way. Because you are driven by your passions and basically by passions, what he means is our fallen and corrupt affections. Our fallen sense of self and worth and pleasure. And so therefore he says you desire, and because you can't get it, here's what happens. You murder. And then he says, or you quarrel. He says you desire to have, but you don't have it. So you murder, and you covet, and you cannot obtain. So there you go. So in other words, being driven by corrupt passions causes us to function according to a wisdom that corresponds to our passions rather than what corresponds to our position in Christ. Now, James' assessment of what causes even Christians to walk according to the wisdom that is from the earth or from our fallen nature, his description here in verse one corresponds to verses one and two. It corresponds to something that Thomas Cranmer, the great English theologian and founder, one of the founders, or actually one of the chief editors of the book of Common Prayer. Thomas Cranmer says this, he says, the heart loves the will chooses and the mind justifies. So what the heart loves, the will chooses and the mind justifies. So therefore no matter what it is, we will find a way to it because the heart wants it. And obviously if the heart is fallen, and we are following, or we are following fallen and corrupt passions, then we are going to be going opposite from what God's word intends and holding in mind that it's not that we don't have a heart and it's not that within our heart we are not able of some good, but in terms of the ultimate good that is required by God, our affections are falling. So again, what James says, what causes the quarrels and what causes the fight among you, what puts you at odds with your brothers and sisters is a passion. Whatever that passion might be, the passion to be right, the passion to be known, whatever it might be, you are willing to go to that extent that James calls your murderer in order to achieve it. Now what I want to do because I would argue that in this section of his writing and this section of the book, what James does, he's already sort of target to the issues at hand and what he wants Christians to do is to walk in a manner that reflects the faith that they embrace, that they would conform their thoughts and words to God's word because they have been grafted into the body of Christ. And so he wants, as we saw in chapter 1, that we would be doers of the word. And not here is only. And so he has challenged some very significant problems within the church and in this section, James is at his most pastoral. In fact, I would argue that James in this section epitomizes the pastoral duty of ministry of law and gospel among the people of God. So what I want to do this morning, and I know in other portions or other times that I preach from this fourth chapter, we've done a deep dive into various sections, especially in verses 1 through 6 and then in other portions. But what I want to do is look at verses 1 through 10, through the lens of a minister of the gospel who is trying to bring both together law and gospel for the edification of God's people and the glory of the God that saves them. So I'm going to show you how James uses both law and gospel and how it should be used even amongst us as we deal with these very real issues. So here's the first thing. In the first place, what James does is he confronts their behavior with the language and logic of God's holy law. He confronts their behavior with both the language and the logic of God's holy law. And one of the reasons for that is because the purpose of the law is to confront the people of God or to confront God's people. Now notice what he says here. He calls them in this section. He calls their disputes. What they would call just, you know, maybe a blow-up and I just had a little run-in. James doesn't use the language of the culture. He uses the language of God's law. And so he calls their disputes wars that leads to murder. And they say, wait a minute. Now we didn't, nobody got to kill. And James, what James is doing is laser-beaming God's law on the behavior of God's people that you don't see it as murder, but God's law does. So what James does here is really what Jesus is doing in the sermon on the mount that he is expounding God's law to the point that he is saying, no, you didn't just have a heated meeting. What you had was a war. He doesn't just call them murderers, but he calls them murderers. He accuses them in verse two of being covetous. And then in verse four, he calls them an adulterous people. I'm here to argue that when he calls them adulterous, he's not speaking of sexual immorality that was rampant in the church. That's not what he's addressing here. If that were the case, it would have been a different order of instruction as we get with Paul in first Corinthians when that was an issue. But he is using adultery in the same way that the Old Testament prophets did when they talked about the idolatry of God's people. In fact, in Ezekiel, he says, my people play the harlot under every green tree. He says they're not even good harlots because at least the prostitutes get paid. And so he's basically equating a mindset sort of a contemporary idolatry as being equivalent to adultery. And he's saying that, and just think about it for moment brothers and sisters, it's easy for us to justify our actions when we don't use the language of the law. It's easy for us. I don't know where we get the idea. Well, it's a white lie. God's law doesn't say, doesn't direct our lies in terms of whites, red, black, green, whatever. He just says don't lie. And there's no room for the white lie. It says Paul says in Romans that we would see the exceeding sinfulness of sin. And that's what happens when God's law is opened up. James is magnifying the intent and the spirit of God's holy law. And therefore, he confronts their behavior that for whatever reason this behavior has become acceptable, if not normative. Think about that for a moment. How many dysfunctions have we allowed to become normative? I was sharing a number of years ago with someone that asked me, well, in your years of ministry, what's one of the most difficult parts of your job? And I said business meetings. I said because people, all of a sudden, feel that they can be as unholy and as unloving and as ungracious as they want to be in the name of business. And what James is doing is swooping down into our business meetings. And he says no. What you call normative, God calls warfare. What you call just gossiping and I'm just being blunt, I'm just telling the truth. What you call it, you call it just speaking the truth, God calls it gossip. God calls it slander. God calls it murder. Do you think that you just want to, no, here's what you are and James uses the language of the law and the logic of the law. To confront the behavior of these people. Notice some of the things that he's already addressed within this congregation. That when a rich person comes in, they bend over backwards to concede to him. And when someone, even within their own fellowship, comes in and they are not as well-dressed, then somehow we have founded justifiable. To give them second-class treatment. And chapter three, he says that you, you find it okay to, to bless God and praise God with your tongue and then come right back and curse your brother. All of these things he now confronts in this section with the language and the logic of the law because the law is intended to confront. And it confronts by showing you that what is, what you think is okay, God calls sin. Don't be confused by the thought patterns of the world. God calls it sin. Now I know we've gotten used to a culture of lies and making excuse for lies and liars. God calls it sin. I know we've gotten used to talking about people that we don't know, but God calls it sin. So James uses the language of the law to confront the behaviors of the people. Here's the second thing. As God's people, we do need to be confronted with the full weight of God's law so that we could be brought under conviction that our words, that our actions and that our thoughts are in conformity to the patterns of the world rather than the pattern of God's holy law. So we need to be confronted so that we can be convicted, that we're thinking like the world, that we're speaking like the world rather than the people of God. In other words, we need to be confronted with our sins so that we can see our sins as being abnormal from the holiness of God. Because we hear too much around us that conform us. This is basically what James is getting at in verse 4. In verse 4, he says, do you not know that or he says, are you adulterous people? Do you not know that the friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. The aim here that James has is to bring them in under conviction. In other words, this should be an insult. This should be far be it for me, Lord, I was acting like that. Now, contrast what James says in verse 4 with what Paul says in Romans 12 verse 2. James says, you're acting like the world. You want to be friends with the world. You're trying to be, this is like junior high school all over again. You're trying to be cool, you're trying to be hip. You're trying to show that you're with it. And therefore, you'd rather be a friend of the world than a friend of God. Look at the way James puts it, or Paul puts it in Romans 12 verse 2. Do not be conformed to this world. But be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that by testing you may discern what is the will of God and what is acceptable and what is acceptable and perfect. The law of God confronts our sins so that we can feel conviction that we have become conformable or comfortable, I should say, with the thought patterns of the world. We are supposed to be disturbed. We are supposed to be stirred up. We are supposed to be convicted. Isn't that what Nathan does with David? David has committed adultery with one of his soldiers' wives. And he has taken the man out and put him in a plate because a woman had gotten in that sheet but had gotten pregnant. And David put, you know, he's trying to make sure that all blame was away from him, no DNA test and paternity test. So he says, okay, we'll just let him be with his wife. And then everybody will think that that's the father because he had been in war. And when the man refuses to sleep with his wife in honor of the soldier being a soldier for the king, then David hasn't put in the front line so he could be killed.
He was a man of God, man after God's own heart. And Lord sent Nathan to him. And Nathan comes to him and he tells him a story and says, Lord, I'm confused over a matter. He says, let me tell you about something that happened. There was a rich man who had many little, many lamb, many sheep. And a friend came by to visit him and there was another man who only had one little, you sheep, one little, you lamb. Just that's it. And when the rich man's visitor came by and he wanted to prepare a meal, instead of going into his vast fold, he went to the poor man who only had the one, you lamb. And you know what he did? He took it. And that you lamb was like a household pet. It was all on Instagram and everything and it was all over the place. We have TikTok videos of this you lamb and this rich man came and snatched him away and killed him. David was outraged. He says, that's sound or to be killed. Then Nathan simply said, but my Lord, you're that man. Brothers and sisters, we have to see ourselves against the law of God so that that which enrages us about others, we would see it in us and be brought under conviction. Someone asked G.K. Chesterton once, what is the worst thing that's in the world today? And he said, me, brothers and sisters, we need to be confronted with the law so that we can be convicted in our inner selves, and words and thoughts and deeds that we know are inconsistent with the Holy Word of God. But here's the third thing, not only does God's law and James does it here, uses it to confront the sins of his listeners or his readers. But the purpose of the confrontation is to bring about conviction. And so he brings, he aims at conviction by telling them they're murderers and that they are cupaces and they are adulterers and they are trying to be friends with the world. And then he throws in that line that whoever wants to be a friend with the world makes himself. Notice that line was there, makes himself. In other words, you act like an enemy of God so that they would be convicted. But here's the third thing, the conviction of the law is intended to produce contrition in the blood bought spirit dwelt children of God. God convinced us in order to bring us under a sense of contrition and what contrition means is a deep sense of remorse. Look at what he says in verse 9. He says, be erection and mourn. Be erection and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning. And let your joy be turned to gloom. See, that was a problem that Paul had with the church at Corinth. They knew of this immorality that was taking place but they weren't sat and buy it. They were good with it. The reason that God would confront our sins is to bring us under the conviction that we are the sinner. And he doesn't just leave us there. He wants us to wallow in it and be sad about it that we would not be puffed up but that we would be broken down in Ezekiel 36, the Lord promises in the coming of the Messiah. He says, and I will give you Ezekiel 36, verse 26. He says, I will give you a new heart and a new spirit. I will put within you. Now, the result of him putting a new spirit in us is now articulated in verse 31 of Ezekiel 36 where he says this, then you will remember your evil ways. And your deeds that were not good and you will loathe yourselves for your iniquities and for your abominations. I think James is seeking or provoking his readers to contrition in at least three different things that he references here. And his aim is to get them to mourn instead of being joyful so that when they swander a brother's character they don't get on the phone and talk about it but rather they would get on their knees and be convicted by it. Three things. One, he is trying to provoke them to contrition by critiquing their prayer life. In verse three he says that two things that he says about prayer. Number one, you don't ask for what you should. Remember in chapter one he says, if any man lacks wisdom, then let him ask of God and he says, but you don't ask. In other words, you don't ask for that which strengthens you and equips you to be what you are supposed to be. So he says on the one hand, you don't ask, but then he says, but when you do ask, you don't receive. Why? Because God knows that you will only use it on your passion. And so in verse three his whole point there is that their prayer, in fact when it says, when you pray a miss, the word that's translated a miss is diseased. How many of us have friends, family, loved ones, call us up and whatever they need, we'd be willing to give it to them.
But then we know that they have an addiction problem. And what we would have gone out of our way to provide for them if we knew they were okay but the fact that we know that they are diseased, we wouldn't even give them five dollars. Haven't we experienced that? And why wouldn't we give it to them? Now if they, if they were not diseased, we'd give them a thousand and borrow a thousand to give them. Because they are diseased, we wouldn't give them a nickel. And you know why? Because we know they are diseased. And we know that whatever we give them is only going to be spent to further their destruction. James is trying to make them contrite. And one of the ways that he points or that he aims towards their contrition is to inform them that their prayer lives are diseased. The second thing that he does to point them towards contrition so that they would be broken by what the law has revealed is in verse four, by him saying that their worldliness puts them at enmity with God. Think about that for a moment. And that's exactly what he does in verse four. He says, listen, you adulterous people do you not know that friendship with the world? Is enmity with God? And here's what they know that God has enmity. They know that and they know the world is okay. They haven't put them together. And so then he goes on to say, therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. But James wants his for his hearers who claim faith and God's grace in the person of his son. He wants those that while they were enemies, Christ died for them so that they could become sons and daughters. He wants them to hear with their ears that they are nothing more according to their actions. They are acting like enemies instead of children so that at some point they would say, oh no, that's not good and that's not right. But thirdly, James is trying to produce contrition within them by suggesting in verse five that they're being locked in this mode of thought and behavior is essentially grieving the Holy Spirit. It's an unusual phrase the way he expresses it here. In verse five, he says, or do you suppose that it is to no purpose that the scripture says he earns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us? In other words, the way I think it was BB Warfield that puts it this way that the imagery here is that of a man whose wife has affections for another and he looks at her and desires that she would look at him. The way she looks at her lover, Paul simply says in Ephesians, do not grieve the spirit and how do we grieve the spirit by making little of what he's made much of which is the person in work of Christ by negating what he has connected us to which is the love and grace that is in Christ. James has confronted God's people with the language and the logic of God's holy law to spotlight their sin so that they would see what has become normative is nothing more than rebellion against the law of God. Having confronted their sin, he intends to bring them under conviction that they are the one. It's not them, the problem is not out there, the problem he wants them to say, Lord, it is I. I think one of the most honest moments in the lives of the apostles during the earthly ministry of Jesus was the night in which he was arrested. And at the Lord's table, as he's serving them, he says one of you is going to betray me and probably the most honest moment in all of their collective lives. You know what they said? They turned to each other and they said, is it I? Is it I? You see, it would be easier, especially for us. One of us, one of you is going to betray me. What is the Adam instinct? It's probably him. I knew it was some about him, but when God convicts, the question is not them. It becomes clearly us. And the reason he convicts is so that God's people could become contrite, remorseful. I said before that, you know, I only had one child, but so we only had to go through potty training once. But you know when you're making progress in potty training, when the child is uncomfortable in their soil diaper. Now, you know you have work to do when you walk in the room and the soil diaper greets you all over the place. And the child is sitting there like nothing is wrong. In fact, they're smiling. We say, oh boy, we still have work to do when they become uncomfortable. And God brings to bear on the lives of his people that he's conforming to his image. He brings to bear on them the weight, weightiness and the gravity of their sins so they could be uncomfortable with it. And James has done it as we've said in three ways by pointing out their prayer life as being soiled. As pointing out the fact that they are too comfortable being friends with the enemy then by pointing out the fact that they are comfortable at grieving the spirit. But that brings us to a fourth thing. Law-induced contrition on the part of God's people ought to bring about confession. In other words, I'm talking about God's people. When God's people have been confronted with their sins and are convicted that they are the sinner and are made contrite by that then they cry out and confess. What is it that they confess that they are unworthy? They cry out that they are guilty. In other words, James wants his readers to agree with his assessment that they are trying to be friends with the world. He wants them to agree with his assessment that they are covetous and they are murderers. And having been brought into agreement with it, he wants them as we see in verse 7 to now submit. When he says, submit yourselves to God and resist. You can't do that unless you confess that you have failed to submit. In order for what he says in verse 7, in order to act on that, one must be willing and able, a free accord to be able to say, Lord, I have sinned against you. I have been in league with the evil one. I have not allowed your word to shake my words. I've listened to the serpent and I have failed you. And I have stood with your enemy. That's one of the things that confuses me and I just want to mention this in passing when I try to say away from political things. One of the things that confuses me is all of the celebration of a Confederate flag that was raised in rebellion against the nation and they lost. We are supposed to celebrate the flag of the enemy. You rose up and that's what God is. That's what James is saying. You're walking with the enemy. You don't see that when they see that. Here's part of the confession when we come before God and we confess ourselves as sinners. We are confessing that we have rebelled willingly against your law and we have delighted in being on the side of the enemy that was defeated by your son on the cross.
The whole point of confrontation is to bring conviction and the purpose of conviction is to bring contrition and contrition brings forth the confession that I and the chief of sinners tells them to submit to the law and resist the devil. Notice what he says. What will the devil do? He'll flee. You know why? Because he knows you have been flying his flag illegitimately and he knows that he has no claim on you because he knows even if you don't that he's defeated. These four uses of the law now comes the gospel and it comes with a single statement to people who the people of God who have been who have been brought who since have been confronted. Who have been convicted that they are the sinners who have been made contrite and who have confessed then James gives the word of consolation he says in verse six. But he gives more grace and that's it he gives more grace. You know why because for two reasons this is an important reminder because once you have been confronted and convicted and once you have been made contrite and you confess now the tendency is to try to offer a peace offering. Now you want to start giving stuff up and making dedications and promises but here's what James says no no you you came empty handed to the cross and you are renewed and you received that renewal empty handed more grace. And you know it's hard for us to receive favors it was hard enough it's hard enough for us to receive saving grace because that means all the work is done and we want to do something so now that we have messed up all along the way once we have messed up now we really feel the need to do something. And so what James says no he gives more grace and here's what he admonishes humble yourselves drawn near to God and what you'll see is that he's not saying that you now that you messed up stand in the corner over there for five minutes know what he does as we sang this morning. His grace is greater than all of our sins and so he confronts us to convict us and we are convicted so that we would acknowledge what we are and here's what we are made mindful of. Yes we've acted like enemies the brothers and sisters understand this as Paul says in Romans 5 God sent his son while we were enemies and it reminds us of that grace when we continue to act like enemies he gives more grace. He says this cleans your hands you sinners and purify your hearts you double mind it is that a work for us to do no that's a grace for us to receive that we have been purified by our great highs priest. And here's what I know we live in a cancel culture that if you mess up you just messed up I was sharing with the friend a couple weeks ago when we were working through James 3 and he was talking about giving an example of a faith that demonstrates itself in works and then he mentions Rahab and here's what he says Rahab the prostitute. And I mentioned to my friend I said you know I was that that struck me I've seen it I read over a thousand one times I get it I said but for whatever reason it caught me off guard. It's like you know Rahab is like can I get over it as if we don't call David the adulterer. So why do we have to feel deal with it then it struck me that even though she was it didn't hinder God's grace and she hasn't been canceled because of what she did or what she was. Here's what James is telling those now that they have because you know the more we are convicted the more guilt ways on us. The more unworthy we feel the more we feel be down and are willing to do so much more in order to prove ourselves I messed up Lord and so I'll do this and look at the protocol son I messed up just hire me you don't have to treat me as a son. Just hire me what we discover is when we're broken down by God's law when we cry out because of the conviction that comes from God's law the only bomb that can heal our souls is God's grace. He gives more grace you know what he does when you've been brought low he reminds you of your exalted status that is in his son that's why when he says the humble he will exalt doesn't mean he's going to give you more than what he's already given his son. You see brothers and sisters that's what happens when we stray we forget that we can't get more or higher than what we already have in Christ he gives more grace by exhorting us in his son don says it doesn't yet appear what we shall be but here's what we do know. That as he is we shall be also and why do we know that because as he is right now that's how the father sees us he gives more grace he gives more grace and that is our consolation and that is our comfort and that is our incentive to turn from that which is just pleasing and seek to walk. As children of light a man as pray.