you Well, a good morning to you. Today I'd like to encourage you from James chapter 4 to be careful about your friendships, particularly one friendship. We're going to get to that friendship in just a minute, but James 4 begins with this very uncomfortable challenge, asking the question, where do wars and fights come from among you? Now, remember, He's writing to Christians. He's not writing to international, you know, nations, international leaders and asking about the wars that go on between nations. No, he's talking about, he's talking about Christians, believers in a local church that are in conflict with one another. He says, where do these wars and fightings come from among you? And he says, he answers the question. He says, do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? Desires for pleasure may not necessarily be something egregiously sinful, but a desire for that which pleases you. If I'm living for what pleases me and you're living for what pleases you, what happens when those two things that are pursued for pleasure come in conflict with one another? You see, there's the rub. So, it is the desire for pleasure that wore in your members. And then he goes on to say, he says, you lust, you strongly desire, and you do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. Not necessarily a literal murder there, but remember, hating a brother is like murdering him, okay? You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and you war, yet you do not have because you do not ask. But then when you ask, you don't receive because you ask amiss, that you may consume it upon your pleasures." So James is dealing with what can be a very real problem in a local church setting. when some members of that congregation, they get consumed with their own agenda, with what they want, with what they think is going to please them, and they're not getting it, they're not getting it the way they want to get it, or something of that nature, and then it ends up causing conflict. They get into conflict, either with the leadership or with others within the church or whatever. Now, what's really the root of all that, you see? Okay, so James is going from the surface, the strifes, the wars, the conflicts that are going on, and he gets beneath the surface, and he says, here's why there's the conflict, because you've got these pleasures that are going on in your members. But then he takes it all a step further, to deal with the root of those pleasures that are warring within you. Where do those come from? Well, verse four, here's where the idea of friendship comes into play. He says, 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. So here's the way this often happens, and I've observed this in pastoral ministry, I've watched as people develop an appetite for something in the world, the world shapes their mindset, it shapes their appetite for activities and time usage, and oh, maybe even things like material possessions and dress and so forth. and they get enamored of having the accolades, the approval of the world. And when that happens, I've observed, oftentimes it leads to inner church conflict. The worldling, the one who has now become a friend of the world, wants things their way, and they don't get it. That just creates conflict. At the root of it all is their friendship with the world. that creates these unhealthy and unwholesome pleasure desires within their hearts, and those desires in their hearts are in conflict with the desires and the pleasures of others in the church, whether they're good or bad, and next thing you know, you've got a squabble, you've got a conflict. You got, as he says in verse one, wars and fights that come from among you. So, let me go back to where I started. How's your friendship with the world? I trust there's not one, and that's what I'm encouraging today. Don't be a friend of the world. Be a friend of God, and be a friend of God's people, and don't worry about what the world thinks. And so our Father and our God, help us, deliver us, we pray, from the conflicts that come from a worldly heart, we ask in Jesus' name, amen. All right, listen, have a good rest of your day today, and I trust the Lord will bless you richly in it.