I was pleased to find out that they had access to the newest version of the greatest Christmas pageant ever. Anybody see that? Rachel did. Maybe some of you saw it. I really liked the remake much better than the original. It was really good. I enjoyed it. But for those of you that don't know anything about the movie, let me just sum it up this way. folks in a small town having a Christmas pageant, typical manger scene, shepherds, wise men, all of that. And a rowdy family of kids that were untaught and unchurched heard about it. They came, volunteered, they bullied the other kids, so they got all the parts. And it looked like it was going to be a total disaster. And sure enough, somewhere through the The rehearsals, they got into a squabble on the set and all the rest. So that reminded me of something that happened years ago that I witnessed. And I shared this with my grandson. He thought it was hilarious. He had me tell it to everybody else in the family. And I couldn't have been more than, I don't know, eight or 10. I was at church. I think it was Easter. And, you know, the kids go up front, and they all say their little parts, and all the adults take pictures, except they didn't have phones to do that with back then, and very few people had cameras. So, they were there, though, watching. And a lot of the parents were there for the rehearsal. And during the rehearsal, younger class than I was in was lined up up front, and they were going down the row, and each one saying their part. And it came to these two little boys that I've never seen them in church before. So, they reminded me of the kids in the movie. And the first little boy, he starts saying his part, and the boy beside of him, a little bigger than him, looks at him and says, that's not right. He looks back, I assume he was his brother, I don't know, a friend, I don't know. He looks back and says, yes, it was. And the next thing you know, they're rolling around on the church floor, fighting, punching, wrestling. Teachers, parents, whoever it was, get them all up, dust them off, get them back up there, get them through it. Straighten them out. That was on a Saturday, next day. Program time. Same group of kids up front. Start down the line. I mean, the whole church is there. Easter, everybody's there. Come down to the first little boy, he says his part, and sure enough, the guy standing next to him says, that's not right. He says, yes, it is. And the first thing you know, they're again down wrestling around, punching each other, having a fight in front of everybody. My grandson thought that was hilarious. I kind of think it was too, looking back on it. I hope everybody was aghast at that point in time. But they were just kids, just being kids. It's a shame when adults just be adults too, right? I can remember another instance. Many years later, my first church, we had a lady that made the best pineapple upside down cake you can imagine, always brought it to every meal. And nobody else in the church ever brought a pineapple cake until we got a new lady coming to church. who showed up at the next meal with her own version of the pineapple cake. And before the meal was over, the two were squabbling over it. I don't even know what was going on or what was being said. So I'm not sure that maturity is really the resolution to such things. Now, why did I say all that? Well, because We're studying the book of James, and we're looking at, over and over again, the structure of the book. There's three reoccurring scenes throughout the book, and we've been dwelling on wisdom for a while, ever since chapter 2, verse 14, and we're coming down to the first three verses of chapter 4. But we talked about wisdom last week. So let's review for just a moment. Last week, chapter 3, verse 13, who is wise and understanding among you, let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom. But if any have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, you do not boast and lie against the truth. He says, this wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual and demonic. He continues, for where envy and self-seeking exists, confusion and evil, and every evil thing are there, even in church, even on Easter Sunday, or the latest potluck dinner, right? But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then, here's what I want you to see, peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, And then the next verse, verse 18, now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. Now, that all being said, that brings us to tonight. And we're going to be talking about the opposite, not godly wisdom, not biblical wisdom, but perverted wisdom. As we have noticed all along in the book of James, James is a very practical writer. He pretty much gets to the point, doesn't beat around the bush. And so he immediately goes to the extreme in the other direction. So we're going to talk about the pursuit of pleasure tonight, which never satisfies. Now you'll see the connection in just a moment. The pursuit of pleasure causes conflict. That's what we're gonna learn. We get to verse one here in just a moment. The opposite of peace. What causes God's people, anybody for that matter, to have conflicts, arguments, disputes with other people? Well, James says in verse one, Disputes erupt first, and then they become a battle. A disagreement becomes an ongoing argument. Looking at verse one then, James says this, where do wars and fights come from? Among you. Now, when he says among you, he's talking about God's people that he's writing to, the Jewish people that had come to Jerusalem, that had heard The apostles preach that accepted Christ and then went back home or were driven out of Jerusalem because of the persecution. He's writing to those Jews dispersed across the Roman Empire. He says, in regard to them, where do wars and fights come from among you? Yes, even among God's people where it shouldn't happen. Why is that? The word wars here in the original just means a dispute, an argument, something that starts as a low-level disagreement that escalates. The second word, fights, refers to a battle, an ongoing conflict, an escalation in the disagreement. Where do they come from, he says? Well, not only do they begin with a dispute and they become a battle, but they're fueled by lust, they're fueled by the sinful desires of our hearts. So moving on then to the latter part of verse one, he answers the question. He says, do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? The war that erupts between people is nothing more than extension of the war that goes on inside of us in our hearts and souls all the time. we have to battle against our own evil desires, fleshly desires. And he references that. So the fights, the wars, the conflicts, the disruption, the peace that goes on even among God's people, be it the church, be it in a marriage, be it wherever, they all start with something inside of us, some desire we have that's unfulfilled, something we are allowing ourselves to dwell on, to think about, to covet, whatever it may be, that then presents itself with a conflict with another person because they are not allowing us to have what we want or they're not giving us what we want. or they're not recognizing us for who we are, pride, whatever the case may be. So, there's a word for this. This idea that pleasure is important, that pleasure is the most important thing. It's called hedonism. It developed way back in the days of the ancient Greek philosophers. So it is a philosophical view that prioritizes pleasure. the pursuit of pleasure, or the devotion to the pleasure of the senses. Now, there's nothing wrong with pleasure if it is in the context of what God allows and it does not violate all that he teaches us in terms of what's right, wrong, sinful, or righteous. But there are those people, and what James is getting at here is these Christians he's writing to lived in a world where this was one of the prevailing philosophies. And they were allowing that through their own fallen nature to become a part of who they were in terms of how they treated each other. It's easy for us as Christians to absorb the worldly wisdom that's around us rather than practice the godly wisdom that we have in the Word of God. And this philosophy is still around today. I mean, most of the world lives to some degree or another in terms of hedonism. Hedonism is not only a philosophical view, not only is it the pursuit of pleasure and devotion, but it's something else. It's idol worship. It's literally worshiping, being devoted to your own pleasure, whatever that is, especially physical or sensual pleasure. Everything from addiction to alcohol or drugs, this is what it boils down to. or to any other, you know, immoral activity or thing that God has denied that men somehow believe brings them pleasure. So it causes conflict. That pursuit of pleasure is what produces the arguments, the battles, the conflict. By the way, the word, let me go back for a moment. The word, your desire, it's translated by multiple English words. Desire for pleasure is the Greek word, which if I were to pronounce it in Greek, you wouldn't recognize it, but you would hear the sound. It is literally the word hedonism in this verse. I missed that, so we can go back to it now. I'm not quite as skilled at these transitions as Don is today, so I enjoy just watching his PowerPoints, among other things. Okay, the pursuit of pleasure that never satisfies. We're going to look at four reasons why. The first one is it always produces conflict. Conflicts erupt over what one person wants, when they see another person standing in their way of that. The second thing that the pursuit of pleasure produces is frustration. Frustration. Well, this is pretty cut and dry. I'm not going to dwell on it. The rest of what James says then continues on to verse two, where he adds this, you lust and do not have. Conflict comes, You have the battles, you have the dispute, you have the battle. It's because of your desire for pleasure. And that he describes as lust with another word in the first part of verse two. And he says, but for all of that, you don't get what you want. For all of that, you're never satisfied. You do not have. And when we want something badly and we cannot obtain it, we're frustrated. We're frustrated with life. We are frustrated with our situation. By the way, if you could just stop for a minute and dial this back to just your normal everyday reactions. Your normal relationships, husband, wife, friends, whoever it is. When you feel frustration, it's always about something isn't the way I want it to be. I would like to tell you that I am fully free of that in my life, but that would not be true, because none of us are. And I often get frustrated with circumstances and people. And if you all want to raise your hand and say amen, then I'll know you do too, but I don't really need that confirmation. So the pursuit of pleasure never satisfies. Reason one, it causes conflict. Reason two, it produces frustration. And then number three, it leads to the abandonment of restraint. The abandonment of restraint. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. Not only do you have a dispute, not only do you have an argument, not only do you have a conflict, now James jumps to murder and covetousness or evil desires to possess what somebody else has and take what somebody else has. And still that is frustrating, but look at the escalation here. Look at the snowball effect. Now, some people have read this and have concluded that James surely wasn't talking to Christians that he was writing to in a personal way. Maybe he was just referring to the culture, or maybe he was addressing non-Christians. There's no evidence of any of that. Over and over again, we've seen in the book of James, as we've moved through it, he addresses those he is writing to as brothers, the brethren, as fellow believers. So is it possible that people in the churches had committed murder? Yeah, it's entirely possible. Do you think the people, and we can't say what their spiritual disposition is, but do you think the people that are driving down the road to go into a fit of road rage and pull out a pistol and shoot somebody intended to do that when they left home? No, it's just where it ended up after the frustration. Just because we're believers don't mean that we're incapable of committing heinous sins such as murder. Think about King David and Uriah the Hittite. We all know that story. So, I know that's not in the church age, and we have to grant a little bit of grace. We think about people in the Old Testament, but still, that's pretty extreme. I grew up in West Virginia, so I heard about the Hatfields and McCoys all my life. Now the Hatfields lived on the southern border of West Virginia on the north side of the Tug River. The McCoys lived in Kentucky across the Tug River on the north side of Kentucky. Back during the Civil War, there was conflict between those two families. Strange as it may seem, the Hatfields on the north of the river were southern sympathizers and the McCoys on the south of the river were northern sympathizers. There was conflict from that. At some point, the McCoys accused the Hatfields of stealing a pig. The result of that was they had a feud that lasted 30 years from 1863 to 1893, during which time 12 people, some on both sides, lost their lives. I think it was seven or eight of the Hatfields were eventually convicted of murder. One was executed in Kentucky. The rest went to prison. They even called in the National Guard one time to try to restore the peace. It was so bad. My grandmother, as a young lady, taught school in southern West Virginia and taught some of the Hatfield clan. That would have been after the turn of the centuries, but not far beyond when this all happened. Just an interesting tidbit I found out about my own family. It just snowballs. It just escalates. The battle becomes a war. That's what happens. And so murder and coveting and all of that can be a part of it. So it leads to a total abandonment of restraint, a total forgetfulness of what is right or wrong. That brings us to number four, reason number four. It involves alienation from God. You can be a believer in Jesus Christ and be totally alienated from God as far as your daily relationship with Him is concerned. And if you're in this state, then that's where you're going to be. Now, you say, where did you get that? If you're looking at the Bible there, if you're looking at the text, you might wonder how I got that. Well, let me show you. Alienation from God results in the absence of prayer. The next thing that James says in verse two is, you fight and war, yet you do not have because you do not ask. All that you want out of life that'll bring you joy and peace is available through God and through prayer, and instead, you try to make it happen at the expense of other people, and you have fighting, disputes, wars, and worse. That's evidence that you've moved away from God somehow in the process, and you have looked elsewhere, rather than trusting God to meet your daily needs. Paul writes in Philippians 4 verse 19, but my God will supply all your needs according to his riches in glory by Jesus Christ. We all have seen that verse, probably pretty much know it. You probably memorize it somewhere along the way. But the reality is sometimes overlooked. and we try to go out and grab all we can get for our daily fix of whatever pleasures this world offers, instead of looking to God in prayer, trusting God, seeing Him answer prayer, seeing Him supply and bless us. And because we are in the right relationship with Him, and we have then appropriated His wisdom, there's peace. Going back to the end of verse three, or in the chapter three, as we looked at earlier. So there is an absence of prayer. There's also, well, let me give you this before I go to the next one. Charles Haddon Spurgeon said, praying will make you leave off sinning or sinning will make you leave off praying. That's a pretty succinct way of saying what took me a lot longer to say. Okay. Not only does this estrangement from God, manifest itself in the absence of prayer, but also in the abuse of prayer. Sometimes people haven't got to the point where they just dispense with God, and they don't pray, and they don't depend on Him for their needs. Sometimes they're actually in the process of just abusing the privilege of prayer. And so James says, you ask and do not receive because you ask amiss that you may spend it on your pleasures. You may then treat God like his only function is to give you pleasure, to give you what you want. God never meant for life to revolve around us, his creation. But when we pray selfishly, just because we desire this or that, and we're feeling frustration because God hasn't provided, and we are focusing all of our prayer life into literally some sort of argument with God over, why don't you give me this? Then we're in a position and a circumstance where we're abusing prayer. God knows full well what we need before we ever ask. Jesus said that himself. And he will supply all of our needs. But when we go beyond His will for our life, what He has given us that is sufficient at the moment to all the things in the world we want at the moment, all the things we think we have to have to be happy, then we are using our prayer life literally as a means of manipulating the God of the universe to do what we want. Now, do I pray about things I want? I sure do. But I got to be careful that what I want is what God wants me to have. We have to pray. Look at the Lord's Prayer. Thy will be done, not ours. Our purpose is to glorify Him. He's the center of everything. He deserves all the glory. He deserves our allegiance. He deserves our obedience. So when we pray, we need to pray with the understanding that sometimes God will deprive us of what we want for a good reason, for our benefit, our peace, and his glory. When my daughter was young, like all kids, go to the store, can I have this? Can I have that? Well, sometimes what she would ask for would be very inexpensive, and I would just buy it for her. Your grandparents are really good at that, in particular, maybe more so than parents, as they say. But we like to give things to our kids. Sometimes they ask for things that are out of the question. We have to say no. But I came to the conclusion in my own life with my daughter that I wasn't going to give her even the inexpensive little trinket she wanted every time we went to the store. But she had to learn. Sometimes the answer was no. I think she learned that, maybe in spite of me, I don't know, but that's a good goal at least. And God, believe me, if God gave us everything we desired, without that kind of consideration from his perspective, our life would be a lot worse. Just think about all the people, you may not, you don't see this on the news, everybody that wins the lottery is smiling and they got a big check. But if you look at it, if you research it, most everybody that wins a big lottery regrets ever having won that money. That it turns their life into a mess for multiple reasons. So sometimes God needs to say no to us. So, four reasons, four contrasting results that are different than we expect. Conflict, frustration, the loss of restraint, the snowball effect and alienation from God. Now, the question we have to entertain in terms of all of this is simply this. Are we willing to live in the spirit of God's will, trusting Him? Or do we want to step outside of that whole relationship with Him and pursue our own idea of pleasures and happiness, what will break us happy, what will fulfill our life? And if we do that indiscriminately, without regard to all that he teaches us, without regard to what's right and wrong, without regard to maintaining a good relationship with him in a prayer life, then we're going to be a mess. We didn't have to win the lottery to make that mess, right? So this is a very solemn, serious, topic tonight, but it is one that is very real. There are so many people, and you can just think about people you know. A lot of young people whose lives have been ruined because of drug use, addictions, all sorts of stuff. This is where it all comes from. The wrong choices.