Please turn with me in your Bible's church to James chapter 4. We're in chapter 4. We're going to be in verses 1 through 6 of James chapter 4. And the title of this sermon today, church, is The Cycle of Sinful Pleasure. The Cycle of Sinful Pleasure. Starting in verse 1 of chapter 4, hear now the inerrant and infallible words of the living and one true God. What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? You lust and do not have, so you commit murder. You are envious 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 with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the scripture speaks to no purpose? He jealously desires the spirit which he has made to dwell in us, but he gives a greater grace. Therefore, it says God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Thus ending the reading of God's Holy Inspired Word, let's pray quickly, church. Father, would you please speak today to your people? Would you teach us, Lord, according to your word? God, would you speak through me in such a way that I would just fully disappear, Lord, and your word would reign true? God, please help us to be focused on what you want us to be focused on today. Let the enemy snatch nothing away from us. Lord, we thank you again for allowing us to be here to learn from your word. Help me to speak in a way that is clear. Let it be true and faithful. We pray this all in Jesus name. Amen. In our text today, we will encounter the Greek word hedone. Hedone. This is the word from which we get hedonism. Hedonism. And hedonism is a philosophy that encourages one to make the chief aim in life to pursue all kinds of pleasure. Pleasure is the aim of this life to the hedonists. Now, I don't want to steer you wrong. They are focused, of course, on themselves. They are focused on pleasing themselves. But remember what our catechism says. Our catechism question has said, what is the chief end of man? The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. We can find our pleasure in God. We can find our pleasure even in things that He has created, but in a different way that hedonists do. We don't enjoy the things that He has made the same way that hedonists do. We'll eventually get to that. Aristippus of Cyrene was a student of Socrates. who argued that man's chief end is not to enjoy God, but to enjoy the pleasures forever. Enjoy the gifts, not the gift giver. To enjoy them also in ways that God has never permitted. Aristippus not only thought that was man's chief end, it was also man's chief goal now. Now, at every moment, at every single inclination, we are never to deny ourselves pleasure in the highest degree, he said. And people were often shocked by his behavior. He argued, to delay pleasure in any way was to go against nature's design. That makes sense when you consider fallen nature. Fallen man considers himself above all things, pleasing himself above all things. This man would participate in sensualities of all kind. He would indulge in luxuries and extravagance. He would do anything to maintain this kind of life. Aristippus he was a philosopher arguing in the marketplace by day and then he acted as a jester before kings at night And he would do that to get paid for them by them so he can continue this lavish Lifestyle he would even wear women's clothing and dance around for for all these high society important people for the Kings They give him money It reminds me of someone, if you've ever known an addict, they will often do things that they would never have done otherwise if they weren't addicted to drugs. They do terrible things for another high. It was said that while he was on a voyage to Corinth, Aristippus' ship was caught in a terrible storm. And this storm completely seized this man by terror and dread. The crew approached Aristippus. They had been on plenty of voyages. They had been on plenty of journeys by ship. And this was no big deal to them. And they said, hey, Aristippus, the other sailors were not alarmed. Don't be worried. And yet, the philosopher on board had turned coward. Erasipis responded by saying that there's two types of lives at stake here on this ship, and they're not comparable. He's trying to say, I'm worth more than you guys. And so that's why I'm worried. And what a stark difference to Jesus Christ and his teaching. Jesus said, greater love is no one than this, than one lay down his life for his friends. And even though Christ was the incomparable one, he did not consider his life more important than our own, than all of ours. He laid it down. Aristippus, though, was scared for his life. For all his so-called wisdom, Aristippus was actually a fool. He could have simply read even Ecclesiastes, which showcases a man who did not deny himself a single pleasure this life had to offer. But what did he say? It was all vanity, right? In Ecclesiastes. Solomon determined at the very end of his life, after all that had been said at the end of Ecclesiastes, that man would only find his true fulfillment in fearing God and keeping His commandments. He had it all. He had 700 wives, 300 concubines. He had the best gardens and fruit trees in all the world. He had all the meats and all these people would come far away from far off and pay homage to him and give him all these different tumerics and spices. He had everything. Everyone waited on him hand and foot. Solomon had everything. And he said he did not deny himself a single pleasure, but he said there it was all vanity. and that the only thing worthwhile in this life was fearing God and obeying Him. And hopefully Aristippus found that out through Christ before the end. And today we will see how a cycle of pleasure can result in terrible conflicts and envy. Our New Testament wisdom preacher will also warn of the consequences of following hedone, pleasures rather than the Lord. But he gives us hope, and he's gonna give us a great hope at the end of this passage, and we're gonna see that towards the end. So let's begin now in verse one of chapter four. What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you is not the source, your pleasures that wage war in your members. The talk of wisdom in verses prior were not so much focused on wisdom per se, the sermon from last week, but they were focused on the truly wise are fruitful with good works and conduct. James was saying those who are wise demonstrate their wisdom by how they live their life. But now it would show that they aren't wise because of their quarreling and envying. The jealousy and selfish ambition are now manifesting outwardly towards one another. These actually aren't the typical words for quarreling and conflicts in the Greek. This literally says, and this is the only place that says this, this literally says in chapter, verse one, I'm sorry, from where are the wars and where are the battles? From where are the wars and from where are the battles among you? Polemos is used 18 times in the New Testament. It is always used for war. Makeh is used four times in the New Testament. It's typically used for fights, quarrels, or battles. And one might be able to make the case that quite a few of these now Jewish Christians were once former zealots who would use violence as a means of religious reform. The zealots would use fighting and violence to get their message out, to change things in Judea. So James could be addressing that and arguing against it. We can't use violence to spread the gospel, is one thing he might be saying. But I don't think this fits the context of the end of chapter 3 and the verses that follow exactly. For that reason, I think it would be wise to take war and fighting as figurative or metaphorical so that the way that the NASB translated this is just right. I think that's fine. Quarrels and conflicts. They are not being the peacemakers they have been called to be from the end of chapter 3. In Acts 4.32, we read at the time of Pentecost that all believers were of one mind and one heart. Right at the inception of the church, they were of one mind and one heart. They were in the honeymoon phase as new believers. Right? It's always going to be harmony. It's always going to be perfect unity, we think. But that is not typically the case. As we read in the Pauline and General Epistles, most of what Paul and all the different authors are fighting against or appealing to or addressing them about are different conflicts and different sin issues going on in the church. I've mentioned before, though we are redeemed people, we are still waiting for a glorified and redeemed body. Until then, we must deal with sin in our fallen flesh. Even Paul and Barnabas had a conflict in Acts chapter 15. Barnabas wanted to take John Mark, who is likely the Mark who wrote the gospel according to Mark. Barnabas wanted to take John Mark on their next missionary journey to check on the churches that they had just planted. But Paul disagreed as John Mark had deserted them in Pamphylia, and he said, John Mark did not do the work. He did not stay with them. He did not join them. The Bible says that there was no small disagreement, but a sharp one was among them, and it caused them to even separate. Despite how long Paul and Barnabas had labored together, they separated. At that time, Paul then chose Silas to go with him and Acts would forever have Silas and Paul and no longer Barnabas and Paul. Even the apostles are susceptible to this. Paul would then later, according to the letter to the Galatians, have to stand up against one of the pillars of the church that is Peter. For Peter had stopped sitting with the Gentile believers after the arrival of the Jewish Christians. He was a partial judge of the brethren and showed by his actions the gospel doesn't tear down the dividing wall. But Paul said he stood condemned and I stood against him. Paul rightly did what he had to do and confront him in front of all for the sin was in front of all. You see, sometimes conflicts are unavoidable in the church. Sometimes there's a righteous motive for these sort of conflicts. But what James is addressing is quarreling in sin. This is sinful quarreling, sinful conflicts. The proverb says, the beginning of strife is like the letting out of water. So abandon the quarrel before it breaks out. That is to say, if you drop a bucket of water on the ground, there's no containing it. If you drop a bucket, you don't go down there and try to hold it back. It's going to spread. It's going to go where it wants to. You won't contain it. Strife does the same thing. Stop, don't let the bucket of strife fall over before it just spreads everywhere is what the proverb is saying. Paul tells Timothy, but the foolish, I'm sorry, but refuse foolish and ignorant speculations knowing that they produce quarrels. The Lord's slave must not be quarrelsome, but kind to all. If we are to be the Lord's bond servants, we are to take the master's orders and not be given to evil quarrels. I remember years ago at an older church, not at Apologia, there was this brother who had been attending second service for a while, Christian man, and he moved his family to first service for a time, for six months or so, and he came back to second service, okay? And so all these people who remember him from the second service, because if you've ever been to a two-service church, you just don't cross over, okay? You stay where you're at, you find the seat that you sit in, you stay in your service, even though we're allowed to change it up, right? That's what happens. So, they come back to second service, and all these families start coming up to him, We haven't seen you in such a long time. Where have you been? And immediately his ego is just like, it just gets him, rubs him the wrong way. I've been here. No, I've been here. At first he's nice about it a little bit. Oh, I've been here. We just, we were in the first service and we just came back. I've been, we've been faithfully going. And so more and more people keep seeing him. And by the time the last guy says, bro, where have you been? He's like, I've been here. I've been going to church. He's upset. You were you there. You didn't see me. I've been there. I've been coming to church. You know, he's he's kind of getting upset about it. He's prideful about it. OK. And that's really. What happens there is people were shocked, the families were shocked by that display. He's making this conflict, he's making this quarrel, all because he wanted to look a certain way. In his fleshly desire, in his pleasure, he wanted to look a certain way and it drove him then to anger. And James addresses that in a sense. The source of their battles is their hedone. their pleasures that wage war in their members. In other words, the fleshly lusts, our pleasures within us, wage war against our bodies so that we wage war against each other. Our sinful desires wage war in us and then we will wage war with each other. Okay? And he doesn't mean church members here. He means your body. They're at war within your body. It is those fleshly lusts, still part of our fallen bodies, waging war against it that cause us to do Christian infightings and create conflicts among each other. Let it be known that every fight that happens at our church will only occur because of sin. Every evil fight that happens here will only happen because of sin. It doesn't happen any other way. It's walking in the flesh and not in the spirit that will create these quarrels between us. Paul expounds on this in Romans, he says in chapter 7, But I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind, and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. He says, O wretched man that I am, who will set me free from this body of death? Paul, in chapter 7 of Romans, is going back and forth. He's saying, ah, why do I do these things? Why do I do these things? The war is in my members. The war plagues and works against my mind. And I know what I'm supposed to do. I know what God has commanded. I know what God says in his word. But why am I doing these things? He's just, he's showing some frustration. And I think it's helpful for us. Romans 7 there. But Paul says immediately after that, showing that he knows the cure to this, immediately after he emphatically says, thanks be to God for Jesus Christ. Paul knew the struggle. Paul knew the war inside. Peter also speaks to the same thing. He says, fleshly pleasures wage war against the soul. Fleshly pleasures wage war against the soul. You see, when we no longer seek to please God and find our pleasure sourced from God, we will look for it in all the wrong places. And that's where the disputes come from, is what James is saying. The answer to those involved in conflicts is to find your pleasure once again in God. That's what's happening. Those who are prone to conflicts are not finding their pleasure in God. They're seeking it in other places, and then therefore, they're getting upset with the brethren. They need to find their pleasure in God again. Pleasure from the world brings the insatiable desire for more. Therefore, discontentment settles in, and when discontentment settles in, conflicts arrive. Because what I have is not good enough. Waging war is the same word used in fighting the good fight. It is the same word used when Paul tells the church at Corinth to not wage war in the flesh. The question is, are we, church, are we waging war against sinful inclinations? Or are we giving in? Are we giving in? We often wave the white flag in defeat before it's even started. We're like, well, guess it's over. I guess I'll just continue to sin. We don't even fight anymore. Sometimes we just don't even gird up our loins and try to even battle. We can give up before we even start. But the Bible says we are never put in a position, I'm sorry, in a position, in a circumstance, in a situation where we are forced to sin according to Scripture. We can lose our will to fight, but we are soldiers of the army of the Lord of hosts. We are to wage war against our sins, to not stop until there is victory. Now go to verses two and three. You lust and do not have, so you commit murder. You are envious 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 with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. There are four ways here that they don't have, okay? Number one, they don't have because they lust. Number two, they do not have because they are envious or covetous. Number three, they do not have because they do not ask. And number four, they do not have because they often ask with wrong motives. So there are four ways they don't have. This word lust here is like a longing, almost a desperate desire that'll eventually lead to covetousness. It covets. One who does this doesn't have what they want because either God doesn't give them the thing they want or desire or God has allowed them to have what they covet and then they find out that it doesn't fulfill them and in that sense they do not have. That's often what happens. They are always craving, but it never satiates. Like a teenager who eats like pounds of food and says 30 minutes later, can I have a snack? Toddlers do that too, right? They just eat and eat and eat, and they want more. He says, so they commit murder. That sounds weird after the teenager joke. So they commit murder. David lusted after Uriah's wife Bathsheba and had Uriah killed to take her as his own. He killed. The effeminate and cowardly King Ahab threw himself down before Jezebel, whining, oh, I don't have what I want. I don't have it. Ahab, what a king. And Jezebel goes, what? What is it that you want? He's like, I want Naboth's vineyard. Naboth has a better vineyard than me. And so they get together, Jezebel and Ahab, and they concoct something. And they basically frame Naboth. And then he's killed so that little old Ahab can have his vineyard. So they murder. They murdered Naboth for it. His lust led to murder. But it seems hard for me to expect in our passage that Christians dealing with conflicts could end up murdering. The context doesn't seem to allow, I think, for a literal, physical murder. This possibly tells us they quarrel because they have things they long for, but they don't have. So what this is, is it's just like verse 1. It's figurative. It is committing murder of the heart. Murder of the heart. They hate their brother or sister in their lust. John says in his first epistle, everyone who hates his brother is a murderer. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. A lot of us can easily abstain from murder. I am fairly confident that no one in this room, for as long as I'll ever know you, will probably murder someone else. I don't think that. I have great confidence that you guys are able to not murder other people. However, as John shows, you can murder someone else when you hate them. And I can imagine we're all sinfully capable of hating each other sometimes. And John seems to make it clear it's not a one-time and repentance sort of hate. It's this habitual, I just hate that person and I'll hate them until the day I die. God won't honor that sort of hate. God wants you to let go of that sort of hate. Of course, Jesus speaks to this as well in the Sermon on the Mount. You have heard that the ancients were told, you shall not commit murder, and whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court. But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court. And whoever says to his brother, you good-for-nothing, shall be guilty before the supreme court. And whoever calls his brother raka, or fool, sometimes translated, shall be guilty enough to go to fiery hell. Therefore, if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering at the altar and go first be reconciled to your brother then come and present your offering." That's from Matthew chapter 5. And I always try to give a similar invitation to all of you before you take the Lord's Supper. I think it's important. So Christ, John, and James are all of one mind here. Don't let fleshly lusts and sinful desires push you to murder a brother or sister in your heart. Don't let your lusts do that. And James says, they are envious and therefore cannot obtain. They are zealote or jealous of someone's possessions. They covet, they envy them. For that reason, they don't acquire them, they don't obtain. The principle is if you covet or envy someone else, do not expect God to bless you with the item that you're coveting. Don't expect to receive it. He will not bless those who curse their neighbor. And James says this is why they quarrel and fight, because they envy. You might remember one of the 12, not the New Testament 12, the Old Testament 12, Simeon. Simeon, son of Jacob. One of the oldest brothers in the 12 tribes of Israel, Simeon was an envious man. He envied, of course, Joseph, like many of them did. But Simeon was also murderous and violent. He slaughtered all the men in the house of Hamar for just one man's sin of assaulting Dinah, his sister, if you remember that. He didn't just bring the one man who raped his sister before the judge or before the elders of the gate. He acted like, well, we're going to let you marry our sister now because you defiled her. And by the way, before you do that, your household needs to be cleansed. You guys all need to be circumcised. So it says, they all circumcised all the men of Hamar, all the household of Hamar. And it says that when they were still healing, Simeon came in with one of his brothers and slew all the men, slit their throats essentially, stabbed them with a sword in the middle of the night. He killed every single one of them. Every one. So he did not receive the blessings like his brothers did from his father Jacob. It records that in Genesis 49. This is what it says. This is what Jacob says to Simeon before he dies. He says, Simeon and Levi are brothers. Their swords are implements of violence. Let my soul not enter into their council. Let not my glory be united with their assembly, because in their anger they slew men, and in their self-will they even lamed oxen. Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce, and their wrath, for it is cruel. I will disperse them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel. You see, After that occurred, after all the tribes got to Israel, land of Canaan, the promised land, do you know who had one of the smallest bits of land in all of the country? Simeon. He had essentially nothing to his name. Envy can cost us blessing. It can cost blessing. James continues, you do not have because you do not ask. God, of course, desires His children to pray to Him, to bring supplication and petitions before Him. God desires us to ask Him for our needs. He knows all that we need, Jesus says, but He desires for you to commune with Him in prayer. He wants you as a son asks a father, Father, may I have this? God desires that of you. Jesus confirms that, of course, in the Gospels, that God will honor that and answer. So often we go through this Christian life, and something happens, and we wonder why we don't have peace about the circumstance. We're so involved in the current situation, and someone finally says, have you prayed about it yet? And we're almost shocked to think to ourselves, oh my goodness, I haven't even prayed about this circumstance yet. I haven't even prayed. Wow, I haven't prayed that I've asked him for peace. Are you asking God for your needs, brothers and sisters? Are we recognizing, as James says, that every good and perfect gift comes from above, coming down from the Father of lights, in whom there is no variation or shifting shadow? Our Father has good and perfect gifts to give, and he wants you to ask him for them. Then James says, some do ask, but they don't receive. Because they ask wrongly or badly. Kekos. Kekos is the word. And Kekos is often the word used for sick or ill. Meaning to say they ask with diseased intentions. Diseased, foul intentions. He covers all basis for their envious and quarrelsome hearts. James already addressed in chapter one to ask God while believing by faith that he will provide. In Romans chapter 14, verse 23, Paul says, everything that does not come from faith is sin. Are you asking God for your needs by faith or in some sort of blind robotic duty? You ever do that? I've done that. I'm just trying to get my devotions done, and I'm like, and Lord, will you do this today? Will you do this? And it's just like, don't even pray then. What is it? I mean, we should pray. You're like, my pastor told me not to pray. We should pray. But often in those moments, it's just this blind robotic, Lord, will you do this? Will you do that? It's like we are to ask in faith. Ask in faith, believing. asking so sure that when a child comes to their mother or father, I would bet that when your child is truly hungry and they've said, mommy, daddy, can I have something to eat? They have been so confident that you have food that they expected to receive it. They believe that you would provide for them. So we were to ask God with a simple childlike faith like that. This verse also demonstrates there are right things to ask for and there are wrong things to ask for. Matthew 7, ask and it will be given. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened unto you. John 14, Jesus tells them, ask for anything in my name and I will give it. But look, often we read those promises and we think God is like a genie, like he's just gonna do everything that I want like this in the way that I want it. All my desires, all my desires of the heart. But neither of those promises should be divorced from the very section of scripture that Jesus demonstrates to us on how to pray. So that we would say, Lord, will my request hallow your name? Lord, I pray in such a way that your will be done, your will be done, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, that your will would be above my will. Do we pray in that way? How does one determine the good things to ask for? And we see what the scriptures define as good in our lives. We take principles from the scripture to determine what's good in our lives. And that's what we ask for. That's what we ask for. So why do they ask? Why do we ask sometimes with wrong motives? He uses a term for frivolous spending of money. To spend completely with the implication of uselessly doing so, and therefore to waste. Just wasteful spending. To waste it on their hedones. Once again, hedonism. To waste it on their pleasures. Their pleasures. Same root word from verse 1. The source of their wars and fights was pleasure. And so what this shows is that this is a cycle. This is a cycle. They have quarrels and conflicts that are a result of them desiring pleasures, and then they do all these things, and they don't obtain, and they don't obtain, and they envy, and they hate, and they pray, and they don't believe they'll get it, and they don't pray, and they don't get it. And there's this cycle, and then finally, it comes to the end, and it tells us why. This cycle comes, and once again, it started with their pleasures and it ends with their pleasures. You're going to waste it. You're going to waste it, he says, in this cycle. Doing this will only restart the process. It will keep one bound. If at least one of the four points could be broken and submitted to God in obedience, then the rest can be conquered. That's the good news. It's starting with one thing to break the cycle. It is doable. We often look at the cycle of sinful pleasure in our lives, and it feels daunting on how to overcome it. Lord, but I do this, and it leads to this, and it leads to that, and then it leads to that, and then I start it all over again. And we go, Lord, how do I stop this cycle? We get overwhelmed. But there is hope. Today you can stop whatever it is that you're overcome by. Today you can quit. Today can be the day. You see, a long chain that is connected in one big circle, a chain that's connected in a circle is ruined and broken if one chain is snapped. Then the whole thing is done. The whole thing can be conquered then. Let me give you an example. It's like the guy who is often given to idleness. He's doing nothing. He's just idle. And then that idleness then goes its way into laziness. He's just lazy. He doesn't even work now anymore because of his idleness. And therefore, because of his laziness and idleness, he then gets addicted to technology, to his phone. He just stares at it all day. He can't stop. And because he stares at his phone and he can't stop, he then gets addicted to explicit content of women on his phone. And it's a cycle that led to this, that led to that, that led to that. But the thing is, now that he's addicted to the explicit material, then that feeds into the laziness, it feeds into the idleness, because now he wants this, he won't be able to stop and he'll start the cycle over again. Idleness, laziness, addicted to this idol, addicted then to explicit material, and it keeps going and going. You can break the cycle in one place. Think about it, if he were to break laziness and maybe he got a job and he was focused on work and he's like, and also I'm gonna read more, I'm gonna give myself more wisdom and knowledge, he's not gonna have time for those other things. He might even deal with the other things. Not ultimately, but again, breaking one part of the chain can allow us sometimes to then chop at the other ones. I don't need to try to fix it all, the cycle all today. I can just start right here. If I just start right here, it might lead to this, to this, to this, and maybe breaking the chain elsewhere. Right? Another example, maybe wives, maybe you're not submitting to your husbands, as Ephesians chapter 5 says. Then you're disrespecting him. Then you're yelling at him. Then it leads into a quarrel. A quarrel breaks out. So you have these things. All you have to do is break the chain somewhere. Break it somewhere. So even that, if you're not submitting to him, stop yelling so that the quarrel doesn't break out. And then work on respecting and submitting to your husband. It's often just one thing. One thing. It can look so daunting, but we can overcome it by the grace of God. These things don't lead to true pleasure. I want you to listen to an excerpt from C.S. Lewis's Screwtape Letters. If you're not familiar with the Screwed Tape Letters, it is an apologetic satirical novel that has a demon writing to other demons, okay, to instruct them on how to afflict people. It sounds strange if you've never heard of it. Okay, a demon's writing to demons, and a Christian wrote this. It's really, it's actually very revealing. Let me read you something here. This is senior devil addressing a demon named Wormwood. Okay, here we go. Senior devil says, never forget that when we are dealing with any pleasure in its healthy and normal and satisfying form, we are in a sense on the enemy's ground. When they say enemy, they mean God, because God is their enemy, his demon. So when we're dealing with normal pleasures, we're in God's territory, he says. Senior Devil says, I know we have won many a soul through pleasure. All the same, it is God's invention, not ours. He made the pleasures. All our research, Wormwood, so far has not enabled us to produce one pleasure, these demons are saying. All we can do is encourage the humans to take the pleasures which God, our enemy, has produced at times or in ways or in degrees that he has actually forbidden. Hence, we always try to work away from the natural condition of any pleasure to that in which is the least natural. The least natural. You can think about that about anything. Food. Great. God says it's good. Day one. Can lead to gluttony or anorexia or idolatry in any way. with our wives, with, of course, romance and love. It can lead to just disgusting perversion. So we take these good pleasures and we bring it all the way. Mankind brings it all the way. And so Senior Devil says, an ever-increasing craving for an ever-diminishing pleasure is the formula. He says, that's how we're gonna get these humans. Okay, it's very revealing. You see, God is the one who made things for us to enjoy and take pleasure in. As Brother Dusty read in Psalm 16, it says, your right hand, Lord, in your right hand there are pleasures forever. But the minute we elevate the thing above God, it becomes an idol. And the minute we We take the pleasure and we take it beyond what God has commanded. It's become evil, lustful desires, perversion. Good things turn bad because of us. Because of us. Because of sin. So then James calls them the most harsh name in a rebuke compared to all the rest of the New Testament. There is nothing like it in all the New Testament. No New Testament writer has ever spoken to Christians in this way. Verse 4. He says, You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Verse 4. You adulteresses, There is no appeal to the brethren here. There is no beloved brothers, as James has normally said. He says, You, my colleagues, adulteresses. This is definitely pointing them back to the prophets of old. Back to the exilic time, the time of exile. In Israel, the Lord tells Israel on Ezekiel 16, 15, and 32, this is God proclaiming to Israel, but you trusted in your beauty and played the harlot because of your fame. And you poured out your harlotries on every passerby who might be willing. God says, you adulterous wife who takes strangers instead of her husband. The Lord didn't have it then and he won't have it now. The bride of Christ must not be the adulteress. The bridegroom will have no other brides. He is our example. He will have no other brides. The church is his bride. He is faithful to us, so we are to be faithful to him. Jesus called the Pharisees and Sadducees and teachers of the law, he said, a wicked and adulterous generation. He desires fidelity from us. Our God is a jealous God. He won't share. Does a godly man permit his wife to participate in affairs? Go ahead, be with other men. Does a godly man do that? No, no godly man would ever share his wife with another man. Ever. Or is she the wife of his youth, the wife of his covenant? This is my wife. And that's how God looks to his church. This is my wife. Christ says, this is my bride. We show our fidelity and love for Christ on earth by what he has called us to do. Christ says, keep my commandments, show me you love me. We do it by being a witness for Christ in Utah, sharing the gospel, by teaching others to do the same, by abstaining from idolatry and sin, by cultivating a love and communion for Christ in our spiritual devotions. Because friendship with the world is hostility toward God. Do you not know That philia, philia, it's a type of love, this friendly love, this relational bond, this affection for. with the world, the cosmos that represents the fallen, evil world. Don't you know that an affection for that kind of world is ekthra? It is hostility. It is enmity with God. That word, the root of ekthra, is actually the same root for the word enemy. You make yourself an enemy of God. And he goes on to say that. We are not to be like Demas. Who remembers Demas? Demas will forever be remembered from that day that it was written down about him. Demas, it says, that he loved this present world. Paul said, Demas loved this world and the things of the world that he deserted us. He left us. The gospel of Christ was nothing to him anymore. It didn't appeal to him. He tried religion out. He left it. The present world was his affection. He had his philia there. The fact is, church, the world wants all of your love. The world wants all of your love for it. And God wants all of your love for him. God wants all of your love. Both are vying for your love. And God doesn't need it. But he commands it. He wants you to love him. He wants all of your love. But if absolutely necessary, the world is OK with a mixture. Because it hopes to draw you in fully one day, OK? The world is OK with full relationship, full friendship with it or a subtle friendship with it and a partial relationship with God. However, Our God won't take those who are friends with the world, nor will He take those who pretend to be friends with Him and friends with the world. God won't have a mixture. God wants all of us. He will not take the double-minded, the double-tongued, the divided in their faithfulness. He wants us fully. John Knox said, a man with God on his side is always in the majority. A man with God on his side is always in the majority, but on the opposite, then, a man who stands as God's enemy stands alone. His so-called friends of the world will shrink back, and that one man will stand before God as his enemy. They will not come to his aid then. James doesn't give the readers evidence that apostasy has taken place. We don't see that here exactly, that some have left Christ for idols. But of course, we've seen this letter has shown that they have a tendency to act like the world with partiality. They've treated the rich better than the poor. They've treated their poor Brother, badly, they've used demonic wisdom according to chapter 3. They've been selfishly ambitious and now they're fighting and quarreling and so on and so on. One commentator states regarding this, James, as it were, wants to raise the stakes so that his readers see their compromising conduct for what it is. That God tolerates no rival. When believers behave in a worldly manner, they demonstrate that. At that point, their allegiance is often to the world rather than to God. So it's a simple test. Does the world hate you or does the world love you? Does the world hate you or does the world love you? I'm not saying you're not a respectable person, you're not kind to people, you're not a guy who yells at other guys for shopping carts and punches them in the forehead or anything like that. But based off of your fidelity and love for Christ, are you hated by the world, by the system of the world? If they were to know what you stand for and who you are, would they hate you or would they love you? Go to our final verses, verses 5 and 6. Or do you think that the scripture speaks to no purpose? He jealously desires the spirit which he has made to dwell in us, but he gives us a greater grace. Therefore, it says God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Once again, James has puzzled most theologians and translators with this verse. It appears that he is quoting a passage of scripture in verse five. Do you see that? Or do you think that the scripture speaks to no purpose? There's a colon, quotations. Where is that? What is that from? This actually exists nowhere in the Old Testament. This anomaly has happened a couple other times in the New Testament. One of the most notable is Matthew 2.23. In Matthew 2.23, it says, And Jesus came and lived in a city called Nazareth. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophets. He shall be called a Nazarene. He shall be called a Nazarene is nowhere in the Old Testament. This is possibly Oral tradition, or an extra biblical book that they had common knowledge of at the time. Some believe our verse in James might be similar. They see it might be a combination of verses that took on a new form. Maybe Genesis 6-3, Genesis 8-21, Exodus 20 verse 3 and verse 5. It could be a combination, they think, of all those. Some think that maybe it's from an apocryphal book, but actually that quote comes from no apocryphal books that we have in our possession today. No one knows what he's actually quoting from. That's it. No one knows where that comes from. Others think that maybe, when he mentions scripture or graphe in verse 5, it actually applies to the biblical quote in verse 6. Okay? That's a possibility. That's a possibility. Even beyond that, the Greek is very difficult here to translate as well. How should it be structured? How should this be organized? I told you before that these question marks, these quotations, apostrophes, periods, none of them existed in the original manuscripts. They have nothing. They just have letters and words. That's it. So how is this to be structured? The NASB, which I have on the screen, takes this to be a matter of God's jealousy. God's jealousy. But there are some issues with that, okay? Jealousy here, or fathanos, is always in the wicked form in the New Testament. It is a wicked form of envy. In the New Testament, all other eight times, fathanos, this jealousy, is used. It is always bad. It is the evil form of jealousy. It is not like zealous, which I talked to you about last week. Zealous was sometimes good, a good jealousy, good or bad. God can be jealous for us. But this is always a wicked jealousy. It just doesn't make sense. Also, the NASB capitalizes Spirit right there. See that in the third line? Spirit is capitalized. But the thing is, the Holy Spirit is never mentioned in James' epistle. And hagios, or the word holy, is also missing. There is no holy here. And sometimes hagios is missing from pneuma, from spirit. That doesn't necessarily mean something, but it's strange because it stands alone. I think there is a better way to understand the flow from verse four into verse six. I believe spirit here is the spirit or soul God breathed into us from creation. Jealousy here is our wicked jealousy, which lines up with the end of chapter 3 on bitter jealousy and the envy that he is now addressing in our chapter 4. So ultimately, I love the New American Standard Bible, but this is not about God's righteous jealousy, but it's about our sinfulness. So verses 5 and 6 could be written like this. Or do you think that scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us tends towards envy, but he gives us more grace? That is why it says, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. So what does this mean? What is he trying to say here? It means that we, in our fallen spirit and humanity, have a natural tendency towards sinful envy before Christ has saved us. We have a natural bent on sinful envy, sinful jealousy in the spirit that has been breathed into us, in the soul that has been given us before Christ saves us, before conversion. And it's possible when he says Scripture speaks to this, he may mean that they generally speak to this, okay? So that's the explanation for verse 5, where it's like, where's the quotation from the Old Testament? It might be like me, like a pastor, and I'm up here and I say, you know, the Scriptures generally speak to the fact that Homosexuality is wrong. And so that's kind of what might be happening here, that James is saying the scripture speaks to the fact that we are bent on sin. We are capable of sinning. We are bent on envy because of the fall, because of what happened after Genesis chapter 3. I'm almost wrapping up here. We were created and it was good, but after we fell, we are bad and tend toward evil just like Lucifer. James is saying fallen man has a natural inclination to make himself an enemy with God and friends with the world. It's very capable for man to make friends with God, make enemies, I'm sorry, friends with the world and enemies with God. So is there no hope? What are we to do? What are these early Jewish Christians to do? And James does the unthinkable. He had just called them adulteresses. And we recognize we have been adulteresses and attempted friendship with the world. But it says he gives us greater grace. You adulteresses, but he gives you greater grace. You envy, you covet, but he gives greater grace. You are bent towards sinful pleasures, but he gives greater grace. He gives greater grace. He gives it in greater proportion. Unbelievable. When the Israelites were called harlots and adulteresses, they were then sent into exile and death. But when we're called adulteresses, he says, greater grace will I give you. He's gone. That love and mercy, not based on performance, but on the blood-soaked cross of Christ. And that's such a relief. That's such a relief. And we need to remember this. At the point of the sharpest rebuke, James reminds them, reminds us of God's grace. When we were in love with the world, God was in love with us. He sent Christ to redeem us from this world and the clutches of it. To put the Holy Spirit in us to make us envious, not for fleshy things, but jealous for the things of God. The man or woman who humbles themselves before God and admits that they have nothing to offer will receive grace. That's why he quotes Proverbs 3, verse 34. God opposes those who are prideful, who quarrel, who commit murder in their heart and desire the things of this world. God opposes them, but God loves and gives grace to the one who humbles himself or herself before him, confesses that he has done these great evils. God, I have done these evils, and yet I need everything from you. I live in full dependence of you, God. If it were not for your grace, I would be condemned to hell today because I failed today. But he gives greater grace, and he gives greater grace. God won't satisfy a proud person. Their pride swells in the world, so they love the world. But before a holy God, the prideful man won't receive the worship he wants. God won't worship the prideful man. God gets all the worship. God gets all the glory. He has to remove that pride from us, regenerate us. And then he dwells in us after that. God gets all the glory. It doesn't matter what you did or where you came from, God will receive the humble man or woman who know they need Christ and he will give them grace. Let me wrap up. The grace of God then is greater than the inclination of envy and war. It says in Romans chapter 5, for where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. Grace is like a fire and nothing in its path will not be kindled. All sin will be burned up by the grace of God. The grace of God is like a waterfall fed by living waters of Christ and will not cease flowing year after year, day after day, hour after hour, minute after minute, second after second. The water flows, the grace flows, and it will not cease. So church, if you have been seeking pleasures with lustful desires over obedience and fidelity to God, Ask Him for more grace. Ask Him for more grace. He will give it in greater proportion. Ask Him to fill you with grace and truth so that you may overcome the sinful desires. This isn't a licentiousness. This isn't an allowance over to your sin. This is remembering the gospel. He's calling them to remember the gospel. We are not to war against each other or war against God and make him our enemy, but war against sin. We've often settled for less, church. We've accepted diet Christianity. It's time for the real thing. You and I can break the cycle of sinful pleasure. I talked about that. We can do that by His power, in His grace, for His glory and our good. And it can start today. It can start today. It starts with asking and expecting to receive relief. And prayer is warfare. Call out to the Lord. Ask the Shepherd to help you. to enjoy his pasture. Lord, I don't want to take pleasure in the sinful things of the world anymore. I don't want to take pleasure in the lusts of my flesh. Lord, I want to take pleasure in you. Help me to find only my pleasure in you. You can pray that. Ask him to help you take pleasure in the things that he's made and in him and only in the ways that he's designated and ask him for the grace to do it. John Newton wrote an amazing grace through many dangers, toils and snares. I have already come. Through many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come. But his grace has brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home. Grace will lead me home. We won't endure to the end by our own efforts. Brothers and sisters, grace must lead us home. Amen. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for the message that went out. Thank you, Lord, for your grace. God, sometimes your grace feels like a little water well in the desert. But God, that's our own wrong thinking. Your grace is not a mirage or a small oasis in the desert surrounded by sands and desolation. Your grace is like a flowing waterfall that doesn't cease to flow. And yet, God, we in our minds always think that it's been stopped up. God, help us. to see your grace. Help us to see, Lord, your grace in such a way that we don't be the adulteresses. We don't do these things. Let your grace spur us on to good works. Let your grace cause us to practice full fidelity and love and faithfulness to Jesus. Lord, we repent from ever being friends of the world, forever loving the world. And we ask God, expecting to receive that you will give us, Lord, we ask for a love for you. That takes no delight in the things of the world, but only delights in you and the pleasures you've made and in the ways you've made them and designate for us to enjoy them. Lord, we praise you. We thank you for the reminder of Christ in the gospel. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.