Our Old Testament reading this morning will be from the Proverbs. Proverbs 15. I'll read the entire chapter before we move into our sermon text for this morning. Hear now the word of the Lord. A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. The tongue of the wise commends knowledge, but the mouths of the fools pour out folly. The eyes of Yahweh are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good. A gentle tongue is a tree of life, but perverseness in it breaks the spirit. A fool despises his father's instructions, but whoever heeds reproof is prudent. In the house of the righteous there is much treasure, but trouble befalls the income of the wicked. The lips of the wise spread knowledge, not so the hearts of the fools. The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to Yahweh, but the prayer of the upright is acceptable to him. The way of the wicked is an abomination to Yahweh, but he loves him who pursues righteousness. There is severe discipline for him who forsakes the way. Whoever hates reproof will die. Sheol and Abaddon lie open before Yahweh. How much more the hearts of the children of man? A scoffer does not like to be reproved. He will not go to the wise. A glad heart makes a cheerful face, but by sorrow of heart, the spirit is crushed. The heart of him who has understanding seeks knowledge. but the mouths of the fools feed on folly. All the days of the afflicted are evil, but the cheerful of heart has a continual feast. Better is a little with the fear of Yahweh and great treasure and trouble with it. Better is a dinner of herbs where love is than a fattened ox and hatred with it. A hot-tempered man stirs up strife, but he who is slow to anger quiets contention. The way of a sluggard is like a hedge of thorns, but the path of the upright is a level highway. A wise son makes a glad father, but a foolish man despises his mother. Folly is a joy to him who lacks sense, but a man of understanding walks straight ahead. Without counsel, plans fail, but with many advisors they succeed. To make an apt answer is a joy to a man, and a word and season how good it is. The path of life leads upward for the prudent, that he may turn away from Sheol beneath. Yahweh tears down the house of the proud, but maintains the widow's boundaries. The thoughts of the wicked are an abomination to Yahweh. but gracious words are pure. Whoever is greedy for unjust gain troubles his own household, but he who hates bribes will live. The heart of the righteous ponders how to answer, but the mouth of the wicked pours out evil things. Yahweh is far from the wicked, but he hears the prayers of the righteous. The light of the eyes rejoice the heart, and good news refreshes the bones. And the ear that listens to life-giving reproof will dwell among the wise. Whoever ignores instruction despises even himself. But he who listens to reproof gains intelligence. The fear of Yahweh is instruction in wisdom, and humility comes before honor. Amen. And now, if you have your Bibles with you, would you turn with me to our sermon text this morning? To the book of James, chapter 4. The book of James, chapter 4. I will be reading the first four verses. And would you rise as I read our scripture this morning? This is the holy, inspired, inerrant, infallible word of God written for you and for me today. Let us attend to its reading. What causes quarrels and what causes fights amongst you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet 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 wrongly to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Amen, this is the word of our Lord. You may be seated. Brothers and sisters, if there is one thing, maybe one thing unfortunately, that Presbyterians are known for, it is that we have a nasty tendency at times to be divisive over even the most minute points of theology. Walk into almost any Reformed church and you will find the men and many of the women, perhaps, gathered in the back arguing over this or that theological doctrine. Was Calvin right? Was Knox right? Whose rights on this point? And yet, Though this is something that we may be able to chuckle about as we want to study and we want to know more about our Lord and what he reveals to us in the scriptures, and we desire that we would be indeed correct about theology, there is still a sin that sometimes creeps into the hearts of us that would rather sow division instead of coming together in the unity that the Church is called to. And indeed, as we are coming to James, it is unity that he is concerned with. It is the building up of the Church that he writes this book for, as this book has been often called the Proverbs of the New Testament. This wisdom that he imparts, like the wisdom that Solomon imparts to his son, is so that the church might come together and build one another up. For indeed, in the world, there are many things that would bring us down. And a brother is born for such adversity. And indeed, as we consider James coming to the church and giving them this wisdom to keep them together, why does he do so? Why is it so important that the church be unified? Because there is a war on. The church, God's kingdom is at war. Not a physical war, as Paul says, but a war against powers, the spiritual powers, those dark powers that would seek to endarken the minds and the hearts of those that could be redeemed by our Lord Jesus Christ. And so we are called to fight, but we are called to stand side by side, arm in arm, as we follow our general. in this spiritual war. How can we do such if we are quarreling and if we are fighting? And that is James's specific interest in this passage as he addresses the fighting and the quarreling in the church. as he desires that they would be unified so that instead of being friends with the world, which is actually what they're doing by acting as the world in such quarreling and division, that they would join arm in arm as they go forth and the gospel can be proclaimed to the lost and weary. And so we see here in James's passage three points as he addresses these quarrelings. Firstly, he speaks of the fighting, of the quarreling that's going on, rhetorically asking the question, what is it that causes such quarreling? And he quickly answers that question, that it is the desires, the passions that rule these people and thus causes quarreling. Secondly, he spends verses two and verses three and showing the futility of such passions, that these passions will not ultimately lead to anything that meaningfully satisfies. And it is for naught. And thirdly, he shows how they are acting as the world in their quarreling, and thus playing the adulterous wife to their husband, Christ the Lord. And so we will dive into our text this morning as we consider these three points in our passage. Starting in verse one. What causes quarrels and what causes fights amongst you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? The Greek words that are used here for quarrels and fights are the more literal words used in battle. The words used to describe warriors going to war with one another. Just as in English, they can be used metaphorically to speak of two people fighting amongst each other, whether verbally or otherwise. And so he uses these words, why, to show just how strong this fighting has become. James' audience is fighting with each other. They are not acting as a church. There is great division. And why else would he use this, but maybe for what he has just spoken of in chapter three? What does he say in chapter three? Verses 17 and 18, he says, but the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. Do we see the contrast here, brothers and sisters, that wisdom from above leads to peace, Namely, it leads to that peace, that reconciliation that we have to God. But in that, as Christ brings peace with God, he also brings peace with one another. In contrast, what does the world give? What does its wisdom beget? What is its wisdom's harvest? To use James's analogy here. It is fighting. It is quarrels and battling. It is division. And so, what is the implication? If James is saying, you are fighting, you are quarreling, if he has just said, wisdom, true wisdom brings peace, he is saying to the church, you fools. You are acting apart from wisdom. You are acting in folly. And what is it really that leads to these wars? If it's not real wisdom, What is it that leads to this quarreling? The word here in the ESV is translated as passions. The word passion in English has come to be used for many different things. We may say it quite neutrally. We might say a man is passionate, merely that he is intense and committed to the cause that he is fighting for. And in such a way, we would be paying him a compliment. But passion can also be used in a different sense. Many find themselves ruled by their passions, their desires. They have no self-control, and they chase after whatever it is that their passions would drive them toward. And oftentimes, what it is they're driven toward is not good, but sinful. The word James actually uses in the Greek is the word idoni. which is the word in that we get the English word hedonism from, hedonism. A hedonist is someone who cannot control himself but goes after all desires and passions of the heart. It was actually a philosophical movement in the Greco-Roman world that would have been alive and well in James's writing. The hedonists were those who believed in that very popular motto of the day, let us eat and drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die. Their philosophical belief was that there was nothing after this life. And if that indeed was the case, then why would we not? do all that our desires would want. And it would seem that if there is nothing after this life, indeed, this might seem like a good option. But James is speaking to those who know better, those who know that there is something beyond this veil of tears, that they have been bought by Jesus Christ who is going to bring them to that true promised land. And if that is the case, then hedonism has no place in the church. Many translators would translate the word ethony into the word lust. The word lust in the English language has also gone through an evolution. Today, it typically comes with sexual connotations, and we may look at the passage going forward that this may be correct, but it does also seem that there is much more at stake here in the word. In the older English, and still in the German, the word lust or lust just means what it is that you want, what it is that you desire. And so, James is speaking of those who are going after all that they desire. It may indeed be going after the lust of the flesh, but it may be that which is riches, comfort, those things that we desire, those earthly pleasures of all different types, power, fame, influence. Indeed, all those things that the natural man has his affections set upon. And yet, the Scriptures call us to set our affections on things better. This has been true since the beginning. We can go back to Hebrew, or to Deuteronomy. It was written to the Hebrews. Back in chapter 4, verse 6, a very famous verse that all good Hebrews would have memorized. Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God, the Lord is one. And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy strength. You see, James has had to emphasize several times in his book that God does not merely demand right intellectual belief. He demands our love, our affections, We are to set our affections from those things that are not worth our love onto the Lord Jesus Christ and love Him only. And yet, hedonistic lust still stirs in the hearts of many Christians. Indwelling sin continues even to those who are saved and have been bought. that are still in that long and perhaps very hard process of being sanctified. And this seems to be the situation for James' audience. And so he's trying to turn them to see what it is that all of this will beget. It begets wars and quarrelings. It does not beget peace. All they have to do is look at what's going on in the world. The world goes after its desires. Are we not reminded of that, even this month, as they begin to produce their own liturgical calendar and pursue their own desires, even the lust of the flesh? But it is other things that these desires produce. It produces cheating and lying, backstabbing and traitorousness and murder. And yet, the Christian has a war going on as well, but one of a very different nature. Thomas Manson, the clerk, or one of the clerks for the Westminster Assembly, when commenting on this passage said this, the life of a Christian is a wrestling, conflicting estate. There is a double nature in the best, flesh and spirit. We carry an enemy in our bosoms. The Canaanite is not wholly cast out. It was a good prayer of him that said, Lord, deliver me from one evil man. And it shall suffice. Of course, meaning himself. Paul confirms this war to be true when he speaks in Galatians chapter 5. And he says, for the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit. And the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh. For these are opposed to one another. He even speaks of his own struggle if we go all the way back to Romans, in Romans chapter 7. He says, for I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. For I do not do the good I do want to do, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Many of us have read that chapter. It's a very hard chapter to read very quickly as he continually says, I do what I do not want and I do not want what I do. There's a war. The spirit and the flesh are ever at war until the end of this life. But that war is a war within. The Spirit is continually producing in us good fruit as we learn more and more to die to sin every day, and learn more and more to live to righteousness every day. And yet, The war for James' audience is not merely within anymore. It is reflecting more and more, it would seem, the war that we see out there, the quarrelings, the fightings of those in the world. And so James has to bring his audience to where he can show them how absolutely futile such passions are. they will not lead to anything good. So we will come to our second point, and he shows this futility in verses two and three. He says, you desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet 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 wrongly to spend it on your passions. As if to ensure they know exactly what he's getting at, he closes the small section with that same word again, those passions. This is what is driving all of this. And yet it is folly. The world will go on lusting for this and for that, desiring whatever will satisfy them in a moment. And yet, what does it really gain them? It gains them nothing. And James is emphasizing how little it truly gains, or what it really gains as far as the quarrelings that come with it. And he is warning the church, beware of such desires. Look what they produce. Look at how the world acts. Is that what you want here within the bounds of the church, of Christ's Holy Bride? In the list, the self-seeking nature of the world can be seen in every word, and its reward is shown in where it truly leads. For all their coveting and wanting and lust, and for all their striving and warring, what do they have? James continues this thought as he says, you do not have and you cannot obtain, you do not receive for all of their desires. What are they gaining? They do not have. They cannot obtain. Whatever it is they are seeking, they may have it in a moment, but the satisfaction they have is no true satisfaction, for it'll always lead to wanting more as selfish ambition continues to increase. And what is it that he is describing? Well, at heart he is describing what is evil, what is wicked. This is really a great picture of what wickedness truly is. Many in the church throughout the centuries have debated back and forth what evil is. Augustine would say it like this, that evil is actually the lack of something. Evil cannot be a positive thing in and of itself. It is the lack of that which is good, of that which is true, of that which is beautiful. And does that not nicely, sweetly comport with what we see here? All of the wicked continue to dive after their passions and yet, They have not. They continually and will always lack. The 20th century novelist Tolkien said it this way. He said that evil is actually a self-defeating concept. It desires. It desires power and wealth and fame. It seeks everything for its own glory, and for that very reason, it shall have no glory at all in the end. It shall never achieve it. And yet those who actually give up, who actually come before the Lord in humility, and who look upon God and say, I am not worthy of all of this glory, of this fame, and all of this power and wealth that I so desire. And they throw themselves upon the loving arms of Christ. It is he who shall be the most glorious, because he is raised with Christ himself. It is the irony that the world cannot see the world seeks glory for themselves all the day long, and yet it is the humble who shall receive glory. Both of these ideas, both from Augustine and Tolkien, can be seen here in the great futility that James is speaking of, and the battles and the wars stemming from the world's desires. Christ put it this way when he was ministering on earth in Mark chapter 8, verse 36. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and yet to forfeit his soul? We're reminded of even that parable that he told not much later in the same book. But there was a man who was quite cunning in his business dealings, and he's able to make for himself great wealth. And he buys much land and has much grain that is coming in, so he continually has to build more and more storehouses. And finally comes to a point where he says, I have all of this wealth, I have all of this comfort, I shall build all these storehouses, have all the grain and wealth that I could ever desire. And how does Christ end the parable? He says, and yet the Lord came to him that very night and said, you fool, today I require your soul. And it was all for naught. Or as the writer of Ecclesiastes says, all turns to vanity. And yet, For those who truly seek Christ, the one, the only one who can give them glory, peace, and salvation. Christ says this in the Sermon on the Mount. He says, ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and ye shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For the humble, for the penitent, Jesus stands ready and willing to save. For those who recognize that we are not deserving of any of the glory and fame and wealth that the world so desperately desires. We are not worthy of anything but destruction and punishment, eternally so, for our sin against a holy God. We have need only but to humble ourselves and come before the Lord Jesus Christ who has paid that debt that we owed, that infinite debt that we owed. We need but ask and we shall have. We need but knock and the door shall be opened. For there is nothing we could do but fall upon the mercies of the one who opens that door. And yet James' audience may have read this verse. They may be familiar with it. In fact, James seems to be alluding to it. They may say, but we have asked. We have asked the Lord for wealth and power and fame and glory. Why has he not given? We have these desires of our hearts and we ask that the Lord would satisfy them. Why are they not satisfied? And James has to rebuke them strongly. As he says, You ask, but you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions. They are treating the Lord as many in the evangelical church do, like a genie in a bottle. Will he not give me wealth? Will he not give me power and influence? They are treating him like the pagans treat their own gods. Say the right incantation. Say the right spell, as the word used to go in the old English. And the gods will give you what you want. They will bless you. They will bless your endeavors. but God will not be tested in such ways. God does indeed bless his people in many ways. He blesses them with salvation from the very pit of hell itself, and would we not be satisfied with what the Lord gives us? As Christ says later in the Sermon on the Mount, let us not worry, for as the Lord takes care of the sparrow, so will he take care of his people. He knows what is best, and so often we do not. And so instead, James is calling his people not to go after their own passions or treat God like one of the other pagan gods to give them their passions, but to trust in a sovereign God in all that he does for his people. For if he has saved them from their sin, he indeed knows all that is best for his people. But as he explains this and their desires, the desires even influencing their prayers, it makes what he says all the more damning as he moves on to verse four and speaks to the people. He says, you adulterous people, do you know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy with God. James' use of the word idhoni, which can be translated as lust, here becomes all the more pertinent, as he calls the people adulterers. In the Greek, he actually uses the feminine form of the word and calls them adulteresses. Is it because he's merely speaking to women? No. There's something deeper here. Here he is speaking of the fact that the body of Christ, that is the church, is actually the bride of Christ. So often, the Old Testament speaks of Israel when it goes its own way and worships other idols as being adulterous. For God is their husband. And they are going after other gods. They are seeking other husbands, as it were. And so too here. If Christ is husband to the church, James is essentially saying you going after your passions is tantamount to idolatry. You have turned your desires and your passions into gods themselves and you worship them and not God. For what is worship when it comes right down to it? we go right back to Deuteronomy 6. The chief command is to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And so we are called to love our God and to be faithful to him. Instead of going after those other things, And so, as we consider his next point, we see that what these people are doing as they make their own desires into God's, that they are acting not in enmity with the world, not as going to war against the powers of darkness, but they're actually making themselves friends of the world. That this is exactly what the world wants. This is what Satan and his demons actually want. For the enmity not to be with the world, but the enmity to be amongst the people of God, and thus enmity with God. James is saying, do you not know? Do you not know that you're playing the part of God's villain? Of a villain, an opponent to God. Do not be like the world. Paul knew this well. In 2 Timothy chapter 4 we read, For Demas, in love with the present world, has deserted me and gone on to Thessaloniki. Demas was a close friend and compatriot of Paul. He was a minister with Paul, it would seem, or at least some kind of missionary that aided him in his trips, as he is mentioned elsewhere, going with Paul and with Silas. But here, near the end of Paul's ministry, it seems that Demas had a love, had a desire for those things of the world, and those eclipsed his love of the things of God, and he left Paul. in the lurch and went on to be with the world again. As we hear, it's very humbling and reading James can be very humbling. We can and often do frets as we read James. The standard is so high, is it not? We may think of our own lusts and desires, and though we are being sanctified day in and day out, do we not at times, maybe many times, go after those things at the expense of that which God would have us go after? At the expense of friendship and brotherhood with those in the church? At the expense of praising and trusting in our Lord Jesus Christ? And so we might think to ourselves, well, I ought to be at enmity with God if this is how bad I truly am. Look at how often these desires get the better of me. How often I fall into sin and temptation. And that's right, we ought to be at enmity with God. But what is promised to mankind from the very first book of the Bible. Back in chapter three of Genesis, just as man has essentially made himself the villain of God, has given in to the temptation of the serpent and eaten of that tree that God had commanded not to eat of, had called God's very words into question as they believed the serpent's lie, did God really say God comes down and it must have been a terrible sight as he came down in judgment. What does he say? He looks to the woman and he says, I will put enmity between you and the serpent and between your seed and the serpent's seed. Sometimes we gloss right over that, especially since it uses such an old English word like enmity. enmity, the same word we get the word enemy from. God is essentially saying you had, you ought to be my enemy, you ought to be the villain, but I am making you an enemy of the serpent. the enemy of darkness, of sin, of the devil and all of his wiles. We ought to be in leave with the devil, yet because of what was being promised, even in that very verse, the seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent. Because of the work of Christ, instead of being friends with the world, we are called friends of God. So let us rejoice in that as the Spirit continues to work in us every single day, as we continue to die more and more to these passions that would set our hearts on things, not Christ, and live more and more as we love Christ more and more, we can know and we can rest easy, for indeed, We are at enmity with the world if we are in Christ, for he has made it so, as we have been justified, as we are being sanctified, and we will one day be glorified for all that he has done. So in the end, we may not gain the physical wealth and the fame and the riches and power that this world desires, but we gain what is most glorious of all. our fairest Lord Jesus. So let us bow our head as we go before him. Our Lord, our God, we come before you humbled knowing that so often we are quarreling, but you have a better way planned for us in Christ Jesus, who has made peace. He has made peace with us in God and reconciled us. For indeed, we were far from him as we ran in rebellion. But now in peace, we can also have peace with one another. So Lord, I pray for peace here in this church and the many churches across this town, across the state and nation and across this world. I pray for peace within your bride. It's in Christ's name we pray these things. Amen.