The Path to Peace • James 4:1-10
40:12 Teaching begins
Notes
The path to peace and satisfaction is hard to find.
What doesn’t help is that we are convinced we know where it is, and we are wrong. Instead what we pursue makes conflict, while we sincerely work for happiness.
James is not speaking to a world without Jesus. He’s talking to the church.
So we in the church have to learn a different way from the world in order to find true peace and happiness. None of us would think to look where peace and satisfaction really are, with weeping and mourning before God.
It is possible to be satisfied in a way that makes peace when we repent.
We are reading in James chapter 4.
1. What is our big problem? Why do we have conflicts and quarrels in the church? Why are we irritated with one another? Why do we hate one another? Because we are firmly convinced that we know what will make us happy.
A. James expects that we have quarrels and conflicts in the church. He’s writing to people he has never met. He’s certainly never met us. He says plainly, you have conflicts.
B. The source of your conflicts are your pleasures.
1. These are the things that motivate us. These things make us happy.
2. We work for our happiness.
3. Here’s the equation, when I get what I want, then I’ll be happy.
C. We know what will make us happy.
1. When my bodily needs are met. I like getting enough food and drink, I like getting enough sex. I don’t like pain. Being in want doesn’t make me happy.
2. When I see things that are cool, I want them. I like cool things.
3. When we are considered valuable to others. They think we’re special. When people think I’m not worth much, it doesn’t make me happy. When we excel above others. They know that we are superior. I like my position, I like my authority.
C. These desires wage war in our members.
1. This is the clue that these desires are not godly, they are natural.
2. James tells us about the wisdom that comes from below, that it is earthly, sensual, demonic. It is a wisdom that doesn’t centre on God but on self.
3. In the same way, our desires do not naturally centre on God or on pleasing God, but on pleasing ourselves. What I suggested earlier is another way of saying the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the boastful pride of life.
4. If these needs aren’t met then we have conflict. Why aren’t they met? Who is preventing me from meeting my needs?
D. What are the conflicts in the church?
1. Leadership struggles. Who’s the boss? Who has the authority? How are we going to spend the money? Whose way are we going to do things? Also, who gets the perks? How come I don’t get my way? How come they do get their way?
2. Who is accepted, and who is not? Who is the “in” crowd and who has to look on but not really get “in”? There’s an A crowd and an everybody-else crowd and a losers-untouchables crowd.
3. You might have been in churches that had more fights than I have. Maybe you can remember conflicts you’ve seen in church.
4. All of them come when people look out for their own interests, their own happiness. There is a competition, there are winners and losers. There is dissatisfaction and unhappiness. All because people are looking out for satisfaction and happiness. The simple equation is: when I get what I want, then I’ll be happy. If I don’t get what I want, I’m unhappy.
2. This is a simple equation, all right, but it’s a simple equation to produce conflict with man with God, because this simple equation does not work.
A. James says, you do not have, you cannot obtain. This is a universal law: I cannot be happy and satisfied when I seek my own happiness and satisfaction.
1. It doesn’t work with unbelievers who have nothing to do with the church. They are sincerely focusing on what they are convinced will make them happy. It’s the same old stuff: money, food, sex, fame, possessions, power. It didn’t work for others, but I’m different. When I get what I want, then I’ll be satisfied.
2. It doesn’t work in the world and it doesn’t work in the church either. We are more subtle sometimes, but we go after the same basic things. We want recognition. We like having power. We are ambitious. We want people to say, wow, what a church! When we don’t get the attention, what’s that? When a decision is made, why didn’t they talk with me? Why didn’t they tell me? They just want their own way!
B. James says our response is murder and competition. That’s a little intense, huh?
1. You don’t have to kill someone to be guilty of murder. Just hate them in your heart. That’s what Jesus said. Resent someone getting something you didn’t get. You shut them out. Pass them over. Don’t talk to them.
2. You are envious so you quarrel. It becomes competition. Him or me.
C. As we have a conflict with men we also have a conflict with God.
1. You don’t have because you don’t ask. This shows that what we are seeking is not godly because it doesn’t even occur to us to ask God for it. He is the God of four walls but He doesn’t work in the real world out there.
2. But then we do pray, and James says we pray badly, in a way that God won’t answer. He will not bless our disobedience. He will not give us something that will lead us away from Him. We pray for things that are self-centred and not like Jesus. “Not My will, but Yours be done.”
3. To seek after your own happiness and what pleases you is sin.
A. James calls it adultery.
1. That’s being unfaithful to your wife or your husband. You made a covenant, a holy relationship. You break that by going for satisfaction of your needs outside that holy covenant you made.
2. And that is what Christians do. We go outside our holy covenant to follow Jesus and look for some thing for happiness and satisfaction.
3. Not only is that adultery, it is idolatry. Some other god is going to give you satisfaction and happiness besides Jesus.
B. James says we are friends with the world. That lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and pride of life is not from the Father but from the world.
C. We become enemies of God.
1. Can you imagine being in the church, calling yourself a Christian, reading your Bible, praying, and yet you are an enemy of God? But I do it, and so do you.
2. The Apostle Paul says this from his own experience. Philippians 3:17-19 Brethren, join in following my example, and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us. For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things.
3. People are enemies of God, right there in church.
D. When it says there that God jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us, that means He cares about us and He will judge us.
1. The exact wording in verse 5 is not found anywhere in the Old Testament. Yet the idea is found everywhere. God loves His people, and when they go away from Him He is angry and will judge them.
2. The reason is He knows any other god will destroy His people. When you love someone and they are unfaithful to you it’s right to be angry. They are ruining their lives even as they think they are really living.
3. When we commit adultery against God and idolatry, we forfeit our lives.
4. But God gives a greater grace, says James.
A. And you ask, greater than what?
B. Greater than us. Greater than our desires for happiness and satisfaction. Greater than our darkened understanding and our immaturity.
C. Greater than the devil. The devil is not going to win in your life. God won’t let him. His grace and lovingkindness for you is greater than the devil.
D. Greater than your sin. He gives cleansing, forgiveness, change of mind, change of life. He restores what you thought was gone forever. He blesses and makes you happy and satisfied.
5. This grace is to find your happiness and peace in a place where you would never expect to find peace and happiness, and that is: repentance.
A. Repentance is changing one’s mind, and then because you changed your mind, change your actions.
1. This is how we became Christians in the first place. We thought everything was okay, but Jesus convinced us nothing was okay. We had to make a choice. Continue on in our sin and ignore God, or submit to Jesus. And we turned around in our minds. We said, “I’m wrong. Jesus is right.” So we said, I’m following Jesus now. I’m going to church. I’m reading my Bible. I’m praying now.
2. How we begin is how we continue as Christians. We continue to repent, to change our minds and because we have changed our minds, we change our actions.
B. James gives us seven commands here, and you can do them.
C. The first is to submit to God.
1. Quit fighting with God. Quit being angry with God for not doing what you want Him to. Stop planning your happiness like you know what you are doing. You do not know what you are doing. You have no clue what you are doing. Confess pride, arrogance, and your sin to God and you submit to Him.
2. You submit to God’s knowledge. He knows what will satisfy you and make you happy. He doesn’t have to guess. You don’t have to know what that is. You don’t have to approve God or make sure He makes the right choices. That’s out of your hands. It’s none of your business.
3. You submit to God’s will. He is good. His will is good, acceptable, perfect. You pray, not my will but Yours be done. I want whatever You want. Whatever will make You happy, whatever will satisfy You. I will do that.
D. The second command is resist the devil and he will flee from you.
1. The point about resisting the devil is, you resist the devil when you submit to God. There is no resist the devil without submitting to God first.
2. This is second because you cannot resist the devil on your own, by yourself. You want to prove something to God, that you are better than you really are. You are not better than you really are. You don’t know what a monster of iniquity you really are. You will try, but you will not successfully resist the devil on your own because you don’t want to.
3. The devil flees because the presence of the Lord with you forces him to flee. God doesn’t share with the devil. He is the one who makes the devil go. This is therefore the second command.
E. Draw near to the Lord, and He will draw near to you.
1. You might be far from God, but He is not far from you. You think, I’m a sinner! How can I draw near?
2. Psalm 145:18-19 The LORD is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth. He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him; He will also hear their cry and will save them.
3. God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, overflowing in lovingkindness and truth. So you call upon the Lord in truth. He will hear you.
F. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. You come to God by the cross of Jesus. There is no other basis to come to God. You come because Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through Him. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
G. Be miserable and mourn and weep, let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to gloom.
1. We think, this is the way to happiness? This isn’t happy! It is to deliberately mourn, deliberately be unhappy. We think, that can’t possibly be the way to happiness or satisfaction.
2. But I have conflicts with men and with God. I hate people. I’m not praying for God to satisfy me. I’m ignoring God. I’m acting like an enemy of God. I’m an adulterer, an idolater. Let that sink in, how bad this is, in you, a Christian.
3. Joel 2:12-13 “Yet even now,” declares the LORD, “Return to Me with all your heart, and with fasting, weeping and mourning; and rend your heart and not your garments.” God is interested in your heart. Tear your heart.
H. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.
1. Be aware of yourself, in the presence of the Lord. Because He is there in the room with you. He sees your heart. He knows your deepest thoughts. He knows everything. You are naked before Him. Who is the Lord? What are you in His presence? That’s who you really are. Not what people think of you. Not how you look to others. Humble yourself greatly.
2. As you humble yourself in God’s sight, a miracle happens. He lifts you up. He takes your sins away. He comforts you. He restores your soul. He satisfies you. He makes you happy. This is the true satisfaction, the true happiness. You can do without practically everything, but you cannot live without the Lord. If you have the Lord, you can do all things through Him who strengthens you.
3. It’s not you doing it. You are not letting yourself off the hook. God is working the blessing of repentance in your soul.
7. So what?
A. Let’s watch out in our souls.
1. There is no equation that says, when I get what I want, then I’m happy.
2. When you have conflicts, quarrels, resentment, discouragement, take time to seek the Lord. There’s something wrong there. Are you receiving the love of God? Because if you aren’t, you are dissatisfied. You will look for satisfaction in other areas. The devil is looking to take advantage of you.
B. The Apostle Peter says, resist the devil, firm in your faith. Here’s how you are firm in your faith: strengthen your relationship with God by repenting.
C. Charles Simeon did this.
1. Born 1759, in a vacuum of Christianity. He became a Christian all alone in 1779, really, through the action of God. There wasn’t anyone around to preach to him. He ministered at Cambridge from 1782 till his death in 1836.
2. The really important thing about Simeon is that he developed, on his own reading of Scripture, a lifestyle of repentance. He humbled himself and let God lift him up on a regular basis. Here’s what he says: "Repentance is in every view so desirable, so necessary, so suited to honor God, that I seek that above all. The tender heart, the broken and contrite spirit, are to me far above all the joys that I could ever hope for in this vale of tears. I long to be in my proper place, my hand on my mouth, and my mouth in the dust. . . . I feel this to be safe ground. Here I cannot err. . . . I am sure that whatever God may despise . . . He will not despise the broken and contrite heart." (Moule, 133f)
3. You can say, woah, that’s morbid. Or you can experience closeness to God, casting your burden on Him, and being lifted up by Him. You can be divinely satisfied and happy.
D. What about the other things? Psalm 37:4 says, “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.” He can give you things. He can take things away, too. Whatever He does, you are not fighting Him nor quarreling with people. And He is satisfying you with eternal things. That’s what you really need.
Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.
Let’s pray.