James: How Our Coveting Leads to Unkindness

We're working our way toward the end of the book of James.

Today we're in chapter four.

So James chapter four, one and two.

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among 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.

So let's make some sense of this for ourselves.

Well, point number one is this is James diagnosing us, isn't it?

We're not always kind, we're not always loving.

We do cause conflict, we quarrel, we fight, we can even murder.

So James diagnoses us and then he asks, he says, like, why?

Like, where does that come from?

How can you be so kind in one moment and then turn around and cause so much conflict in another moment?

Where does that conflict come from?

Why am I not more kind at age 44?

And James says, there's an issue under the issue.

Now, what's that issue?

And James says, well, actually, that issue under the other issue, that issue is you covet.

So to covet is to crave or yearn for that which is not yours.

You don't have it, somebody else has it, it's out there, you want it, you crave it, you yearn for it.

So coveting leads you down a path where nothing is enough.

And then you're not enough, and then you're not at peace, and so you're on edge, and when you're on edge, you tend to lash out at others and cause a quarrel or a conflict.

Last spring we went to St.

Simon's for spring break for a few days, and so we were in St.

Simon's.

When we were there, we discovered, I discovered, I've been talking about it for six months, the cookie at Sammy's Deli.

I walked in, ordered some sandwiches for that lunch that day, and I saw the cookie, and I see a good cookie, I get pretty excited about it.

And so I got like 10 of them, had one on the way back to the condo.

It confirmed it, it's an amazing cookie.

Had another one on the beach, had another one after dinner, had another one for breakfast.

It's like a muffin, so you can have a cookie for breakfast.

And then that next day, I'm on the beach, and we're at the season of life, wonderful season of life, where you don't have to watch your kids on the beach.

I'd heard about this season, dreamt about it for years, where you get to read again, like you're reading, you're talking to your spouse.

It's amazing.

And I begin to think about that lunch that I'm gonna have, right?

Don't you love a beach lunch?

You know, you've been out on the beach, you walk up to wherever you're staying, you fix your sandwich and everything.

Let's just take a little moment, a little break away from the beach.

I start to think about it.

I head up to the condo and I make my turkey and ham, roast beef, fresh tomato, lettuce.

Just big old, big old tower of a sandwich.

Put some pretzels on there, dots, of course.

We know that's what's on there.

So then I go to get the cookie, which I remembered seeing that morning was one of the last cookies, and it's not there.

No cookies.

Cookies are gone, and immediately I am I turn into a pill.

Where's my cookie?

Who ate the last cookie?

I'm like yelling from the balcony down to the beach to yaw, you know.

Isn't that interesting?

You've done it, right?

It was the last piece of cake, you put it in the fridge, you thought about it all day, and then you got home, it was gone, and immediately you just become a pill.

Who ate the cake?

That was my cake, right?

Like we've all done this.

We immediately become a pill about this.

And we lash out, right?

The craving of one thing actually fuels correlate.

That's what James says.

James says we do this all the time.

Right?

Relational strife comes from a heart issue of coveting.

We crave all sorts of things.

Just this week, I listed out my cravings this week.

Uh, again, again, uh a 1997 fully restored Toyota Lane Cruiser.

I go to bringatrailer.com.

Too much.

I don't know if you're on that website at night.

Uh a cabin in Montana, just a humble something.

That's all I need.

A Sid Mashburn blazer.

I only wear a blazer twice a year, but I'm pretty sure that if I owned a Sid Mashburn blazer, I could be fulfilled in life.

I only wear it twice a year.

I don't know why I do that, but I do it.

And you have your things, right?

You know your things.

Crown molding.

If only, right?

Because you were at your friend's house, you're like, that crown molding looked really nice.

Like, if only our living room had crown molding.

Screened in porch?

I mean, you you have back deck, but then you went to somebody else's house and they had screened in porch, and you just think, man, if I had a screened in porch, everything would change all of my life.

My entire heart would change.

We all have these things.

Power, control, comfort, approval, those are the much deeper things.

We desire something and we can't get it.

And this is actually, James says, this is what is the beginning point of a lot of our quarreling.

Because we're upset.

We're not getting what we want.

Now the world can look like this.

This is what the world can look like.

Um there I am, walking out of my humble cabin.

I don't need much.

A few thousand acres, Paradise Valley, Montana, humble cabin.

It's all I really need.

Not a big deal.

And then if we live long enough, or you watch Yellowstone for five and a half minutes, the world cracks open, doesn't it?

It's not what it appears.

I mean, they're it's all the wealth you need, right?

On the show.

Like all the wealth you need.

You couldn't dream of anything more.

And they're all horrible human beings.

And they're killing each other, they're yelling at each other, they're quarrelling, fighting, murdering all the time.

Right?

We can actually get what we want, and it still doesn't deliver.

And nobody's at peace because why?

Why?

Because all the stuff that we really want peace, acceptance, relational harmony.

It's about the heart.

And that's why James is saying, you're quarreling, you're fighting, but there's an issue under the issue.

At the beginning point.

You're wanting a bunch of stuff, and you can't get it, and you're upset.

And then you go and project it onto other people.

Verse 3.

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?

Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the scripture says he yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us?

So point number two is this we are not always kind because we're not at peace with God.

This is where James is driving us.

Be a friend with God.

God lives in you, dwells in you.

That phrase of verse 2, you do not have because you do not ask.

Now, this is not God's vending machine.

That doesn't work.

I don't know if you picked up on it.

We all try, we've all tried it, haven't we?

Right?

Doesn't work.

Never will.

God's not a vending machine.

This is James turning us from seeking the illusion of acceptance in the world to the acceptance we have with God.

And until we're at peace in Christ, we're just always on the hunt looking for the next deliverer.

And then we get there and it does a deliver, so we're on the hunt again.

And the cycle goes on and on and on.

Verse three is talking about that we don't actually want to receive what God gives us.

Like what God actually wants to give us.

That's not what we're interested in.

We actually have our own passions that are not healthy.

And that this is what breaks down the cycle of asking God and receiving from him, because we're actually interested in a whole different set of things.

We say one thing, but we're actually self-absorbed and in love with the world.

So again, the problem is the heart.

It's our hearts.

And James says we're adulterers.

There's a strange story in the Old Testament where God tells Hosea, a godly man, to marry a prostitute woman named Gomer.

And at first everything seems to go well.

Gomer straightens out, they got a little family going, everything looks fine.

And then Gomer returns to her old life, which is odd and very sad.

And it's odd because she was provided for.

She had a husband.

She had family.

She was supported.

She had children.

What drives her to this?

So a little bit of context is Gomer was involved in a religion that worshipped Baal.

And Baal was a created deity, a little g god that the people created, and in this demanded destructive practices of the people that were involved in this type of worship.

Human sacrifice, the killing of children, and religious prostitution.

All to satisfy the gods.

Do this enough.

Do more, do it again.

You'll satisfy the gods, you'll be accepted.

So it seems like all of this mess, she leaves her husband, she's an adulterer, she's back in prostitution.

It could be because she's involved in this messed-up way of finding acceptance with her God.

And we all do that when we form little g gods that we think will deliver us.

And here's what happens when we seek acceptance through illegitimate means.

She will look for them but not find them.

I mean, it's also a pretty good commentary of the show Yellowstone, that one sentence.

Like that is what's going on over and over again.

I always think about the Madonna quote from 20 years ago.

She was at the peak of her fame, her glory, her money.

She had whatever she wanted, and here's what she said in the mid-90s.

That wasn't 20 years ago, was it?

Forgive me.

I have an iron will.

And all of my will has always been to conquer some horrible feeling of inadequacy.

I push past one spell of it and discover myself as a special human being.

And then I get to another stage and think I'm mediocre and uninteresting again and again.

My drive in life is from this horrible fear of being mediocre.

And that's always pushing me, pushing me.

Because even though I've become somebody, I still have to prove I'm somebody.

My struggle has never ended and it probably never will.

Now we could get really judgmental of Madonna.

We probably have.

There's lots of material to be judgmental about, that's for sure.

There's only one problem.

And the problem is that in our hearts we're a lot like her.

That's right, when we read this, you go, like, oh, I know that feeling.

Now let's keep reading Hosea.

Let's read again verse 7.

She will chase after her lovers but not catch them.

She will look for them but not find them.

We've all known the feeling.

Now what happens?

What happens?

Then she will say, I will go back to my husband as at first.

For then I was better off than now.

Great decision.

Good decision.

Go back to the place where you're actually finding fulfillment, stability, security.

Now, what's her real problem?

What's the real problem going on in Gomer?

Verse 8.

She has not acknowledged that I, God, was the one who gave her the grain, the new wine, and oil, who lavished on her the silver and gold which they used for Baal.

Gomer's problem is ultimately a lack of inner recognition that she has a creator.

She has a heavenly father.

So just like James takes religious relational strife and takes us to the heart, we see here in this story we have relational brokenness because of a heart issue with the Heavenly Father.

It comes to the heart, the issue under the issue.

And God is telling the story of Hosea to tell the one great story about us and about him.

See, Hosea is Jesus, and we are Gomer.

We're the adulterer.

And yet he is pursuing us and loving us in our mass.

The end of Hosea chapter 2 becomes a love song to this weary, beat down, worn-out, rebellious woman.

Hosea 2 · chapter mention

The whole love song is Hosea 2, 14 through 23.

I'll read just a few of the verses.

Therefore, I am now going to allure her.

I will betroth you to me forever.

I will betroth you in righteousness and justice and love and compassion.

I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you will acknowledge the Lord.

I will plant her for myself in the land.

I will show my love to the one I called, not my loved one.

I will say to those who called, not my people, you are my people.

And they will say, You are my God.

You see the inexhaustible grace moving toward the rebellious one, and that it creates the change.

It wasn't her creating the change to him.

It is God's inexhaustible grace to us that woos us and changes us.

Back to James.

Back to James 4 and 5.

Let's reread those verses.

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.

Or do you suppose that it is to no purpose that the scripture says he yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us?

It's James's blunt, almost negative way to say, God wants to be your friend, and he yearns to live in you through his spirit.

Point number three is this rest and peace are found in friendship with the loving Heavenly Father.

Friendship is the word philea.

We get the city, Philadelphia, city of love.

Right?

This is a friendship love, affectionate, strong love of one friend to another.

A couple of weeks ago, a childhood friend of mine, Kyle, his father passed away.

We all grew up together in Lawrenceville about an hour from here.

And so he actually grew up in a home just about four or five homes down from my wife, Christy.

And so Christy and I went out to go to the visitation for his dad, Johnny.

And so we walked into the funeral home, and Christy knows everybody in her hometown.

So just like, you know, that's who she is.

And so she's like hugging the funeral directors.

I'm like, okay, that's what we're doing.

We're doing that.

And so then we move on in and we get in line, we start to see some friends.

And you want to like see your friends, you hadn't seen your friends in a couple years, you want to hug them, hey man, what's going on?

Like you're in a funeral home, it's a visitation, so we're all like trying to hold it down.

We get in line, we're working our way up, and we see Kyle and Claire and Carrie and uh Kyle's mom, Linda.

And so we wait our turn and finally we see Kyle and tell him, like, I hadn't seen him in a couple years.

I mean, this was a friend of mine who met in seventh grade, all the way through college, hadn't seen him in a couple years.

I'm like, man, I'm I'm so sorry.

Like, I miss you, I love you.

He looks me dead in the eyes, he's like, I really miss you, like I love you.

And then afterward, we're all in the in the lobby.

My friend David, his wife Maya, my friend John, his wife Jill, Kyle comes back out, and we're all standing around arguing who really was the best basketball player.

You know, I really felt it was me, they felt it was them.

It's the same conversation we've always had.

And then finally, the funeral home is like, hey, y'all gotta leave.

Like, we're gonna close the doors.

We wanna go home.

Out you go.

It's over.

Like done visitation.

Visitation's over.

So finally we leave, we go to a restaurant, we have this little dessert and drinks, and we just talk.

For hours we just talk, right?

And we do this because we are friends.

Affectionate, strong love over time.

We talked for hours and we laughed, and never once during those three hours, never once did I worry about being accepted.

I never once was going like, how's my standing?

How's my standing with David?

Didn't do that.

Right?

They've known me since seventh grade.

Friends, strong, affectionate love over time.

Friendship's that gift that we get to be who we are with somebody else and we're loved.

And it's a strong love.

And James says the world will never give you that.

It won't.

It's just gonna keep letting you down.

That's the bad news.

Right?

Okay, so that's a lot of bad news.

Um we quarrel, like like passively, um, actively.

Um we we cause fights.

Uh we do this because we want stuff that we don't have and we can't get it.

That stuff doesn't even give us contentment or joy.

All the bad news, what's the good news?

Verse 6.

But he gives more grace.

There it is.

But he gives more grace.

Therefore it says, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

Submit yourselves, therefore, to God.

Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.

Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

And then all this is just a call to humble yourself.

Be wretched and mourn and weep, let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to gloom.

Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

Point number four is this our neediness leads us to God's delight of us in Christ.

Humble comes from the word tapano, which means to assign to a lower place, rank below others, to lower your opinion of yourself.

So this isn't a call to shame.

This is a call to the freedom of self-forgetfulness, to receive, to be a person of humility, to say, I can't find all this in the world, I can't earn it, I can't achieve it, I can't obtain it, I can't hold it, I'm gonna have to go to the Creator, the Heavenly Father, for these hard issues.

That's where we find our steady anchors in Christ, which frees us from depending on other people for these things, or depending on that humble cabinet in Yellowstone that is gonna do it for me.

We get freed from needing those things to do it for us.

And James says, verse 7 and 8, therefore, because of that, therefore, because he gives more grace, therefore, draw near him, surrender, submit, you know, resist temptation, right?

All of this is a call to say, daily we receive the gospel, live in increasing confession, in his inexhaustible grace.

And we're freed from driving, the drive to be our own saviors, or to use the world to save us.

That verse 6 is that turning point in the entire passage.

He gives more grace.

This week that had me thinking about Luke 15, the prodigal son's story.

I mean, what an amazing story of he gives more grace, right?

The rebellious son, he asks for his inheritance early, takes the money, runs off, lives in the world large.

He lives big.

He goes for it, he parties, he's spending the money, and the world is good to him there for that period of time.

But he spends it, he parties, he wastes it all, and then there's nothing left, and he has nothing, and he's starving, and he's broken.

The world did not deliver.

Because the world always eventually doesn't deliver.

It's nobody's friend, but he thinks.

Right?

Remember, maybe, maybe the father will take me back.

Maybe there's grace there.

Remember this image by Charles Macassy?

I showed it a couple years ago.

This is his artwork of the prodigal son, that worn and weary boy as he comes home, the beat-down child who is embraced by the father, who runs toward him and embraces him.

And the father wraps him up in his arms.

The father slaughters his own fattened calf to throw the party.

Priest and author Robert Capin calls this parable the festival of death, because it's a festival of humility.

The son has to die to return.

Right?

Humble yourselves below the Lord, and he will exalt you.

The party is because the father embraces, welcomes, pursues the son, and in the image of Christ is the sacrificed calf, so the party can actually happen.

And the party is about enjoying the free forgiveness and the acceptance that we have in Jesus, what we're really looking for.

And it's a party that we get to attend, and everything is provided for us.

Because the Father is lavish in his love, he gives more grace.

So, to summarize, James says to move toward kindness, which we're called to.

James calls it the royal law.

To stop quarreling.

We need to rid our hearts of the coveting.

Great.

How do we rid our hearts of the coveting?

Well, James says, good news.

He gives more grace.

See, as we rest and live from our heart, being fully forgiven in the inexhaustible grace of God to us, accepted, defined by the Heavenly Father's view of us in Christ.

That inexhaustible grace actually does something in our heart.

It secures us, it stables us, it fulfills us, and we are empowered to be kind to people.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you for your grace to us that is ever increasing.

That it is inexhaustible because it is not based in our work toward you, but your work toward us.

We sit in this room this morning humble because we know that we cause conflict.

We're bitter or resentful.

We withhold from people, or we actively project onto them all of our anger.

And for all of this, we're sorry and confess that is not who you called us to be.

And we confess this is true because we our hearts are wanting something that we don't have, and we haven't found our satisfaction in you.

And I pray this morning your Holy Spirit would convict and comfort and heal, and would we be more rooted in you this morning?

Would we grow in the great wealth of our identity in Jesus?

That you are our forever friend, and you love us with an affectionate, welcoming, strong love that never ends.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.