Conflict in the Church (James 4:1-6)

And you may be seated, and I'm so thankful for that blood applied. Amen.

Amen. Children, we are ready for Children's Church at this time.

You may make your way back there to Miss Savannah.

And one of the things, before you go, Miss Savannah, I want to say this.

This is a really, a pretty remarkable achievement here.

Today, in Children's Church, the children are completing, going through the entire Bible.

They started in Genesis. Amen. Yes.

They started in Genesis and have made their way to Revelation.

And so they are ready to go up and challenge some of our adult Sunday school classes to Bible drill.

And we're going to try to make that happen.

And so I'm really excited for their heart.

They have been doing this for several, for probably a couple years now, going through the Bible.

They start in Genesis and have just worked their way through.

And what a tremendous blessing it is.

It's always encouraging to me to talk with my girls about some of the different characters in the Old Testament.

And I'm amazed at how they know so many of the different characters.

I say, where did you learn this?

And so we learned it in Children's Church.

We learned it from Miss Savannah.

We learned it going through the Bible.

And I am incredibly grateful for that.

And so be sure to encourage them and just thank them for their commitment to God's Word

and just the importance that it plays even in our children's ministry.

I think it's a beautiful, beautiful thing.

All right.

This week, we're going to be in James chapter 4.

James 4 · chapter mention

And James chapter 4 starts off like this.

James 4 · chapter mention

What causes quarrels and what causes conflicts among you?

And it's one of those really questions that really touches into us because quarrels and fights is something that we all deal with.

This question is as relevant today as it was when it was written almost 2,000 years ago.

And so what causes quarrels and what causes fights among you?

You see, conflict, unfortunately, is a part of our everyday life and the church is not immune from it.

About 10 years ago, Tom Rainer, he did a survey on Twitter and he asked the question and he just posed the question,

what are some of the things that churches quarrel over?

What are some of the things that churches fight over?

And you can imagine that this went pretty viral pretty quickly because so many people had responses to what quarrels were,

what conflicts were.

And he ended up compiling a list of his favorite 25.

I don't know if it's his favorite 25 or his least favorite because of churches quarreling.

But he composed a list of 25 different things that churches were fighting over.

And as I was reading that this week, I found it very interesting.

And so I just wanted to share a few of my favorite ones with you this morning from that list.

He said there was an argument over the appropriate length of the worship pastor's beard.

I don't know if Clay's is the appropriate length or not, but I imagine if they had an issue with that,

they probably had an issue with the senior pastor having a beard as well.

But in another one, it said a deacon was accusing another deacon of sending an anonymous letter

and decided to settle the matter in the parking lot.

I think that would get interesting pretty quickly.

We could probably sell tickets and pay for face too.

But so this, and it said a church dispute over whether or not to install restroom stall dividers in the women's restroom.

Now, maybe I need a little context on this, but that seems like an easy yes to me.

Yes, install the dividers in the women's restroom.

Absolutely.

There's another dispute on whether the worship leader should have shoes on during the service.

Clay, it seems like a lot of these center around the worship leader.

So it seems like you, that, or not you, but that position may be the problem.

Listen to this, a disagreement over using the term pot luck instead of pot blessing.

Good luck with that one.

Yeah, exactly.

A dispute over whether the church should allow people to wear black t-shirts since black is the color of the devil.

I don't know if they had an issue with black suits or not, but definitely with black t-shirts.

And so we have all of these things and we laugh at these and we should to an extent, right?

Because they're silly, they're petty,

but they're also do a really good job of distracting us from what the church should actually be about.

You know, we laugh at some of these things and we really should in many ways because we're so grateful

that we may not be having to deal with these exact same issues that some people are dealing with.

But each of us, we find ourselves, each church can find itself focusing on things that are petty,

that get in the way of what God has called us to do.

In fact, this is what Tom Rainer, his focus, that's what the reason he was publishing this was.

He says, in that sense, they are really great distractions from the Great Commission.

These things really get in the way of us fulfilling what God has called us to do.

And much of our passage today deals with conflicts, the calls of them, what we do with them,

and the grace that God gives us in the midst of these conflicts.

And so if you have a copy of God's Word, I want you to follow along as we read the first six verses of James chapter 4.

James 4 · chapter mention

James 4, verses 1 through 6, and this is what the Word of the Lord says.

James 4:1–6

It says this,

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.

And 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?

But he gives more grace.

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

And so as we look at this passage this morning,

there are many truths that we see when it comes to conflicts

and how we should be dealing with them, what we should be doing with them.

But the first truth that I want us to see that is really the root of this is the cause of conflict.

So the first thing that I want us to look at this morning is this cause of conflict.

He says, 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.

I love how James, he poses really good questions.

There's been several times throughout this book as we read through it

that James will pose a question, but then he goes right into giving us the answer to the question.

I think James and I, if we were leading Bible studies that were trying to be discussion-based,

we would struggle with some of the same things.

Because many times in those things, I like to pose a question,

and I'll wait two seconds, and I'll immediately go into the answer.

Or Catherine all the time gets on to me, she's like, look, give them a chance to answer.

I'm like, I know, but I'm just excited, I want to get this going and moving forward.

But this is what James is doing here.

He's posing this question, and then he immediately goes into the answer.

And so the question that he's asking is, what causes quarrels and what causes fights among you?

And I want you to think about this question.

Think about the last time you had a quarrel or you had a fight.

And maybe if you're newlywed, you may call this a heated discussion,

because I know you don't quarrel or you don't fight if you're newly married.

But think about this, the last time that you had this discussion,

the last time you had this fight, the last time you had this disagreement,

what was going on?

Because in many ways, this is what James is asking us to do.

He says, I want you to think about this question.

Think back on your last argument.

And for some of you blessed, godly, holy saints, this may be difficult for you to remember,

thinking back because it's been a while back.

But for the rest of us, we probably don't have to think very hard, do we?

We probably don't have to think back very far when the last time we had a fight or a quarrel

in our life that we needed to answer this question.

And so I want you to think back on this.

What happened?

Why did it take place?

What led to the disagreement?

For most of us, if we were to be asked this question,

we would immediately go and say that the other person is the problem, right?

If they weren't so unreasonable, if this person wasn't so demanding or just plain annoying,

we wouldn't have a problem.

If they were just more thoughtful and considerate of me, I wouldn't have an issue.

I don't have an issue.

It's just that they have an issue with me, and so I have an issue with them.

And so all of a sudden, we start placing the blame,

and we start answering the question, what causes quarrels and what causes fights among you like this?

They do.

They're the reason.

Other people are the problem.

But thankfully, James answers the question for us in this.

He says, is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?

That your passions are at war within you?

And so as we answer this question through Scripture, we see that according to Scripture,

we are the problem.

Now, this may be hard to hear, but I want you to think back with me for just a moment.

What is the common denominator in every single argument that you have ever been in in your life?

I want you to think about that because I can tell you what the common denominator is.

The common denominator in every single argument that you have ever been in from the time you were born

until this moment right now, the common denominator in every single argument is you.

You are.

And it's the same for me.

The common denominator for every single argument that I've ever been in is you.

No, I'm joking.

I'm joking.

It's me.

Right?

We are the common denominator.

The issue is us within us.

This is something that is going on within us.

The issue is not everyone else, but it's us.

The problem is not out there.

It's in here, in us, in our heart.

Sam Alber, he notes it this way.

He says, conflict comes because our own selfish desires are not being met.

James uses strong language.

We might think he is being over the top.

After all, we don't literally kill anyone.

But James' older brother, which was Jesus, once pointed it out in the Sermon on the Mount

that we do not need to kill in order to commit a form of murder.

Ultimately, we see our lives, conflict in our lives as a result of sin.

As a result of our sin, when we stop taking our eyes off of Jesus and we start putting them on ourselves.

When we stop having the right perspective in our life that this world revolves around God

and is centered and we are created to worship Him,

and we stop doing that and we start placing the focus on ourselves,

that's where the conflict comes in.

It's because of sin.

And I love how John Piper, he describes sin this way.

He says, what is sin?

He says, it is the glory of God, not honored.

It is the holiness of God, not reverenced.

It is the greatness of God, not admired.

It is the power of God, not praised.

The truth of God, not salt.

The wisdom of God, not esteemed.

The beauty of God, not treasured.

The goodness of God, not savored.

The faithfulness of God, not trusted.

The commandments of God, not obeyed.

The justice of God, not respected.

The wrath of God, not feared.

The grace of God, not cherished.

The presence of God, not prized.

The person of God, not loved.

That is sin.

And I would add to this, the gospel of God, not believed.

That's what this sin is.

And what you see in every single one of these scenarios, in every single one of these cases,

is there's a focus that is taken off of God and put on ourselves.

Sin, among many things, takes our eyes off of God and puts the focus on ourselves.

Last week, we talked about the difference between worldly wisdom and godly wisdom.

And worldly wisdom, we saw, is marked with bitter jealousy and selfish ambition.

We saw that James is saying that worldly wisdom is centered around the fact that we are bitterly jealous

and that we have this selfish ambition that we're constantly thinking about ourselves.

And this week, as James is building off of that, we see the fruit of worldly wisdom.

We see the fruit of this bitter jealousy and this selfish ambition.

And the fruit of that is fighting and quarreling among ourselves.

When we start focusing on the things of the world, what happens is it starts to wreck our lives.

It starts to place conflict and fighting into our lives.

David Platt put it this way.

He says,

I can't help but think that the adversary has succeeded in getting these churches to fight with one another

to the extent that they lost sight of where the true battle was.

A world system that encouraged us to want more stuff, to prioritize our comforts,

and to ignore the poor while focusing on ourselves.

The adversary would like nothing more than to divide us so that we fight battles among ourselves

and have little energy for the real battle that is going on.

The adversary would love nothing more than for us to fight and quarrel amongst ourselves,

even over petty things like we talked about at the beginning.

Because when we do that, it takes our attention off of the things that truly matter.

The things that have eternal significance.

The things that have eternal value that God has called us to prioritize in our life.

It is interesting to me that this was written from the early, early church.

You see, we didn't emphasize this very much at the beginning of our study of James.

But James, most commentators believe that James was the first book of the New Testament to be written.

They think that it was one of the very earliest books of the New Testament to be written.

And they get this because of when James was martyred.

And they also get this from some of the events that take place in Acts that are not present in the book of James.

And so they realize that if some of these things that happen,

and since James is talking about faith and works,

many of those things would be present in this book in addition to his martyrdom and when he was killed.

And so most people believe that James was written between 44 and 49 AD.

That's 10 to 15 years after Pentecost.

That's 10 to 15 years after the church of Christ was born.

After when we began meeting as a church.

That is very early on in the life of the church.

Imagine that, a church where everyone is not getting along.

And so the next time you hear somebody say,

Oh, well, we just need to be like the New Testament church.

We just need to be like the early church.

And in many ways we do.

There are some things that they were focusing on,

the things that they were devoted on that we need to.

But the early church struggled in many ways.

In fact, we wouldn't have much of the New Testament if there wasn't struggle going on.

Many of the letters that Paul is writing to these churches,

he's addressing issues that they're having.

Then, early on, there's fighting, there's quarreling,

there's issues that are going on in the life of the church.

Then, like now, these problems were rooted in a deep desire to follow ourselves

and were caused by taking our eyes off of Jesus

and focusing on our own preferences.

You see, to understand conflict,

we need to understand the desires at work within us

that are causing us to be frustrated.

It might be the desire for sadness that leads us to be at odds with others.

It might be a desire to get even with someone who has hurt us.

So bitterness is nurtured and grows for months and years,

and it begins to consume us.

I've always heard it like this,

that holding a grudge is like drinking poison

and expecting the other person to die.

Holding a grudge, when you hold grudges,

when you have this going on in your life,

it's like drinking poison yourself

and expecting the other person to die.

What you end up doing is doing far more harm to yourself

than you ever do to anyone else.

And this is obviously true in our families,

but it's also true in our church family.

It can even be assumptions that we're making

about other people thinking that they're going to criticize us.

How many times have we played a scenario in our mind,

well, I bet they're saying this.

I bet they would respond this way.

I bet that it'll happen even if I try to do something about it.

But whatever they are, whatever these underlying things are,

what's going on is this bitter jealousy and selfish ambition

is a lack of perspective that keeps our eyes on God

and then puts them squarely on ourselves.

That's the heart of this.

And here's the thing.

Here's the easy application.

Here's the low-hanging fruit from this.

The easy application is from this time

is to change your perspective.

Learn to keep your eyes fixed on Jesus and not yourself.

But here's the heart application.

Here's where it begins to be difficult.

And that's for us to take the first step in reconciliation.

To go to the person that you've been at odds with

for a very long time and say, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry that this has been going on.

I'm sorry that this conflict has been happening in our relationship.

I would like to move past this.

I'm tired of avoiding you.

I'm tired of assuming the worst.

And I would like to move past this.

And so many things get in the way of us doing this.

We think, well, how will it be responded?

How will it be received?

How will this person act?

Because they're probably just going to write me off

and think that I'm not even sincere.

And so what's the point in even doing this?

We can come up with so many excuses.

We can come up with so many reasons

and talk ourselves out of what God is calling us to do.

And some of those things may be accurate.

It may be accurate that they may not receive it

the way that you hope that they do.

It may be accurate that it's going to be difficult.

But that doesn't keep us from following God.

That doesn't keep us from following what he's called us to do

and doing our part in resolving these situations.

So after a difficult statement,

after showing us the root of the problem

when it comes to conflict in our lives,

James now shows us for something incredible.

And that's the need for prayer.

The need for prayer in our lives.

He says this,

You do not have because you do not ask.

And 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 that it's to no purpose

that the scripture says,

He yearns jealously over the spirit

that He has made to dwell in us.

Prayer is one of the most overlooked

and abandoned gifts that we have as believers.

Tim Keller, a couple of years ago,

he passed away.

But just before he passed away,

he was giving an interview to someone.

And Tim Keller was probably

one of the most influential pastors in America

over the last 20 years.

His influence was very widespread.

And he was asked,

he was given an interview

just before he passed away.

And one of those questions that he was asked was,

they said this,

is there anything that you would have done

differently in your life?

If you could go back in your ministry,

is there anything that you would have done differently?

And he said,

he said,

absolutely.

He said,

I would have prayed more.

I would have prayed more

because prayer does so many things in our life.

In this section,

we see our need for prayer play out

in several different ways.

If you're taking notes,

they're not going to be on the screen,

but you may want to write some of these things down.

But the first thing that we see in this passage

is we need prayer

because it shows our dependence on God.

We need prayer

because it shows our dependence on God.

He says,

you do not have

because you do not ask.

When prayer is not part of our lives,

it kind of serves like a check engine light.

A check engine light on a car,

it tells you that something is going on in the car, right?

It shows you that,

hey, you may want to take this to a mechanic.

And when that thing starts flashing,

you better take it to a mechanic quickly, right?

And so prayer,

when there's not prayer in our lives,

it shows us very clearly

that there's something not right

in our relationship with God.

It shows us that there's something

that's not part of that relationship

that should be there.

Prayerlessness is a sign

that we are trying to do things on our own,

in our own strength,

for our own sake,

under our own authority.

Prayerlessness arises from a sense

of independence from God.

However, when we do pray,

one of the things that it does

is it speaks truth into our lives.

It is a constant reminder

that each and every one of us

are dependent on God

to work and to move in our lives.

A prayerless life is saying

that I've got this under control.

I can do this on my own.

A prayerless life is saying,

God, I don't need you

because I've got this on my own.

But none of us can do that.

We see over and over again

in Scripture our deep dependence on God,

not only for salvation,

but our dependence on God for everything.

In fact, just a few chapters before this,

in James chapter 1,

James 1 · chapter mention

James reminds us that

every good and perfect gift

is from God.

And so we are dependent on God

not only for salvation,

but for everything in our lives.

We are dependent on Him.

So we are dependent on God

for every good and perfect gift

in our lives.

And prayer is a way

that reminds us

of our dependence on God.

But two, next,

we need prayer to refocus our passions.

We need prayer to refocus our passions.

He says,

you ask and do not receive

because you ask wrongly

to spend it on your passions.

You ask and do not receive

because you ask wrongly

to spend it on your own passions.

Prayer and reading God's Word

are our primary ways

of communicating with God.

God speaks to us primarily

through the reading of His words.

And then our primary way

of communicating with God

is prayer,

is talking to Him.

Yet so many times as we pray,

as we talk with God,

it's like we never even listen

to begin with.

It's like we never even listen

to what He said to us

as we were reading through His Word.

Think of it like this.

Imagine that I told you

that Catherine and I,

that our communication is stellar.

It's top-notch.

Nobody communicates better

in a relationship

than Catherine and I do.

And then imagine you got to witness

that communication happening one time.

Let's just say that she comes home

from school one day

and she had a horrible day.

It was just a terrible day.

She got a flat tire on the way to school.

She was late.

When she got there,

she realized that all of her co-workers

were talking about her

and talking about her behind her back.

And then she also realized

that another co-worker

failed to do something

then blamed it on her.

And then she had to do

five other things

that she wasn't planning

on doing that day.

And then on the way home,

she got rear-ended

and then that person decided to leave.

And before she left,

as she was going to the different schools

and meeting with students,

a student threw an apple at her

and hit her with an apple.

And all of these things

are going on in her life.

And then all of a sudden,

all of a sudden,

she says,

can you believe all of this happened?

And imagine my response is,

okay, well, what's for supper tonight?

How do you think that would go over?

Like a lead balloon is how that would go over.

It wouldn't go over well at all.

And so we can realize

the hypocrisy in that,

if I can say it,

the hypocrisy in that

because we realize that,

hey, you're not a good communicator

if you're not talking about

the same things

that she's talking to you about.

Now, imagine that we apply this

to our Christian life.

Imagine that just a few verses back,

we go to James chapter 2

James 2 · chapter mention

and we're reading this

in our time with God.

What good is it, my brothers,

if someone says he has faith

but does not have works,

can that faith save him?

If a brother or sister

is poorly clothed

and lacking in daily food

and one of you says to them,

go in peace, be warmed and filled,

without giving them

the things needed for the body,

what good is that?

So also faith by itself,

if it does not have works,

is dead.

Imagine we read that.

And then we go to God in prayer

and we say,

Lord,

you know

that my truck

is getting kind of old now.

It's coming up on 12 months old

and it's almost got 10,000 miles on

and we both know

there's only 40,000 miles left

on this warranty here.

And so I'm going to go tomorrow

and let them check my credit

and I'm going to take it

as a sign from you.

If I get approved

to get a new truck,

then it's a sign from you

that I need to get a new truck.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Now, please don't misunderstand me.

I'm not saying God

doesn't want us to have

reliable transportation

and that there's times

when we can responsibly

get a new vehicle.

But I think you see

what I'm trying to communicate here.

How many times

do we talk to God

about different things?

You see, part of the purpose

of prayer

is to align our passions

with the desires of God.

But for many of James' readers,

prayer seems to have been

a means of trying

to make God

conform to their plans.

They weren't actually listening

to what God was saying to them.

They were listening,

putting it out,

and then talking to God

about something

completely different.

Using God in prayer

as a means of fulfilling

their own passions.

And it's no wonder

that their prayers

were going unanswered.

Part of the purpose of prayer

is to align our passions

with God's passions,

with His desires.

Their prayers were revealing

something about them

that James now addresses

for this final thing.

We need prayer

because of our hearts.

Because of our hearts.

He says,

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.

James uses some

very strong language here.

And you can imagine

if I started my link article

this week

with you adulteresses,

right?

I would probably get

quite a few calls

and quite a few visits

from people saying,

Why are you calling us this?

Yet,

this is what James does.

When someone commits adultery,

what they're doing

is they're trying

to find fulfillment,

they're trying to find satisfaction,

they're trying to find

pleasure and desire

in someone

other than their spouse.

And what James

is very directly

telling the people

is this,

that they are looking

for purpose,

they're looking

for satisfaction,

and they're looking

for fulfillment

in places other than God.

He's telling them

in a very direct way

that you're cheating on God.

Can you imagine

going to a wedding

and during the vows,

the groom looks

at the bride and says,

I promise

to always put

my own interest

before yours.

To always and forever

put my needs

above your needs

as long as we both

shall live.

We all recognize

the disaster awaiting

for that marriage,

right?

We all realize

the disaster awaiting

going into a marriage

if that is the focus.

So why do we think

this type of relationship

will work with God?

Yet another clear reason

that we need prayer

in our lives.

To ask and plead with God

to continue to mold

and to make us

into His image.

This is not something

that we are called

to do our own.

In fact,

we couldn't do it

on our own.

We need God's grace

to do this in our life.

Jerry Bridges,

he rightly states

and puts it this way.

He says,

we're not to wage

this warfare

in the strength

of our own willpower.

Instead,

just as we look,

just as we by faith

look to Christ

for righteous standing

before God,

so by faith,

we are to look to Him

for the enabling power

to live the Christian life.

Up to this point,

James has done

a brilliant job

of showing us our need.

Up to this point,

James has done

a really great job

of showing us

that we need something

and now,

in this next section,

he shows us

this final part

that we're going

to look at today.

He shows us

what that need is

and that need

is the need for grace.

The need for grace.

Up to this point,

James has been pretty blunt

on some things

that are going on

that should not be going on.

They fight

and they quarrel

because their passions

are at war.

They claim to love God

while still loving

the things of this world

and James very bluntly

says their actions

are adulterous.

And then we get

to verse 6

and he says this,

but he gives

more grace.

But he gives

more grace.

Therefore,

it says God opposes

the proud

but gives grace

to the humble.

Just before this,

James told us

that we serve

a jealous God

who wants nothing less

than our total devotion.

Honestly,

it's a pretty helpless

place to be in

knowing what God requires

and knowing that

we can't meet

what God requires.

Knowing that God

has required

something of us

and knowing that

we can't meet

what it is

that he requires.

That's a pretty

helpless place to be.

But then,

but I want you to listen

how Douglas Moo

brings these two

verses together.

He says it like this.

He says,

if verse 5

depicts God's

jealousy for his people,

then James here

is reminding us

that God's grace

is completely

adequate to meet

the requirement

imposed on us

by that jealousy.

Our God

is a consuming fire

and his demand

for our exclusive

allegiance

may seem terrifying,

but our God

is also merciful,

gracious,

all loving,

and willingly

supplies all

that we need

to meet

his all-encompassing

demands.

Will we

and do we fail?

Absolutely.

All the time.

But he gives

more grace.

Even when we've

turned from him,

he gives more grace.

When we fail

to focus our

affections on the thing,

on God,

and place them

on the things

of this world,

he gives more grace.

When we,

as parents,

fail to show

our kids

that our true

and greatest treasure

is Jesus,

he gives more grace.

What we see here

is language

that recognizes

our need for God

to help us

in this process,

to continue

to mold us

and to make us

into who God

calls us to be.

Grace to the humble.

Submit yourself

to God.

Draw near to God.

Humble yourself

before the Lord.

God is not asking you

to live the Christian

life by yourself.

He wants you

to lean into him,

to rely on his strength

and not be dependent

on yours.

God,

more than anyone,

knows that we

have these passions

that are at war

within us.

God,

more than anyone,

knows that we

need his grace.

That's why he sent

Jesus.

Because there was

no other way.

And so if you're

here today,

maybe you need

to see his saving grace

in a clear

and powerful way.

You realize that

your sin has separated

you and maybe

you've been trying

to save yourself

by doing things

over and over again,

by trying to be

good enough.

And so maybe today

is the day that you

really realize

that I can't do this

and I need to stop

doing and rest

in what has been

done for me.

But for many of us

who have already

placed our faith

and our trust in him,

if you've already

done this,

then my hope

and my prayer

is that you can

humbly lay down

the passions

of this world.

That by God's grace

we'll continue

to lay down

the passions

of this world,

this worldly wisdom,

this selfish ambition,

this bitter jealousy

that consumes us

and that causes us

quarrels and causes

fights among us

and that we can

lay them down

at the cross

and faithfully

follow him

with everything

we have

and to see

how by doing this

so much of the fighting,

so much of the quarreling

in our lives

all of a sudden

pales in comparison

to the glory of God.

And that's my prayer

for us today.

That as we think

about what causes quarrels

and what causes fights

among us,

that it's taking our eyes

off of Jesus

and putting them

on ourselves.

And may we today

rightly put our eyes

back on him.

Father,

thank you so very much.

for the wisdom

that you teach us

through James,

through your brother here.

Lord,

it is a beautiful thing

to see

where wisdom lies,

where

true godly wisdom lies

and that's keeping

our eyes fixed on you.

And so Lord,

I pray that as we

live this life

where we constantly

have people

pulling at us

from different directions,

where people are

constantly saying

you need to put

you first,

Lord,

that you would

show us very clearly

that we don't need

ourselves first.

We need you first.

We need our eyes

clearly fixed on you.

And as we fix

our eyes on you,

it's amazing to see

how the fighting

and the quarreling,

they just seem

to fall away.

They seem to disappear

because we have

a right perspective

in our life.

We have a perspective

that says,

what you desire,

your passions,

are far greater

and far more important

than our own.

And so we freely

lay down our passions,

we freely lay down

our desires

at the foot of the cross

and we worship you

and say,

God,

here's my life.

Take it

and use it.

God,

thank you for that.

Thank you for the ways

that you bless us

each and every day,

the grace that you give

to us each and every day.

Lord,

we pray that mercy

is afresh every morning

in our lives

and it points us

to you.

We ask all this

in Jesus' name.

Amen.

I'm going to invite you

to stand.

We're going to sing

a song of invitation.

If God is speaking

to you this morning,

won't you respond

as we stand together

and sing?