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How Are You Asking?

James 4:1-3

 

NASB

1What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? 2You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. 3You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.

 

NLT

1What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Isn’t it the whole army of evil desires at war within you? 2You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous for what others have, and you can’t possess it, so you fight and quarrel to take it away from them. And yet the reason you don’t have what you want is that you don’t ask God for it. 3And even when you do ask, you don’t get it because your whole motive is wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure

 

Introduction:

I am going to ask you to evaluate, from God's perspective, how you ask things of Him, today, and I am going to ask you to make a decision about what He wants you to do about your relationship with Him!

 

A.  Oranges - Adrian Rogers

1.   Do you talk to God at all?

2.   When you do, what do you talk about?

3.   Do you ask only to satisfy your desires?

4.   Do you seek God's approval for what you already plan to do?

 

B.  A Continuation/Elaboration of James 3

1.   The connection between the last part of the preceding chapter and the first three verses of this chapter is clear.

a)   If bitter envy and selfish ambition have filled man's heart     (3:14,16),

b)   if his guiding principle is earthly wisdom that is unspiritual and devilish (3: l 5),

c)   if he has alienated himself from God.

d)   then he promotes "disorder and every evil practice" (3:16).

2.   When that happens, fights and quarrels are the order of the day.

 

C.  The Problem (vv.. 1-3) => lust

self= flesh (hself) = sIn

 

I.      The Question (v. la)

(James 4:1 NIV) What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you?

1a. From whence [come] wars and fightings among you?

A.  The first term (polemoi) refers to a battle with weapons, an armed conflict.

1.   It was used figuratively to indicate the struggle between powers, both earthly and spiritual.

 

B.  This is followed by "machai", which refers to fighting, but without weapons, as in personal conflicts.

1.   James is describing a condition where a group has come to a state of war, with open skirmishes breaking out among people. a. Sides have been chosen, b. positions have been dug in, and c. anyone seeking to be neutral is looked on with suspicion by both sides.

2.   In cases like this, believers have ceased being peacemakers who sow in peace (3:18).

3.   Instead, they live in open antagonism toward one another.

4.   These conflicts have nothing to do with quarrels with the pagan world; these are quarrels within the church, among believers.

 

C.  We cannot brush aside James's question.

1.   He doesn't waste time saying that these conflicts should not occur.

2.   When they do happen, are we wise enough to understand why?

3.   Do we know their source?

 

II.    The Answer (v. lb)

(NIV) . . . Don't they come from your desires that battle within you?

lb ...[come they] not hence, [even] of your lusts that war in your members?

 

A.  Fights and quarrels are being caused, not by some external source, but by the people's cravings or "pleasures."

1.   James is convinced the truth is plain to see.

2.   He asks a question, and he expects us to agree.

 

B.  The Greek word for pleasure, "hedone", is the source of the English word hedonism, the philosophy that pleasure is the main goal of life.

 

C.  When everyone seeks his or her own pleasure, only strife, hatred, and divisions can result.

1.   This is a commentary on the news today

2.   Why?, because "When everyone seeks his or her own pleasure, only strife, hatred, and divisions can result."

 

D.  James has already warned us that our desires (epithumia) in general are the means of temptation (1:14-15).

1.   The desires of which he is speaking here are more specific.

2.   They are a "desire" (NIV), or a pleasure-motivated need, battling to be satisfied. James uses military imagery to show that we are in a very real struggle.

3.   The battle within is expressed by the word "strateuomenon" (warring - "strategies"), a word suggesting a raging battle, fought between the desire to do good and the desire to do evil.

4.   Paul gives a personal testimony of this internal warfare in Romans 7:7-25.

 

E.   When we lose the battle and so fulfill our internal evil desires, we create conflicts on the outside.

1.   People who are battling to fulfill their own desires eventually begin to compete for the limited amounts of power, prestige, or possessions that promise to bring pleasure.

2.   People are suddenly competitors, no longer friends or Christian brothers and sisters.

3.   The fierce competition drives people to shameful thoughts and actions and quickly makes them unable to pray correctly.

 

F.   Desire for the pleasure's of the world always threatens our spiritual life (see Luke 8:14; Titus 3:3)

(Luke 8:14 NIV) The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life's worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature.

(Titus 3:3 NIV) At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another.

 

G.  Because believers are unable to divide their loyalty between God and the world (4:4-5), there will continue to be this battle within them.

 

III.  The Results of the Situation (v. 2a)

(James 4:2 NIV) You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God.

2a Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war,

 

A.  You lust and do not have, so you commit murder.

B.  You are envious and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel.

1.   The craving described here becomes so strong that the people "kill and covet" (NIV) to obtain what they want.

2.   Are people actually guilty of murdering others when they fulfill their desires?

3.   James's really makes us think about this.

4.   People are, in fact, capable of killing in pursuit of desires or as a reaction to frustrated desires.

5.   The leap from "wanting" to "murdering" must be tempered by remembering how Jesus took the key words of the Ten Commandments and gave them applications that strike very close to home.

6.   For Jesus, the commandment against murdering applied equally to verbal assassination as to physical killing (see Matthew 5:21-22; see also 1 John 3:15).

a)   Mat 5:21 NIV "You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.'

b)   Mat 5:22 NIV But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, 'Raca, ' is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell.

c)   1 John 3:15 NIV Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.

7.   The word kill can be taken as a hyperbole for bitter hatred.

8.   But desires, if not controlled, could lead to such extreme violence.

9.   Hardly a week goes by without some story in the news of a person who, claiming to love another deeply, ends up murdering that person because the "love" was not returned in kind.

 

IV. The Causes of the Situation (v. 2b-3)

For all their anxious self-seeking and antagonism in getting what they want, they still don't get it. Why?

NASB 2b . . . You do not have because you do not ask. 3You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.

KJV - 2b ...yet ye have not, because ye ask not. 3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss. that ye may consume [it] upon your lusts.

 

A.  “ye have not because you ask not”

You do not have, because you do not ask God. (NIV)

1.   James mentions the most common problems in prayer: a. not asking, b. asking for the wrong things, c. asking for the wrong reasons

2.   Oranges: As told by Dr. Adrian Rogers - Bellvue Baptist Church, Memphis, Tennessee

a)   The Garage Apartment

(1)Adrian Rogers, pastor of Bellvue Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee, tells the story of the time when he was in Florida working his way through college staying in a little garage apartment.

(2)He and his wife were eating lunch one day and brother Rogers looked down in the back yard of that apartment where they had several orange trees growing.

(a)There was a sweet orange tree and a tangerine tree and a grapefruit tree, and a sour orange tree.

(b)Now if you're not from Florida you may not know what a sour orange is, but they name it a sour orange for a good reason.

(c) One bite will give a person lockjaw.

(d)It's an amazing thing - a beautiful orange, but incredibly sour!

(3)All the other fruit had been taken from the trees and picked, but the sour orange tree of course had been neglected.

b)   The Little Boy

(1)As he watched, Brother Rogers saw a little boy come into their back yard, sneaking around the garage.

(2)As he watched this unfold, he wondered, "Now what's wrong with that fellow? Why is he being so secretive?"

(3)And then he saw what the boy was up to = He was about to steal an orange.

(4)Well, that amazed Brother Rogers because the young boy was looking this way and that way to make sure no one was looking.

(a)Of course, Brother Rogers was looking from above.

(b)And you know God is watching us, too, isn't he?

(c) Always from above, from his "garage apartment".

(5)The boy was looking all around, but he forgot to look up, like so many of us do when we sneak around wanting to get something some other way than God's way.

c)   Taking an Orange

(1)So, Brother Rogers watched him as he got hold of a leaf and pulled it down, and got hold of a twig and pulled it down, and got hold of a limb and pulled that down, and got hold of a big orange - a sour orange - and made off with it.

(2)Wouldn't you have liked to have seen that young boy take the first bite of that orange!

(3)Now the amazing thing is this.

(a)In his closet upstairs Brother Rogers had several huge sacks of oranges.

(b)I mean just great big sacks full of the sweetest oranges you've ever seen.

(c) A deacon had given them to him from the little country church where he was pasturing so he could take them and give them away to the people at school.

(d)Now suppose that little fellow had come and knocked on Brother Roger's door and said,

"Mr., can I have one of those oranges down there?"

(e)Brother Rogers would have said,

"Son, you don't want those oranges. They're sour! But if you want some oranges let's just get a whole bag here. I've got more than I can use. You can have all you want!"

(4)I wonder how many times you've taken the devil's sour orange when you could have had God's blessings.

(a)I wonder how many times we simply do not have because we go about to get things our own way rather than God's way.

(b)"You have not because you ask not."

(5)We ought to pray because God has commanded that we pray.

(6)We ought to pray because it's God way to see to it that you get what you need.

(a)God is not weak.

(b)God is not poor.

(c) God is not broke.

(d)Everything you need my God can supply through his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.

(e)You ought to pray because that's the way to be happy.

(f)   You receive fullness of joy when you learn how to pray powerfully.

.

B.  “Ye ask and receive not because ye ask amiss.”

1.   Almost as bad as not asking is asking wrongly.

a)   If we misunderstand the correct use of prayer, we might not pray at all, or we might attempt to manipulate God.

b)   Later, James makes it clear that, when we pray, we must submit to God (4:7).

c)   Otherwise we will not be answered.

2.   People should not be surprised when their prayers go unanswered because often they ask with wrong motives.

a)   They were going to spend what they received on their pleasures (the same word as "desires" in 4:1 NIV).

b)   Their "spending" would be like that of the prodigal son who squandered his inheritance on himself (Luke 15:14).

3.   What is the proper motive for prayer?

a)   Matthew 6:33 “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

b)   John 14:13-14  Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14“If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.

c)   Psalms 37:4 Delight yourself in the LORD; And He will give you the desires of your heart.

4.   Their motives were not to seek God's Kingdom or His righteousness or His glory or to help others, but to satisfy themselves.

5.   In summary, James's message is: "You don't have what you desire because you don't desire God."

6.   James is preparing us for a crucial lesson:

a)   Until we look at all of life, including our strongest desires, from the perspective of God's plans and priorities for us, our life will be constantly hounded by the awareness that we do not satisfy our desires.

b)   All of our prayer hinges on this!

 

 

 

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