March 9, 2025

• Welcome and Announcements
• Rejoice
• Prayer of Invocation
• Love The Lord
• Scripture Reading - James 4:1-10
• King Of My Heart
• Pastor's Message - A Divided Heart
• Lord's Supper
• I Give You My Heart

James 4:1-10

¹ What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members?
² You 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.
³ You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.
⁴ You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
⁵ Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: "He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us"?
⁶ But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, "God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble."
⁷ Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
⁸ Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
⁹ Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom.
¹⁰ Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.

SERMON NOTES - A Divided Heart

INTRODUCTION

• The tone of this letter is serious, at times even harsh, but a word that helps keep things in check though, is the word brethren, which James uses fifteen times in this letter. James writes to members of God's family that apparently needed to be confronted with attitudes and actions that were not to characterize true believers in Jesus.
• The Jewish believers to whom James wrote were riddled with fighting and contention.
• Jesus said the one true, distinguishing mark of His disciples is the love they have for one another: "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." (John 13:34-35)
• The world has a right to judge the authenticity of Christ's claims to be the Messiah, the Savior, the Son of God, by what they see in the lives of His followers.
• "When everything is going well and we are all standing around in a nice little circle, there is not much to be seen by the world. But when we come to the place where there is a real difference and we exhibit uncompromised principles but at the same time observable love, then there is something that the world can see, something they can use to judge that these really are Christians and that Jesus has indeed been sent by the Father." - Francis Schaeffer
• What Schaeffer emphasizes is that our love for one another is something that must be seeable, visible.
• "We must not forget the final apologetic. The world has a right to look upon us as we, as true Christians, come to practical differences, and it should be able to observe that we do love each other. Our love must have a form that the world may observe; it must be seeable." - Francis Schaeffer
• When we do not take seriously the command of Jesus and refuse to love one another, it just isn't that the world sees us as insincere; they label us as hypocrites, and view both our message and our Savior as irrelevant.
• It is important that we remember the new commandment of Jesus because when we come to the 4th chapter of James whatever was going on among the Christians and in the churches was nothing like love.

A DIAGNOSIS

• The problem in the churches was quarrels and conflicts but I actually prefer the New Jerusalem Bible's translation: "Where do these wars and battles between yourselves first start?" The Greek words for quarrels and conflicts are taken from the battlefield.
• James asks, what is the source of you wars and battles, and then exposes the source with another question, is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? The obvious answer is Yes, it is! In fact, this is the answer to all questions about conflict in the church. The problem is your pleasures. The root of the Greek word for pleasures is where we get our English words hedonistic or hedonism a school of thought that argues that pleasure and happiness is the chief good in human life.
• "As a person is victimized by conflicting desires, his or her inner life becomes a battleground. The old nature, with its self-seeking focus on personal pleasure, battles against the new nature, and selfish pleasure-seeking dominates. This in turn fosters a self-focus which naturally diminishes the importance of others and enthrones one's pleasures as the goal of life. This brings relational war with those around us, especially others in the church. Such narcissistic embrace of one's own pleasure as the chief end of life, whether it be sensual, materialistic, professional, or positional, is the bane of the church." - Kent Hughes
• It is the self-focus which naturally diminishes the importance of others and enthrones one's pleasures as the goal of life, which Dr. Hughes describes which exposes the underlying problem, not only for the churches to who James was addressing, but exposes the problem for all of us, for each of us. The problem is sin and the essence of sin is selfishness.
• James's diagnosis - Do you want to know what is causing your wars and battles, why you are in serious conflict with one another? You have a serious case of selfishness!

A DEMAND (vv. 4-5)

• "You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: 'He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us?'"
• Using some of the strongest language yet James calls his readers adulteresses. Why? Because they had becomes friends with the world.
• In the New Testament, the Church is called the bride of Christ and James accuses the believers of adultery for giving the love and affection that is rightfully God's to someone or something else, which is the essence of idolatry. They were seeking a friendship with the world which made them an enemy of God.
• Their lusting after the world was evidenced by their selfishness and lack of love towards one another. Their hearts were divided and James calls that adultery.

A DEDICATION AND DEVOTION (vv. 6-10)

• Our hope is in God's grace. The cure for a divided heart is God's grace which is given to those who humble themselves before God.
• While we depend on God's grace, look again at the commands in verses 7-8: "Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you." The order of response is significant - submit to God, draw near to God.
• It is turning to God that sets a person free and provides the power to turn our backs on the idols of our lives. This is why James says submit, draw near, not partially near but completely near to God because coming to Him is the means by which we can turn our backs on the world and the only way we can truly resist the evil one, and James says when we do, he will flee.
• The tone of James' words are serious and call for a serious response. The believers to whom he was writing needed to understand the seriousness of their attitudes and actions and call it for what it really was - sin! Sin against God and sin against one another.