Praise the Lord, we're here this morning, gathered on the Lord's day, seeking to hear from the Lord's word, the scriptures, as we pray and read and preach. As we're entering into chapter four now in the book of James, I think we've gotten to know him pretty well, if you've been with us so far, that James is the half-brother of Jesus. He was an elder in the Jerusalem church, and he's writing to these scattered Christians in persecution who had to leave Jerusalem area. They've settled in different parts all over the Roman Empire and he writes them a letter to be able to encourage them because they need help as they're scattered. They need help to know what to do and how to live. And so he's covering all various different topics of which he talked about in chapter one. And as we read from today, we read the end of chapter 3, because chapter 4 does begin a new topic about unity in the church and quarrels and fighting in the church. But it's not disconnected from the previous passage. We just talked about the passage talking about wisdom, that there is such thing as a godly wisdom from above, and which is a blessing to us. It's peaceable. It's gentle. It's good fruits. It's sincere. But then there's also non-godly wisdom. There's earthly wisdom, unspiritual, demonic wisdom. And so last week, last time, we talked about the importance to be able to discern the difference between just mere earthly wisdom and what is more important, what is more needed, which is godly wisdom. We're called to live with godly wisdom. And so in today's passage, it's important for us to hear what godly wisdom produces. Let me just read it again in verse 17 and 18, James chapter 3. It says, but the wisdom from above is first gentle and peaceable I'm sorry, first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy, and good fruits, impartial and sincere. Let me just first say, maybe I've had a personal time with you in pastoral counseling. I have a lot of pastoral counseling. These are often verses that I've gone to for people because people are often trying to discern what they should do and how they should do it. And this is a great set of verses that talks about, well, if you're gonna be pleasing to God, the decisions you make should look something like this. They should be godly, they should wise, and they should be pure. They should be peaceable, they should be gentle, they should be open to reason. And often when there's conflict in people's lives, we're realizing, oh, is what somebody's doing towards me legitimate? Well, we might then say, well, according to the definition of what wisdom from above looks like, are they doing it in a gentle way? Are they doing it in a peaceable way? Is it impartial? Is it sincere? Maybe it's sincere, but it's sincerely wrong. Maybe it's sincere, but it's sincerely destructive. So this is actually giving us a diagnosis, if you will, a diagnostic to be able to say, what is from God and what is not? What is from God and what is earthly? We should have discerning eyes to know this. Well, one of the things, as we keep reading on in chapter three, verse 18, is that when people are living in godly wisdom, it has particular fruit, and part of that fruit is righteousness and peace. So look what it says, verse 18. The harvest of righteousness is sown in peace, meaning you get righteousness, you become more and more like Christ, when you peaceably go about living in God's wisdom. And then it says, harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. So he's talking about Christians living godly wise lives, and in those godly wise lives, they are becoming, they're very peaceable about how they go about things, and they're becoming more righteous because of the wisdom that they're living with. Now enter chapter four. But wait a minute, Pastor Brother James. Not everything's hunky-dory in the church. People are fighting, people are disagreeing, people are kind of getting upset with one another. And so what James is about to do is to talk about, hey, if you're living by godly wisdom, that's going to affect the unity and the peace of your church. So actually, today is about understanding how we as a church should seek peaceful interactions with each other, seek to have unity with each other, seek to have, if you will, godly conflict versus demonic, earthly conflict. There's such thing as a good type of disagreeing, a good type of interaction, as opposed to just ungodly interaction. So for today's passage, we're going to be asking the question this way. What must we know about why there is fighting and division in the church? What must we know, like what is very important for us to understand about why there is fighting and division in the church? I don't know if you've personally been a part of quarrels within the church, maybe grumblings within the church, not just our church, any of your church experience. Maybe you've experienced gossip, maybe you've experienced cliques, maybe you've experienced church splits. Maybe you've experienced sacred cows where people, there are certain things that you can't say or touch or certain ministries or certain families that are just sort of maybe politically more powerful within the church and therefore there's kind of this awkward walking around eggshells because of certain people. There are these human dynamics that happen within the church. And although, let me say this, although today's verses have been used and are rightful to use in a general sense, meaning what should we generally learn about fighting and division, Let's make sure that we're understanding James is talking about the church. He's talking about Christians living with each other in the context of local churches. So what's our first point for this morning? What must we know about why there is fighting and division in the church? You can write this down if it's helpful. Our point number one is this. It's that fighting and division in the church is from sinful passions at war within us. Fighting and division in the church, it comes from, the source of which it is being led to, is the sinful passions within the individual members of churches, that the individual members have passions that are sinful within them, that is at war within them, and it's those sinful passions that bring about fighting and division and quarrels and disunity. It's not something external, it's something internal. And this is actually gonna be helpful for us even as we're thinking about our own church. How do we, by God's grace, guard the unity and the peace of this church, Disciple Church? Well, it starts not by blaming other people externally, but it starts by going internally first and saying, what's going on inside of my heart that's actually not godly, that's not right here? Look at James, Pastor James, he knows how to get to the bottom of it. And he says, it's your sinful passions which is why you're quarreling. So let's look at verse one. James asks the question, oh, we just talked about peace being harvested and righteousness. Yeah, but what happens when there's not peace? What happens when there's fighting? Oh, okay, what causes quarrels? What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Notice, among you, among you all, among you church saints. This is generally true about what causes fighting and people, but this is not about a general truth. This is about a specific situation in which a church has disunity, and he's saying, what's the cause of that? It's you. You're the cause of that, particularly your sinful passions within you. He goes, is it not, meaning this is an assumed truth. It's this, not something else. Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? I've said it in the past, it should be repeated, it shouldn't be new to many of us, but God is not just God of our behavior, He's the God of our heart, He's the God of our mind, God calls us to full obedience, not just with our bodies and our hands, but really from the inner person. He calls us to have not just good and right behavior, but good and right thoughts and good and right desires. Some people say, you know, as long as I do good, then it's fine. It's like, no, your heart matters. Your desires matter. In fact, he's diagnosing the problem for much, much things in the church. Much problem is the sinful passions within us that are at war. We're waging war inside of our own person. We want to do the right thing. We don't want to do the right thing. And he's actually going to tell us what part of that waging war is in a few moments as we continue down this. But I want to say this is not just a James idea. Let me go to Apostle Peter. He says in 1 Peter chapter 2, same idea. He says, Beloved, he's talking to the church and churches, I urge you as sojourners and exiles, meaning you are saints in a sinful world, so you're kind of on a journey until you get to heaven. That's what sojourners are, you're on a journey. And exiles, meaning you're out of your homeland, where our homeland is heaven. So as you're living on this earth, which is on the way to the heavenly city, if you will, using a Bunyan illusion, what should you do? You should abstain from the passions of the flesh. You should avoid and seek to diminish and get rid of and kill those sinful fleshly passions. And look what it says, which wage war against your soul. God calls us to not just an external life of obedience, but an internal life of battle. In fact, why are we battling each other in the church? It's because we're not rightly battling our sins in ourself. Think of that. We are all in a battle somewhere. For those people, this is me in some moments, not every moment, but there are people who don't like conflict, conflict avoiders. That's probably half or more of the population, it seems. But here's the problem. It's a lie to believe that you can avoid conflict. We are in a war, we are in a battle. And if you choose the right battle, you will have the fruit of peace and righteousness, which is seeking to kill sin, seeking to kill pride, But if you don't do that, what happens is the battle oozes out of us into our relationships and we end up battling each other. So Pastor James here is telling us the reason why there are external fights is because you guys aren't guarding the true fight. It's your own heart. It's your own passions. It's you. Exhibit A. You're exhibit A of why. So, I love that he doesn't pull punches. He just goes, why are there fights? You're the reason. You gotta work on this, right? In fact, look what he says. He diagnoses it really well, verse two. He says, your desire, these passions, you desire something and do not have, meaning you wish you had something. And so you murder. And in verse two, he goes on and says, you covet something and you can't have it, you can't obtain it, so you fight and quarrel. This is, again, generally true, but it's specifically true in the church. Let's just think about this. Why are there fights in the church? There's often fights in the church over things like control. What are we going to do as a church in our ministry? When are things going to happen? What specific ministries are we going to go over? Who's going to be involved with those ministries? Whose name is going to be associated with those ministries? Who's going to get any recognition for those things that are going on? What happens? I want to praise the Lord. I think the Lord has guarded us from a lot of this, often because we need to fight sin. But we're not exempt from it. We need to hear this word from the Lord. We need to guard ourselves and to evaluate ourselves to make sure there isn't any root of sin or bitterness or anything going on in our lives. We need to make sure we're constantly fighting sin. We never are done fighting sin on this side of life. We only are done when Christ comes back and makes us pure. and takes us to be with something, then the fight is over. So we have to realize all of life is a fight, a fight against sin. Now sometimes we have to fight internal battles and external battles. Let's not make any more external battles than we have to. In fact, we as a church, we should be seeking not to battle each other. We should be seeking to be peaceable, understanding, helpful, long-suffering. We shouldn't worry about who does any particular ministry amongst us, or whose name is associated with something, or who's got the favorite dish at the casserole, or in the potluck. I know that's not a real fight, but we should not be thinking about selfish things and feeling like we're getting blocked. No, we should be thinking about Lord, how do we love you? How do we help each other? How do we encourage one another? Because we all need help. That's why we are church members together, because we've covenanted to say, we'll help each other. We'll do the one another's together. We'll pray for one another. We'll be patient with one another. We'll walk together in life. We'll encourage and admonish each other. Sometimes we need a reminder of things. And so we're actually signing up to remind each other of the good, true things in scripture. But what happens when you desire and you don't have? You murder. Now I think, this is James. I don't think there was actual murders going on in the church there in Jerusalem or scattered. I think he's talking a lot like what Jesus was talking about. Remember in Jesus when he's talking in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5? He says, you have heard it said that those of old that you shall not murder and whoever murders will be liable to judgment. But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment. Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council. Whoever says you fool will be liable to the fire of hell. Jesus says it's not just the external murder, it's the internal heart. So what is he saying? The passions make you angry at people when you don't get your way. Sometimes you don't get your way. We kind of talked a little bit about this in our member meeting today, but sometimes it's not that we want to do something and feel blocked. Sometimes we just don't like being compared to others. We don't want the attention put on us. We kind of want to hide into the background, and we would rather not be engaged in a high level of accountability or not be held to a high standard. And sometimes we get mad because people are calling us up. And it's like, just leave me alone. I want to be, I want to do my own thing. Like I'm not hurting anybody. And so we get angry, quit calling me up, quit calling me out. I'm not hurting you. Just leave me alone. Um, there are lots of different ways this can be understood and applied. But what are we called to do? We're called to understand that this is what's going on. Why do quarrels and fights happen among you? And just think about it, this is not always actual external spats of people yelling in the parking lot. This could be a prideful look of I'm better or different than you, or I'm comparing myself to you and I wish they would meet my standards, or I wish they would hold up to what we're doing as a church. No, sometimes it's not what we say, it's what we feel, it's what we think in our hearts, it's the anger that we hold against people. So he says, you desire and you do not have, and so you murder, and you covet, you want something. You want something that's not yours, that doesn't belong to you. Or you want something that is yours, but maybe not at the right time, it's not the time yet. And so what do you do? You fight and you quarrel. You get angry and you fight, you get all difficult because you want something that's wrong or not the right time. Jesus, again, says we need to have our heart in the right place. Matthew 6, 19, do not lay up for yourselves, this is selfishness, treasures on earth that are just temporary. You're looking at the wrong thing. Where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal? No, if you're going to be selfish, if you will, or self-helping yourself, think about the eternal things. That's actually what you should be guiding yourself towards. Not towards the selfish temporary things, but to the eternal things. Where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. This is about the heart. So we want and we don't get, so we murder in our hearts. We covet and we don't get, and we quarrel with one another. Let me ask you a question. Where might you struggle with evil passions leading to anger and discontentment? Where might you struggle with evil passions, wrong desires, which then lead you to anger and discontentment. How does that happen to you in this church? How does that happen to you more generally? It's important for us to be aware of our heart, to be examining our heart, and to be guarding our heart. We should be looking for idols. Just think, where do you get angry? Where do you get frustrated? Many people deal with lack of patience, things don't go their way. Well, is that because it's a heart that doesn't like when things don't go their way? We need to guard our heart, always having this conversation with the Lord. Lord, help me today, help me to understand what you're doing. We need to be looking to God's providence, meaning what is he doing in my life, in this church, in the world? And I'm, yes, I can and should be asking God for help during these times, but I should be accepting that God has a plan, and that whatever God's plan is, it's good, even if it's taking longer than I want. Where are you discontent? Or do you wish things were different? Sometimes, I remember this. There was a time in my life earlier on in my ministry where I was discontent. I was not being called a pastor. I didn't have the title that I wanted, that I thought I deserved because I was preaching and teaching and those sorts of things. But really what the Lord showed was it's, I don't need to worry about those things. That's a wrong, evil passion. That's a wrong, evil desire. What I need to worry about is whatever the Lord has, whenever He has it. And so we need to repent. I needed to repent of caring too much about things that are not the most important thing. And just trusting the Lord. We should be purging the life, our life, from these evil passions and saying, that's not right. God wants me to be patient. That's not right. God wants me to not compare with this other brother and sister. We should live in peace and harmony. Ephesians 4 says it really clearly, actually. 31 and 32, it says, Notice, your anger kind of turns outward. First it's inward, but then it turns into slander, doesn't it? We start speaking ill of others. be put away from you, get rid of it. Get rid of that sin. Be angry with your anger. Be angry with your evil passions. Don't be angry with each other. Be angry with the sin in your life and do everything you can to exterminate, kill, evacuate, whatever word is helpful to you. Get it out, cut it out, surgical or a hammer. Do what you gotta do. Some people need different tools, right? Do what you gotta do. Lord, help. I'm selfish, I'm impatient, I'm bitter, I hold grudges. Instead, verse 32, be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. This is what we're called to be. And this is what guards our church. And I'm grateful that our church, by God's grace, for the last few years has been very peaceable. I'm grateful that we have not had any major disruptions in our church. May God continue to guard us. May we guard our hearts so that God uses those things to guard us. So keep going, Disciple Church. Let's look at our second point for this morning. What are we to learn about what causes the fighting and division in the church? The first is that it's the evil passions within us that are at war. That's what causes this. Let's look at the second part for today. It's that fighting and division in the church is also from lacking on selfish prayers. Why do we have division and fighting in the church? It's because we're not praying enough. Because we don't pray the way we ought to, or when we do pray, it's selfish. It's not the types of prayers that God actually answers. It's true. God doesn't answer every prayer with a yes. There are many prayers that he answers no. Why? Because it's a bad prayer. Did you know there's such a thing as bad prayers? We shouldn't be praying bad prayers. We could be praying quote unquote good prayers externally, But from the heart, they're corrupt. God sees all things, we can't fool him. So this is a passage saying, hey, the reason why there's not church unity is because you guys are fighting each other instead of your sin. And the reason why there's not church unity is because you're not praying enough. Or you're praying poorly. This actually gives us really important pause and need to evaluate the life of prayer in our church. We need to be praying in a way that's truthful and godly. That's why we talked even today, this morning, the need to be at all the prayer meetings. Don't skip any of them because we need prayer. We need to be praying godly prayers with and for one another. That's why we pray for other churches. That's why we pray for ourselves. So, verse two, the end of verse two says, you do not have because you do not ask. You don't have what? You don't have peace, you don't have love, you don't have joy, you don't have harmony in your church. Why? Because you're not asking for it. What causes quarrels among you? It's your own sinful passions, right? It's your selfish passions. And it's because, guess what? You asking for God to give you peace is exactly the type of prayer that God would answer. It's God's will that we would have unity and peace in our church. And so we must pray for it. Assume it. We must not assume it. We must be at war against our sinful passions, but we must be at war against apathy, against thinking that our church or our person or our family is above degradation or erosion. Erosion happens slowly over time. It's usually not something that you could see right away. It happens a little bit by a little bit by a little bit by a little bit. What does that mean? We should be praying, Lord, keep us hot. Keep us always looking to do your will. Don't let us get too comfortable, Lord. Yes, we don't want fighting, and so we want the comfort and peace of not fighting each other, but we don't want the comfort and peace of being lax in our faith. No, we must be constantly, Lord, help me, help me, help me. I'm so prone to just taking it easy and letting a little bit of sin in here, a little bit of sin in there, to make this rude comment here, have this evil thought about my church member there, instead of killing that and saying, Lord, oh, root out any bitterness from my heart. I don't want anything that would be in between me and another fellow church member. Do you, what are those things in your life that just gets you so quick and angry to be like, that's not right. What are your, and it's kind of funny, what are your pet peeves that you get all angry about when somebody doesn't cross the line at a street light, and there's all this room above, and turn a left, and I'm just waiting because you didn't turn left, and I could have been on that light, and you just left me hanging here. It's the worst. Ah, road rage. We get all upset about things like that, or when people don't take their shoes off at the right place, or if they're, these things, and I get it, that could be disruptive sometimes. But shouldn't we be more peeved over sin in our heart or over disunity in our church? Shouldn't we be like, that's the worst. I hate it. I don't ever want there be any division in our church. I don't ever want there to be any wrong, evil thoughts in my heart. I don't ever want there to be any comparison between me and others so that I'm getting angry with them or covetousness. Sometimes we need to reprioritize what we get angry at. what we're quick, because we just kind of let stuff happen, right? And so what do we need? We need help through prayer. Oh Lord, reorder my thoughts, my heart, reorder my hates, reorder my loves, because left to myself, I just degrade. fighting and division in the church is from the lack of prayer. But not just the lack of prayer, it's the wrong types of prayer. You know, James, he's so connected to Jesus. I'm just going to be quoting Jesus most of the time. I've already quoted him in chapter 5, chapter 6, now let's do chapter 7. What does Jesus say? about prayer. Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds. And to the one who knocks, it will be opened. There's a promise that if we pray in the name of the Lord, if we pray to Christ for help, We will be heard. We will be helped. It's not that God isn't ready to do this. It's that God, as a good parent does, often waits for us to see the problem, and He's there the whole time. It's not like He's not there. He's there, but we're the problem. We miss it. We have our heart and our mind scattered and distracted by other things, and so we don't pray. No, He loves us. In verse 9 through 10 in chapter 7 of Matthew, it says, or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? God's not that kind of a God. He's not a trickster God. He's not a stingy God. No, he loves you. And he'll answer your prayers for peace, for help. Verse 11, if you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father, who is in heaven, give good things to those who ask him? Of course God will answer your prayer. Of course prayer is us being with God, talking to Him, thinking of Him, asking for help. That is exactly when we're praying. That is some of the most clear, visual, spiritual times where we can be in communion with God. That is exactly how we were meant to live, not separate lives from God. but connected communing lives with God. Prayer is that access. We have immediate access through Christ to say, God, here I am. I love you, help me. Help me do it your way. So let me ask you then, how might your prayers be lacking, or how might your prayers be selfish? How might your prayers be lacking, or how might they be selfish? Let me just give a few examples. There are many good things that God gives us as good gifts. God is good. He gives good gifts. Sometimes we don't pray for the right things like unity or like strength to fight sin or like patience. Sometimes we just need to pray for those things. We complain about how hard life is, but we're not willing to pray for the things that God is willing to give us. What are the things that you haven't been praying for? Have you been praying for righteousness? Have you been praying for holiness? Have you been praying for, I'm guessing you've been praying for God's blessing. We like that. Have you been praying for perseverance through trials? Have you been praying for the boldness to share your faith regularly? Have you been praying for each one of the church members that were covenanted to? We often don't. We lack the prayers that we are called to pray. Or maybe praying wrongly, praying selfishly. Even for good things, we pray selfishly. Just think of this list here. What do you pray for and why? Well, we often will pray for a good education. That's not a bad thing, that's a good thing. But we're not praying for a good education because we want to be known as smart because we're connected to some Ivy League. We're praying for a good education so that we can love God with our mind. And we could think through things with wisdom and knowledge. Not so that we can be a know-it-all. Sometimes, Lord, give me a good education because people will respect me, people will like me. I will have access to the most amount of knowledge, and I want to be a know-it-all. Oh, wait, I didn't say that out loud, that last part, did I? No, that's not a good enough reason to pray for a good education. And it's not a necessary thing. It's a good thing, but... No, it's actually about God. Or do you pray for the right job? Or help in your business? Not because you want to get a lot of money, or because you want to have power, or because you want to have control, or because you want to have nice things. No, that's not the reason why you pray for a good job. You pray for a good job so that you can serve the Lord in your work. You can work heartily as unto the Lord and give him glory by the way that you serve him. The way that you serve your neighbor at work. That's why you work. You work as unto the Lord and you work to bless your neighbor. Not for personal identity issues or control issues. Or maybe a good salary. Lord, please help me have a good salary. It's not for the earthly things. There's nothing wrong with if Lord blesses you with a lot of abundance and that's wonderful. But really, a good salary is so that you could be a really good steward of God's money. It's not even your money. It's God's money. It's on loan. It is your money in the sense that people can't steal it, but it isn't your money in the sense that it's actually every single dollar and dime that you make has a purpose already set out. It's God's dollar and dime, and it's meant to be leveraged for his glory. We don't have the freedom to be bad stewards. People go, oh, it's my money, I can do whatever I want. No, you can't. Just like it's your mouth and you can't say whatever you want. Just like it's your brain and you can't think whatever you want. It's God's brain that was given to us on loan, right? That's how it is. Or maybe a spouse, maybe you're single and you're wanting to get married. That's a good thing, but it's not because you're lonely. It's not because you want to be like others. It's because you want to serve that spouse and have a Christ-centered home, a Christ-centered relationship. That's why you want to get married, so that you can be a better Christian and a better kingdom agent together with this other Christian than you could do it by yourself. That's why you want to get married, because you want to honor the Lord in that relationship and extend his kingdom through that relationship. That's why you want to get married. Or children, I want to have children because I love children, I want them. Well, they are a blessing for the Lord, amen, but we should want to have children because we want to raise godly offspring and disciple children unto Christ, not so that they can be an extension of us and live vicariously through our children. No, they're not pawns to be used for our own gains. Children are actually precious. in the sight of God and in Christ, and they're meant to be offered up to God as His. Maybe you're wanting a home. Not so that you can be in the coolest, safest neighborhood, but so that you can serve people with Christ-centered hospitality. You can bless your family, your friends, the church. You can serve the saints from your home. Or good health. Many people, we pray for health all the time. Lord, keep us healthy, keep us healthy. That's a good thing. We don't want sickness on people. But why are we praying for good health? Is it so that we can not have aches and pains? No, we pray for good health so that we can serve others, so that we can live a godly life, a fruitful, productive life. We pray for good health, not because we're scared of pain. Do you know how much pain, did Christ ever pray for good health? Did the apostles ever pray for good health? Meaning, meaning, what I mean, not that he didn't heal, he healed, but meaning for its own sake? No, he did it so that that person could be restored to the fullness of strength and they could use their strength for the Lord. Good health is for the Lord. It's not so that I can go spend my money on things that I don't need or spend my time with people that aren't my priority. Why do we pray for a good church? so that we can be joined to like-minded members of the church, so we can serve God together, we can rightly worship God together, we can have accountability, we can have encouragement. Not so that we can better our business, because there's lots of people here who might be interested in buying what I have, or because this will make my parents happy if I come here, or because I have friends here. Hey, we're gonna have friends if you're the family of God. But we don't go to church because we follow our friends around. We join a church because we're following the Lord, and because this is where God has called us to serve him at. How about peace and security? Boy, we are living in a time where there's always a need for more peace and more security. Some of it's fake news, some of it's real news. But either way, why do we pray for it? Oh Lord, keep things peaceful. Is it because we're scared of conflict and we just don't want to be bothered by it? I mean, we live in a nation that has much more peace and security than most of the world. Most of the world is very, either at war, at the brink of war, really close. And why do we pray for that? Do you know why the Bible says we should have peace? It's so that the gospel could be preached among people. We should pray for peace so that the governments leave Christians alone so that they can preach instead of kicking them out of country. We should pray for peace and security so that Christians can raise their children in the ways of the Lord and churches can be preaching the gospel or discipling people and not be a threat. We should pray for peace because that loves our neighbor. And when we love our neighbor, we can show them the love of Christ. You pray, you do not have because you do not ask, and when you ask, you ask wrongly, is what James says. So we need to examine our prayer life. What are we lacking, and what are we praying for wrongly? Matthew six says, but seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. but praise the Lord that we have a promise from the Lord. When we ask, and when we ask rightly, He answers our prayers. Look what it says, 1 John 5, and this is the confidence, we could take this to the bank, that we have towards Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, that's the main part there. We ask anything according to God's will, which means we need to know what God's will is, we need to want and love God's will, and we need to ask for God's will regularly, and then not be upset. when God's will is something different, because actually we want whatever God wants, right? And if we know that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us, and if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of Him. What a wonderful promise. I think so many times, like he says, we don't have because we do not ask. We're scared to ask sometimes, because what if the answer is no or not yet? Why don't we just keep asking, Lord, help, bless brother, sister, so and so. Lord, help them to thrive, to flourish, so that they can be good kingdom citizens for you, good church members. Help them in there. Just keep asking. Keep asking for people to come get saved. Keep asking for that difficulty. at work to get resolved so that God's glory could be put on display. Ask for those things. Ask for our church. Lord, keep our church. Grow our church. Grow our sanctification. Grow our number. Grow our ability to do right and better ministry. So, why is there fighting and division in the church? First, because we're selfish and we have wars within our own passions. And second, because we don't ask for the right things in prayer. We don't ask at all, or we don't ask rightly. Let's look at our last point for this morning. What are we to learn about fighting division in the church? It's that fighting in division in the church is from seeking worldliness. The reason why there's fighting and division in the church is because we're selfish in our desires, and it's because we're lacking in our prayers, and it's because we care too much about looking like the world. Why is the church all messed up? Why is the church at odds with one another? Because it's following the wrong voices. It's following the wrong influencers. Influencers should be God and Christ and the Holy Spirit and godly saints. Those should be our influencers. Those should be the ones who are helping us lead our life. Not what the world says is cool, what the world says is right. No, look what James says to a bunch of Christians. Let this land. This is actually significant, this moment here. He says, you adulterous people. You adulterous people. You cheating people. Strong words. Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? If you're trying to be cool in the world's eyes, you're actually moving further and further away from God and acting just like his enemy. Do you want to be God's enemy? You were before. Didn't you get saved so that you wouldn't be God's enemy anymore? Why are you being worldly and starting to act and look like God's enemy again then? You care too much about what non-Christians think. You care too much about what your business partners think, about what your family thinks. We talked about even this morning how the church is to have a sacred priority, and even Jesus, he didn't fall to the trap of what his family wanted him to do. His family said, hey, come on over here, Jesus, and even the crowd was like, hey, Jesus, your family's asking for you. And what did Jesus say? Who's my family? My family is the one who actually do the will of God. And if you think about Jesus' family, from what we know, his brothers were not doing the will of God, they were rejecting Jesus. So Jesus didn't go, yeah, you know, okay, if mom and brothers want me, mom and brothers and sisters want me, sure, whatever you want, I can go to that. No, no, no, he says, hey, who do I follow? I follow the Lord, and whoever's with the Lord, I'm with them. That's what Jesus says. He's not worried about something that's not central to his life. He's not worried about what the world thinks. He says, Since that's true, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy with God. What is Pastor James saying? Quit returning to the state of acting like an enemy with God, Christians. When you care too much about what you wear or what you drink or what you eat or what people think of you or how much things cost, when you worry too much about appearances or appeasing the wrong people, to where it shifts your attention and your life and your pocket book and your attendance and your presence at the places that you're supposed to be faithful at, God is not pleased. And notice, it's possible for God to not be pleased with his own people. It's possible for Christians to act like adulterers. James didn't say, you adulterers, but not really. No, there's like an exclamation point. You adulterous people. So this is a passage of warning, a passage of examination. Are we acting like adulterous people? Are we actually caring too much about what the world says and thinks? Obviously, there are other passages that say we need to be light to the world. We need to be gracious in how we talk to the people who are in the world. We need to not make people stumble. So it's not saying that we stop interacting with the world or we stop being courteous. No, what he's saying is, what do you prioritize and who are you listening to? What do you prioritize and who are you listening to? Who is helping you make your decisions? Is it God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Bible, and the church? Because that's the type of thing. Now, obviously, you can get wisdom from outside of those places. And it may be very good and godly to go get wisdom outside of those places, because you need to get earthly wisdom in order to make a godly decision. So we're not saying that you can't get good information outside. But no, it's all about what you prioritize and who you're listening to. Fighting in division in the church is from seeking worldliness. Just a moment here. 1 John chapter 2 says this, Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. Serious things. Verse 16, for all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, the pride of life. He's describing these often well-known descriptions of sin. You care too much about your flesh. You care too much about the way things look, about the way things seem, your eyes, appearances. About the pride of life, about boasting about your own life. What you have, or don't have, or who you know, or don't know. This is not from the Father, this is from the world. Right, verse 17. And the world is passing away along with its desires. Just think about it. Worldliness will not be a thing in the future. Think about that for a sec. Worldliness. It will be gone when Christ comes back, because what is it gonna be? He's gonna purge the sin from the church, and he's gonna remove the sheep from the goats, he's gonna cast out the goats, and it's gonna just be the sheep, and those sheep will not be worldly anymore. The sheep are not gonna smell like world, they're gonna smell like Christ. That's a good smell, right? That's a good aroma that we're supposed to have. So he goes on, as we finish our last verses here, five and six, it says, or do you not suppose it is of no purpose that the scripture says that he, God, yearns jealously over the spirit that he made to dwell in us, and he gives more grace? Praise the Lord. God is jealous over us, but he gives us grace when we mess up. Therefore, it says, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. God does not want us to be worldly. He does not want us to care about the wrong things, listening to the wrong people. He wants us to care about who He is, and what He says in His Word, and how we love one another, and how we take care of our responsibilities in a way that pleases God. And he's saying, hey, God does not sit back idly. In fact, there's kind of some, this is both, this is one of those tension-filled passages, because it says two things that seem to be opposite with each other simultaneously. It says, God is not okay with your sin. You're acting like an enemy. So we see God's anger, God's discipline, God's disapproval in this text. Don't be an enemy of God, you adulterous people. And at the same time, we hear, but God is good and God is gracious and God gives more mercy and more, more grace. How are those both true? Is God schizophrenic? No, he's just God and he is love and he is grace and he has it all at the same time. We don't have that, we shift in modes, right? God doesn't shift, he has it all. He is simultaneously angry at sin and simultaneously loves when his people obey him and gives grace and strengthens him. And he simultaneously loves his people even when they're struggling. So, sometimes we experience God's anger, sometimes we experience God's pleasure. Now, if we're His, we'll ultimately always have His pleasure. But there are times on this earth when we choose to sin. That's why we're looking forward to the future when we won't be sinning anymore. We will never experience God's anger. We'll never experience His wrath. That was only on Christ, amen? So we don't have to experience that kind of anger from God, because that's all been extinguished already. But we do experience God's discipline. We do experience His displeasure. We do experience His distance at times. Why? Because we're sinning. Not because He's distancing Himself. No, it's because it's us. And like a good parent, He knows what we need in order to turn around and repent. So let me ask you, How is your battle against defeating sinful worldliness going? How is your battle going? Are you actively fighting worldliness? Are you thinking, who are the people that I'm listening to? What are the voices that I'm letting into my heart and mind? Do I just make decisions the way everyone else does, according to my own thoughts and my own beliefs? Or do I take things through a careful process of, what do the scriptures say? What would be most pleasing to my parents or my children or my church? What would be, where can I get godly wisdom? There's a reason why we have pastoral counseling, so that we could offer pastoral wisdom from the scriptures. Are you asking other church members, hey, what should I do here? How have you been helpful? I want to be pleasing to the Lord. I don't want to succumb to looking like the world, smelling like the world, acting like the world. How is that battle? Is that an active battle in you? How's it going? Romans 8 says, so then brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. We don't owe flesh, we don't owe sin anything, except to kill it. Verse 13 says, if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if you live by the Spirit, you put to death, you kill, you murder the deeds of the body. We're not debtors to flesh to live by it, we're debtors to flesh to kill it. What do we owe sin? Death, we owe sin death. Fourteen, for all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. So, Saint, I want to encourage you today. How are you doing? How are your sinful passions? Are you killing them? How is your relationship with other church members? Are you seeking to be at peace? Are you seeking to own maybe your own part of divisive parts? Are you seeking to not be worldly? The only way, the only hope we have is in Christ. And so we look to Him to battle. We don't do this in our own strength. We cannot do it in our own strength. It's not possible. That's why we must be saved in order to battle. So we look to Christ. Look at Christ and how He battled. Look in the garden. I'm sorry, yeah, it was in the wilderness when Christ battled against Satan. What did he do in Matthew chapter four? Then Satan was led up by the spirit into the wilderness and to be tempted by the devil. How does Christ battle? We have a clear picture of it. And he was hungry. And the tempter came to him and said, if you are the son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread. And he answered, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Christ has already battled for you. And he continues to battle with you. In fact, Christ, when it says you have not because you ask not, did you know that we're supposed to ask Christ directly and he intercedes for us? He's our great high priest. He's already won it for us. It's available to us. Just ask. Ask in faith. Ask often. Look to Christ in the way that he battles and then look to Christ to ask him for help. And learn from Christ, Matthew 11. 28 and 30 says, come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. We're supposed to be taught by Jesus himself. He's our teacher. He's our great prophet. But look what kind of prophet he is. He's gentle. He's lowly. He's meek in heart. He's not against us. He's for us. if you're in him, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. I pray that you'd be encouraged to be careful in examining yourself, but to ultimately have that lead you to Christ and to his love and his blood. Amen, let's pray. Lord, I thank you for this passage in James, how it rightly calls us as church members to be careful about, Lord, causing quarrels and divisions being careful about fighting our own sin and our own passions within us, being careful about not being worldly, not being adulterous, but Lord, calling us to look to Christ and to learn from Him. So we pray that you would give us your Holy Spirit, more measure of Him, so that we really are more obedient to the Spirit, more obedient, more walking in step with the Spirit instead of walking to the beat of our own drum, the beat of the world. So, Lord, help us, we pray. Guard us. Give us unity. Give us peace. And give us holiness, we pray. Give us many people coming to faith around us, Lord, because we're doing good gospel ministry. We thank you for this, Lord. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.