Unclenching Your Fists Message 8 from the Letter of James James 4:1-10 Rev. Jeff Chapman ~ August 2, 2009 ~ Faith Presbyterian Church Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures. Adulterers! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you suppose that it is for nothing that the scripture says, God yearns jealously for the spirit that he has made to dwell in us? But he gives all the more grace; therefore it says, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into dejection. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. (James 4:1-10, NRSV) There are six people that live in my house. Plus, a dog. And when you have six people living under the same roof all of whom, by the way, have very definite feelings and ideas about the way things should go in life when that happens, you are bound to have some fights. From time to time, conflict is inevitable. To be fair, however, the dog is nearly always very accommodating. Now there are plenty of days, I assure you, when everything hums along. There are days when the whole Chapman family treats one another with kindness and grace. Days when children are helpful and obedient. Days when parents are patient and tender. Days when husbands think first of their wives. There are days like that. And it s on those days when I d love to have all of you come over and visit my home and see my beautiful family. But then there are other sorts of days, days when I hope you ll at least call before you stop by. And unless you ve lived alone your entire life, you know what sort of days I m talking about. Right? All families have them. In fact, we had one of those days recently and it seemed like everybody walked around the whole day with their fists clenched. I could have sworn that, at one point, I even caught the dog raising her paw at me in disgust. And at dinner that night my wife asked aloud a question I had been asking myself all day, Why is it that we can t just all get along? Ever have days like that in your house? That s James question in our passage today. But instead of asking it about a household family, he asks it of the church family. Why is it, James asks, that we fight and quarrel in the church? These conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Some of the most nasty fist clenching I ve ever heard of has taken place among people who are supposed to be lovingly committed to one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. I m sure many of you could tell stories about past church battles you ve witnessed or even joined in on.
Of course, not all conflict in the church is unhealthy. Sometimes a difference of opinion is a good thing. Unity does not require total agreement on all topics. But when we allow our disagreements and conflicts in the church to destroy or erode the deeper bonds that hold us together, that s when conflict becomes unhealthy. And if we re honest, that sort of conflict happens here sometimes. While we here at Faith tend to get along with one another pretty well we re a pretty healthy church - we re also not immune to this sort of thing. And unless you re brand new here, my hunch is that you, like me, have been at least partly responsible for some of that sort of conflict here. Maybe you ve allowed a disagreement to destroy a friendship with somebody here. Or you ve withheld forgiveness. Or you have taken something too personally, or made something personal when it should not have been. Maybe you ve become bitter because you didn t receive some recognition you thought you deserved. Maybe you got mad because a decision didn t go your way. I m guilty of lots of these things. I bet we all are. So understand, James is speaking to us. We re on the hook here. He s asking us, Those conflicts and disputes among you at Faith, where do they come from? And before we even get the chance to respond, he gives us the answer. They come, he says, from the cravings that are at war within you. You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. Now, the word here for cravings in the Greek is the word hedone. It s where we get the word hedonism, which we use to describe a person who seeks, above all else, personal pleasure and happiness for themselves. 1 Here s James point. Sometimes people stand in the way of us getting what we want. And when that happens, we often become angry, or annoyed, or bitter. We fight and argue. In extreme cases, we can even get violent. Think about this and you know it s true. When was the last time you were angry or upset with somebody? Chances are you got upset because that person somehow got in the way of you getting something that you wanted. 2 Recently I spent an entire day angry. It was even a vacation day. What a waste! And at the time, it felt really justified. I had good reason to clinch my fists! But as I look back now, the truth is I was angry because I did not get what I wanted. My selfish cravings were not satisfied and I was upset about it. You know what our problem is? James tells us. In verse 3 he says that one of two things happens. You do not have, because [either] you do not ask [or] you ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures. Sometimes, James says, we don t receive something we want because we don t ask God, the one who is able to give us all good things. Remember, Jesus himself told us: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 3 You see, God is a good Father in heaven who loves to give good gifts to his children. But we need to ask. And sometimes we need to be persistent in our asking. 4 Don t be shy with God. Tell God what you want. Tell God what you need. But, some will object, I have asked God. In fact, I ve asked God for years. But God has not delivered. Well then, James says, perhaps the problem is that you re asking with wrong motives. Maybe you re really only seeking to satisfy your own selfish desires. 1 Craig Blomberg & Mariam Kamell, Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament: James, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, c. 2008), p. 187. 2 Sometimes, yes, our anger is justified and righteous anger. But more often than not, our anger is selfish anger. 3 Matthew 7:7 (NIV). 4 See Jesus parable of the persistent widow in Luke 18:1-8. 2
Two people, for instance, can pray for good health. But while one wants good health so that she will have the strength and energy to serve others, the other prays the same prayer because she wants to live life free from the slightest trace of suffering. Two people can pray for material wealth. But while one wants more so he can give more away to the poor, the other wants more simply to satisfy his own materialistic desires and make himself comfortable. 5 Same prayer, very different motives. And James says, when you pray your motives matter. Well, you might ask, how do we then know when we are praying out of good motives? That s a great question. And one way to check our motives is to make sure that when we pray, we pray about the things Jesus told us to pray about. Specifically, the Lord s Prayer is a fantastic guide. Pray for God s name to be hallowed and honored. Pray for God s kingdom to come, for God s will to be done. Pray for enough bread for the day, no more, no less. Pray for God s forgiveness, and for the forgiveness of others. Pray for protection from temptation and evil. And don t just pray these things for yourself. Remember, every pronoun of the Lord s Prayer is plural. Jesus didn t teach us to pray, Give me this day my daily bread. We are to pray, Give us this day our daily bread. So again, when we are dissatisfied and going around with our fists clenched because we aren t getting what want, maybe the problem isn t necessarily our relationships with others, even the people we are fighting with. James suggests that the problem instead might be our relationship to God and our lack of trust in God to provide what we need. That s what James seems to be saying here. And in verse 4, he takes the gloves off. Adulteress! he accuses. The problem is that you people are cheating on God. Now, when I read that I want to say, Whoa, slow down James. Let s downshift a bit here. I may be selfish from time to time even selfish a lot of the time but I m not an adulterer. I mean, where does James get this sort of language? Well, as some of you may know, it was quite common in the Old Testament for God, through his prophets, to call his people adulterers when they turned away from him to worship other gods or to disobey his commandments. 6 When that happened, when God s people stopped trusting him, God didn t call them liars, or cheats or thieves. God called them adulterers. God said, You ve acted towards me like a wife who goes off and sleeps with a man who is not her husband. I ve heard it said that there may be no deeper pain in life then the pain that comes when a spouse is unfaithful. Some of you in this room can vouch for that because who know that pain. And if it s not the worst thing you can go through in life, it s close. Maybe that s why the Bible often describes our unfaithfulness to God in those terms. Maybe we re meant to learn something here about our relationship to God, that it is less like some distant, formal relationship between a king and his subjects, and more like an intimate, loving relationship between a man and his wife. God creates us. God loves us. God cherishes us. God provides for us. God shares everything he has with us. God binds himself to us. God even dies for us. And so when, instead of trusting God and finding our deepest desires met in God, when we go off and seek to have our desires fulfilled elsewhere, the pain this causes God is deep. You know, when a wife goes off and betrays her husband, his heart is broken. And his heart burns with jealousy for the one he deeply loves. Could it be that s how God feels when we betray him and give our love, our devotion, to another? Somebody once said, A man can only be in love with one woman at a time. If he thinks otherwise, he does not know the meaning of love. 7 I think James is driving at the same thing here. In verse 4 he writes, Do you not know that 3 5 As a father myself, I totally understand this. If my son asks me for $5 to go splurge and buy himself an ice cream sundae, I may or may not give him the money. But if he asks for the same $5 to give to a person he met who doesn t have enough money to eat lunch, the chances are much, much greater that I ll give him the money. The motive behind the request changes everything. 6 See, for instance, Isaiah 54:5 or Jeremiah 3:20. 7 William Barclay, The Daily Bible Study Series: The Letters of James and Peter, (Philadelphia: Westminster, c. 1976), p. 105.
4 friendship 8 with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you suppose that it is for nothing that the scripture says, God yearns jealously for the spirit that he made to dwell in us. Here s what he s saying. The way of the world is that you look out first for yourself, that you spend all your time and energy seeking to fulfill your own desires. Who else, after all, is going to look out for you? But God, on the other hand, tells us not to look out for ourselves. Rather, God says, Seek me first. As Jesus put it, The greatest thing you can do in life is to love God with all your heart, soul and strength. And if you do, if you look to God first, God will and here s the key look out for you. In fact, you can trust that God will look out for you better than you ever could look out for yourself. Think carefully with me for a minute. Imagine if you came to have a deep and abiding confidence that God was always looking out for your best. Imagine what it would be like to know that our perfect, good, faithful, loving God never, even for an instant, takes his eyes off you. That God, who created you, and shaped you, and knows everything about you, wants to give you the best there is in life. And that he has the power to do so because infinite recourses are at his fingertips! What would it be like to be able to say with confidence, If God doesn t give me what I ask for, either God knows I don t need it or God knows I m not ready for it. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus talks to people who run around with their fists clenched. And he tells them, Listen, your Father knows what you need before you even ask. 9 My Father, Jesus says, who gives the sparrows and the flowers everything they need because he loves them, loves you far, far more than that. So don t you think he will also take care of you? So seek first God s kingdom, and everything else you need will be given to you as well. 10 Listen to me. What if we took Jesus at his word? What kind of freedom, and peace, and grace would result, both in our hearts and in our relationships if we knew that our lives were in his hands? I don t know about you, but I want to take Jesus at his word. And I really do believe that this life can be ours. But it has to be something we choose. And the choice we have is between two paths. James, in verse 6, quotes Proverbs 3:34 to clarify this choice. God opposes the proud, he reminds us. On the other hand, God gives grace to the humble. This is our choice, pride or humility. You see, if pride becomes our master so that we think first of ourselves, try to fulfill our own desires, insist on doing things our way, then God will oppose us and we will not receive from God what it is he has to give us. The scriptures are clear about that. On the other hand, if we have faith in God, seek God above all else, give ourselves to him wholeheartedly, trust God to fulfill our deepest desires, then grace is ours. And then all that is worth having in life will be ours. The thing is, to receive the best from God, we must humbly trust God. For God is never going to force anything on us. That s not what love does. It s never what love does. A few weeks ago I was talking with a friend of mine about the challenges she is having with her teenage son. And this woman was really hurting. Because her son and some of you know this pain is at a stage in life where he is totally rejecting her and everything about her. She loves this kid passionately. She would die for this kid. She wants the absolute best for him. But he s completely shut her down. He won t talk with her. He won t let her into his mind or his heart. He won t receive help or guidance from her. He s going to do it his way. And so when she reaches out, all she gets in return is a closed fist. 8 Friendship in James day was seen as far more serious than it often is today. Back then friendship was a lifelong pact between people with shared values and loyalties. It was a very weighty commitment. Not quite as heavy as marriage, but not far off either. 9 Matthew 6:8. 10 Selections from Matthew 6:25-34 (my paraphrase).
5 Now, when your kids are little and they act like that, it s one thing. When a six year old insists on doing things his own way (and boy do I know about that!), you can sort of force them along anyway. For one, you re three times as big. Also, most little kids will, in the end, go along with mom or dad. They misbehave, sure. But children don t usually just shut off the relationship. Right? But when your kid becomes a young adult, everything often changes. You can persuade, you can bribe, you can talk, you can listen, you can punish, you can threaten, you can plead, but in the end, it s really up to that kid if he or she is going to accept the love and the good things you have to give them. All you can do is pray and ache. Because again, love doesn t force things. That s not what love does. As I thought about this woman s heartache over her son, something became clear to me. I just know that if a day comes when that kid gets to a place of brokenness and, instead of extending a fist to his mom, he is humbled enough to extend an open hand to receive what it is she is dying to give him I ll tell you what, if that day comes that woman will run to him. Right? She will not force herself on that kid. But if she is invited in, even a little bit, she s going in. Listen to me. It is the same with God. In spite of all our pride, all our sin, all our selfishness, all our willful independence, if we would turn back to God and reach out to him in trust, God will meet us there. If we would stop running around with our fists clenched, upset because we re not getting everything we really want, and, instead, throw ourselves before God and open our hands wide to receive all that we really need, God will not fail us. 11 This is James plea to us. In verse 7 he writes, Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into dejection. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. 12 The key to all this, James says, is repentance. Which is really just a fancy word that means turning around and heading the other way. To repent is to turn from the ways of the world which lead you to put yourself first. Resist the devil and turn your back on him. You don t need to conquer the devil. You can t anyway. Just turn from him. Take a step towards God. Even a small step. Unclench your fists and reach out your hands. If your repentance is genuine, God will come running. And how does God know if it is genuine? Well, if you re a parent, how do you know if the repentance of one of your children is genuine? They say they are sorry, but how do you really know? Two ways. First, if they say they are sorry for something they did but then make absolutely no effort to avoid doing that thing again, you know that repentance has not happened. Of course, your kid doesn t have to totally reform himself on the spot. That would be impossible. But he does need to at least show some effort in that direction. James says the same thing. He says, Cleanse your hands and purify your hearts. Make an effort to change what you do and what you think. By your works, show that your faith is genuine. The second way you know if your kid is really repentant is if there is genuine sorrow. I mean, if the kid says, I m sorry, but it comes out forced and without feeling, pretty good chance repentance hasn t happened. That s why James says that true repentance always involves weeping and mourning. Not that the Christian life isn t full of joy. Of course, it is. But James isn t describing the end of the Christian life, he s describing the beginning. And the Christian life begins with grief. Grief over our sin. Grief over our brokenness and deep need. It begins at the cross, where we are humbled enough to receive what Jesus did there. 11 Where is this more beautifully illustrated than in the parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15? 12 Italics mine.
But it doesn t end at the cross! It ends, of course, at the empty tomb. As one writer put it, The terrible sorrow of the realization of sin [eventually does] move on to the thrilling joy of sins forgiven. 13 6 This is the good news. If we would just turn back to God and, with fists unclenched, give everything we ve got, even if it isn t much, to opening our hands and humbly extending them to our God, then our Father in Heaven, our beloved Creator and Savior, will come running. Even now, he s waiting, watching, hoping, for the chance to come running. In her book, Traveling Mercies, writer Anne Lamott tells of the time in her life when, after years of pain and struggle and pride and willful independence, she finally unclenched her fists and reached her trembling hands to heaven. I want to close this morning with her words. After a while, as I lay there, I became aware of someone with me, hunkered down in the corner, and I just assumed it was my father, whose presence I had felt over the years when I was frightened and alone. The feeling was so strong that I actually turned on the light for a moment to make sure no one was there--of course, there wasn't. But after a while, in the dark again, I knew beyond any doubt that it was Jesus. I felt him as surely as I feel my dog lying nearby as I write this. And I was appalled. I thought about my life and my brilliant hilarious progressive friends, and I thought about what everyone would think of me if I became a Christian, and it seemed an utterly impossible thing that simply could not be allowed to happen. I turned to the wall and said out loud, "I would rather die." I felt Him just sitting there on His haunches in the corner of my sleeping loft, watching me with patience and love, and I squinched my eyes shut, but that didn't help because that's not what I was seeing Him with." Finally I fell asleep, and in the morning, He was gone. This experience spooked me badly, but I thought it was just an apparition, born of fear and self-loathing and booze and loss of blood. But then everywhere I went, I had the feeling that a little cat was following me, wanting me to reach down and pick it up, wanting me to open the door and let it in. But I knew what would happen: you let a cat in one time, give it a little milk, and then it stays forever... And one week later, when I went back to church, I was so hung-over that I couldn't stand up for the songs, and this time I stayed for the sermon, which I just thought was so ridiculous, like someone trying to convince me of the existence of extraterrestrials, but the last song was so deep and raw and pure that I could not escape. It was as if the people were singing in between the notes, weeping and joyful at the same time, and I felt like their voices or something was rocking me in its bosom, holding me like a scared kid, and I opened up to that feeling--and it washed over me. I began to cry and left before the benediction, and I raced home and felt the little cat running at my heels, and I walked down the dock past dozens of potted flowers, under a sky as blue as one of God's own dreams, and I opened the door to my houseboat, and I stood there a minute, and then I hung my head and said, F it: I quit.' I took a long deep breath and said out loud, 'All right. You can come in.' This, she writes, was my beautiful moment of conversion. 14 Amen Let s pray together In the stillness of this place and time, and in the silence of your heart and soul, are you willing today to consider the gracious hand of God which is outstretched and extended towards you today? 13 Barlcay, p. 109. 14 Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies, (New York: Anchor Books, c. 1999), p. 49-50.
7 Maybe you are here this morning because God wanted you, specifically, to hear this message from him. Maybe you are one who is, in some way, walking away from God in your life. You re in church, yes, but you re still walking away from God, seeking after your own desires, instead of simply seeking after God and letting him, as only he can, fulfill the deepest of your desires. And because of that you re walking around, much of the time, with your fists clenched angry, dissatisfied, hopeless, bitter. Maybe today is the day you finally say that you ve had enough. Maybe today you see the depth of your sin and selfishness and it grieves your heart. You so desire to be free. You so desire to find peace and grace. Lord God, some of us are ready to unclench our fists and open our hands and reach out for you. As we do so, we want to remind you of your promises. You have promised us that if we surrender to you, if we run from sin and evil, if we would draw near to you that you will draw near to us. You have promised this, Lord. We need you to be faithful in your promise. Help us believe that your Grace, Father, is greater than all our sin and weakness. Help us trust you. Help us live in the confidence that you will take care of us. That no matter what, you will take care of us. Lord, help us trust. Amen. The Next Step A resource for Life Groups and/or personal application ~ Why do you think fights happen in the church? James gives his reasons. Do you agree? ~ When James accuses his readers of being adulterers (verse 4), what do you think he means? And is this a fair accusation? ~ Verse 4 says that it is impossible to be friends with the world and, at the same time, friends with God. Why is this impossible? ~ Which of the following statements best describes you at this point in your life? 1. I m a person who often walks around with my fists clenched. I m often dissatisfied and even angry because I don t feel like I m getting what I want or need in life. I have a deep sense that if I don t look out for myself, nobody else will. 2. I m a person who walks around with my hands open and extended. I can live at peace even when things don t go my way. I have a deep sense that God is always looking out for me and that he will, in the end, provide everything I need. ~ Read again verses 7-10. Then read them again, slowly. Which words here do you feel like God is directly speaking to you? What do you think God is trying to tell you? ~ Challenge Question: We are told that God is just waiting for us to extend our hands to Him, that if we would only draw near to him that he will draw near to us. How does this need to happen in your life? What thing (e.g. pain, weight, sin, burden, anxiety, relationship, wound) in your life do you need to release into God s hands this week? ~ Bonus Life Group Scripture: Read James 4:11-12. We didn t cover these verses in this message but they are worth looking at because they immediately follow today s passage. What is James saying here? And how do these verses tie into what he said in verses 1-10? Further Scripture Readings for the Week: Monday: Tuesday: Wednesday: Thursday: I John 2:15-17 Do not love the world Matthew 6:25-34 Do not worry Luke 11:1-13 How to ask God Jeremiah 3:6-25 Unfaithful to Go
Friday: James 4:11-12 Only one judge Saturday: In preparation for tomorrow s message, you might prepare by reading James 4:13-17. 8