James 4:1-12

I.                   In June, 2006, a US Senator claimed that “We have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.”

A.                 The Washington Post said he was referring to 500 shells “that had been buried near the Iranian border, and then long forgotten, by Iraqi troops during their 8-year war with Iran, which ended in 1988.”

1.                  Subsequently two Congressmen insisted that WMD’s had been uncovered in Iraq.

2.                  The CIA reported later that “WMD’s have yet to be found in Iraq.”

 

B.                 But I can tell you, there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

1.                  We never recognized them, but they were all around.  We could not recognize them because we had become too used to using them ourselves.

2.                  I am talking about the human lie...

a.                  the anger, the vicious greed, the coveting, the hatred

b.                  in people driven by unchecked passions

c.                  what James identifies as HEDONAI, “pleasures.”

d.                  I will never forget what= R. Buckminster Fuller  said years ago,

                                      “the deadliest weapon of war ever invented is the human lie.”

 

C.                 In the first verse of James 4, there is a sharp shift in tone which criticizes those who are driven by their ‘hedonai,’ their pleasures.

1.                  James uses this hedonism/pleasure principle as an indictment for the desire that entices people to sin. 

2.                  He delineates two kinds of conflict:

a.                  The first is internal, “a warfare within the individual.”

b.                  The second is external, those which cause war between humans.

3.                  The connection between human passion and war has been a common theme in the ancient moralists. 

a.                  For example, Plato in his “Phaedo” traces all the famous wars of history to human desire.

4.                  James inserts murder into the chain of causality from the destructive human instinct on a par with war and fighting.

a.                  “You want something and do not have it, so you commit murder.”

5.                  Back to the first type of conflict, the internal warfare:

a.                  For James this is a double-mindedness that is an obstacle to prayer,

(i)                 when we focus on our own self-centeredness,  but we pray to God for his will to be done.

b.                  I am thinking back to a scene in the film “Patton,” the night before the Battle of the Bulge, December 8, 1944,  when Lt. General George S. Patton summons his Chief Chaplain at Bastogne, and he issues an order to pray to God, “...to restrain these immoderate rains with which we have had to contend. Grant us fair weather for Battle .. that, armed with Thy power, we may advance from victory to victory, and crush the oppression and wickedness of our enemies...” [PAUSE]

c.                    Patton’s language was “never a role model for Sunday Schools.”

6.                  James suffers a vehement outburst in this chapter:  “‘Unfaithful creatures!’”Your friendship with the world makes you the enemies of God. 

a.                  God opposes you, and everyone who is proud.

b.                  he will never answer such a prayer.

c.                  You are an “adulteress!” (Greek, “moichalides”).

d.                  This “friendship with the world” is in direct opposition to those who have previously been identified as “friends of God.”

7.                  McKnight and Church in the Smyth & Helwys commentary point out that James’ style of writing reminds one of Janus, the Roman God of doorways and entrances. He was the God of beginnings, thus the beginning of the calendar, January, is named for him, or “Ianuarius.”

a.                  Janus had two heads, one could see backward, the other straight ahead.  Janus at the start of the year ensured peace, good crops, honesty and abundance, or the exact opposite. It depended how you entered or came through the doorway.

b.                  For James life as a disciple is similar, it depends on how you come to God, through the doorway of the church as friends of God, or as friends with the world.

c.                  All this is illustrated by how you talk the talk and walk the walk.

 

II.                 Previously James has confined his discussion to how we use our words as Christians.  Here in chapter 4 he expands it to what he calls our virtues. I have chosen 3 words each beginning with “V,” that illustrate our Christian Virtues: values, volitions, vocabulary.

A.                 What are your values?

1.                  This is the ethical-moral arena.

2.                  Some of the Dead Sea Scrolls describe the “two spirits at war in us.” God has decreed that two angels will walk in front of us, two spirits, all of our life until the judgment: the spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.

3.                  In Galatians 5, before listing the fruits of the spirit, Paul first enumerates “the desires of the flesh,”

a.                  Curiously he does not mention the lie or telling the truth. But they are implied in the following words:

b.                  “Now the works of the flesh are plain: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing...

c.                  “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”

d.                  In Galatians 6, Paul then talks about how we deceive ourselves about the truth.

4.                  The gifts of the Spirit for a faithful Christian informs and controls our values, our deeply-held beliefs and those of our community.

a.                  Those opposites always remain at war within us.

b.                  If we are positive people, says Stephen Covey, we have friends who are positive-energy people.  If we are negative energy people, all our friends are negative energy people.

 

B.                 By volitions I mean things James says we want but do not have. We are all too ready to act on those desires, those “hedonai,” or pleasures.

1.                  We have no reservations about going out and getting them.

a.                  We will pick a fight, go to war or kill to get them.

2.                  Do you remember Helen of Troy? Old King Menelaus was outraged that 

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head-strong Paris not only violated the good Spartan hospitality of Menelaus’ home. When the king went away to a funeral, Paris abducted his host’s beautiful young wife Helen and took her back to his homeland.  Menelaus called upon all of Helen’s former lovers and suitors. Together they gathered a great fleet to sail in search of Troy.  Back in Troy, when

Paris’ father Hector found out what his son had done, he told Paris, you have risked our entire civilization and the lives of our people because of your greed. It took 2 years of searching, 10 years of battle, but in the end the Greeks destroyed the great civilization of Troy forever.  Paris’ mother Cassandra had also warned against the Trojan soldiers’ obsession to have that wooden horse within their city gates.

a.                  The Trojan horse turned out to be a weapon of mass destruction!

3.                  Look at how volitions destroy great people in the Bible:

a.                  Cain killed Abel and became the father of the lie.  

(i)                 There is a saying that if you see your enemy as a brother God has given you, you cannot hate him.

b.                  David lusted after Bathsheba...

c.                  King Ahab coveted a vineyard belonging to Naboth.  Jezebel told her husband, You are the king; just take it, so he did, and the dogs ate their flesh and licked up their blood!

d.                  Jesus says, where your treasure is, there is your heart also... seek first the kingdom of God, and then everything will fall into its rightful place.

 

C.                 The third virtue is your vocabulary.

1.                  Not only our lies to others, but the untruths we tell ourselves, the viewpoints, the prejudices with which we delude ourselves; 

a.                  the words we use to justify the works of the flesh Paul mentions;

b.                  or the joyful words we use to share tasty fruit of the Spirit.

2.                  I have mentioned before what a master of language James proves to be.

a.                  Look at how he juxtaposes good words with the bad,

b.                  how starkly he contrasts them as irreconcilable opposites,

c.                  Be patient above all else, slow to speak, always ready to listen.

d.                  Do not our words cause wars among us depending on the tone, the inflection and our body language?

3.                  In recent years I have made special efforts to study how I use my vocabulary. I have taken courses, read books, listened to tapes–even on how to talk on the telephone, to train myself to be a better people person.

a.                  I want to mention three in particular that are excellent:

b.                  First, a series of 6 tapes, “Crucial Conversations,” by Kerry Patterson and others.

(i)    No. 1 here is: don’t judge others by feelings, only the facts.  C. c. 2^nd, “Power Phrases ,” by Meryl Runion.

(i)                 This teaches economy of words, putting thoughts succinctly.

c.                  3^rd, “The Power of Nice,” by Ronald M Shapiro & Mark Jankowski.

(i)       Negotiate from a win-win strategy, so everyone comes out

          ahead.

4.                  All three of these–values, volitions, vocabulary- God must govern; we must denounce the devil and come close to God says James,through the Spirit which will give us what we desperately need: WISDOM.

a.                  All three of these are bound together by wisdom in our virtues.

 

III.              “Crucial Conversations” is able to teach you “The 6-minute technique” to defuse and prevent a fight.  James has a 3-minute technique to prevent weapons of mass destruction.

A.       No. 1- Come closer to God (verses 8-9)