We're blessed in this church to have a great many people who work in the medical world. We have doctors, we have nurses, we have various other people who actually work in roles in the medical world, and that's a good thing, because when you become sick you need a doctor, assisted by a great many other medical staff who can help find out what is wrong and tell you what can be done to deal with your sickness.
In today's Bible reading, James takes us into his doctor's surgery. He wants to diagnose a really serious illness that is prevalent amongst the Christians to whom he is writing.
Now just to remind us, James, who wrote this, was probably not a medical doctor. Luke, who wrote Luke and Acts, he was a medical doctor. James, remember, he was the half-brother of Jesus, so his parents were Joseph and Mary. So he probably followed in his father's footsteps and became a builder. But nevertheless, he's showing the skill of a good doctor, and that's because a pastor is, amongst many other things, a doctor of the spirit and the soul, seeking to help people with spiritual ailments and conditions. And James is extremely skilful as he does that.
Now, reading medical manuals is a risky exercise. There is a story that I read, I think when I was at school—it's called Three Men in a Boat—and it tells the story, it's a little scene in there where this guy gets hold of a medical manual and discovers, by reading it, that he has every single condition in the book with only one exception. The only illness he does not have is housemaid's knee. Everything else he is afflicted with. And there's a danger, reading parts of the New Testament that diagnose specific illnesses, that you come away and conclude that you have all the sicknesses of the Galatians, all the sicknesses of the Ephesians, all the sicknesses of the Philippians, and you come away feeling this big.
When actually, probably, most of us do not have the sickness that is described here. But nevertheless, we need to know what it is. Here's why: I hope you know the symptoms for a heart attack. Okay, there are a number of GPs here—I could ask them—but let me tell you some of them. You might experience severe chest pains. You might experience tingling and numbness at the tips of your fingers. And there are others.
Why do you need to know that? Because there may come a day in the future when it could save your life to know it. But you don't refuse to tell someone the symptoms of a heart attack because, "Well, you're not having one at the moment, I'm not going to tell you. Come and ask me when you're about to have one and then I will tell you." It's not how it works. You tell people the symptoms of a heart attack when they're healthy, so that when those symptoms occur they go, "I know what's happening here, and I know that the one thing I need to do is call 999 now."
But the other thing that happens is: it may be that your brothers and sisters need some help at times. So, parents need to know the symptoms of common childhood illnesses, so that you know how to recognise if one of your children might have something serious like meningitis. And again, you can get the necessary help.
So, we need to hear what James says here this morning so we can recognise these symptoms in ourselves for the future, so we can look after our brothers and sisters, and because there may be a few people here for whom this is the diagnosis for today. And in that case, what a great time to be here to hear these words.
So, I'm going to walk us through, in James's consulting room, the symptoms, the sickness that underlies it—is there a solution to this illness—and then how do you take your medicine? What are the actual steps to take to get better?
So let's start with the symptoms. James gives us two sets of symptoms.
Symptom: Quarrels
The first is quarrels. Note verse one: What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight.
This is a church marked by bitter squabbles. People fight and compete. He says, You don’t get what you want, so you murder. Now just by the way, I take it there was not actual homicide taking place in this church. If there had been, James is a good pastor—I think he would do more than a throwaway line to deal with that problem. Could you imagine a situation where people in this church were actually literally murdering each other, and the way we dealt with it as pastors was, at the end of the service, Pastor Lee stands up and says, "Church, we love you, but please put the guns away"? I think we would deal with it a little more than that.
But what James is saying is that the root of murder is the kind of resentment, competitive spirit, wanting what other people have got. That is the beginning of the slippery slope which ends in murder, and which Jesus says is murder in our hearts.
So quarrels is one symptom.
Symptom: Unanswered prayer
The other symptom is unanswered prayer: You don’t have because you do not ask God. And when you ask, you don’t receive because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
Here are two reasons, says James, why God is not answering your prayers. Number one: you're not praying. How can God answer a prayer that you never made? Now that might just be because they couldn't be bothered—half an hour extra in bed appealed more than time spent in prayer—but actually, probably what it was was that they knew deep down the things they wanted to bring to God and ask for would not be the kinds of things God would be pleased to give them, and therefore they didn't have the cheek to ask him.
And the second reason why God doesn't answer your prayers is that your motives are wrong. You're driven by the pursuit of personal pleasure, and so God says no. He loves you enough to say no to that kind of prayer.
And these two symptoms are connected—the quarrels and the unanswered prayers both happen because these are people fuelled by a desire for pleasure and enjoyment. That is what's driving their life. That's their priority, and that leads to the quarrels, and that leads to God lovingly saying no when they come to him in prayer.
So those are the symptoms. What is the sickness that underlies it?
Diagnosis: Friendship with the world
James describes this for us in two ways. Let me read verses four and five: You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us?
So, the first root sickness of this illness is friendship with the world. Now we need to understand this correctly. What does James mean by the world? He does not mean the little blue marble that spins in space that David Attenborough every few years produces another television series to show just how stunningly beautiful it is. No, no—don’t idolise the world, but do love it. It’s a precious thing that God has entrusted to our care. No, James is not telling us not to love that.
He doesn’t mean either all human beings everywhere—just people. “Don’t love people.” No. He means something almost technical by it that you get in a number of New Testament books. He means human society, as we organise ourselves to rebel against the God who made us. And that can come out in open, defiant rebellion, as we spit in his face, as we crucify his Son. But more often it’s not so obvious. It is subtle. It is simply that we live as though God is not there, as though the things that he cares about don’t really matter to us, and we just quietly push God to the edges and live as though there were no God. That is how the world—society—organises itself against God.
And friendship with that world does not mean having friends outside the church. No, no, no—have loads of friends. Please, have friends in here, have friends out there. This is how we will get to share the good news of Jesus with each other and with the unbelieving world. No—have friends. But no, friendship with the world is about: who do you side with? Who do you align with? Whose side are you on? Do you go, “I am with them—that’s me”? Do you go, “They are my tribe”—the world, as it hates its God?
Friendship with the world.
Diagnosis: Spiritual adultery
And then the second part of this sickness is what he calls spiritual adultery: You adulterous people, he said. Now, that might sound a bit of a shock. We’ve already heard him accuse the church of committing murders, and now it seems the church is rampant with adultery as well. But no—the background to this is in the Old Testament, where the relationship between God and his people is frequently likened to a marriage between a man and a woman. Actually, it's the other way around—human marriage is a visual aid for the relationship between God and his people. You get it in the New Testament too, where the church is called the bride of Christ.
And so the Old Testament prophets, when the people of their day ran after other gods, described that in terms of committing spiritual adultery. And indeed, the prophet Hosea—and that was the reading that was brought for us—was asked himself to marry a prostitute as a visual aid for what was going on.
So James is describing a church with split loyalties. They love God, and they love the world. They love Jesus, and they love their bit on the side.
Presentation: Double-mindedness
And how does this all come out? Well, the key is James’s word at the end of verse eight, where he calls them double-minded.
Double-minded.
If you want to know about that word, what the original word is and how we might unpack it—talk to the youth. We—I met with over 20 of them before the service—and we talked about this word double-minded in some detail. It’s where we compartmentalise our life: there’s a me when I’m here in church, and there’s a different me that is out there the rest of the time, doing the other things that I do.
Or there’s kind of two versions of me that I present to people: there’s the church me—the me that my Christian friends know—and the me that my non-Christian friends get to meet when I’m doing sport or work or social things. And actually, if there are two different me’s, then what you try and do is you try and make sure that never the two shall meet. The worst disaster would be if your non-Christian mates met your Christian mates, because one or both would discover there’s another version of you that they didn’t know existed.
Actually, what we want is to be bringing the two together. But actually, if there are two different versions of you, if you're not a Christian with integrity, you can’t bring the two—you are the thing that your non-Christian friends and your Christian friends have in common. You’re the route to the Lord Jesus.
If there are two versions of you, there's a problem—because some of them know one you, and some of them know the other you.
We tend to think, do we not, that flirting with a life of pleasure is a pretty minor thing. It really isn't, and in fact, James wants us to know that it has two effects on our relationship with God.
Effect: Enmity with God
Number one: it makes us his enemies. We set ourselves against God. Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. And that is because a traitor is worse than someone on the other team.
Let me illustrate that with football. I thought I would stay away from rugby because some of you are feeling a little winded this morning. Let's talk about football.
So, it's frustrating in a game of football if you lose a goal — the other team scores a goal — because it goes on their tally, okay? But it happens. The aim is that you score more than them. But occasionally, you have what you call an own goal, which is where the name of the goal scorer is someone on your team.
Now, that gets a few boos, because that's not supposed to happen. But normally, what happens is it's an accident. To be honest, it was going in at great speed, the defender tried to stop it, it glanced off their boot, but still went in. So their name gets— that's unfair, isn't it? They try to stop it, and they get accused of scoring the goal. So you kind of boo and then you move on.
But just imagine a world where the goalkeeper stops it and catches it, and everyone cheers because he saved it. And he then places it on the ground, turns around, and does that — I'm left-footed, yeah, okay — that goalkeeper would never play professional football ever again, and would never be forgiven.
Or during the Second World War, large parts of France — most of France — were occupied by German troops, who took over running the government and everything. And the French inhabitants of France, they really hated the fact they were under occupation. But more than their German occupiers, let me tell you who they really hated — the French people who chose to work for the German administration.
Enmity with God: because you're on his team, but you're working against him.
Effect: Jealousy
And the second effect on our relationship with God is jealousy.
Do you think the Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the Spirit he has caused to dwell in us?
Now, we often think that jealousy is a bad thing — and it is. It's not good if what you mean by that is that you want something that's not yours. But if you are protective of something that is exclusively yours and it should be that way, jealousy is a really good thing.
Jealousy is a good thing to have in a marriage, for example. And God has given you his Spirit if you're a Christian. And the picture here is of his Spirit in your heart, weeping and just longing for your loyalty and devotion to be his and his alone.
Friendship with the world: spiritual adultery, which leads to enmity with God and his jeal— jealousy. That's the root of this sickness.
What's the solution? Is there a solution to this ailment? And there is — comes in verse six:
Solution: More grace
But he gives us more grace.
That is a solution. It's a wonderful pairing of words: more grace.
Here's why it's so wonderful. We tend to think when you become a Christian you have one shot. You become a Christian, you receive God's grace. So this isn't more grace, this is just grace. You become a Christian, you receive grace as a result of which he forgives you, he adopts you, he loves you, he showers his kindness upon you, and you have a clean slate. You then make various mistakes in life, and little mistakes get forgiven.
We say a little prayer every Sunday. It gives us a chance to say sorry to God for things we've done. He says, "It's all right. I love you. I forgive you."
But here's what we think: if you then blow it big time, you're out. And you've had your one chance.
No. No — a thousand times, no.
He gives us not just grace, but more grace. God is not just a God of grace — he is a God of more grace.
So let me just speak especially to anyone here who may feel that you have done something that is unforgivable by God since you became a Christian. And the message to you is that you can never exhaust the reservoir of God's grace.
God is a God of more grace. And I'm about to tell you what you can do to come and take hold of that, but actually, you have never run out. You've never drained the pot empty and he has no more grace to give you. He said, "I've given you—"
Yeah. "How many times should I forgive my brother? Seven?"
"Not seven," says Jesus, "seventy times seven."
Do not hear that and go, "You know, I think I've done 491." That is not the point. It is a bottomless reservoir that never runs dry.
Steps to take: Weep
So there is a cure for the sickness. You just need to take it. The steps to take. And there are two steps to take: we weep and we wash.
So we weep — verse nine:
"Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom."
They're a great verse. Christians are frequently commanded to be joyful, okay? I have never opened a service, leading the service, with this verse. You will never get Lee or I standing up and going, "Let me just rephrase Philippians chapter 4 for you — 'Be sad in the Lord always. I say it again, be sad.'"
But there are seasons of life when something different is required. And this is one of them.
There are some people who just— whose personalities— they just never take anything seriously. Everything that comes their way, they just joke it off. And there is a time to need to sober up.
And we need to, I think, relearn in the West what it is to have genuine sorrow for sin. Somehow, saying that prayer of confession every week — it's too easy. Do we actually really feel the deep sorrow?
Some of the older prayers from the 17th-century church prayer book are much more laden with grief. But even then, you can just say them without thinking.
We need to relearn this real sorrow. And let me just say this: if what you've done is really serious, actual tears are not out of place. If they come from a genuine sorrow in your heart — not crocodile tears — but if the genuine sense of sorrow is so much you find your eyes getting wet because you're so sad that you've done this to the God you love, that is okay.
Weep
Steps to take: Wash
And wash. Verse 7:
"Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Come near to God and he will come near to you.
Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded."
We apply our washing in two places: hands and hearts.
Hands — behaviour. Not because we need to earn God's restoration — remember, it's all about grace and more grace — but because seeking that grace needs to touch the stuff that's gone wrong in the first place. And that is to do with the way we've lived.
But also hearts — our attitudes, our priorities. Because our behaviour is just on the surface. And we need to address the deeper underlying issues of change as well.
And then that double washing has an impact in two directions:
- The devil flees. "Resist the devil and he will flee from you." Like Jesus in the wilderness, we say no to Satan and his priorities and his goals, and he flees.
- And then God draws near. "Come near to God and he will come near to you."
Come near to God, and you might expect he would at that point just turn his back and say, "Sorry, come back next week. I'll see if I'm ready to forgive you."
But no. "Come near to God and he will come near to you."
Now, both those directions — resist the devil, come near to God — these are verses that get plucked out of context. In fact, the letter of James is full of verses that people love to print over the picture of a sunset and stick on a calendar. James is full of verses like that.
And so these get used as a general command to say no to the devil and he will run away — kind of a manual for spiritual warfare. And the invitation to come near to God gets used as a kind of a general verse for your times of personal prayer or for your time of worship. That if, at the beginning of your time of worship, you intentionally come to God, he will come near to us, and he'll be with us.
Well, those may be true — and they are — be wonderful things. But that's not the point in context.
These are just wonderful promises for two-timing, compromised Christians. You can know: the devil will take flight and God will draw near — if you weep and you wash.
The symptoms, the sickness, the solution, and the steps to take.
Prognosis: God will lift you up
So what's the prognosis? Or put it this way: what is the success rate of this treatment?
And the answer is 100%. Verse ten:
"Humble yourselves before the Lord" — in the way that he's just described — "and he will lift you up."
Not might, if you're lucky. He will lift you up and set your feet upon a rock.
So I hope you've enjoyed our trip into Dr James's consulting room this morning. Let me just speak briefly, as we do most Sundays, to any who are here, you're not yet a Christian. You're still trying to work out if this is for you. And I've got two things I want to say to you.
Applying: Unbelievers
The first is: do not hold off becoming a Christian because you fear you are not yet ready to make it work. You want to wait until you have the strength within you to become a Christian and then not blow it. And so you're waiting till you get to that point before you start.
The grace you start with is there for you for the rest of eternity. So you don't have to then not blow it. You're just choosing to take hold of God's grace. And after that, he will keep hold of you.
And then the second thing to say to those of you still looking into all of this is: how do you start? How did you become a Christian?
Well, it's the same way that we come back when we need to do so. You hear this wonderful invitation of grace. You weep, you wash, and he lifts you up. That's all you have to do.
Applying: Christians
But to those of us who are here who are Christians — which is most of us — just please store this up. Who knows when you might need this? Store this up as a precious Bible passage to remember is there. And maybe one day this will be just what you need to hear. Or when this allows you to lovingly help your brothers and sisters if they have got the issues that James is describing here.
But just maybe, for some of us here this morning, this is for you — and for you today. Maybe you're here and you're hearing this, and you're saying, "Yes. I am compromised."
If that is you, please own James's diagnosis. It is as bad as he says.
But don't just stop there and wallow, because the grace of God is as wonderful as he says. Own the diagnosis. But then let him lead you to the Lord Jesus, who is the cure:
"Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up."