A Friend You Don't Need

Turn your Bibles to James, Chapter four, please. You know, it's striking to me every week that we're together, how much we try to do in one meeting. And it's really hard to say no to somebody who wants to share a testimony or it's hard to. I had several prayer requests that I didn't even get to. To offer because things seem to run together. And I just pray that we're faithful in communicating to one another, making up for what we aren't able to do during the week when we're not together. James, Chapter four. Before we read this scripture, I want to start. And you just look up this way. We're not even going to get to that yet. Appreciate your faithfulness to want to get in there. But I. I want to tell you about a brother that came up last week. I don't know if he's here today. I can't see quite as well as I'd like to be able to, but this brother came up and shared with me from his heart something that I expect is probably true of many of you, and that is that he felt a great sense of yearning to be able to be released into some of the principles that we've been talking about in prayer. And he felt a sense of wanting to be faithful to the Lord. And he expressed a desire to get on with these things. But he also shared a tremendous frustration, an inability to become what God wanted him to be. And he said, when are you going to get down to talking about the matter of will, the matter of surrendering in order that God might have his work in you? He said, I thought you were going to do it today, but it just seems like you get near it, and I know maybe you're being sort of loving of us and holding back. And yet what he was putting his finger on may have different expressions for each of us. But we all, if we're honest, come to a point of saying, I understand what's happening here. I hear the truth. I recognize what God is saying. But it's so difficult for me. I look out here week by week, and yesterday at the men's breakfast, I saw this so clearly. I see in the eyes of so many of you a sense of. Almost like you're asking me with your eyes, do you really understand what I face, Jay? Do you really know what it's like out there? And when you start talking about all these principles of the kingdom of God and. And you talk about being faithful in prayer and diligent in your walk and faithful and all the Rest. Do you really know what a war zone I live in, what a jungle I've been called to make my living in? And I sense a longing in your eyes that I understand with you how tough it is out there. And I feel a great deal of need in my heart to let you know today that I do, I believe, understand that. And the last thing that you need when you go out at 7 o' clock in the morning and get in that bus tomorrow, head into Pittsburgh or out to your school or whatever it might be, or just the last thing you need to face your neighbor tomorrow, there's a list of principles. What you really need is the reality of Jesus. What you need is to know that God lives inside of you. What you need is to be able to face that with a confidence and a power that only God can give. Not a bunch of principles. And I'm all for the principles of the Word of God, but how many of you know that the Word without the spirit is dead and all it becomes to you is a bondage? So often when we get up in the morning or we get into the marketplace, brothers and sisters, we lack confidence, don't we? We're trying to ride on yesterday's quiet time or the part of the gospel hour that we heard in the radio and Wayne in the car, and so we wonder, how can I ever make it? And when we face that filthy mouthed work associate or our dope dealing friend or our frustrated housewife neighbor who has four kids and is climbing the walls and all she can do is complain and we don't have anything in us to bring up and share, and we feel so helpless, we wonder, where is God in this? What's the matter with me? Yesterday, my way home last night, on my way home from my quiet time with the Lord, I always do these things with God. And I say, if, Lord, such and such is happening, I'll do this. Did you ever do that with him? I was on my way home and I said, lord, if the gas station where I generally stop on Saturday night is open, and some nights it is and sometimes it's not, I'll go in and share the Lord with the owner. And I have a relationship with this man. It's not like it's not a cold call. But I knew that I had to do that. Well, I came over the crest of the hill and the lights were on. I looked at my gage, I could get by till Monday, look. But I pulled in and no one else was in the station and he was watching the end of the One of those fantasy shows. And it took us 15 minutes, really, to get near the subject of. He just, you know, how a lot of gas station people can be sometimes. And no, he's a nice guy. I don't mean that. I mean, they just have a lot of things they have to get rid of first. And then he began to open up and talk. And, you know, I just sat there and here's a man who said, I'm just, you know, without saying it in a needful way. He was just saying, I'm just bored. And I watch television because there's nothing else to do. And I work every Sunday because, you know, I need it. And I sat there and I realized that I needed not a principle or a booklet for this man. I needed to let him see Jesus. And the conversation ended with a comma last night. Not a decision. But I wonder how many of you face those same things day after day. People you touch, you have an opportunity to share the Lord with them. And you wonder how come it's so difficult, Lord, Why is it such a struggle? And I want to share with you today not the answer, because I think if I had the answer, you'd all be surprised, so would God, because it's not a the answer type of thing, is it? But I want to speak to you today about what I consider to be a major stumbling block, a very primary instrument in the arsenal of what Satan uses to discourage us. To believe God in prayer and faith and relationship. James calls it by the name. Look at James, chapter four. He calls it by the name worldly friendship, the friendship of the world. Let's read it. You follow along with me as I read, would you? James, chapter four. What causes wars? What causes fightings among you? Is it not your passions that are at war in your members? You desire and do not have. So you kill and you covet and cannot obtain. So you fight and wage war. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions. Unfaithful creatures. Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose that it is in vain that the Scripture says he yearns jealously over the Spirit which he has made to dwell in us? But he gives 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, ye men of double mind. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to dejection. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you. Now, I have two personal fears as I share this truth this morning. One is that because it's so deeply ingrained in who we are, I fear that it may bounce off your back like water off a duck. The second thing I fear is that I'll sound like some negativistic, anti life, bitter preacher, someone who says, I'm going to share with you the good news. And then he goes on to say that life is vile and everything is terrible and it's all falling apart. And I don't want to be that way. I believe that the Lord Jesus came to give us life and life abundantly. And so I want to avoid those two pitfalls. And I pray that as I share what friendship with the world is, that you'll see that it may well be for many of us an attitude that we must address in order to see victory in these other things. There's a predicament here. There's a violent struggle that's addressed. Look at verses one and two with me. I'm going to do this sort of expositionally today. So you follow along in your scripture, what causes wars and fightings. Now, in other translations, the words disputes and rivalries and words quarrels, those kinds of things appear in place of wars and fightings. But the intensity of. Of the original words are wars and fightings. It's that brutal. Now look with me. Where does this take place? Number one among you that is in between you, one to another. Wars and fightings, quarrels and disputes, you say. Well, see, when we're together, we have a great time. How about this morning before you got here? How about the way you may have felt the other night about that person in your home group who just can't seem to be quiet when everyone else needs to share? How about the bitternesses between the denominations? How about the kinds of things that we see really literally at times fights break out in the name of God. And we all know that we see this kind of quarreling and disputing and fighting among us from time to time. But also look at this. Is it not your passions that are at war in your members? And the other place that we see this struggle manifest itself is within how many of us are knotted up inside, within with worry? Ever see the little Placard that says, why pray when you can worry? A lot of us feel that way, you know, we walk around and we're knotted up inside and the cord is so quick to be cut, so the tension is released and we fly off the handle. War in your members, the Bible says what causes war in your members and what causes strife among you? What is it? Look at the word. Is it not your. Say it. Passions. Say it again. Is it not your passions? King James Bible says what lusts now? Immediately when you think of lust, immediately we think sexually. But the Greeks thought much more broadly than that. And the Greek word here I want to tell you, is hedon transliterated H E D O N O N from which we get hedonism. Hedonism, the seeking of worldly pleasure and its full ramifications materially, physically and every other way. Is it not your hedonism that causes the wars? Is it not your desire to get your own way that causes the wars within you and among you? I was really staggered by that because what it's basically saying is something that William Barclay said in one of his commentaries so well that ultimately life is a choice of self pleasure or God pleasure. And if you choose self pleasure, the consequence is savagery and division. That's a quote. And really he's right. Ultimately, even in us, beloved, even in us as believers, there's the war that's going on to please ourselves, if you know what I'm saying. You bear witness with me that it's true in you too. Somehow we want our own way. It's worldly passion. Now what are the results of this? Well, we went over them wars and struggles. A very powerful word in verse two, you desire and you do not have. So what do you do? Kill. Murder is the word in the Greek you say. Well, listen, you're getting carried away. I don't murder people. But how many of you have murdered hopes? How many of you have killed someone else's self esteem? How many of you have killed the peace in your home? How many of you brought death to a relationship that didn't need to be killed? And many times it's because of this very thing, the desire to have it your own way. And look what happens. It's so heinous. Look what it does to you. In verse, end of verse two, you do not have because you ask. In verse three you ask and do not receive because this worldly passion in you causes you to ask wrongly and spend it on your passions. I want to say, beloved, if you are preoccupied with asking for yourself and the things that you want out of life. You can't even pray right, and you won't receive from God. James says friendship with the world is enmity with God. Now, what is the world? Is it, you know, we go outside and we see the nature and the sky and all that? No. Is the world the earth? No, the world as we see in First John 2:15. Don't turn there. But it's a good verse to compare it to. The world is the controlling system. The controlling system that makes things work. The world system is what the Bible's talking about. It uses the word cosmos. Sound familiar? Maybe something more prophetic in Carl Sagan than even he knows. Cosmos in the Greek. Friendship with the world system. Friendship is the word philia and in a noun form. I thought this was really interesting. Listen to what friendship with the world really is. It's not being helpful. It's not being nice to your neighbors. That's not friendship with the world, beloved. Friendship with the world. As an illustration, I found this. It's receiving consideration for a service rendered. It's being familiar in an intimate way with something. It's an inner affection toward you see, beloved, friendship with the world is an attitude that puts you in a posture of. Of being chums with the world, working the world system to your advantage. I saw an illustration of this. A man who I would say was in love with the world. And I'd forgotten his name, probably for better. But it was on 60 Minutes a month or so ago, maybe more, where they interviewed the executives from some companies that had gone from nothing to meteoric success in a couple of years. And this man was one of the founders of Federal Express, which, if you follow them at all, have just gone right up off the charts in terms of their share of the courier market and so on and so on. But this man had all the money he needed, all security needed. And the interviewer said to him, well, you know, what are you going to do now? He said, well, I'll probably find another company and do it again, because I love it, you see, I love it. I love to work the world and its system. I love to watch out for myself on this side, and I love to cover my back door over here. And in case this card falls, the other one will stand up. And if I lose this, then that will come along and we cover ourselves and we work it. We make ourselves a security. And Jesus says, through the Holy Spirit, Friendship with the world. Or Jesus said, man cannot serve two masters. And the world system, beloved, is not Just some way of doing business. It is a system. In fact, the word mammon in the Greek is a spirit. It's a spirit. We're identifying a ruling power in the world, the spirit of mammon. Jesus says, you can't serve that spirit and serve me. Obviously, I'm not saying that we're not to be in the world and we're not to have jobs. But beloved, I'm saying that more than most of us want to identify in us, deep inside of us wages a war because we are still unable to cut that tie of friendship with the world. What I share with you today, I share not as one who's looking to lay a guilt trip on you. I'm sharing as one who wants to see more than anything. You. You, sir. You, ma', am, and you, senior. Higher. To come up in Jesus. Why are there dissensions among us? Why is there warring inside of us? Because we have chosen to allow the world to remain in us. Now, I have to say here that when God says, this is not a good idea, he doesn't just say, hey, really, Let me suggest that you get out of this kind of a mindset. Look at verse four. And unfortunately, in the rsv, which many of us have, it uses the term unfaithful creatures accurately. The word is you adulteress. You adulteress. And do you see the beloved? This really pierced my heart when I saw it and understood it, that in the mind of God, once you've joined yourself to Jesus Christ and given your heart to him, for you to continue in the ways of the world is spiritual adultery. And no, the Old Testament is full of that. Just for example, flip back. Hold your one hand in there and flip back to Hosea before 12:30, Okay? It's right after the major prophets. So Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel and Hosea. Look at Hosea, chapter two. And the whole idea of spiritual adultery is woven into the Old Testament. Say to your brother Hosea, chapter two, verse one. Okay, people are still looking. Go to the major prophets, then the next book. Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, chapter two. Say to your brother, my people, and to your sister, she has obtained pity. Plead with your mother. Plead for she is not my wife and I am not her husband. That she put away her harlotry from her face and her adultery from between her breasts. Lest I strip her naked and make her as in the day she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and set her like a parched land, and slay her with thirst upon her children. Also I will have no pity because they are children of harlotry, for their mother has played the harlot. She has conceived them. She that conceived them has acted shamefully. For she has said, I will go after my lovers who give me my bread and my water and my wool and my flax and my oil and my drink. Isn't that interesting? My lovers are the ones who supply my physical things. I want you to see that harlotry was all through the Old Testament, and it's in the New Testament. What are we called of Christ? What is our spiritual relationship? What is it the bride? See, the bride cannot be linked with another spirit. I don't know how many here in this room have been part of a relationship where you've been on the crushed end of an unfaithful marriage relationship where there's been unfaithfulness in your experience. And you find yourself wondering, how long can I bear up under the hurt of it all and the heartbreak of it all? Unfaithfulness leaves deep, deep hurts. And I think we need to see, beloved, that when we tamper with what God has given us and when we just go out and have our flings in the world and when we let the pollution of the world's mind have its way in us, beloved, we are inflicting deep hurts on our God. We're committing spiritual adultery. And I think we need to see it not in the sense of a God who's back there. I'm not going to let you out to have any fun. I'm not going to do this. We need to see it in terms of a God who wants to give us everything. He longs, the Bible says, to show himself faithful to those whose heart is on him. God loves to show himself to those who trust in nothing else. George Mueller. Any of you ever read a biography of George Mueller? Tremendous man of God, who. One of the things that he did, he always closed his back doors so that when he said he was believing God for something, he didn't go and make sure someone else was going to cover it in case God didn't. And I love that. And George Mueller many times would sit down in his orphanage surrounded with little children with not a drop of milk or a piece of bread to give them at dinner time and pray. And his diary is beautiful. And he said, lord, it's time to eat. And he didn't send someone down with a, you know, a few shekels to buy something. And in the midst of the prayer, someone would knock at the door and bring a meal for those 40 or 50 orphans. Why? Because he put God first and didn't cover his back door. God loves the ones who cut off their way of escape. If God fails, you fail. But he won't. He won't fail. He won't fail. Now look at the posture of God in the face of spiritual adultery. Look at verse five. Do you suppose that it is in vain, as the scripture says, he yearns jealously over the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us. That particular verse is really difficult to translate accurately, and I read about half a dozen different translations. God Almighty wants to give even those who commit spiritual adultery. He wants to embrace them wholeheartedly. His spirit yearns to fellowship with your spirit. And it's not the spirit of the world. That within us cries out to God, it's His Holy Spirit. So look what he says facing that. Look at the posture of God here. Even though. Even though there's spiritual. Even though we've linked ourselves with the world, beloved, God says He gives more grace. Do you find yourself really at the end of your rope? Do you find what I'm saying today difficult for you? Do you feel like, man, this is heavy. I don't know if I can. He gives more grace, and that's God's way. Now, how do we receive it? How do we live in it? Just in conclusion, I really hesitate to say these next couple things because as I said originally, the last thing that you need is an ABC formula to drawing near to God. Just look at that verse, would you? Verse 8. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Could anything be more simple and clear than that? Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. He promises it. I just want to suggest to you three things that you can do in order to cut that tie in your spirit with the world. But the most important thing that you could do is let Jesus tell you about it. One of the most beautiful songs that came up through the charismatic movement was the song He Touched Me. Shackled by a heavy burden Neath the load of guilt and shame. Then the hand of Jesus touched me. Now I am no longer the same. You see, I can tell you what the Bible says, but Jesus can give it to you. He can make it be life. Here's what you've got. As simple as it's put forth here. Here's what I see that we need to do. The first thing is verse six. God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourself. We could do a whole teaching on humility. It's a lovely thought. It's God's way as opposed to man in a nutshell. But look, here's a couple things about humility. First of all, you have to humble. That's an imperative. You humble yourself. What does humble yourself mean? It's simple. Here's what it is. A humble person is one who properly knows who he is and properly knows who God is. We think of Uriah Heap or something out of a Dickens story. The pathetic caricature of a meek person. Jesus said, the meek will inherit the earth. Humble yourself. Know who God is. Admit who you are. God, I admit that in me is this thread of that friendship with the world. And I want it out. The second thing, verse 7. Submit yourself therefore to God. Now the Greek word for submit is the word hupotasso, which is one of my favorite words in the New Testament because it tells about the kind of life we're to live. It's a military term which means to set yourself in order. And what it's saying here is order your lives God's way, beloved. There's no way that you're going to cut that tie by being on your own. There's no way you're going to cut that tie by not giving God any time. You become like the people you spend time with. If you spend all your time with the worldly minded people on the 16th floor and you spend all of your time with people who do all these other pleasure seeking things and you give an hour and a half to God on Sunday morning, you'll never cut the tie. You've got to be with God's people. You've got to order your life God's way. Money. We don't talk about money very much here. But I'll say this. If you don't order your life according to God's way, when it comes to money, you'll never get free of it. It will always be a bondage. You'll always be counting your coins and wondering how you're going to watch over this and do that. And it will consume you. And you'll wonder why my prayers aren't answered. I can't hear God's voice because you rattle the coins. Do it God's way, beloved, and then you can rest. And if God gives you abundance and he multiplies you and you get rich, praise the Lord. But you've done it his way. Look how serious it is. Look at the words he uses. 10 words here that are imperatives. Cleanse your hands, purify your hearts, you men of double mind. Be wretched and mourn and weep. It's just saying, listen, don't glibly accept this as something that, well, you know, I'll grow out of it. There are believers that are here today who have known Christ for a long time and have basically not really changed in your ability to be a man or woman of God because of this thing. And I don't put any names on that. If God bears witness to you, then you can deal with him. It doesn't just happen. It's got to be worked into you. Finally, resist the devil and he will flee from you. The Greek word for resist is the word anthistomy, from which we get the word antihistamine. How many of you have a cold right now? Okay, and you know what an antihistamine does, right? It goes on the offensive against the germs and the things that clog you up. And that's the posture we're to take. And I want to say this. Much of what we suffer, beloved, is because we don't know how to resist the devil. And I mean, sometimes it'll hit you like a ton of bricks that the affliction you're suffering under or the temptation you're walking in is from the devil. It's not because you're not a good person. It's from the devil. And the Bible says, resist him and he will flee in the name of Jesus, get out of here, Satan. I'll tell you what. It absolutely works. It absolutely works. If this is beginning to sound really freaky for some of you people, so be it. Because that's the way it is. And the minute men you can be willing to humble yourself enough to admit that there's a devil who acts like that, the sooner you'll come to the point of being able to say him, get out of here. Have you ever walked into an office meeting brothers or sisters where you sensed an oppression? You just sense, boy, there is something really here. You can speak that word and watch God break it. I've seen it happen. It's never in any of our office meetings, but maybe some of yours it may be. Okay. I didn't even want to speak this long, but I wanted to say this. I share this today, realizing that it's a heavy word. I mean, the implications of it can be received by some of you really negatively. But I share it from my heart, and I share it because of this. Paul said in Colossians, chapter one, we strive to present every man mature in Christ. Worldly friendship makes you an enemy of God. All I'M saying to you today, beloved is what the Bible says. All I'm saying to you today is suddenly many of us are walking with a foot in each world and it absolutely will not work. It's spiritual adultery. And if you want to get released and know the joy of Jesus, if you want to find your prayers being answered, do those things. Humble yourself before God, submit to him, resist the devil and we'll begin to see released the things that God would want to work in us. Let's pray together.