Live Free with Josh Howerton - Godly Jealousy | Ep. 339 | Thursday, May 23, 2024

Episode Date: May 23, 2024

Today, we move into chapter 4 of James. The Bible is full of relational conflicts, and we all face conflicts in our lives, too. James asks us what causes our quarrels and then points out that our conflicts rise up from the sin within us. God loves us so much that He is rightfully jealous when we allow these passions within us to guide our actions instead of His Spirit. For more information, visit lakepointe.church/dailydrive

Thanks for tuning in to today's Daily Drive with Lake Point Church, a daily dose of God's word for your morning drive. When the word, not the world, becomes the majority of your week, your life will start to change. For that reason, our prayer is that God will speak to you through today's devotional. For more digital content to feed your faith, visit lakepoint.comit. And now let's dive in to today's devotional. Hey, hope you're having a great day. Thanks for joining us on the Daily Drive podcast. My name is Mike Bro, and it is an absolute blast. Hanging with you for a few minutes every day as we try to get to know God a little better. And man, that is a worthy pursuit. And to do that, we've been walking through the Book of James together, and we are headed in the Chapter 4 today. And no matter where you're at, your spiritual journey, one of the things I think everybody can appreciate about the book of James and the whole Bible, for that matter, is that it's just so shockingly real. Like every area it touches, on, including in relational conflict. The Bible doesn't try to sugarcoat,

sanitize, or skate the reality. The relationships can be super complicated. It's all right here in God's worry. I'm talking the good, the bad, and the ugly. There's the sibling rivalry between Cain and Abel that eventually culminates in history's first murder and throws a family in a crisis mode. There's Joseph's brothers who beat him up

and throw him in a pit and sell him into slavery and then they lie about it and try to cover it up for 13 years. There's the ego-driven. popularity contest between King Saul and this up-and-coming military hero, David, as Saul struggles with his own insecurities and increasingly dark heart. There's the case of serial adultery by a woman named Gomer and the unrelenting love by her husband, Josea. There's the deep-seated resentment carried by Martha, who is busting her tail trying to

host and feed and entertain Jesus and all the guys while her sister Mary just sat there soaking in the words of Jesus. I mean, the Bible is full of relational conflict. It's full of marriages, friendships that ended up in the ditch. And let's be honest, we've all been in that ditch too. We left off yesterday with James trying to paint a vision of what relationships could be when he wrote in 318. Those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of righteousness. He's encouraged us all the way through Chapter 3 to be humble, be merciful, be inclusive with our love,

and with a gentle spirit, control our tongues, and plant seeds of peace. Imagine, when James wrote those words, he anticipated our reaction being, Yeah, I hear you, man, but you don't know my spouse. I hear you, but you don't know my mom, you don't know my dad, you don't know the crazy people I work with, you don't know my neighbors, you don't know my in-laws, you don't know my coach, my boss. You don't know the things they've said. You don't know the things they've done.

And so, James just keeps on rolling with these thoughts in the chapter four and asks the question. So what is causing the quarrels and fights among you? And our response is, well, I just told you, dude, it's him. It's her. It's them. So James, inspired by the Holy Spirit of God, has an unexpected answer to this question. What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Don't they come from the evil desires that war within you?

Not exactly the answer we were looking for. He says, you want what you don't have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can't get it, So you fight and wage war to take it away from them. See a pattern here. Two verses. And the word you is used seven times. So what causes all the strife, the wars, the end fighting, the conflict?

James says, you don't have to look far. Just take a look inside. It's not them. It's the evil desires that war within you and me. Remember how he said back in chapter 3, verse 16, for wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind. once again it comes back to self it comes back to ego the desire to be the center of the universe and james says in verse two

because of those desires those internal desires that jealousy that selfish ambition that are battling within you we'll even scheme and kill to get it to which we respond come on james kill steed you're getting you're a little melodramatic here you're you're going all day line on us come on lighten up i've never killed anybody to get what i want but isn't it true that you and I have stabbed somebody in the back with our words just to get what we want? I've heard of people getting into co-workers' computers and deleting files just to hurt a competitor's career. I've known people who create anonymous social media accounts to post untrue and destructive or embarrassing things about somebody else. I'm not trying to give you ideas here. I'm just saying people will go to great lengths to satisfy the desires that battle within them.

And maybe the height of our arrogance is, when we resort to attempting to manipulate God for our own self-centered gains. After dealing with the topic of no prayer in Chapter 1, James shifts to selfish prayer here. He says, even when you ask, when you ask God, when you pray to God, you don't get it because your motives are all wrong. You want only what will give you pleasure. The same word is used in this verse that is used for the self-indulgent pleasure-seeking spending of the prodigal son in Jesus' famous story.

So James is saying, let's just call it what it is. You're being self-indulgent. You're being self-centered, arrogant, so much so that you pray in an attempt to treat God like a genie in a bottle trying to get him to fulfill your every selfish desire. And it's quite a contrast from the way Jesus taught us to pray. Or we humbly ask, O Father, may your kingdom come. May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And then in verse 4 or 5, James, it gets really, really blunt and makes clear

that no matter how self-deluded and arrogant we might be, it doesn't change the reality that there is only one true center of the universe. And it's not us. He starts this way. He says, you adulterers. Now, I had to circle that word in my Bible because I thought, man, that's a strong word there. You adulterers. Don't you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy with God?

I say it again. If you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God. Now, this language of adulterers, was commonly used in the Old Testament when God's people would cheat on him by worshipping other little G gods. I mean, God would provide for them, guide them, love them, cherish them, bail them out, take them back, forgive them again, and they would go right on sleeping with the enemy. And when you and I chase all the stuff of this world, the prestige, the perks, the popularity, the pleasure,

those things begin to take all of our devotion. They start to take our energy, our worship, and our affection. And that is what makes it an adulterous relationship. He continues this thought in verse 5. Do you think the scriptures have no meaning? They say that God is passionate. Some versions say jealous here, that the spirit he has placed within us should be faithful to him.

Now, maybe you wonder, come on. Now, what's up with that? God's jealous? Sounds like you've got some unhealthy codependency stuff going on. Why would God be so possessive? Why would God be a jealous God? Here's why? Because you are the object of his love.

I love my wife. and absolutely crazy about Debbie Bro. I still can't believe. She agreed to marry me over 40 years ago now. And we really are. We're growing old together. It is a blast. It reminds me of a story I heard about an elderly man and woman in a nursing home where they met.

There was residents. They started eating meals together, and he becomes infatuated with her. And one night he asked her to marry him. And she says, oh, yes. The next morning he got up and remembered he had asked her, but he couldn't remember her answer. So he went and found her at breakfast and just confessed. I'm so embarrassed to ask you this. I know I asked you to marry me last night, but I can't remember your answer.

She said, I'm so glad you asked. I answered yes, but I couldn't remember who asked me. I mean, you got to love it. But as we grow all together, Debbie is still the only girl I've ever dated, and she is the love of my life, and I have no doubts whatsoever about her faithfulness to me. But if she did start showing inappropriate affection to another man, you think I'd be okay with that?

Absolutely not. I'd be hurt, and I'd be jealous. Not because of some unhealthy codependency in me, but because I'm passionate about her, I'm crazy about her. God created us for a relationship with him. We broke that relationship. But incredibly, God made the first move to restore that broken relationship with you and me by sending Jesus to die for our sins,

so that we could enjoy him and have a friendship with him forever because he is passionate about us. God says in Isaiah 4422, I have swept the way your sins like a cloud. I have scattered your offenses like the morning mist. Oh, return to me. Return to me. For I have paid the price to set you free. And so James is saying here, stop cheating on the one who loves you

and paid the price to set you free. Take yourself off of his throne. Stop flirting with the world. Make him the center of your universe. love him back, be faithful to him, and those desires that war within you, they'll start to subside. So what do you say we do that today? And we'll pick up right here tomorrow. Hope you have a good day. Thanks for tuning in today. For more biblical teaching and worship, join us for our church online live weekend services on Saturdays at 5 p.m. and Sundays at 9.30 and 11 a.m. Central Standard

For more information, visit lakepoint.church slash daily drive.