Covenant Baptist Church
Sermon Guide for September 9, 2018
If physical pain can have a negative impact on how well we relate to others, how often do you think emotional pain and brokenness impacts our relationships with others?
James 4:1 NLT
James asks us to take an honest look inside when we find conflicts happening to see if we won’t find evil desires ruling the day.
James 4:2 NLT
When we don’t have what we desire so, your natural response that rises out of your human nature is to figure out a way or devise a plan to get it and then do what it takes to do so.
It is not an overstatement to say every time we see one person murder another person, the root cause is this intense desire to please self at any cost to others.
To be envious or jealous is more than a mild desire. It describes the inward condition of burning desire – a desire raging out of control.
The reason we are dissatisfied is because we don’t ask God to provide for us. Another way to say that is we are dissatisfied because we are trying to live a self-reliant life.
James 4:3 NLT
James is telling us there is a big difference between trusting and depending on God to meet our needs and trying to use God to get what we think is best for us.
It is not wrong to ask God to provide for us. It is wrong to ask (tell) God to do what we think He should do to make us happy.
James 4:4 NLT
When we approach God in this same self-reliant condition and attitude, it is nothing short of spiritual adultery. By adultery James means we turn our backs on God and love another instead.
James 4:5 NASB1995
God is zealous for us to trust and rely on the Spirit – to be friends with the Spirit - and not the world.
James 4:6 NLT
The NASB translation says it this way – But He gives a greater grace - meaning God, through His Spirit in our lives, gives us an incomparably greater experience of joy, pleasure and delight than anything the world and its ways could ever give us.
When we refuse to believe that living a self-reliant life is the best life and, instead, humbly turn to God learning to live life with Him and to depend entirely on Him, only then will we find the grace that satisfies – the joy, hope, peace, purpose, meaning and satisfaction – we all crave.
When you rely on God for the life your soul longs for, people stop becoming a means or obstacle to getting what you want. Instead, you are free to love people unconditionally.
In order to turn our lives in this directions we have to be convinced we cannot do it on our own. We need friends – community – with other followers of Jesus to walk with us down this road of change.
If you do not have friendship with people who can do this let us encourage you to take the step of finding those kind of friends in one of our G2 (Growing & Going) Groups.
If you are not in a G2 Group I cannot over emphasize how important it is for you to join one because you will find it all but impossible to live life with God apart from community with others who are pursing this same life.