Fellowship in the Word

Jason Gephart: Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gephart challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ.

Bil Gebhardt: He said you want to know why your prayer life doesn't do anything. You ask with the wrong motives. What do you mean by wrong motives? He said so that you may spend it on your own pleasures. Same word. Your own desires. See, I this is what I want to have happen. This is what I'm praying about and Lord, this is what I want. God says I'm not going to give you that. That's simply caving into what your own desires are.

Jason Gephart: Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gephart. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana. Let's join Pastor Bill Gephart now as once again he shows us how God's word meets our world.

Bil Gebhardt: Chuck Colson in his book The Body gives this account. It's an account of Body Manual Baptist Church in Newton, Massachusetts. It was the right hook that got him. Pastor Wait might have stood in front of the communion table trading punches with head deacon Ray Bryson all morning. Had not Ray's fist caught him on the chin 2 minutes and 15 seconds into the fight. Wait went down for the count at the altar where most of the members of Emmanuel Baptist Church had first declared their commitment to Christ. Within an instant, the majority of the congregation converged on the communion table, punching and shoving.

The melee soon spilled over to the open space beside the organ. Mary Doll, the director of the Dorcas Society, threw a hymnal. The missile sailed high and wide and splashed down in the baptistry behind the choir. When Ray's right hook finally took the pastor down, someone grabbed the spring flower arrangement from the altar and threw it high into the air in Ray's direction. Water sprinkled everyone in the first two rows on the right side, and a visiting Presbyterian experienced a complete immersion when the vase that was thrown shattered against the wall right next to his seat.

The fight ended when the police arrived on the scene. That has to be the most drastic church fight I've ever heard of. But church fights are common. As common as the common cold. They're not new. They go all the way back to the very first churches in the 1st century. Paul described the church of Corinth as contentious and jealous with outbursts of wrath, selfishly ambitious, backbiters, whisperers, and conceited. Now, I know that people fight in business and we all know people fight in politics and people fight in education and couples fight in marriage. But we should not be fighting in church.

We might say that the fighting must come from false brethren who have got in our midst or maybe heretics who have crept in. Or maybe the devil himself is behind it all. But James says it comes from inside of us. He said it comes from our fleshly emotions. Peter backs him up. Peter says in 2 Peter those who indulge the flesh, enticed by fleshly desires, having escaped the world again, entangle themselves with it. Paul warns us not to follow our own lustful passions just like the Gentiles do in 1 Thessalonians. James has some extraordinary things this about conflict and fighting in the church to say.

Would you open your Bibles to James chapter 4? James chapter 4. And I think what's so alarming about this passage, if you study this passage in a context, you realize that James is not writing to a particular church. He's writing to Jewish believers who have been dispersed all over the Roman Empire. He's writing a letter to several churches. And yet he believes that this letter covers something that's going on in virtually all of them. The context comes out of chapter 3 when we talked about wisdom the last time in verse 18. And he said the seed he said whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

Sort of following up when his brother's line from the Sermon on the Mount, blessed are the peacemakers. And then James goes straight into it. The first thing he says in these first two verses is that our our selfish, and I'll explain this in a moment, our own selfish hedonistic emotions can cause great harm. He said what is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? What is the source of quarrels and conflicts? That word quarrels is the word polemos. We get the word polemic from that word. Quarrels means general disputing. Why is there general disputing?

And then the second word, which is conflict, is the word mache. And it means specific fights. Why is there general disputing and specific fights among you? Notice he's not talking about it somewhere else. He is talking about it right here in the context of the church. He said is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members. He wants to give what is the source of these general conflicts and these specific fights? And James is clear. He said it and it's a unfortunate English word. The source is your pleasures. That's not exactly what we think about when we think of pleasure.

It's the word hedonon which we get the word hedonist from. And hedonism is pleasure to us. But hedonon, if you were looking at that particular word, it means a gratification of a sensual or natural or fleshly desire. It's your emotions. It could be sensual, it could be natural, and it can be fleshly. But he says that's the source. Now, he's not speaking of the fact that there could be general differences of opinion because he knows we all have that. But what he is talking about is when it turns into conflict and quarrels. He said these hedonistic emotions that we have, he said they wage war on our members.

I mean, if you just want to know how strong our inward hedonistic emotions can be, think of think of the destruction of sexual sin. Just think of what it brings about. When that kind of emotional desire takes control of a person, marriages erect. They're destroyed. Think of how many young people in our country now have sexually transmitted diseases. The numbers are astounding. You can look it up on the internet. It's astounding. How do we make such bad choices? He said it comes from these hedonistic emotions within us. It comes from the lust which within our own heart.

That's where it comes from, he says. That but then he says in verse 2, you lust. He says and do not have. Lust is epithumeo. He uses all kinds of words for our emotions here. This means a desire or a longing of any kind. There's something I want here. There's something I've got to say here. There's something I'm feeling here. And I'm going to express it. And he said that comes out of that. He said you lust and do not have. And then he says something really odd, so you commit murder. Now, you might think whoa, they're killing people in the churches?

No, I don't think so. Uh it and by the way, the word could be translated murder. It could be. Phthonos is the word, but it it's a hyperbole he's using. It could mean killing. But it means in a different way. He means that the way Jesus meant it, and he also means that the way John meant it. In 1 John 3:15, John says everyone who hates his brother is a murderer. He's not saying everyone's murdered anybody, but notice what James is saying. Once you allow your emotions to take control of a situation, you're capable of doing anything.

Once that happens, you're capable of doing anything. You know that on a personal level. If you ever watched in the in the context of your own marriage, did you ever watch how something that started out as a relatively small conflict just continues to build and build till it explodes? It's an amazing thing to watch. It just starts and it all comes from within us. Notice James is trying to be as clear as he can. He said these selfish sort of hedonistic type of emotions, they can do tremendous harm to us. There's no way of rationalizing with them.

They take control. Hold your place here and go with me to Genesis 19 for a moment. To give you some sense of the strength of our emotions. Genesis 19. It's the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. And it's the story of the visitors from God telling them going to Lot's house and telling him to get out because the judgment of God is coming. Now, I want you to see how strong our emotions can be in this context. We'll start in verse 6. He says but Lot went out to them at the doorway and shut the door behind him.

There were men outside whose own sexual perversion was so great that they wanted to have a relationship with the visitors that came to Lot's house. And so Lot went out and closed the door behind him. And he said please my brothers, do not act wickedly. Then listen to what Lot says to tell you about his character. Now, behold, I have two daughters who have not had relations with a man. Please let me bring them out to you. Wow, how bad is that? Please let them bring them out to you, he says. And do to them whatever you like.

Only do nothing to these men in as much as they have come under the shelter of my roof. Now, I know there was a strong sense of hospitality back in those days, but I can't imagine anyone saying what Lot said. It sort of tells you a little bit about his spiritual condition. But they said stand aside. And further they said this one came in as an alien and already he is acting like a judge. Now, we will treat you worse than them. Notice he tries to bring some sense of reason and now they say who are you to judge me?

It sounds a lot like America today. Who are you to judge us? So they pressed hard against Lot and came near to break the door. But the man the men who were inside reached out their hands. They brought Lot into the house with them and they shut the door. And they struck the men who were at the doorway of the house with blindness. Now, you would think right there that solves it. It says both small and great so that they wearied themselves trying to find the doorway. That's astounding. You're trying to have this illicit relationship with men who are in Lot's house.

These men strike you blind. And in your blindness, you weary yourself still trying to get into the house to get at these men. I don't know of this case in scripture where it tells you what can happen with your own emotions. What kind what how far can lust go? How much can it do? Always this idea of doing something emotionally from our own hedonistic emotions. Now, back to James. There are so many stories in scripture like this. Absalom lusted so strong for power that he was willing to kill his own father David. I will kill him so that I can be king.

How does that happen? You totally submit to the idea of your own emotions, your own selfishness. So we go back to James. And James then says this. He said you lust and do not have, so you commit murder. He said you are envious. Notice another word. He goes to envious. That's the word zelaos. We get the word zealot from that word. He said you are envious of others and what they have, you cannot obtain. And so you fight and quarrel. You want something that someone else has. And you don't realize it, but you allow that emotion to drive you and so you fight and quarrel about the whole thing.

You make it out to be something that it's not. You want it. And you're willing to do anything for it. Then he says something really interesting. He said you do not have because you do not ask. And I kept wondering about what does he mean by that? And I think that he said you never really paid attention to what you really needed. You never asked God for what you really needed. You see, when we lust for something or we have envy for something, there's something emotionally driving us. It may not be the thought thing that God has in store for us at all.

He said you never asked God. You just said they have what I want. And whether it's envy or jealousy or pride or lust, it doesn't really matter. It's what drives us. And he says that's what happens to you. And then he goes on and he says this. He said you asking you do not receive because you ask with the wrong motives. He said you want to know why your prayer life doesn't do anything. You ask with the wrong motives. What do you mean by wrong motives? He said so that you may spend it on your own pleasures.

Same word. Your own desires. See, I this is what I want to have happen. This is what I am praying about and Lord, this is what I want. God says I am not going to give you that. That's simply caving into what your own desires are. James says look, you've got to be so careful here. We so so much when something escalates within us comes from our emotional core. It just takes over. James uses four or five words in there just trying to describe different kinds of emotions that we have. And all of these cause conflict.

I don't know what the circumstances were, but the fact that a pastor and a deacon were fist fighting at the altar in a church service tells you the emotional content of what was going on here. Something emotionally had been happening for a long time. And something emotionally was just erupting in the worst possible way. So James says you've got to really be careful. These kind of selfish hedonistic emotions, he says, can cause us great harm. It's the ultimate residue of our flesh. You know, the essence of sin for all of us if you want to say what is the essence of it, it's selfishness.

It's I want some things. It's pride, envy, jealousy, it's all that. It's selfishness. And he says to them look, you're not going to ever get that fulfilled by God. And I remember years ago reading in Mere Christianity and I kept this this for a long time in Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis. I love what C. S. Lewis writes. He said the real son of God is at your side. He is beginning to turn you into the same kind of thing as himself. He is beginning, so to speak, to inject his kind of life and thought into you.

Beginning to turn the tin soldier into a live man. The part of you that does not like it is the part of you that is still tin. That's what this is. This is the residency of the old sin nature. My hedonistic emotions, my strong desires is my tin. The tin of my selfishness, the tin of my own insecurity, the tin of my own envy, the tin of my own lust, the tin of my own pride. That's what causes the conflicts and quarrels. That's how this works. And they can have tremendous ramifications to all of us.

That's what he is saying. Selfish hedonistic emotions can cause great harm. Secondly, he says a selfish hedonistic lifestyle will mean that you're living worldly, and this is really important, you'll become the enemy of God. What a statement that he makes. Notice as he picks it up. He says you adulteresses. Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility to God? Therefore, who whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. He just throws that in there. I've said this all along, but James never minces words. He is as straightforward as anybody in the New Testament.

And notice what he calls them. He said what you really are is you're an adulteress. And the Jewish believers would understand that perfectly much more than we do. Why would he call them adulteresses? Because when you read the Old Testament, anytime that Israel was practicing idolatry, God called it adultery. He said when you practice idolatry, that is adultery against me. You see all kinds of verses in this book. I'll give you two. Ezekiel 16. Ezekiel speaking to Judah as an adulterous wife who takes strangers instead of her own husband. In Hosea, Hosea says this. Go take to yourself a wife of harlotry and have children of harlotry for the land that is Israel commits flagrant harlotry, forsaking the Lord.

When he says you adulteresses, what he means by them, they're breaking their covenant relationship with God. What he is telling us is look, I am never the source of these kind of conflicts and quarrels. Not so I am never the source. This comes from the world. This is different. This comes from within you, from your own fleshly desires. Jesus called his own generation an evil and an adulterous generation. And what a statement he makes and I don't think any of us like this. Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself the enemy of God.

Notice what James is saying. There's no neutral ground here. There's no Switzerland here. He said either you are a friend of the world and if you are, you're now the enemy of God. Or if you're a friend of God, you're the enemy of the world. And if you're the enemy of the world, you would never allow your own emotions. You see, you'd never allow your own emotions to take control of a situation that turns into conflict and to quarrels. When he means world, he doesn't mean the whole world. This is that cosmos diabolicus world, the system of the world.

Remember in Romans chapter 12, Paul said that we are to present ourselves as a living sacrifice to God. And he said one of the things he says in those first two verses is whatever you do, do not let the you need to be transformed, but do not let the world squeeze you into its mold. Do not let that happen. But whenever we're fighting and in conflict, that's exactly what is happening. We're allowing the world to squeeze us into its mold. And we justify it on the basis of our own emotions. What's really bad for a lot of us is we don't even want to come to grips with it.

We don't even want to admit it. We're not contrite enough to do that. We don't see the our own emotional state. You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility to God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend same another word for desire. He uses every word for desire he can think of, always coming from within us, always an emotion. To be a friend makes himself. Notice what God is saying. I didn't make you my enemy. You made me your enemy. You make yourself an enemy of God. When you allow this kind of thing and happen, this should never happen.

And then he goes to verse 5 and he says look, I hate this. Notice what it says. It looks a little bit difficult at first. He says do you not think that the scripture speaks to no purpose? He jealously desires the spirit which he has made to dwell in us. He says don't you get the point of what the word of God says? You've been born again into the family of God. You are indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God. God didn't do that for nothing. He did that so that you would live your life differently and especially when it comes to conflicts and quarrels.

It's a very different kind of thing. Said I don't get this. I don't understand why you're acting the way you are.

Jason Gephart: You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gephart on the radio ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts or maybe you would just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called oneplace.com. That's oneplace.com and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online. At that website, you will find not only today's broadcast, but also many of our previous audio programs as well. At Fellowship in the Word, we are thankful for those who financially support our ministry and make this broadcast possible.

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