Spiritual Infidelity Pt. 3

If you would, please take your
Bibles and turn back once again to James, and we find ourselves
again in chapter 4. We find ourselves again in those
somewhat familiar verses where we’ve been for several weeks,
verses 1 through 10. where James is addressing spiritual
adultery. We have been considering this
passage for several weeks. He pointed out first the symptoms
of spiritual infidelity. Then last week we began to look
at the reproach. Not just James’s rebuke of spiritual
adultery, but really God’s assessment of that condition. And then By
God’s grace, we will round the corner next Lord’s Day into the
safeguard of spiritual infidelity. How do we stay away from such? If you would, let’s pick it up
again in verse one. What is the source of quarrels
and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures
that wage war in your members? You lust and do not have, so
you commit murder. And you are envious and cannot
obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do
not ask. You ask and do not receive because
you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your
pleasures. You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship
with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore, whoever wishes
to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do
you think that the scripture speaks to no purpose? He jealously
desires the spirit which he has made to dwell in us. But he gives a greater grace.
Therefore, it says God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace
to the humble. Submit, 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, you double-minded. Be miserable and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into
mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the presence
of the Lord, and he will exalt you. As we began several weeks ago,
spiritual infidelity may have seemed a strong term. After all,
it was just people wanting their own way in the church, people
pressing their own agenda, people with their own particular desires
in the church, and even if it was bubbling up and breeding
division in the church, spiritual adultery on the face of it seemed
to be a very strong label to put on this. But as we began
to look at it, as we began to look at the symptoms of spiritual
adultery, the battle, as we saw in verse one, of unrequited want. We don’t get what we want, and
so we fight and quarrel. That’s the cause. But then when we begin to look
at what church skirmishes really do, they make casualties. The wars are real, and they do
cause damage. Even casualties, verse 2 says,
you lust and do not have, so you commit murder. On God’s terms,
thinking an evil thought about your brother is just the same
as murder. And then we saw the cause of
unrequited want. It’s a lack of prayer or it’s
a misguided prayer. all of which James ultimately
summarizes and characterizes as adultery, spiritual adultery. And we saw that this epithet,
one of the strongest in the New Testament, really on a parallel
with very few epithets in all of scripture, You brood of vipers,
you hypocrites, those kinds of things that even the Lord Jesus
said James was justified in identifying this for what it was spiritual
adultery. And as we began to see that.
James wasn’t talking to just the women of the congregation
when he uses that female term adulteress. It is the church
that’s in view. And the church, just like Israel,
had gone astray in many ways, and James was using the strongest
terms possible to call them back, to point out first and foremost
what kind of activity, what God’s assessment was of their activity,
so that they would repent and return to the lover of their
souls. And so he calls them adulterous
is. He observes this spiritual condition
in which they find themselves. It wasn’t literal adultery, but
it was spiritual waywardness brought on by what James points
out in verse four as it unfolds, brought about by friendship with
the world. We spent time looking at it that
that friendship points to really an inclination where one is more
friendly toward the world and its ways than toward God and
his. It’s an inclination, but the
inclination is leading to a divorce. It’s an affair that the individual
has with the world that ultimately is trending towards divorce. a divorce which the individual
seeks. And it’s all brought about by
dabbling in the world, by inclining oneself with the world, by flirting,
if you will, with the world. The world says one was their
God. And they were committing spiritual
adultery. I return again to a lengthy quote
last week. It was remarkable how many people
came and really pressed me for a list. Could you help us with
a list of those things? We’ll talk about a list later
on, but I found it fascinating that so many people were gripped
by this description of what a spiritual adultery looks like. What is
worldliness? Look like. And I admonished you
last week that keep in mind this was written centuries ago and
long before there was television. So you would have to work television
into this mix as well. What is spiritual adultery look
like? What did it look like to the Puritans of old? No thoughtful Christian can doubt
for a moment that there is some spiritual hazard to spiritual
life and to influence for good even in occasional visits to
scenes of mere frivolous excitement and amusement. What he says is
even dabbling in those things does do some damage to spiritual
life or opportunity or effectiveness. But he goes on and he says the
habitual or frequent resort to them shows concentrated and deplorable
worldliness. He says it’s one thing to dabble
in it, it’s another thing to immerse ourselves fully in worldly
endeavors. And then he begins to paint the
picture. What does it look like? Involving such conduct, as such
conduct does, much waste of precious time. An outlay of money, wholly
inconsistent with adherence to the scriptural principle of stewardship
from God, and much social interaction of a spiritually debasing kind. We’re wasting God’s time, we’re
wasting God’s money, and it’s producing no beneficial effect
in our lives or in anybody else’s life. James draws two conclusions
with this assessment that they were engaged in spiritual adultery. The first you see at the end
of verse four, do you not know that friendship with the world
is hostility towards God? Do you know what you’re dabbling
in? Do you know the effects of what you’re doing? The second
conclusion really is built on the first. If you are a friend
of the world, If you are cultivating a friendship with the world,
you are already hostile toward God. You have made yourself God’s
enemy. Look at the verse. The conclusion
of verse four is, therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend
of the world makes himself an enemy of God. It’s his choice. And so this relationship between
the world and a holy God, there is no passivity. There is no
gray area. You’re either a friend of God
or you’re a friend of the world. And so we come to verse five.
And this is where we left off last Lord’s Day. Take this section, the assessment,
the reproach of spiritual infidelity in its entirety. Go back to verse
four. You adulteresses, do you not
know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore, whoever wishes to
be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy with God. Or do you think that the scripture
speaks to no purpose? He jealously desires the spirit
which he has made to dwell in us. Now, the context we already
know of verse 5 is those first four verses. Again, really the
context of the entire book, James continues to put before them
tests, as it were, opportunities for God to prove or test the
relationship of each believer. But the immediate context is
verse 4, that of spiritual adultery, which James had already identified. But verse 5, we come to verse
5, and if verse 4 was a difficult verse to preach, verse 5 is an
exceedingly difficult verse even to exegete. And so I’m going
to ask for you to bear with me today as we go into the deep
things of God’s Word One Puritan, years and years ago, when the
hub, if you will, of Christianity was Europe, said, there is not
a critic in Europe who has considered the passage that has not been
puzzled with it. It’s a difficult passage. Another
said it this way, the interpretation of this sentence is beset with
great difficulty, the most difficult in this epistle and one of the
most difficult in the whole of the New Testament. And so there
are a number of difficulties that I would point out to begin
with. The first difficulty that we come across is the phrase,
the scripture. You say, well, this is gonna
get really ugly if that’s difficult. The phrase, the scripture, as
used here, almost always in the New Testament refers to a specific
passage in the Bible. There’s only one problem. There
is no passage that’s like this, not verbatim, In all of the Old
Testament, there is no passage that says he jealously desires
the spirit which he has made to dwell in us. There is no scripture. Now, I would remind God’s people.
that even as James utters this, under the direction, under the
influence of the Holy Spirit, this is one of those many statements
that literally becomes scripture. So even if there was no literal
statement, he jealously desires the spirit which he has made
to dwell in us, now he said it, now it is scripture, now it is
God’s word. We’ll come back to the meaning
of that in just a moment. But he asks a question to begin
with, do you think that the scripture is speaking in vain? And as I
pointed out, there’s no specific scripture quote. It isn’t found
in the Old Testament. James has been said to be projecting
some kind of a generalism, a principle derived from Old Testament scriptures,
but maybe not a literal verse. And there’s some latitude given
there, even as he uses the word scripture. One said that he is merely summarizing
the truth expressed in several Old Testament passages, perhaps
a synthesis. And that makes a lot of sense.
I think that’s very likely what James is doing. And there are
several Old Testament passages with verbal parallels. Passages
that include several of the words that James uses on this particular
occasion. Jealous, desire, spirit, dwell. There are passages that include
a number of those words. Numbers 1129. In Numbers 11, 29, Moses said,
are you jealous for my sake? Would that the Lord’s people
were prophets, that the Lord would put his spirit on them.
Moses says, I wish you were all prophets. I’m jealous that the
Lord would make you all filled with the spirit and able to prophesy. That’s a fascinating option.
Deuteronomy 5, 9. Picks up one of these terms.
You shall not bow down to them or serve them. Speaking of idols
for I the Lord your God am a jealous God visiting iniquity on the
fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of
those who hate me. God is a jealous God. It picks
up one little word. Jealousy. Deuteronomy 3221 same
thing jealous. They have made me jealous with
that which is no God, speaking of idols. Another fascinating
example, or option rather, is Zechariah 1.14. The angel who
talked with me said to me, cry out, thus says the Lord of hosts,
I am exceedingly jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion. And it
could well be that James is taking the totality of those things,
speaking of God’s jealousy, aligning them with the work of the Spirit
in the life of the believer, and he is making a statement
that, as I’ve already said, becomes Scripture. Well, that’s one difficulty,
and it isn’t really resolved, not yet. But that’s the best
we can do. There is no literal verse from
which James is quoting, but the second difficulty is so great
that it really makes that first difficulty pale. The second difficulty
regarding this verse is much more challenging. And so if you
need another sip of coffee, or you need to stand, or Whatever you need to do, stay
with me. This involves the statement itself.
The so-called quote. From the Old Testament, he jealously
desires the spirit which he is made to dwell in us. Now the
concern here. Has nothing to do with the Greek
text. That’s what the Greek text says. Both the older translations
and the more modern translations are all built on the exact Greek
text. Rather, it’s the translation
of the Greek text that comes into question here. Because we
end up with dramatically differing statements. Dramatically different
translations that produce a dramatically different understanding of this
statement. Now keep in mind that the word
order of a literal word for word translation ends up usually sounding
like alphabet soup. The Greek word order is very
different than the English. But here are the roughly translated
words in order, in the order that the Greek lays them out,
in the order in which they occur. You still with me? Listen to
this, to or toward envy, desire or lust, the spirit living or
residing in you. That’s the word order. And that’s
a difficult list of words through which to navigate. Perhaps the
very first issue that we have to consider is the question,
is the spirit in this particular verse is the spirit being spoken
of. Is it human, the human spirit? Or is it divine, the Holy Spirit?
Is the passage referring to the human spirit or the Holy Spirit?
That’s one of the first things we have to. Think through. Because the way we interpret
spirit. Will really impact the interpretation
of the whole rest of the verse. The reason that you have to answer
that is if it’s the Holy Spirit, if James here is speaking of
the Holy Spirit, how can we possibly explain the suggestion that he
lusts or longs or desires to the point of envy? Well, we know
that in both cases, An additional problem comes up because in both
cases, whether it’s the human spirit or the divine spirit,
the Holy Spirit, God gave them. God gives all people human life
and God gives all believers the Holy Spirit. Can God then be
blamed when we cultivate a jealous or an envious spirit? That’s
the suggestion that you would almost have to conclude, but
that line of thinking is impossible in square with the rest of Scripture.
Consider this. Is the Spirit’s yearning to envy,
is it a good thing or not? If we’re speaking in the human
terms, then no, human envy is sin. But if we’re speaking of
the Holy Spirit, it cannot possibly be taken in that sinful sense,
right? But even if we take the Spirit
here to refer to the Holy Spirit, it doesn’t make the rest of the
passage inexplicable. If you say that when James here
refers to the Spirit, he’s referring to the Holy Spirit, this is a
passage that we can navigate through effectively. I just wanna
bring you along with me. It’s not impossible to speak
of God being jealous, the Bible does, even in those verses we
just saw in brief, nor is it impossible to speak of God having
desires, even passionate desires, And so that word does not have
to be translated lust in the evil and sensuous sense that
we generally take it. If we take this sentence as referring
to the Holy Spirit, then we do have some work to do. Because in what sense can it
be said that the Holy Spirit envies? Both of these teachings are found
throughout the Old Testament. But it does come down to that
question. Is the spirit human? Or divine and who is envying
what? Or whom? There are six views. And I know that you just squirmed
in your chair when I say that, because whenever I do these, I get an appeal that I never
do something like this again. But I want to honor God’s Word
by examining this thoroughly, and I want to look at the first
view. The first view says that the
Spirit is the Holy Spirit, but the envy belongs to the people. Two translations attribute the
Spirit to the Spirit of God, Holy Spirit, and the sentence
referring to the Holy Spirit, but they attribute the envy part
of it to man. Even John Calvin took this view
when he said, I take the Spirit as that of God, and I read the
sentence as a question. Well, then it shouldn’t surprise
us that two translations, more modern translations, translated
exactly that way. Listen carefully. Is envy to
result from the longings of the Spirit, capital S, which God
has implanted within you? In other words, he’s saying if
you’re engaged in envy, that can’t possibly be coming from
the Holy Spirit, right? That’s the 20th century translation. J.B. Phillips, if you’re familiar
with it, a good translation generally. J.B. Phillips said it this way.
Do you imagine that this spirit of passionate jealousy is the
spirit, capital S, he has caused to live in us? It’s the same,
essentially the same idea. Are you suggesting for a moment
that this Envy in which you’re engaged is a fruit of the Holy
Spirit. But I would suggest to you that
it is clearly the Spirit that is the Holy Spirit that is performing
the action, that is longing and yearning jealously. And so there’s a second view.
See how quickly we’re blazing through these? Second view, and
it’s a very prominent view. In this view, the spirit is the
human spirit engaged in the sin of lustful envy. But as soon
as the entire sentence begins to unfold in these various translations,
a whole new problem arises. Listen and see if you can detect
it. The New English Bible. The New English Bible says, the
spirit which God has implanted in man turns toward envious desires. Or, one of my favorites, the NIV
says, the spirit he has caused to live in us envies intensely. Now, I don’t care how you take
it, what version you take, the problem is that it points the
finger at God as the cause of sin, and that’s a problem. So
I can throw out both view one and view two and we go to view
three. View three goes like this. It’s the human spirit engaged
in sin, but God is not blamed. One very old translation dispels
this difficulty. By simply not translating the
verb literally. It should read that the spirit
was made to dwell in us. God made it to dwell is the insinuation. But the older version. The King
James has it this way. The spirit that dwelleth in us
without any cause. The spirit that dwelleth in us
lusteth to envy. And I will tell you that some.
Very heavy hitters take this perspective. Here’s how they
describe it. The difficult phrase is best
understood by seeing that a spirit is referenced not to the Holy
Spirit, but to the human spirit, and translating the phrase yearns
jealously in the negative sense of lusts to envy. James’s point
is that an unbelieving person’s spirit, his inner person, is
bent on evil. And so the human spirit here
is tending towards evil. essentially take no position
at all as to where that spirit actually came from. Well, I think I personally set
that one aside. I understand where they’re coming
from. And so I come to a fourth option, the fourth view. And
in the fourth view, the spirit is pictured as engaged in sin. Hypothetically. This is fascinating. Yet another older and well-respected
translation resolves the difficulty by presenting this latter half
of the sentence as an almost hypothetical question. The ASV translated it this way. Doth the spirit which he made
to dwell in us long to envy And that’s good, it’s certainly possible, but it’s curious. There is no
punctuation in the Greek text, and so while it’s possible, I
don’t believe that it’s likely. And so we come to a fifth view.
And in the fifth view, God now is pictured yearning over the
spirit, but it’s the human spirit, the spirit of life. It is the
human spirit, life itself, over which God is almost brooding. And a number of translations
have it this way, including our beloved ESV. The Revised Standard says it
this way, he yearns jealously over the spirit which he has
made to dwell in us, small s. Moffat’s translation, he yearns
jealously for the spirit he set within us, small s. The ESV,
he yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell
in us. I don’t even know what you could
make of that. That God is up there wistfully. Hopefully yearning
over the spirit that somehow these people pull their act together. Except that God really, really,
really wants you to live. That’s the most you could make
of that statement. And so I come to the 6th view. And I’ll let you guess which
one I take. The last, and I would suggest the prominent perspective,
presents God’s spirit longing to have influence, longing to
have his way in the life of the believer, to root out worldliness
and ungodliness, to produce real godliness in the life of the
Christian. It’s God at work, it’s God longing,
even enviously so, for God’s work to be done in the life of
a Christian. First of all, the reference point
is the Holy Spirit. While the human spirit, life
itself, is also given by God, given the context of this particular
verse, he had just called them adulteresses. They were spiritually
wayward, and he’s looking to call them back, call them to
repentance. And so identifying the spirit
here as the Holy Spirit is in full harmony with the New Testament
teaching. God has made his Holy Spirit
to dwell in every believer. Acts 5. The Holy Spirit whom
God has given to those who obey him. Romans 8 11. If the spirit
of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who
raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies. It’s the Holy Spirit. Galatians
4 six. God has sent the spirit of his
son into our hearts, crying Abba Father. The spirit is at work,
supposed to be at work in the life of every Christian. Second
Timothy 114 by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us. Guard the
good deposit within you. It’s supposed to be at work in
every pastor guarding the treasure of the doctrine and theology. And so we cannot possibly
attribute sin to the Holy Spirit. And so we still have work left
to do, even if we identify the Spirit as the Holy Spirit. We can’t attribute sin to the
Holy Spirit in this particular case, envy. Whatever the passage
means, it cannot possibly mean that God or his Holy Spirit is
envious of some in some sinful manner. But it is said of God. It is said of God that he envies. And it cannot possibly be in
a sinful human sense. Deuteronomy 32. They stirred
him to jealousy with strange gods. Deuteronomy 32, 21. They
have made me jealous, as we saw, with what is no God. Exodus 20,
verse 5. I am the Lord your God. I am
a jealous God. Exodus 34, 14. You shall worship
no other God, for the Lord your God is a jealous God. Zechariah 8.2, I am jealous for
Zion with great jealousy, and I am jealous for her with great
wrath. God is not sinful in his jealousy. God was not sinful in demanding
and desiring for Israel to be what Israel was called to be
and equipped to be. And God is not sinful when he
longs over his people to be exactly what he has called them to be,
what he has equipped them to be, what God’s word teaches them
to be, and what the Holy Spirit resident within them is calling
them to be. Nor can it be surprising that
the Holy Spirit as God both envies and. Has passionate desires,
that’s the second word. The word translated as desiring
or longing or yearning or lusting, it doesn’t need. And ought not
be. weighted down with this negative
idea, this negative meaning of sensuous lusting. Even when used
of human longing, it isn’t always used in a sinful sense. Think through this with me. And
you can jot down the verses if you want. Paul longed, passionately
desired to see the Roman Christians. Romans 1.11. Likewise, he longed
to see the Philippian believers, Philippians 1.8. Likewise, he
longed to see young Pastor Timothy, a passionate desire to see young
Timothy. Paul says of believers, and if
you are in Christ, you know this sentiment, that we long to be
clothed with our heavenly dwelling. We long to be in heaven. It doesn’t have to be either
understood or translated as lusting, not here. Indeed, it is a yearning. It’s a deep, vigorous desire,
but it’s not proper to speak of God as lusting in some sinful
sense. Instead, it is a good and a wholesome
thing of which James speaks here. As one pastor said, God is the
jealous lover who will tolerate no rival. And who will share
the human heart with no other love. He must receive from us
a love which is beyond all earthly devotion. And now worldliness
comes right back into play, doesn’t it? Not surprisingly, there are a
number of translations that render it exactly this way. And in case
you think that I’m grandstanding once again for the New American
Standard, we’ll start with the New King James. The New King
James says, The Spirit, capital S, who dwells in us yearns jealously. The Amplified, Which always is going to clarify.
Multiple times what it really means. The spirit capital S whom
he has caused to dwell in us yearns over us and he yearns
for the spirit to be welcome. With a jealous love. That’s a
great translation. Even if wordy. Another translation
says the spirit which God made to dwell within us jealously
yearns for the full devotion of our hearts. And the new American Standard.
He jealously desires the spirit capital S, which he has made
to dwell in us. The Holy Spirit. James points
to which is imparted to us, given to us as a gift at our conversion. We are placed in Christ and his
spirit is placed within us. He yearns for our total devotion
to him. One more technical commentator,
Lenski, said it this way. The spirit cannot refer to our
human spirit. God made his spirit to dwell in us so that this spirit
may keep us and make us true friends of his. That spirit yearns
jealously and is grieved when we become friends of the world
and thus begin to be enemies of God. And now the verse begins
to fill itself out and make sense. It’s the Holy Spirit. It’s the
Holy Spirit living in Christ people looking to root out worldliness. Yearning jealously for the full
devotion of God’s people. And so instead of speaking of
the spirit as the spirit of man lusting to envy, it is the spirit
of God who is passionately longing for every single one of us. It’s
a passionate longing. It’s a passionate longing by
God. that his spirit would function fully and effectively in the
believer’s life. Now, you have been very patient
with me. And so I would ask just another
dose of patience as I read a lengthy explanation. Several sentences. Listen carefully. The thought
implied is that the strongest human affection shows itself
in a jealousy, which is scarcely distinguishable from envy. Now,
keep in mind, if any marriage here were to be breached by an
affair, the sentiment engaged in every heart would be jealousy. He goes on, we grudge the transfer
of another of the affection which we claim is ours. When somebody
loves somebody else, when they should be loving us, we envy the happiness of that
other. And in that sense, James says that the spirit implanted
in us yearns to make us wholly his. and is satisfied with no
divided allegiance. The root idea of the passage
is identical with that of the jealousy of God over Israel as
his bride. God is Jealous over the Spirit’s
work in the life of every believer for any Christian to succumb
to the world’s ways, the world’s values, the world’s methods,
essentially to commit spiritual adultery is to provoke God himself. And so as James rounds out this
reproach of spiritual adultery, I want to provide you a list
of things to do and things not to do. That’s what everybody
wanted anyway. Simplify this for this and tell
me whether I can go to the ballgame or whether I can buy this particular
CD. Give me the list. Here’s the
list. How do you know if you’re committing spiritual adultery?
Examine yourselves. Are you engaged in employing
the world’s methods? You see, the methods, when they
are derived from pragmatic values, the wiles of the world, and not
observed and identified principles oriented in scripture, you are
inclining yourself to an adulterous relationship with the world.
Pragmatism over principle. not only our methods, but our
thinking. When we adopt and articulate
any position that the world takes that is in opposition to God’s,
then we are capitulating into worldliness. And our thinking
then begins to take on a doubtfulness, a doubtfulness even of God himself,
a doubtfulness of God’s ability, a fearfulness that God perhaps
is not in control, as God’s word says, a lack of faith. Not only
our methods and our thinking, but our speech. And I know what
immediately comes to your mind, swearing, cussing, cursing, but
it isn’t just swearing or dirty jokes. But it’s speech that betrays
our true theology. It’s a faulty understanding of
God. It’s a faulty understanding of
man. It’s a faulty understanding of
theology as the Bible presents it and doctrine. And so from our mouths come such
things as boastfulness, gossip, slander, dishonesty. All of those
things betray what God’s Word teaches. Methods, thinking, speech,
attitudes, our attitudes. We can have an attitude that
inclines us towards an adulterous relationship with the world when
our hearts are not right. Even if our behavior is right,
we are inclining ourselves Towards an adulterous relationship with
the world when we sullenly go through the motions. Seeking
merely to do I service to people and to God. Then we are dabbling
in spiritual adultery. Attitudes like bitterness. Irreconcilability. Where we refuse to make peace
with those. In the world. Hopelessness, despair,
self-sufficiency, carelessness, unkindness, indifference, jealousy,
selfishness, defensiveness, pride, all of those become attitudes
that clearly run counter to the teaching of scripture. Methods, thinking, speech, attitudes,
behavior. Should it surprise us that our
behavior can be worldly? If our methods and our thinking
and our speech and our attitudes are, it only follows that our
behavior can be worldly when our actions are not distinctly
and noticeably Christian. God centered gospel enhancing
Christ like. When sin becomes the prevailing.
Feature of our life. impurity, drunkenness, foolishness,
harshness, theft, all of those things are just symptoms of behavior that belies spiritual adultery. What about our affections? When
we love things more than people or anything more than God, it
is the essence of idolatry. The very thing for which Israel
was rebuked, the very thing which provoked God to jealousy. Those things breed greed and
materialism and gluttony and sensuality. What about our priorities? When we have the time for the
things we want to do, especially if it’s entertainment or adventure,
but we have little to no time for God. for his people, for
his church, then our priorities betray an affair. Our priorities say that there’s
someone else. What about our goals? Our methods,
our thinking, our behavior, our priorities, our goals. When we
want something that God hates, or we hate something that God
loves, practically speaking, when we engage in revenge, when
we long to be rich, when we contemplate suicide, we are engaged in processing
goals that are directly contrary to what God desires. Our goals
are not God’s. because we’re engaged in spiritual
adultery in that moment. Would you examine your heart
before Almighty God? Our merciful God, and we thank
you for your mercy. Not one of us would be here if
it weren’t for that abundant mercy. And we know that because
James addressed it of a first century church, that if it’s
true of them, it’s possible of us as well. To have begun to
dabble in the world, begun to cultivate an affair, begun to
engage in spiritual adultery, which is shameful. And which will destroy Relationships. And harm the very Church of God. Through selfish ambition and
all of the sins that James has articulated this entire section. Prayerlessness fighting quibbling. Lord God, we pray that you would
spare this church. By granting grace and mercy to
every believer to examine their heart. to see where even the
beginnings of an affair reside, where even the inklings of dabbling
in the world can be detected. And we pray that you would grant
repentance. Lord, we plead We plead with you for those who
do not know the Lord Jesus Christ who have not placed their faith
in Jesus Christ. Alone for salvation, they’re
literally caught up in this vortex of the world. For them, it isn’t
an affair. They’re married to the world.
And they can only be extracted by your grace. And so we plead
with you. Save them. Pull them out. Reveal to them the Lord Jesus
Christ. Who paid sinners penalty on the
cross? Lord God, we thank you for your
word for its richness, for its clarity. We pray all of these
things in Jesus name. Amen.