James 4:1-12 – When You Don’t Get What You Want

The world is a rather contentious place. Whether we’re considering international politics or the preschool playground, you’re going to find people bickering with each other. As our passage today points out, these quarrels generally arise from the same situation: people want something that they don’t have, or they want to keep something that other people want to get from them. It doesn’t matter if it’s two preschoolers arguing over a favorite toy or countries negotiating with each other over a trade deal or a peace treaty. We see it everywhere. People dispute with each other because they want something they don’t have, or they want more what they already have, or they want to make sure others don’t get what they have. The only thing that changes is what the “it” is that people are fighting over, or the way that they handle their disagreements. People steal to get what they want from other people. Labor unions and corporate officials negotiate over salary packages. Retailers undercut each other’s prices. Sports teams do everything they can to get the edge over the competition in order to win; sometimes they do what the New England Patriots did and break the rules to do so. Spend some time thinking about it, and you’ll see the point. All kinds of conflicts and struggles are based on the fact that people want “stuff,” and do what they can to get it from other people.

This desire to get stuff dates back to Adam and Eve.
We have desires within us that keep driving us.
Relates to last of 10 commandments: one that addresses attitude & not action: coveting

As long as we strive to satisfy that itch w/in us to satisfy desires, we’ll never be content.
Desires are like poison ivy rash: the more you scratch them, the stronger your desire is to scratch them.
December 26 syndrome: there’s no such thing as having all your desires met.
We may experience those moments when we’re so happy with something new that we got that we get a momentary rush of happiness. But it doesn’t take long until the moment is gone, and our desires have rushed on to the next desire that fills us.
So we start to pursue the next desire, like a junkie who wants the next rush. So we go off to the after-Christmas sales even before our Christmas presents have lost their shine: there’s still more that we want.
We’re like the wealthy tycoon who had amassed a vast fortune, but was still working tirelessly to earn even more. Someone asked him how more money he’d need before he could rest content, and he replied, “The answer is the same answer that I’ve given my entire life: just one more dollar, and it will be enough.”

Sometimes, some of us realize how insane this progression is. We see that we’re chasing a mirage that we’ll never catch. The end of the rainbow looks like it’s just over the next hill, but we know that when we get there, it’s moved on, still just beyond our reach. So, if we’re wise, we stop the race to satisfy our desires. We resign ourselves to the fact that there will always be some things that we wish we had that we never will. We congratulate ourselves on our self-restraint and insight. It doesn’t make us any happier, but at least we aren’t wearing ourselves out. We’ve just learned to accept the pangs of unfulfilled desires, just like you can get used to an annoying rattle in your car.

Or, if we’re somewhat religious, then we realize that we can get God in this act of ours. God can do anything, and God says that he loves us. So, we tell ourselves, what could be more loving than giving us what we desire? After all, we’re convinced that the thing which will make us most happy is to receive whatever it is that our desires are pushing us toward. If God gives it to us, then we’ll be happy. And, we tell ourselves, this is perfectly Biblical. After all, doesn’t Psalm 20 contain that wonderful blessing: “May he give you the desire of your heart, and make all your plans succeed…. May the LORD grant all your requests”? And didn’t Jesus tell us, “my Father will give you whatever you ask”? And here in this passage, James tells us that “you do not have, because you do ask God.” So, the answer seems to be, we need to bring our requests to God, and he’ll fill them for us. This line of reasoning has a powerful appeal for many people. Vast religious empires have been built, and continue to be built, which are based on the notion that if we learn exactly the right way to ask, God will give us what we want. He’s better than Santa Claus, because he can do it 365 days a year, not just one. The preachers say, “God wants to bless you! Let me tell you how you can get it.”

But when they quote today’s passage, they conveniently stop before verse 3. Yes, James wrote that we do not have, because we do not ask God. But he went on to say, “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with the wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” When Jesus said that the Father will give us what we want, he told us that we had to ask “in his name.” This doesn’t mean that the name “Jesus” is a magic password to get us into the heavenly goody-jar. It means that we must be conformed to the personhood of Jesus in order to receive. Our lives must be remade in Christ’s image. And yes, Psalm 20 seeks the blessing of receiving the desires of our hearts. But Psalm 37 gives us a bit more of an explanation: “Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.” In other words, when your desires are focused upon the delight of the Lord, not upon the satisfaction of your cravings, you will find the satisfaction you’ve been looking for.

James tells us that we have a choice to make. Our first choice is to continue to live in what he calls “friendship with the world.” We can continue to live life and accept the values of the kind of lives we’ve inherited from Adam and Eve, who traded their fellowship with God for a taste of the one fruit they were told they couldn’t have. In other words, we can continue to seek for satisfaction and meaning by pursuing the desires we have within us. But, even if we convince ourselves that we are chasing these desires in a religious way by asking God to give them to us, we are an enemy of God. We display hatred to God. That may sound harsh, but sometimes the truth hurts. We’re dedicating our lives to a pursuit that separates us from God and rejects his place in our lives.

James calls us to accept a different choice. It is the choice of humility and submission. It is a humble recognition that we can never satisfy ourselves. It is a submission to the power of God. We do not have the power or ability to quiet those cravings and desires within us. They’re simply too strong, and we are too weak. But God offers us an opportunity to become new, different people. It can happen not by the force of our human will, but by the power of Jesus Christ, who alone can undo the disease of desire that affects us all.

Colossians 1:3-14 – How to Pray for Someone Else

We have this interesting ritual at our presbytery meetings when a minister seeks to join our presbytery to serve as a pastor for one of our churches, or when someone who has been preparing for the ministry is ready to be ordained. First, we grill them with all sorts of theological questions. Then, we send them out of the room to talk about them and to decide whether or not to approve their request to join the presbytery or become a minister. It’s been a long time since I was on the receiving end of that ritual, but I still remember how unsettling it was. There’s a whole roomful of people talking about you, and you have no idea what they’re saying.

You don’t have to be a candidate for ministry to have that kind of an experience. People talk about other people all the time. And I’m not sure if we’d always want to know what they’re saying about us!

This passage is a bit different. Here, Paul tells the Colossians exactly what he thinks of them. Specifically, he tells them what kinds of prayers he makes for them. And that’s a powerful thing to do. We believe in the importance of intercessory prayer: praying to God on behalf of another person. But do we tell the person we’re praying for what kinds of prayers we’re lifting up for them? For that matter, do we even tell someone that we’re praying for them? Just knowing that someone is praying for you is a powerful gift and affirmation. When I visit our shut-ins, or those in nursing homes, I remind them that we pray for them by name every week at Old Union Church, and their gratitude is incredible. From time to time we’ve heard from members of the military that we’re praying for, and they affirm that the knowledge that we’re praying for them has helped them to get through some dark times.

Paul did more than just tell his friends in Colossae that he was praying for them; he told them what kinds of prayers he lifted up on their behalf. The first thing to notice about his prayers is something that we could easily overlook, but it’s significant. He begins by thanking God for them. Usually, when we tell someone we’re praying for them, we imply that we’re seeking God’s blessing for them: whether it’s healing for someone who is sick, comfort for someone who is grieving, or safety for someone in harm’s way. But do we begin our prayers for another person by thanking God for who they are, and the kind of lives they are leading? I think we’d do well to follow Paul’s example here, and start off our prayers for another person by thanking God for them.

Paul’s prayers of thanksgiving for the Colossians reveal that they are true examples of the Christian life. Paul thanks God that they have the three great attributes of the Christian life. They have faith, they have love, and they have hope. Faith, love and hope. We meet this trio of great virtues elsewhere in the New Testament. The best-known passage is I Corinthians 13, where Paul tells the Corinthians that these three abide: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. Paul also talked about these three virtues when he wrote to the Thessalonians, and we hear about it again here in this passage. Paul is thankful for the faith that the Colossians have in Christ Jesus. He's thankful for the love that they have for all the saints, that is, for all the people who have been made holy through Jesus Christ. For all the people of God. Both their faith in Christ and their love for his people are grounded in hope. It's a hope that is stored up in heaven; it's a hope of what is still to come. But it's a hope that they have already heard about and taken hold of when they heard about the gospel. It's a chain that flows logically. The Colossians heard the gospel through a preacher named Epaphrus. The gospel gave the Colossians hope: hope for what was waiting for them in heaven. And because of that hope, they were able to have faith in Christ Jesus and love for the saints. That truly is something to be thankful for.

Faith, love and hope. Notice that all three of these come hearing and receiving the gospel. Because that really is the only way that we can come to have true faith, love and hope. If you put your faith in anything or anyone other than Christ, they'll let you down, and faith will betray you. If your love is based on anything other than God, it will become corrupted. If you are hoping in anything other than redemption through Christ Jesus, you will be disappointed. It is only through the good news of Jesus Christ that we can truly take hold of faith, love, and hope. The Colossians have, and Paul expresses his thanks to God for it.

As I said, faith, hope, and love are marks of a Christian life that come from receiving and accepting the good news of Jesus Christ. I invite you to think for a moment: whom do you know that you could thank God for, because they have these qualities? Once you’ve thought about that, you can move on to another, more difficult question. If someone was looking at your life, would they be able to see faith, hope, and love that they could thank God for?

It would be tempting for us to end here. The Colossians are all set: rooted in the gospel, and brimming with the three great Christian virtues. All was going well, so why worry about anything? As the saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. That’s true, but only up to a point. You don't want to tamper with something that's going well, because then it might not. But just because your car is running well doesn't mean that you don't bother to change the oil. But cars need to have their oil changed, even when they're running well. And Christians need to grow, even when they’re already doing well. We can never be complacent where we are spiritually, for two reasons. First, when we’re sitting still, we inevitably will start to slip backwards. The progress you’ve made in the past is a foundation to build upon, not a bed to rest upon. Second, there’s always another step that we can take. Did the Colossians have faith, love, and hope? Good! Excellent! But the farther we go into the faith, that is, the closer that we come to God, the more urgent that it becomes that we continue to grow. The closer you are to God, the more aware you become of the distance that still separates you from Him. As long as we live on this side of glory, we are on a journey that we will never complete. We are reaching for a goal that is always beyond us. No matter how far we progress, there will always be farther to go. And the farther you go, the more you realize the importance of continuing on the journey.

So the second part of Paul’s prayer for the Colossians was that they would grow in knowledge. This was a particularly important thing for them to gain if they were to continue to grow into the kind of people that God had in mind for them. The city of Colossae was obsessed with learning about the secret workings of the universe. It was a fertile ground for the first century versions of occult, sorcery, voodoo and the like. It was easy for Christians there to get sucked into the superstitions that they saw all around them. They might even have been tempted to consider their faith in Jesus to be nothing more than a variation on the Colossian quest for the secrets of the universe. Jesus may have been nothing more than a lucky rabbit's foot for them. In addition, the church in Colossae struggled with various false teachings. So Paul prayed that the Colossians would be filled with knowledge. Not just facts, but an understanding about the character and will of God.

None of us live in Colossae, but we could also benefit from the kind of knowledge that Paul wished for them. We live in a society that is cut off from the spiritual dimension of life. If we can’t see it, measure it, or buy it, it may as well not even exist. I’m not just talking about the secularization of our society, although that’s certainly a topic worthy of consideration. But even within the Christian family, our knowledge and understanding of God and his character is sadly lacking. We accept trite slogans and the latest spiritual fads as though they will bring us closer to God, when in fact they’re nothing more than a religious version of the marketing campaigns all around us that try to get us to buy everything from pharmaceuticals to food to phone plans. A couple generations ago, you wouldn’t have been able to join Old Union Church, or any other Presbyterian Church, without memorizing the Westminster Shorter Catechism. Now, we’re lucky if people can find the book of Hezekiah in the Bible. But what I’m talking about, and what Paul prayed that the Colossians would receive, isn’t facts that you learn or lessons that you memorize. What really matters is an understanding of God’s character, his will, and what it means to be his child.

Third, Paul prayed that the Colossians would live worthy lives. Another way to word it would be to say that he prayed for them to grow in godliness. He wanted their actions, words, and character to be pleasing to God. Now of course, we're saved by faith and not by works. But our faith in God bears fruit in the way we live. Our faith can bear fruit in the good works that we do. A godly lifestyle is a natural result of our relationship with Jesus Christ. How we live is tightly linked with our growth in the Lord. We can consider this for ourselves: does the way that I act and speak let people know that I am a child of God?

Fourth, Paul prayed that the Colossians would grow in strength, that they would know the power of Christ themselves. When we think about the power of God, we like to think about things like healing the sick, or speaking in tongues, or telling a mountain to cast itself into the sea. These might be the flashy manifestations of the power of God, but they're not really the ones that matter. Paul did not pray for the Colossians to be strengthened with all power according to God's glorious might, so that they might make the blind see and the lame walk and have spiritual fireworks go off all around them. That might be spectacular, but Paul's more concerned about the practical. Paul wanted the Colossians to be strengthened so that they might have endurance and patience. There's nothing glamorous about those things. But these are essential to the Christian life. When we look to God for strength, we need strength especially for endurance and patience. Too often, eager Christians will flame out when their zeal dies down and the going gets rough. We need endurance and patience for the long haul, for those dark valleys that we go through from time to time. For times when life is so difficult that faith nearly gives way. It is at times like these that we need the power of God to carry us through. The Colossians needed it, and so do we.

Fifth and finally, Paul prayed that the Colossians would be able to give thanks to God. Does that sound familiar? It should, because that’s how Paul’s prayer for the Colossians began. There are lots of things that we can thank God for, and in about ten days we’ll mark a day that is set aside specifically for thanksgiving. There are lots of things that each of us can be thankful for. But here, Paul calls attention to the most important thing of all. As Paul put it, God has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints. I like the way that phrase sounds: God has qualified us. It reminds me of athletes struggling to qualify for the Olympics, or for whatever competition they’re trying to get into. It reminds me of a family trying to get a mortgage for their dream house, hoping that the bank tells them that the “qualify” for it. It makes me think of a student applying to college, hoping that she “qualifies” and gets the thick acceptance packet instead of the thin rejection letter. We can be thankful that we qualify for an incredible inheritance, mostly because it’s not the inheritance that we deserve. We have lived under the power of darkness and death, but God has brought us into the glorious kingdom of light. We have been destined for destruction because of our sins, but now we have received redemption.