What Do We Fight For?
22.15This is my personal summary of exposirory preaching of Rev.Dr.Stephen Tong on James 4:1-6 on 12th March 2006
James was describing the situations that often happen in the church. He traced the reasons to the root. Where do all the quarrels and fights come from?
Fighting spirit is something we ought to have. Put in the right place, it causes progress in humanity. Put in the wrong place, it causes a lot of destruction. This is true for an individual, for a church, for a family and for a nation.
James says that selfish desire is the root of all strife. The book of Ephesians says that our selfish desires are in battle with the Holy Spirit.
When we are still living in sin, Satan does not look at us as his enemies because we are under his control. God also does not look at us as His enemies because He uses His love to bring us back to Him. Therefore, our lives as human beings can be quite peaceful in this sense. We can live as we like without strict constraints.
However, when we are saved, the real battle begins within us. It becomes a very difficult life. We are constrained in whatever we do. When we follows our selfish desires, the Holy Spirit within will rebuke us. When we follow God, our flesh will resist. So, true Christians live in this tension as long as they are still in this world.
God gave Israelites the promised land but He did not drive out all the Canaanites and left the land empty for the Israelites to take possession. Implicitly this gives us a very important Christian principle which is often neglected by Christian leaders and parents today. If we do not understand the necessity to fight and always want to have things easy and smooth, we will lose all our fighting spirit and cannot progress. When Joshua was old, God still told him that a lot of land was yet to be conquered. Here we can see that God is never satisfied with our fighting spirit. Yet few churches talk about what they have not done, but often talk a lot about what they have done. If we keep looking forward and want to do the things we have not done, we have a young fighting spirit. But if we keep looking backward and talk about the things we have done, we have a very old spirit, ready to move to the grave.
Hence, there is no question that fighting spirit is a necessity. The question is more on the issue of what we are fighting for. Today, the problem is we do not define our battle properly. We fight against our own brothers because we cannot tell the difference between brothers and enemies. We cannot tell because we do not treat the absolute as absolute and the relative as relative. This is especially the problem with postmodern world we live in which always uses a relative spirit to respond to the absolute, and absolute spirit to respond to the relative. This results in confusion in a lot of the movements today.
James shows how a lot of our fights arise from selfish desires. This brings us to a serious issue that we are not willing to fight for important things but are always eager to fight for our personal things. It shows that our lives are still very centered on self. In chapter 1 James has said that self-centeredness would give birth to sin which results in death. If our lives are really so self-centered, then all our fights and prayers are useless. Achievement of our selfish needs is not relevant to God's eternal will. The prayer the Lord Jesus taught us is the true content of prayer. Surely God knows our need and will provide for us. If we still keep asking God for our personal needs instead of seeking His kingdom when God has provided for our basic needs, it is a sign of greed. Prayer is a very sacred exercise. Yet we would use the most precious religious tool for our selfish ends. Do we not express our selfishness, jealousy, hatred and doubts in our prayers instead of praying in line with God's will?
Christians have the habit of putting their theology in the fridge. When Mohamed was made fun of, Muslims produced social upheaval in many countries around the world. When Jesus Christ is made fun of, Christians produced another book. When we lose our fighting spirit, all knowledge becomes cold. We need to defreeze it and be set on fire again. Reformed theology is reformed theology. Movement is movement. Yet now churches only fight among themselves and do not declare war against Satan.
What is the most important content of your prayer? That is the reflection of your spirituality. If your prayer is the will of God, you are standing right in the battlefield with God and are walking with God.
We need not fight those battles we do not need to fight. But we must fight those battles we need to fight. If we do not fight the battle that we should, we are compromising. If we fight the battle we do not need to fight, we are impulsive. In the same way, we do not need to try to get the things we do not need to have. But we need to get the things we need to have. If we try to possess the things we do not need, we are greedy. If we do not try to get the things we need to have, we are stupid.
God is a jealous God. He is jealous of evil, not of good. God Himself is the Truth, Righteousness, Goodness and Holiness. So if you become more holy, God will not be jealous. If you become more righteous, more truthful, God is not jealous. If we are friends with the world, we are enemies with God.
Peter talks about being partakers of divine nature. It means to escape the corruption of the world so that we can have a part in God's holiness, love and righteousness. The starting point we see in 1 Cor.1:30 that say Christ has become our salvation, wisdom, righteousness and holiness. After we are saved, we can partake in divine nature.
When you truly understand God's Word, you will taste how His wisdom is far above all the philosophies of the world. The worldly philosophies do have their values you can learn from, but when you truly understand God's Word, you will see all their limitation and you will see how glorious His wisdom is above all.
James 4:6 has a sudden twist after he talked about God's jealousy. He said God gives more grace, and He opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Who are the proud? Satan and all that follow him. Who are the humble? They are those who submit to God and His eternal will. They are those who are always teachable and in infinite search for the Truth of God. The moment we stop looking for teachers (anyone who has something good we do not have regardless of their status and age), we start to fail.
James was describing the situations that often happen in the church. He traced the reasons to the root. Where do all the quarrels and fights come from?
Fighting spirit is something we ought to have. Put in the right place, it causes progress in humanity. Put in the wrong place, it causes a lot of destruction. This is true for an individual, for a church, for a family and for a nation.
James says that selfish desire is the root of all strife. The book of Ephesians says that our selfish desires are in battle with the Holy Spirit.
When we are still living in sin, Satan does not look at us as his enemies because we are under his control. God also does not look at us as His enemies because He uses His love to bring us back to Him. Therefore, our lives as human beings can be quite peaceful in this sense. We can live as we like without strict constraints.
However, when we are saved, the real battle begins within us. It becomes a very difficult life. We are constrained in whatever we do. When we follows our selfish desires, the Holy Spirit within will rebuke us. When we follow God, our flesh will resist. So, true Christians live in this tension as long as they are still in this world.
God gave Israelites the promised land but He did not drive out all the Canaanites and left the land empty for the Israelites to take possession. Implicitly this gives us a very important Christian principle which is often neglected by Christian leaders and parents today. If we do not understand the necessity to fight and always want to have things easy and smooth, we will lose all our fighting spirit and cannot progress. When Joshua was old, God still told him that a lot of land was yet to be conquered. Here we can see that God is never satisfied with our fighting spirit. Yet few churches talk about what they have not done, but often talk a lot about what they have done. If we keep looking forward and want to do the things we have not done, we have a young fighting spirit. But if we keep looking backward and talk about the things we have done, we have a very old spirit, ready to move to the grave.
Hence, there is no question that fighting spirit is a necessity. The question is more on the issue of what we are fighting for. Today, the problem is we do not define our battle properly. We fight against our own brothers because we cannot tell the difference between brothers and enemies. We cannot tell because we do not treat the absolute as absolute and the relative as relative. This is especially the problem with postmodern world we live in which always uses a relative spirit to respond to the absolute, and absolute spirit to respond to the relative. This results in confusion in a lot of the movements today.
James shows how a lot of our fights arise from selfish desires. This brings us to a serious issue that we are not willing to fight for important things but are always eager to fight for our personal things. It shows that our lives are still very centered on self. In chapter 1 James has said that self-centeredness would give birth to sin which results in death. If our lives are really so self-centered, then all our fights and prayers are useless. Achievement of our selfish needs is not relevant to God's eternal will. The prayer the Lord Jesus taught us is the true content of prayer. Surely God knows our need and will provide for us. If we still keep asking God for our personal needs instead of seeking His kingdom when God has provided for our basic needs, it is a sign of greed. Prayer is a very sacred exercise. Yet we would use the most precious religious tool for our selfish ends. Do we not express our selfishness, jealousy, hatred and doubts in our prayers instead of praying in line with God's will?
Christians have the habit of putting their theology in the fridge. When Mohamed was made fun of, Muslims produced social upheaval in many countries around the world. When Jesus Christ is made fun of, Christians produced another book. When we lose our fighting spirit, all knowledge becomes cold. We need to defreeze it and be set on fire again. Reformed theology is reformed theology. Movement is movement. Yet now churches only fight among themselves and do not declare war against Satan.
What is the most important content of your prayer? That is the reflection of your spirituality. If your prayer is the will of God, you are standing right in the battlefield with God and are walking with God.
We need not fight those battles we do not need to fight. But we must fight those battles we need to fight. If we do not fight the battle that we should, we are compromising. If we fight the battle we do not need to fight, we are impulsive. In the same way, we do not need to try to get the things we do not need to have. But we need to get the things we need to have. If we try to possess the things we do not need, we are greedy. If we do not try to get the things we need to have, we are stupid.
God is a jealous God. He is jealous of evil, not of good. God Himself is the Truth, Righteousness, Goodness and Holiness. So if you become more holy, God will not be jealous. If you become more righteous, more truthful, God is not jealous. If we are friends with the world, we are enemies with God.
Peter talks about being partakers of divine nature. It means to escape the corruption of the world so that we can have a part in God's holiness, love and righteousness. The starting point we see in 1 Cor.1:30 that say Christ has become our salvation, wisdom, righteousness and holiness. After we are saved, we can partake in divine nature.
When you truly understand God's Word, you will taste how His wisdom is far above all the philosophies of the world. The worldly philosophies do have their values you can learn from, but when you truly understand God's Word, you will see all their limitation and you will see how glorious His wisdom is above all.
James 4:6 has a sudden twist after he talked about God's jealousy. He said God gives more grace, and He opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Who are the proud? Satan and all that follow him. Who are the humble? They are those who submit to God and His eternal will. They are those who are always teachable and in infinite search for the Truth of God. The moment we stop looking for teachers (anyone who has something good we do not have regardless of their status and age), we start to fail.
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