The Trouble With Me

Introduction

Sun and sunset, tears and joyful peace like his mighty place with the sky before me. I will give him all my praise.

Stars will joy praises from me.

I will hear me and rejoice. I will make the God with praise. Oh will speak his name abroad. I will worship him for my God, my only God Shall his glory try to send us for his name and to his wealth. I will send up all the for us all praise to him.

Oh will speak his name abroad. I will worship him forever, my own.

Please be seated. If you want to leave your books open, number 127, please song number 127 is our invitation song to see. I momentarily forgot there that when he said please be seated, that meant everybody but me. I guess that happens sometimes.

But it’s a good thing I remembered. Want to say thank you for the way in which you received the lesson this morning. I got some hearty words of encouragement, and not just words of encouragement, but don’t get me wrong, words of encouragement are nice to hear. But one of the things that I’ve been very impressed with in the few times that I’ve had the opportunity to speak to you is just how well you listen. And not just encouraged, but that you take the message to heart and that you make application, and I want to say thank you for that.

One is fix your knot, two is fix your collar, three is the tail is going this way. Four means quit telling them what the other signals mean. Those of you that notice that Jordan’s not here, we’re having a little bit of a family issue, and I want to I just if you’ll indulge me, want to bring you up to speed on this. My younger brother Justin is unfortunately having to go through a divorce. His wife has been unfaithful. And through some manipulation of the court system, it looks like he may, for all intents and purposes, lose custody of their children for at least a little while. And it sure would mean a lot to me if you would remember that in your prayers and remember Justin and Katie and Kobe and Jordan went to be with my mom, who was supposed to be here tonight, and he’s going to try to encourage her to go to services at Southside because she and my dad aren’t going to be able to make it up here tonight, obviously.

So if you would remember that, I know your prayers are chock full of other things that you’ve got to remember, but if there’s a little extra room in there, I sure would appreciate it if you’d remember that. Thank you ever so much. Open your Bibles, if you will, to the book of James, the fourth chapter. We’re going to begin there in just a moment. And before we begin, though, I have a question for you. What do you think? If you were to take all of the possibilities, what do you think is the single biggest impediment to your spirituality? What is the one thing? I mean, you could argue that it could be different for every person, but I don’t believe it is.

Tonight’s lesson I’m entitled The Trouble with Me. Now, I realize some of you feel like you could already fill up a notebook about the trouble with me. But that’s not what I’m talking about. What I’m talking about is how we get in our own in the way of our own spiritual growth. The things that we do, the things that we are overcome by, the attitudes that we embrace that keep us from being what we ought to be spiritually. And I would say that this attitude of me may be the single biggest obstacle that any of us will ever run into. Let’s continue in James, the fourth chapter. Let’s actually begin in James 3 in verse 13. Where James says, Who among you is wise and understanding?

Let him show by his good behavior his deeds in the gentleness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth. This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, have you noticed how many times he said something about selfishness? There is disorder and every evil thing. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering without hypocrisy, and the seed whose fruit is righteousness, is sown in peace by those who make peace. James 4 and 1. What is the source of the 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. 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. New King James says friendship with the world is enmity with God. Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think the scripture speaks to no purpose? He jealously desires the spirit which he 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. Do not speak against one another, brethren. He who speaks against a brother or judges his brother speaks against the law, and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law, but a judge of it. There is only one lawgiver and the judge and judge, the one who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?

Come now, you who say today or tomorrow, we will go to such and such a city and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit. Yet you do not know that your life will be like tomorrow. What your life will be like tomorrow. You are just as a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that. But as it is you boast in your arrogance, all such boasting is equal. Therefore, to the one, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it to him, it is sin. James makes a handful of very cogent points there, but before I get into just what those points are, it is now, according to that clock, 52.

According to my phone, it’s 521. Does anybody feel like they just dodged a bullet? If you weren’t here this morning, you don’t know what 522 means. Just ask somebody. I want you to think about that. But we have the belief of the infallible self. Perhaps there is no greater obstacle to personal growth and church unity than our own sense of entitlement. You ever notice where problems come from? Don’t they come when we start trying to figure out what we’re entitled to? Not how we can serve each other, not how we can lift each other up, but how we can cause division among each other or with each other by grasping what we feel like we deserve. It was either Oliver Perry or Walt Kelly who said, We have met the enemy and he is us.

1. Me Brings Division

And I’ve got to say, when it comes to our own spiritual growth, when it comes to the unity of the church, when it comes to the divisions that creep in among brethren, there is no truer statement. We have met the enemy and he is us. I think sometimes we get so busy looking for the devil and the roaring lion that Peter talks about. We forget that our obligation is not only to ourselves and our wishes and our desires, but we have an obligation to draw closer to one another. You cannot draw closer to one another if you are only concerned with self. So to the English majors, I apologize. Me brings division. Remember, the lesson is the trouble with me. Me brings division. James says so.

Let’s go back to it. What is the source of the quarrels and conflicts among you? This is James 4 and 1. Is it is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? You lust and do not have, so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain, so you find a quarrel you do not have because you do not ask. Me brings division. Because the dangers of the entitled me, I want, I deserve, I desire. Me brings division because me only serves self. Me brings division because me only serves self.

One of the first things that you learn as a child is you’ve got to take care of who? Me. Well, not me, but you. That’s one of the first lessons that we learned. Me is inherently self-serving. What we’re really saying when we say I want, I deserve, I desire, and that is our fundamental goal, our fundamental purpose is to serve the I want, I deserve, I desire. What we’re really saying is I am entitled to, sometimes at the expense of the betterment of my brothers and sisters. The Apostle Paul writes in Ephesians the fourth chapter, if you’d like to turn over there. We’re going to be bouncing between Ephesians 4 and James 4. So if you put a bookmarker in Ephesians 4, you probably appreciate that.

He says, beginning in verse 1, therefore, I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. So not only are we supposed to be united in things of the Spirit, there’s supposed to be a bond of peace between you and I. There is one body, one spirit, just as you will, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. He then goes into a discussion about how the body is joined by whatever joint supplies.

But then he comes back to this concept of how we need to avoid division between each other in verse 25, where he says, Therefore, laying aside falsehood, it’s Phil Ephesians 4, speak truth, each one of you with his neighbor, for we are members of, what does that say? One another. Be angry and yet do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity. Pause right here. Brothers and sisters, if there is one message that I could get across and feel like I have accomplished something, it would be this one. I have seen more problems in homes. I have seen more problems in marriages. I have seen more problems in business ventures. And dare I say I have seen more problems in churches come from anger than just about any other source.

Anger is like an open door to the devil. And anger is a completely self-serving emotion. 90% of the time. Look at what he says. Be angry and yet do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger. King James says, wrath. And do not give the devil an opportunity. King James says, do not give place to the devil. Why do you think that warning is there? Don’t give place to the devil when you’re angry. Because when you’re angry, you have opened a door for the devil to walk through. And I’ve got to tell you, this is one of the things that just it seems to be coming, it seems to be becoming more and more prevalent in our society. And one of the places that it spreads faster than any other is social networking.

A feud that starts on Facebook turns into somebody getting unfriended turns into a feud that actually you never notice how people will say things on Facebook they’d never say to your face. Maybe it should be caught behind your back book. I don’t know. But a feudal start on Facebook and somebody will unfriend somebody and then it turns into a real discussion or a real issue between brothers and sisters, and before long you’ve got the congregation segregated, and people aren’t talking to each other anymore. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it where I used to preach. And I couldn’t believe it when I saw it. To make matters even worse, these people weren’t just brothers and sisters in Christ that were having these issues. They were actual brothers and sisters.

We need to be careful with our anger, the opportunities that we give, that we’re that we’re opening when we’re angry. We need to make sure that we’re not staying angry too long. And I gotta tell you, anger is a hard emotion to put down. Because it is so self-serving. It is so self-promoting. We’re convinced that we’re protecting our interests. Anger does not serve the purpose of unity. He who steals must steal no longer, but rather he must labor performing with his own hands what is good so that he will have something to share with one who has need. Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear.

Well, we could talk about Facebook again there, couldn’t we? Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger, there it is again. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice, be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ has also forgiven you.

Or we could go over to a passage like Philippians 2. Where Philippians 2, beginning in verse 1, says, Therefore, if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Do nothing. Remember, we said that me causes division. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind, regard one another as more important than yourselves. Do not merely look out for your own personal interest, but also for the interest of others. Have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant and being made in the likeness of men.

The Apostle Paul says to the Philippians, you have a pattern. And the pattern is completely the opposite of what the world tells you ought to do. Have you ever been into have you been recently into a bookstore? The Barnes and Nobles, or I guess it’s not any borders anymore. I guess it’s just Barnes and Noble now, actually. And as you’re perusing the bookstore, or the largest section you will probably find is the science fiction and fiction section. Which I’m okay with that. I like science fiction and fiction. But the second largest section you will find is the self-help section. And that, I mean, who can be against self-help? But as you peruse the titles in the self-help section, you’ll begin to notice something. Almost every one of these books starts with the conceit that you deserve more than you have today.

Was that the attitude that Jesus had? I deserve better. Someone bought me a book a few years ago called the, I think it was called the Four Hour Work Week. It would take about two and a half hours to read, and it’s still stuck on my shelf. Someone else bought me one called Rich Dad Poor Dad, and the things that the rich dads teach their kids about money. I’m neither rich nor dad, so I don’t know why I got that book. But the fundamental precept of those kinds of books is that you deserve better than what you have today, and you want to scrimp and strap and fight for it. What if we applied that attitude spiritually? What if we said, I deserve, I want to be closer to God than I am today?

And we were to put those same kinds of efforts into pulling our brothers and sisters closer to us and living a more fundamentally Christian life. Instead, those attitudes end up becoming self-serving. So, how can we fulfill our purpose of uniting with and edifying others when me only wants to serve self?

2. Me Brings Separation

Secondly, me brings separation. Again, apologies to English majors. Me brings separation. Going back to our text in James 4, beginning in verse 3, it says, you ask and do not receive because you ask of wrong motives. So that you may spend it on your pleasures, you adulteresses. Do you not know? Look at this. That friendship with the world is hostility toward God. Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself. This phrase has always made me uncomfortable. And enemy of God. You know, I’ve probably visited this passage of Scripture more times than I can count in sermon. And I’ve asked this several times, and never once have I gotten a hand. I’d like to see a hand of anybody here that wants to be an enemy of God.

But do we live that way? We’d never own up to it. We’d never say, yeah, I really want to put some distance between myself and the Father. I feel like being the prodigal. I feel like going off into the world. I feel like my leaving behind grace and mercy and all of the things that He’s called me to and compelled me to.

We said earlier we’ve met the enemy, and the enemy is us. We choose our allies. We choose our allies. We choose which side of the equation we were on this morning in Bible class. Mike was talking about predestination and what it really means from a biblical standpoint. We choose where we spend eternity. We make that choice. The deciders for where Jared Bowman’s soul will be for all eternity is standing up here tonight. The decider for your soul is sitting in your seat. Oh, Jesus will judge. But you’re the one that makes the decision. If we wouldn’t hold up our hands and say, Yep, chalk me up as being under the banner of the world. If we want to be a people or profess in our minds and with our mouths to be a people that stands for God, not allied against God.

We need to ask ourselves if we’re truly living that way.

1 John 2 verse 15 says, Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. Anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away and also its lust, but the one who does the will of God lives forever. If anyone, look at the underline here. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. Brothers and sisters, we better be careful how close me is bringing us to the world. I want to talk to the young people for just a second.

I know it feels like anybody that gets up here probably talks to you for just a second in every sermon, but many of you are going off to college. And many of you are about to have doors open to you that are unlike anything that you’ve ever seen before. Temptations that you’ve never seen before, magnified by powers of ten. You’ve got to choose right now. Joshua in the 24th chapter said, choose for yourself this day. Whom you’ll serve. You’re going to have to choose today whether or not you’re going to be a friend of God. You’re going to have to choose today before the temptation gets here. Whether or not you are going to have the love of the Father is going to reside in you, and only you can make that choice.

Mommy and Daddy can’t make it for you. The preacher can’t make it for you. The well-intentioned friend sitting next to you can’t make it for you. You are going to have to make that choice, and that goes for each and every one of us sitting here.

No matter how much my wife loves me, she cannot force me to love the Father the way I ought to. And no matter how much I love her, no matter how much we’re loved by our brothers and sisters in Christ, or we love our brothers and sisters in Christ, we cannot compel someone to love the Father more than they do if they are not willing to do that. This is fundamentally, remember the lesson is on me. This is fundamentally a choice that is made by you for you. Going back to Ephesians the fourth chapter. Told you we would. He says in verse 17, this is filling in some of the verses that we skipped over a while ago. So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them.

Because of the hardness of their heart, and they having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. But you did not learn Christ in this way.

If indeed you have heard him and have been taught in him, just as the truth is in Jesus, that in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new self, which is the light, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. Let’s look at that last one. Put off the old, because it’s been corrupted with lust and deceit. Be renewed in your mind. Put on the new, which has been made in the likeness of God. Brothers and sisters, we’re all becoming something. I’m becoming older. You ever notice how some of you are too young to know this, but I’ve got these aches and pains that don’t go away anymore.

And now the gray has started to creep into my beard. It was just on top of my head in little spots here and there. Then it kind of ate my whole head. And now it’s moving down to my beard. And I’m pretty sure next week I’m going to look down and find out there’s gray hair on my feet. It just happened. We’re all becoming something. This old body is corrupt. The old man of sin is corrupted. It falls apart. It breaks down, it wears out. The old man of sin is the same way as our physical body. But there is a new body that we are compelled to, and we are compelled into that body by laying down what’s old and desiring what’s new. Laying down the infirmed and putting on the spiritual.

Patterning ourselves after God. And then we talked about Philippians 2 earlier, where we were compelled to live in the same, in the same pattern that Christ had, that Christ did, who didn’t consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself a little lower than the angels and of no reputation, and came and lived as a man, was obedient even to the death of the cross. Do we have that pattern of self denial? Or are we allowing me to bring separation between us and God? Are we allowing me to put a wall of sin back where the wall of sin was already torn down? Are we allowing me to resurrect the old man and put the new man back in the box? Which are we?

Back to James, you adulteresses. Do you not know that friendship, and like I said, this passage makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up, 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. That just makes me cringe when I read that. That gives me goosebumps when I read that. Because I would never knowingly want to be an enemy of God, but I may be doing that. I may be being that in the manner in which I’m living. You see, what we profess with the mouth and what we believe with the mind has got to be the same as what we do with the body. Let me say that a little louder, so many didn’t look like you could hear that.

3. Cure for Too Much Me Is a Lot Less Me

What we profess with the mouth, what we believe with the mind, has got to translate into the things that we do with the hands. And if we’re self-serving, we might believe ourselves to be a child of God all day long, but we’ll not find ourselves on the roll when it’s called up yonder, as the Psalm says. Point number three. This is kind of one of those ones that you see it and you just go, duh. The cure for too much me is a lot less me. This is not a diet plan. Although it would make a good one, wouldn’t it? A lot less me. The cure for too much me is a lot less me. That was funnier in my head.

Back to James 4, the cure for too much me again. But he gives a great, but he gives a greater grace, verse 6. 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 weak, let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and he will exalt. Come now, you who say, skipping down to verse, skipping down to verse 13. Come now, you who say, today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.

Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that. But as it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it to him it is sin. I believe it’s John Lennon that said that life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans. We’ve got this all figured out, don’t we? We talked about the fidelity green line this morning about the reassurance of tomorrow. We’ve got this all figured out. As long as we’re walking our green line to retirement, we’ve got it, we’ve got a spiritual green line.

We’re just going to follow this. We’ve got this all figured out. It requires no effort whatsoever. No, sir, no, ma’am, that is absolutely not the case. Oh, there is a path set before us, but it requires some effort. It requires some sacrifice. It requires us to be the kind of people that asks first. This isn’t just saying, Hell, if God wills, I’m going to do this. This is really saying, you know, if this is what the Lord wants. I think about that and I think about the Macedonian cult. Remember, Paul had it all figured out. He was going to go over to Asia. He had it all figured out. And he was permitted or prevented several times from doing that. Finally, he had the vision that said, Come over to Macedonia and help us.

We got it all figured out. We got our life laid out. It’s supposed to be, you know, a man goes, he goes to school, he goes to college, he gets married, has some kids, you know, he works a job until he just doesn’t want to work anymore, and he retires and he becomes old, sits in a chair, and has grandkids all around him, and then one day he dies. Hopefully he was good and spiritual and that’s how we got it all figured out, right? Life sometimes takes some weird twists and turns. And we’ve got to be ready to deal with them in the way that God wants us to deal with them. The cure for too much me is a whole lot less me. If the Lord wills.

We talked this morning about every breath being on borrowed time if we’re not right with God. Do we really believe that the Lord wills different things for you and me? Do we really believe that God has a purpose for you and for me? If we do, we ought to be seeking that purpose out. We ought to be looking for the place where we fit instead of trying to fit God into what we’re looking for. Matthew 11, verse 28 says, Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and the burden is light.

Conclusion

Brothers and sisters, when’s the last time you said if the Lord wills and really meant if the Lord wills? When’s the last time you really put me on the altar and sacrificed it to what God wishes and God desires? We talked about the dangers of I want, I deserve, I desire. You know what the real cure for that is? Exactly what Jesus prayed in the garden, not my will but thine be done. That’s the truth. You want to heal division among a group of God’s people? Let the people start doing the will of the Father. You want to bring back the erring one who has separated himself from God? Show him in your actions that you will do the will of the Father and perhaps compel him to do likewise.

That submission. That obedience that James was talking about in James 4, that Paul was talking about in Ephesians 4 and Philippians 2, that obedience that Jesus was talking about in Matthew 11 is key to all that we will ever be. And without such obedience, we just made ourselves an enemy of God.

So we had him praise empty yourself of all and glad for praising love how can it be that you my God would I for me how can it be that you God would I for me for the I come before your throne to pray your mercy and be no greater love will have for home I God is found out being how can it be that you my God would I for be a praising how can it be that you my God would my God would