OCT 18 2026 | Storm Proof: A Study in James S2E2 | The War Within

Good morning, church, on this gorgeous day. Great to be here. Just a real safe place for me personally, just to come on every Sunday morning. Probably the two safest places I feel, not counting with my family and stuff, is when I'm preaching on Sunday morning in this pulpit with you all and Tuesday prayer. Just two places that just have been anchors now for 527 sermons that we've counted, and a whole lot of people praying for about 12 years over there. And I'm just so glad that you guys are here today. Opportunity to reset right now, right? Just to reset everything that happened last week, everything that's going to be coming next week at a brand new Sunday. And every Sunday, we just get to hear the word of the Lord, and we get to lock in and say, "Hey, there's some things I did last week that I want to do again. There's some things I might not want to do again." But it is really good. I want to let you know, if you have not had a chance to get "The Church Has Left the Building," newest book that I put together on 12 sermons over the summer that really had a great impact. It's the vision of our church. It's not written to people that live in New York, although they could read it and probably get something of it. It's written to you, so you'll say, "Hey, you're here at Sea Change." It's like the opening paragraph. Talks about who we are, but it'll be encouraging and inspiring to you. Now, you can get it for free online as an e-book. You online as well that are watching. You can do that. Just get a free download. But if you want a hard copy Isn't this-- It's so fun. It feels nice. It feels so good. Just as an author, when your book comes out, you just want to kiss it and smell the binding because no one has books anymore. It is a great resource for you. So I want you to check that out, be a part of that. We're back in the book of James. If you have your Bibles, open to James 4. Now, if you are a person who, whenever there is a passage in the scripture that instills guilt in you, we have a counseling center because this might be a triggering passage. So just FYI, you can go online and sign up for that. But the Bible is never meant to inspire guilt or to encourage you, especially when it's writing to Christians. It's meant to convict. And there is a difference between godly conviction, which leads to repentance, and guilt. Jesus died for all of our guilt. And so when we get to James, James is hard-hitting. And if you only read the passages in the scripture that make you feel good, although this does have an antidote to have peace and joy, we kind of miss the entirety of scripture. And this is a passage that is written as James is writing. The question is, who's James writing to? James is writing to the diaspora, the 12 tribes in the diaspora. Now, who's that? Those are the early Jewish believers. This book is probably, if not the earliest book, one of the earliest books written in the scripture, and it's not written to a church. It's not a pastoral epistle like Paul writing to Timothy or Jude. It's not that, but he is writing to Jewish believers who, for one reason or another, could have been persecution, but have gone out on those Roman roads into the diaspora that have been dispersed. And so they have ended up in Thessalonica. They've ended up in Ephesus. They've ended up in Athens. They've ended up in Rome. They've ended up all over, and when they got there, there wasn't the support system that you're going to see that they had in Jerusalem. In Jerusalem or some of the other Jewish cities that had had 1,000 years of temple worship, and they had a rhythm, and they had their friends, and they had their synagogues. And even though the Romans were there, one of the things the Romans would do is when you take something over, you don't destroy everything. I know that Babylonians did that, but the Romans had a different way. They would take over and let you keep your stuff, but we just kind of try to tell you how to do your stuff, and that was the way they did things. So a lot of people took off, and they ended up in places like Pergamum, which was considered the seat of Satan. It says the seat of Satan was there. They ended up in Ephesus. Actually, Ephesus is where it's believed that John, Jesus, excuse me, probably best friend, the disciple, took his mother and lived in Ephesus. And in these cities, they just found paganism, absolute paganism. They found sexuality that had gone sideways and rampant. There was temple prostitution. Regular sacrifices, which they understood the sacrificial system, but these sacrifices would oftentimes come with temple prostitutes and all this diversion from what they knew as the true calling of God upon their lives. And so now they're out and about, and imagine you leaving the sanctuary of where you are and going somewhere where it just seems like paganism has taken over and what happened to the world. Matter of fact, if you're in college, you probably understand what that is exactly like because you were here and now you're away. You're coming back for Thanksgiving here pretty soon, but you're like, "What just happened? How did I get here?" Depends on what college you go to, obviously, but the world's changed. And so James is writing to these believers who have moved to a new place, but they've moved in with more than just their geography and their proximity. They've moved in with their hearts. And so they've begun to accept and adopt the ways of the pagans in this way, and it has begun to creep into a church that is just forming. I wouldn't even say that there's a church there yet. There are churches, I guess, small groups of gatherings, but it wouldn't be like it is 30 years from this point where there's a church in Corinth. And so James is writing to these people, and I want you to understand this as we read the passage, because when I first started reading this passage, I thought he was writing to me, and he is writing to all of us, right? But you have to understand, he's not thinking about La Jolla, America, 2026. He's just writing to Jewish believers that are being led astray, and what is leading them astray is destroying their peace, it's destroying their joy, it's destroying their entire lives. And so he's talking about two different worlds that we see. And so go to verse one as I read this, and he asks a great question. What, circle what, you can write in your Bibles here. We have our Bible writing in church. "What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you?" That's amongst the Jewish believers. "Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and you do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask." That's a great-- Underline that. "You do not have because you do not ask." Verse three, "You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly," circle wrongly, "to spend it on your passions," circle passions. "You adulterous people. Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?" You can camp there for a while. "Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God." Darn it, James. Come on, bro. Settle down, James. Verse five. "Or," juxtaposition, "do you suppose it is for no purpose that the scripture says, 'He yearns jealously over your spirit that he has made to dwell within us,' but he gives more grace." Here's the antidote. "But he gives more grace. Therefore, it says, 'God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.'" We'll get to the meaning of that and how to live in the antidote. We want you to live in the antidote. And if you are living with-- Which is miserable, by the way. If you actually made a legitimate commitment to Jesus Christ, and you have one foot in Jesus Christ and one foot in the world, you're just going to be so unhappy. I've been the expert at that. You know what I mean? Just a toe. God, just give me a toe, right? But it'll make you miserable until you fully commit and step in, and that's kind of the main idea of the passage, and I guess I could put it together in an analogy. This week, you saw what happens when you build your house on the sand. Or was it last week? Tides come, waves come, and those beautiful multimillion-dollar-- It was hard to watch. It's sideways in the sand, and they're falling into the ocean, and the waves are... But they were such a-- Who wouldn't have built there 30 years ago, right? What a great place to build. Wouldn't you want to live there? Right now, probably, if you could have a house like that, you'd probably move into it. But what we just sung a second ago, which was amazing, was where you build your foundation, was in one of the songs that we sung, matters. Where you build matters. Here's the problem with these believers. They wanted a foundation in Christ, but an ADU in the world that they could visit. Because that's real talk, right? We want our house built on Jesus, but we wouldn't mind a little ADU in the backyard that's built over the septic tank. Granted, it's going to fall down and whatever it is, but we want to visit that ADU. Wouldn't it be nice? Don't you think that some of you might have it? But I've always dreamed of the beautiful ADU full of books, right? I'm not going to let anybody live there. It's not going to be a dwelling unit except for me to dwell, but I'll tell the city fine, it's ADU. Yeah, well, it's my dweller, me, as I read books and sit with candles and my coffee. Beautiful. I want to live in that. I want to be in that place as much as possible. And then when push comes to shove, I want to move back to the firm foundation. Don't we do that? Don't we move back? We're with God when push comes to shove, but gosh, as much as I can get away to my own distractions and my own world and give God as little as I need to, to assuage the guilt to move into that. James is writing to these believers, and here's a keyword for today. The keyword is surrender. That's the antidote. Verse six, surrender. This is so true. It's so simple. Peace begins when we surrender. This is the big idea. Peace begins when we surrender the desires that are at war within us. Peace begins when we surrender the desires that are at war within us. If you go to any 12-step, 15-step, doesn't matter how many steps there are, but one of the core tenets of that, of counseling centers, of rehab centers, is this idea of just surrender. So the first step, if you're in one of those programs, is you give yourself over to a higher power. You surrender, you admit that you're powerless. You surrender that. And I have found that the more I surrender, worry about my future, upsetness, the more I surrender and give to God and say, "Hey, you got that," the better I do, the better my peace is. So the one I've been working on surrendering most recently is not having to be understood. You're in a discussion with somebody, and they say their point, and you're just there like, "Wait until you get to my point. I got a point for you. I want you to understand." And going back and forth. I've just decided, you know what? I don't need to give my point, and I don't need to be understood. I can still make a wise decision and listen to whoever it is. Somebody I was sitting with him, and I was talking to him. I was like, "Man, I don't get it. I don't get it." And he said to me, and I thought it was awesome, he goes, "I can explain it to you, but I can't help you to understand it." And I was like, I think that was an insult. Do you know what I'm saying? I said to him, "Never say that to your wife, bro." I can explain it to you, but I can't help you understand it. James is trying to help them understand what is going on. First of all, he says, "Fight the fight within," verse one. What, circle what again in your notes, causes quarrels and what causes fights among you. So he was getting reports of all this upsetness in the church, and there was change, and change brings tumult. And we're not doing the Jewish synagogue as much as we used to, and Jews, do we let the Gentiles in? And there's all this stuff going on. It's a lot of change, right? And we don't need to do sacrifices anymore, but Moses did sacrifices. Well, Jesus is the only sacrifice you need. New Jewish believers are coming in, and so every time a new Jewish believer comes in, they have to reassert the truth of the gospel. And so he's saying what causes these quarrels. We're having all these quarrels. And he brings it down to an interesting answer. And I love the first question. That word what is a great question for you to use on a weekly basis to check in with yourself. I try every day now to check in with myself. What am I feeling? What's holding on to me? Why do I think I'm feeling this? Usually, it takes the Lord to tell me the why, because I don't understand whys. I know what quicker than I know why, if that makes sense. But God is the God of understanding, and he gives you wisdom, knowledge, and understanding. You can ask him about that. Like I said last week, my mom said to me, she goes, "When I ask the Lord, usually he tells me within 72 hours, or he tells me right in the moment, or he's already told me and I'm just not following what he told me." And so I check in with myself, do this. And he's asking this congregation, check in with yourself. A lot of us just get up in the morning and plow ahead, right? Check the news, check your emails, boom, boom, boom. And you don't check in with the scripture. You don't check in with what God's saying to you. You don't check in with the Holy Spirit, and you don't check in with yourself. And I find that when I don't check in with myself, I start building my day upon the sand way too close to the waves, way too close to the tide, and not on the solid foundation of God's Word. And I tend to build it upon my passions. I tend to build it upon the thing that will either tell me that if you do this, you'll feel more peace. And it's temporal. And I realize that all of us have control of the temporal. What we do not have control of is eternity. And the only way to get the eternal consequence is to step out of your temporal moment and into the thoughts of eternity. And so he says right here, what causes, is it not this? So he's asking another question. Am I right? Am I wrong? Is it not this? That you have these passions that are at war within you. Okay. Passions. Nothing wrong with passion. We have a passionate God. But when these passions go sideways, they tend to move towards something that he says in the passage before this, that is earthly and ungodly. And so remember last week, we'll see in a moment, it says in this passage, it says, "Don't you know that God jealously yearns over the spirit that He has put within you?" He watches over it. Says He's jealousy. So that word jealousy, like I said last week, is not a bad word. But remember last week, he said you have bitter jealousy. So it shows that this good thing has been taken, and it's been turned towards your own desires and your own hedonism. And so this is what James is saying. So there's nothing wrong with passions, but the word that he uses here is hedon?, and that word means hedonist. Now, the Romans were great hedonists. Nobody could do a bacchanal like the Romans or the Greeks. Yeah. The Greeks are pretty solid. I know Romans stole it from the Greeks. But nonetheless, Greco-Romans, do you know what the vomitorium is? If you don't know what the vomitorium is, let me just describe it in great detail to you. And it sounds like you think it means. It's this little tray, like a feeding trough, where you gorge yourself on so much food, and then you go over and make yourself throw up in the vomitorium so that you can go back and eat some more. Doesn't that sound like a great-- We should get that at Thanksgiving. Should we not, Phil? Should I get that at Thanksgiving? Disgusting. Sounds disgusting to me. But he's talking about this hedonistic world that's just going after what you want. You've got one foot in the foundation of God and one foot, or at least your mind, in the ADU. You're wondering how much you have to give to God until you can actually go and enjoy your passions, and then what level of passion can I have without offending God? This one goes to 11. Or I'd like to stay at six. I don't think there's any passion in the world that God has not ordained, but every passion in the world can be skewed towards the enemy's lies. And so whether it's a passion for knowledge, like Adam and Eve, whether it's a passion for intimacy or not even intimacy, but something that was physically passionate, eros would be the word for it, like with David. Eros in a marriage, awesome. Eros with Bathsheba, when you're 33 or 30, closest confidants wife is not great. And so it's been turned. And so the first thing when you check in, the question is, and what he's saying, I really want to put it at your feet so you can study, because you have something that's warring within you. The flesh and the spirit is warring. And I talked last week, there's nothing wrong with the Earth. We were created out of the Earth, and the Earth is beautiful, and the Earth provides food for us, but God then breathed the spirit into us. And the Earth, the earthly part of you, always needs to be controlled by the spirit. So when we get that upside down is when the things happen, because what he's talking about to the Jewish diaspora, the 12 tribes is what he calls them. When they get into that place, then you start having actions that accompany the inner posture of your heart. It's very hard, and the Bible would say it's impossible, to have an inner compass that is pointing southeast and walk in true north. And so we all have passions. And a lot of it is control. A lot of the things that feel passionate to me is to make sure I can control situations. I try really hard not to control people. I really try hard. I think I was an expert at growing up in the family I did. We were really good at manipulating. And I've done a lot of counseling, and I was recently in a counseling with a person, and they said to me, "My spouse, I know when they're upset, I can just say this. And I have these four things I can say, and if I move to these topics, I know that that argument will end." And there's one thing with like, hey, I'm just going to swallow my pride and not say anything and just be kind. There's another thing like you have a little plan that you're going to distract them into these distractions. And I said, "Dude, I think that's called manipulation." You know what I mean? There is wisdom. And so I was a master of that. And so for me, when I check in with myself, I'm realizing a lot of it has to do with control. And those passions aren't just lust. We can always move the passions to the Greco-Roman passions, right? Well, lust, you know what I mean, and gluttony and addiction. But there's a passion that comes with control. There's a passion that comes with manipulation. There's all types of passions. There can be a passion with unforgiveness that can make you feel self-righteous. There's all these things. And so he's saying, check in with yourself. What is it? What is it, and are you willing to let it go? Go to verse two, halfway through B And now he begins to say that basically there's a way to have your passions, that you just got to get on the right course. So he says, and this is a verse in "Praying Through Your Elephant," a book I wrote about prayer, I did a whole chapter on this passage. And he says, "You do not have because you do not ask." Let's just stop there full stop. Just that alone, separate of where he's going with it. A lot of you don't have things in your life because you don't ask. You haven't asked God for them. Or you haven't asked enough, or not that God needs you to ask a million times, but there are scriptures where he say, "I just want to show some, I want some agency, and I want some participation in collaborating with me on this issue." And matter of fact, even I want you to fast on this one. I think that some of the things you've been praying for, if you fast, I know the scripture tells us that that will open doors for you. Not always, because sometimes the thing that God wants to give us is not your purpose. He wants to give you perseverance. Because your purpose is Jesus, right? But we're in this Western purpose-driven world, right? I'm not slamming the book from Saddleback, but it was a great book. It was great. But what I'm saying is, and I think he did a good job with it, but we have become so self-focused that it's all about our purpose. Let me tell you what your purpose is. Serve Jesus Christ. That's it. That's it. Everything else is gravy. And it's like what Augustine said, "Love God and then go do what you want." Right? But we've made purpose and we worship at this idol of purpose when maybe God just wants to give you perseverance because it doesn't say purpose leads to hope in the scripture. It says perseverance leads to hope. Now, if you want to get to hope, I would encourage you not to put purpose into that verse because it says proven character and it moves on and on down this chain. And the thing you want is hope because when you have hope, your heart is at rest. And so I would say to God as well, if you want to give me a purpose, let it be your purpose. I want to do whatever you want to do. I'm willing to bow at your feet. I submit. I give you all these hopes. I give you all these dreams. I give you all these thoughts of purpose. Right? But the thing that I would ask for is if you want to give it to me, give me perseverance because perseverance leads to hope, right? And so as James, back to James, he's making that you do not have because you do not ask. And you ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your hedone I think it is, your passions. Now, that's a hard verse, right? So then I start questioning myself, oh, I asked God for a new job. I didn't ask God for a new job. But you might be saying, I asked God for a new job. Some of the staff are here like, "We asked for a new boss." "We asked for a new lead pastor." Okay. Put it up on jobs.com. We'll see how it goes. You say, "Well, man, I asked that. Oh, my goodness. Maybe I asked wrongly and God's going to be mad at me. Da, da, da." Realize who he's speaking to and where they are. Ephesus, where you go to the temple, you engage in some form of a bacchanal, and then you give God something and it's transactional, and then you get something in return to spend it on what you want. This is what they call witchcraft. Witchcraft is not prayer. Okay? What does witchcraft do? Put in three eyes of newt, dance on your left foot, whatever, and you will get this. If you do this, you will get this. God says, "Pray for this and I might give it to you depending on if I think it's good for you." That is how prayer differs from witchcraft, right? And so they're somewhere where it says they're starting to maybe even go to these pagan temples in the name of Jesus, maybe offering... And the Jewish culture of the day was really good at finding alternative Jesus, right? To find their own personal Jesus that wasn't the Jesus of what would become the scripture. And so they go and they're trying to find solutions for what ails their soul and these things, and then they just want things transactionally. I will give this sacrifice. God, now you do this for me. And that is where it becomes self-centered and self-focused, and we remove the perseverance. God's job is not to answer your prayers. He answers prayers because he's a good God. God's job is to form you into the type of person that looks like his Son. And Jesus did not have all of his prayers answered. "Father, take away this cup." Right? "Take away this cup." And he says, "But not by my will," surrender, "but by your will." So what's driving you? And then the second one, examine what are you asking for. You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions. And that's just really good. Like, Lord, seek my heart. Let me know if my motive is wrong. Proverbs says you don't know your motives. The only way you're going to know your motives is if you ask God and He reveals your motives to you. You might think you have great motives. The scripture says no one understands their motives. Oh, I understand it because I've been in this relationship for twenty-four years and I understand exactly my motive. You don't understand nothing. Scripture says in Romans you don't even know how to pray. You don't know your motives. You don't know what's driving you. You don't know any of it and that's why you need understanding from the Holy Spirit and to be led by scripture even when you don't understand. That's key. How do we step forward to be led by scripture even when we don't understand? But God wants to give you more than just understanding your purpose. He says, "I want to reveal to you the mysteries of the unknown. I want to reveal to you the mysteries of the universe and beyond. I want to reveal the mysteries of my heart to you." You see, the thing is the thing that we're seeking is so sullen compared to the glorious thing He wants to give you. We keep asking for chicken nuggets when He wants to give you a farm of a million acres in the middle of Montana or wherever it is. Does that make sense? See, this is what God wants for you. You just have to want more. Verse four, as we come in for a landing on the final point, surrender your divided heart, you adulterous people. Let me stop right there. There might've been adultery. He was speaking about having a divided loyalty to God, to Jesus. So when he says adulterous, we probably all have had moments of that, right? Where it's like I want Jesus, but I want my ADU. Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world, that means you have a deep desire to be a friend of the world, makes himself an enemy of God. Let me stop there before you pillage your soul with like, "Oh, that's me. I'm a friend of the world." Now, this is talking about people that are making the decision, I want to walk away from God. I want to do this. Now we all make that decision in some way or another, right? I don't believe this is speaking about, hey, you're struggling with an addiction or a lifestyle choice and you're trying really hard not to do it. People come to me all the time, "I'm afraid I'm just an enemy of God or whatever, but I really want to do well." As long as you have something within you that is going to God on a regular basis, confessing your sin. And I'm not saying a free pass, do what you want and it gets you grace. I'm not saying that. But there's this desire within you to be more like Him and you're just literally struggling. I don't think that puts you in this category. This is a person that is a group of people that are worshiping at other temples oftentimes. So imagine as soon as you're done here, you go find another pagan temple down the street. You go there for an hour as well, okay? That's a little different than somebody trying not to drink for the week, okay? So I just want to just clarify the audience once again so you don't walk out feeling so convicted and guilty and that you can never ask God for anything or that you're an enemy of God, right? You're not an enemy of God if you make mistakes, but we move forward to become a friend of God. So it says or, and I love this part. Here's the solution for the antidote. Or, and there's that key word that everything hinges on, the apex there. Do you suppose it's for no purpose that the scripture says He yearns jealousy over the spirit which He has made dwell within you? God is jealous in the best word of zeal, and zeelos is the Greek word that jealousy comes from. He is zealous and jealous to sit with you, to be with you in the morning, to abide with you, just to be with you. You don't have to show up with a prayer list. You don't have to, oh, I got a half hour and I feel good about myself. Where does Psalm 23 lead you? It leads you to quiet waters. It leads you to still pastures, quiet pastures and still waters where you sit and He can just be with you. Heaven's not going to be you're going to get there with a to-do list. Hey, we're so glad you're here. Can you go knock up another drywall in the back corner? We need to get those mansions finished before we move you in. It's going to be an ultimate abiding with God and He jealously yearns for you. And then you go to the final bit there at the last passage, verse six. And this is the thing. This is where we need to land on this passage. But He gives more grace Therefore it says, "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." God has an eternity of grace that he wants to pour out upon you. And if you have found yourself even identifying at all with James' audience in this passage, even in the slightest way, God has more grace for you, grace that his Son died on the cross for. And I have to tell you, there's nothing that the diasporan believers were doing that the blood of Jesus could not cover. And so he's calling them back to himself, and I would say maybe he's calling you back to him as well. And I would say, first of all, as a practical takeaway is this. This week, add a time of surrender into your daily time with God, and begin to let go of and just check in with yourself. What is causing this? Why am I so upset? Why do I have so much fear? Why do I have so much anxiety? Why do I have this? And ask God for this understanding of what is going on within me. Would you give me an answer? It says later on in James, "Ask him for wisdom and he will give it to you." It said he is a God who gives graciously. He will give to you. Grace is the theme of James. It isn't, "You naughty little diasporan believers." It's he is a God of grace that loves you so much, and he wants you to step into that grace. I guess the only question is this, is if you look at the map of your life, where are you building your home? And have you allowed yourself a vacation unit somewhere where it shouldn't be? And until you're ready to surrender that, you're never going to have complete peace. You'll have moments of peace. You'll have moments of distraction when your little distractions help you out. You'll have these different things. But in the midst of it, until you let go and say, "I don't want to live there anymore. I want to just have friendship with God, and I'm going to build a foundation, everything I do." And it's such a hard decision. But until you do that, you won't have peace. And I will tell you, if you could go home today and be able to just surrender that thing to God completely, you will feel the peace of God fall upon you. I will guarantee you of that because I do it almost every day I have to do it, day in, time and time again. If you've never made a decision to follow Jesus, at the end of the service, please come forward. We're going to have our prayer team here. We want you to know Jesus. We're going to pray for you that you can accept him, that that spirit that he jealously yearns over will live within you, that you would be baptized, cleansed from your sins. This is what we're all about. Then we can get you on the real mission of life, becoming the person that God has called you to be, that we can send you out to be the church that has left the building. So if that touched your heart right now, you'll know it. Just come forward. We will lead you to Jesus. With that, Chris, come forward. Oh, hey, Connor. I'm here. Dude, I'm trying to do Connor's hair, but I'm not there yet. It's like low-key Kenny Loggins '87 right now. Very 50-year-old of me. Connor, lead us, buddy. It's just a wig. It's just a wig, baby.