Week 21: Day 1

Intro: Hello everyone! My name is Joe, I am based in Bristol and have the pleasure of being a youth pastor. I am so glad you can join us this week for Orbit. We are going to be journeying through James Chapters 4 and 5 and then we will be finishing with a wonderful psalm. James is such an interesting book in the Bible - James really wants to get in your business and challenge how you live. It is full of teachings that call God’s people to live a better life, devoted to God. It’s full of wisdom that can help us have and life to the full, with an authentic and genuine faith. James has so much wisdom for us, particularly in our life and relationships, as well as our prayer life. But without further ado, why don’t we get stuck into today’s passage.

Bible: James 4: 1-8 says:

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us? But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: ‘God opposes the proud but shows favour to the humble.’

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

Thoughts: See what I mean about challenging!! We all have passions and interests, don’t we… I'm from Bristol, but I support West Ham. I love passionately supporting West Ham – cheering them on alongside thousands of others. I’m sure you have things that you are also passionate about. Maybe it’s football, or maybe something completely different, like music or other interests.

What James is saying in this passage is you have lots of passions but that your passions are directed towards yourselves. They’re focused on you and you are selfish. You guys have completely removed God from the picture.

We see words in this passage like covet, desire, fight, quarrel – it doesn’t sound good, does it?! James uses ‘you’ 14 times – he’s very clearly wanting to direct what he is saying at this Church.

James wants to challenge them! And he challenges it by pointing out the pride and selfishness of the Church. They have made it all about themselves. He even says - You can’t pray, and when you do ask or pray you do it for the wrong motives, your selfish desires. You have forgotten all about God.

But it’s what next in this passage that I find so encouraging. Even after all this, verse 7 and 8 says that God wants to draw near to you… He desires you. It says exactly “come near to God and he will come near to you.”

Isn’t that encouraging – and doesn’t it remind us of stories like the prodigal son, that even when we follow our selfish desires, God still wants us to return to him, to come near to him and he will draw near to us?

I think there are two takeaways for us:

• If we have turned away from God – put ourselves first, our own selfish desires – God invites us to turn to him, to come near him and will come near to us. He invites us to instead of seeing our own selfish desires, to see his ways, to see the world how he does. There’s a challenge for us to accept this invitation.

• How is your relationship with others? Have you been in conflict with others? Are there times when you have had selfish motives and put yourself first? The challenge for us as followers of Jesus is to live lives that that put God and others first. In the book of Matthew, in response to someone asking Jesus what the most important commandment is, Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself”.

Prayer: Lord I pray that you would increase in our lives and we would decrease. Would we live lives of humility and gentle and lowly lives that seek you. Lord, would you also help us in our relationships with others, to live lives that put other first. Father God, we want to live out your greatest commandments- to love you and those around us. I pray by your spirit we would do this. Amen

Silence: And now a few moments of silence for you to pray, reflect on these ideas, or simply sit and be still.

Action: Every day on Orbit we try to give you a simple practical challenge to help you put this passage into action in your life. Here's today's: Every day this week commit to: “Before I pick up my phone, I will spend time with God alone”. We want to put Jesus first, above anything else, a simple thing like this can make a big difference.

Outro: That's it for today's Orbit. Thanks so much for joining us – I’ll be back with another reflection tomorrow.