This Week at Hope – When Pride Is Rampant in the Church
Dear brothers and sisters,
The Lord willing, we will continue our study in James this Sunday by looking together at 4:1-5. James doesn’t sugarcoat his message. Relationships are at stake; souls are at stake; eternity is at stake. James continues to call us to self-examination – are we listening?
We will seek to unpack the text under the following three headings:
1) A Sad Reality Discovered
v 1 – Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members?
v 1 – Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members?
2) A Sobering Assessment Declared
vv 2-3 – You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.
vv 2-3 – You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.
3) A Serious Warning Delivered
vv 4-5 – Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”?
vv 4-5 – Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”?
Wednesday night prayer will be at the Brown’s barn.
Continue to pray for the gospel/rescue/relief efforts that our brother Steve Hopkins and others from his church in Burnet, Texas are engaged in around the Houston and Beaumont areas. The numbers of people they are rescuing and engaging with the gospel are astounding. We sent church funds to aid our brethren in this endeavor. Let us pray that God will take these funds and multiply them like the bread and fish, and that souls and bodies will both be blessed.