Whose Friend Are You?

What a fantastic day working through James 4:1-6:

4:1 What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and 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.You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.You adulterous people! Do you not know that 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 suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

Due to this passage, I tried to create the service by focusing on denying flesh and depending upon God’s Spirit transforming us through the gospel.

Today, we worshiped to:

  • Lay Me Down – Chris Tomlin
  • Lord, I Need You – Matt Maher
  • Crown Him (Majesty) – Chris Tomlin
  • Come Holy Spirit – North Side Worship
  • Make Me Holy – North Side Worship

Loved the beautiful time of worship we spent together.  Loved hearing the story of life change before we took the offering and reminded of what we get to partner with all over the world.

Jeff’s message was one of the most honest and powerful messages I have ever heard him preach.  Some of my favorite lines:

  • The conflict in our lives is universal.
  • If I am not the problem, there is no solution.
  • My greatest conflict is not external but internal.
  • We get bent out of shape because we crave affirmation.  Sometimes we aren’t affirmed because we aren’t going to God for that affirmation.

It is so easy for us to blame our actions and reactions based upon what others have done to us or the circumstances stacked upon us.  James teaches that the conflict is within us.