What Does God Think About Our Plans? (James 4:13-17) Series

Today, our focus will be on James 4:13-17. One of the interesting things about this passage is that there two pretty different ways of reading it. Both approaches take the verses seriously. Both issue a call, and a challenge, that the church needs to hear. But they differ in what exactly that challenge is.

The disagreement basically comes down to whether we should read these verses as their own separate, distinct little section, or if we should read them as building on what James has been teaching throughout chapter 4 (I think the approach of reading these verses as a prophetic type challenge, not addressed to the actual church, just doesn't work here, fwiw-- contra Dibelius, Luke Timothy Johnson, Patrick Hartin).

Last week, when I taught on just James 4:11-12, I was working on the assumption that we should break James 4 up into three different sections. But one commentator I read-- Steven Runge-- forced me to reconsider (and rewrite everything). I'm not completely sure that Runge is right, which is awkward, but I'm running with it.

So let's start by rereading James 4:1-10. Here, James challenges us to live as God's friends, and not as the world's friends:

(1) From where [are] wars,

and from where [are] battles among you ("you" is plural here, and throughout)?

Is it not from here: from your pleasures/passions waging war among your members?

(2) You desire,

and you don't have.

You murder

and you strive,

and you aren't able to obtain.

You fight and you wage war.

You don't have because you don't ask.

(3) You ask,

and you don't receive,

because wickedly you ask,

in order that on your pleasures/passions you may spend [it].

(4) Adulterers, don't you know that friendship with the world, hatred/hostility/enmity with God, it is?

And so then, whoever wishes a friend to be with the world, an enemy of God he makes himself.

(5) Or do you think that for nothing Scripture says,

"Jealously He desires the spirit,

whom He has caused to dwell among/in us."

(6) Now, greater grace, He gives."

Therefore, it says,

"God, the proud, He opposes/resists ("the proud" is focused).

Now, to the humble He gives grace."

(7) And so then, subject/subordinate yourselves to God.

Now, resist/oppose the devil,

and he will flee from you.

(8) Draw near to God,

and He will draw near to you.

Cleanse/purify [your hands] O sinners,

and consecrate/make holy/purify [your] hearts, O double-minded ones.

(9) Your laughter, into mourning, it must turn,

and your joy into unhappiness/shame/dejection.

(10) Humble yourselves before the Lord,

and He will exalt/lift you up.

Each of us, as we go through life, have to make decisions about what gets our time, and attention. We have to make decisions about what's important to us. We have to decide how we spend our paychecks.

When you think about these things, what you are doing, in the end, is making a decision about whether you will live as a friend to the world, or as a friend to God. It's one or the other.

Our natural tendency is to try to live as both. We want everything-- we want God, and the world. But this just doesn't work. If we do this, we've become adulterers. We are unfaithful to a jealous God. We may desire the things God made, but God desires us.

Now, how can you tell if you've drifted into this? How can you tell if you've become an adulterer?

By looking at what you crave. If you find yourself consumed with thoughts of money, and things, you've become an adulterer.

What's the solution?

James says, "Submit to God. Resist the devil. Draw near to God. Cleanse yourself."

So that's what we learned two weeks ago. And when you read these verses, you maybe found yourself feeling a little squirmy, and nervous. Part of you wondered if you've become a little unfaithful. You check your investments a little too often. You find yourself eyeing that new pickup every time you drive by the dealer, wondering how soft the leather is. You wonder if you're spending a little too much time fighting for the American dream.

But in the end, maybe, you got through this part of James's letter without making any radical changes to your life. You toughed it out, and moved on.

What James does, in today's passage, is build on those verses, by painting us a picture of what it looks like, to be an adulterer with the world. And when we see what he's painted, it's maybe going to look uncomfortably like us. And we will find ourselves wrestling, a second time, with whether or not we are mirroring God's faithfulness to us, with the same type of faithfulness and commitment to him.

Let's read James 4:13:

(13) Come now, the ones saying--