Text: James 4:1-3 (NIV)
[part 1]
1. What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?
2. 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.
3. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
INTRODUCTION
1What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2You 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. 3When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
4You 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. 5Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us? 6But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:
“God opposes the proud
but shows favor to the humble. c
7Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
8Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
9Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.
10Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
James 4:1-10
“What causes fights and quarrels among you?” James begins chapter 4 with this question, and from this point on to the end of verse 3, he answers that question.
When the Apostle Paul wrote his Epistle to the Philippians, he addressed many of the same issues, and he used Jesus Christ as his excellent example to simplify his teaching.
COMMENTARY
1. What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?
2. 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
3. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
What was true for Jesus’ original disciples is no less true for the rest of the Church that Christ bought with His precious blood. In Philippians 2, Paul presses forward with his appeal for living worthy of the Gospel by encouraging his readers to interact humbly with one another. A unified mindset requires humility because humility is the essence of a Christlike disposition. The like-mindedness Paul commands all believers to have is low-mindedness. Paul describes this gospel-focused humility in Philippians 2:3-4 and illustrates it in verses 5-11 with the example of Jesus Christ. The Greek moralists despised humility because they regarded it as a humble subjection at odds with their freedom concept. It was Christ who made it a mark of the noblest character.
The Bible supplies an excellent example of a person who is motivated by “vain conceit.” After the Pharisees gave their money to God, a trumpet was blown in the temple to announce their contribution. Jesus declared, “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full” (Matthew 6:2). Again, this kind of pride is the manifestation of our flesh. [“Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other” (Galatians 5:26).] If we do not want to be proud, we must “walk in the spirit.” [“Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit” (Galatians 5:25).] Humble people are never motivated by self-interest because their minds are set on advancing the Gospel, not on their agendas’ progress. Paul forbids these forms of pride in the strongest of terms. The only rivalry which is proper in Christians is that each seeks to outdo the other in valuing the other. One is not to be concerned about receiving honors or advantages for himself. He is to be worried that his brethren be honored and served.
We can often detect pride, especially in other people. A basketball player brags about how many points he scored. A musician smugly assumes her position as first chair. A politician runs a smear campaign against his opponent. A student laughs about how easy a particular class is. But what is humility? Is it merely avoiding “strife and vainglory”? As Paul continues his appeal, he alludes to these THREE POSITIVE ELEMENTS OF HUMILITY.
First, Paul describes “humility” in terms of WHAT WE VALUE. The antidote to selfishness and pride is placing the importance of others ahead of our own. Paul is not suggesting that we grow careless about our own physical or spiritual well-being. It is virtually impossible, not to mention personal hardship and sickness, not to have any concern for yourself. We need to prioritize our values by putting others ahead of ourselves. In other words, when humility is our attitude, we will regard our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ as the standouts, not ourselves. We will sincerely celebrate the success of others instead of maneuvering so that they notice our own. We will praise God for what He is doing through others and not take credit for what He may be doing through us. We will honor the accomplishments of others instead of insisting that everyone is aware of our own. This is what Paul means by his phrase in Romans 12:10, “in honor preferring one another.”
Text: James 4:4-10 (NIV)
[part 2]
4You 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.
5Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us?
6But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.
7Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
8Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
9Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.
10Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
4. 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.
When we hear, “You adulterous people!” we either respond, “Yeah, those adulterous, worldly people!” or “Not me, how dare you question my faith!” or “who cares if some book calls me an enemy of God.” All responses are wrong because they are rooted in religious/ factional self-righteousness, anger over our imperfections being exposed, or just plain worldly god-denying pride. We very seldom respond with grief over sin/rebellion or humility before God. In part, this is because we don’t have a good understanding of “the world” from a biblical standpoint, a clear concept of God as the Creator of the universe, and why James would use words like adultery, enmity, enemy, or jealousy.
If you grew up in church, you knew “the world” as “evil” cultural things/people, cable television, R-Rated movies, dancing, having non-Christian friends, and music that wasn’t played on Christian radio. You likely went to a youth retreat, heard about the “evils” of the world, and came home and burned up your CDs. Luckily for me, the only time I did, I had MC Hammer, Janet Jackson, Bobby Brown, and Roxette in my collection that should have been burned anyway. The “world” or “culture” was something to be feared and retreated from. Sinners were those people “in the world” to be avoided, rebuked, not engaged, loved, and redeemed. It’s just “us” and “them,” “friends” and “enemies.”
If you didn’t grow up as a Christian in the church, you likely approached culture and the world very differently, with little regard for seeing things as right or wrong, but more likely from a place of self-fulfillment and self-preferences so “does it work for me, do I like it, does it feel right, what’s in my best interests” becomes the framework for engaging with others and the world. Christians were probably those socially and culturally ignorant and intolerant people who did silly things like throwing away their CDs and calling people sinners while claiming that a God saved them you’re not even sure exists. Being ignorant of what their faith truly believes, you decided you tolerate the rest of the world but not them. So again, it’s “us” and “them,” “friends” and “enemies.”
Regardless of the team we’ve claimed, we typically think in terms of “us” in opposition to “them,” while the theme of Scripture is really “us” in opposition to “Him.” Since our first parents, Adam and Eve, willingly rebelled against God, the world has consistently rejected the relationship with her Creator. James calls us all adulteresses because, throughout Scripture, God compares His relationship with Israel, the Church, and humanity, both collectively and individually, to the relationship between a faithful husband and an unfaithful bride. “For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of Host is his name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called” (Isaiah 54:5).
This imagery of husband and bride is important to grasp because we see that humanity’s relationship with God is to be as central and devoted as a marriage should be. Nothing else is to displace our desire and loyalty to God. “What does that have to do with being friends of “the world,” even if I am married, I still have friends.” In the NT, “the world” often refers to that which opposes God and his authority. Jesus says, if we recognize God as first in our lives, we will be hated by the world because the world hates God. “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, therefore the world hates you” (John 15:18-19). That’s encouraging!
If you’re married and friends with someone who hates your spouse and hates you for loving your spouse, there’s going to be conflict one way or another. At a certain point, you will choose which relationship is more important and either remain faithful or reject your spouse and commit adultery. You have to choose because the connections are mutually exclusive. “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world- the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions-is not from the Father but is from the world” (1 John 2:15.)
In calling us adulterous (unfaithful) people, James makes it clear that we have made our choice. We have all traded in our relationship with God collectively for the false promise of something we think is better. Even our desire to pursue the world creates hostility with God.
In aligning ourselves with that which is opposed to God, James says we MAKE ourselves an enemy of God. This enmity with God changes the nature/condition of our relationship. We have chosen the world, an idol, over the one true God. (See 1 John 2:15, above)
5. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us?
God’s jealousy is not something that gets talked about much because we don’t understand it well. We typically think of it as an unhealthy emotion, like a 13-year-old girl enraged because another girl is talking to her “boyfriend” or your neighbor gets a new car, not something that a rational/loving God would feel. The great theologian of our day, Oprah, when asked how she reconciles “Christianity” with her new age spiritually, which is not new, said;
I was in my Baptist Church at 27 hearing “how great God is, God is everything, then I heard “the lord thy god is a jealous God” Wait!! Something struck me; God is all, God is also jealous? God is jealous of me? It didn’t feel right in my spirit, I believe God is love, and God is in all things.” She goes on to quote Eckert Tolie, “man made God in his own image as He’s reduced to a mental idol that you had to believe in to worship as my god or our god.”
Who is making God in their image; when something doesn’t “feel” right, you get to change God. Where we are fickle, God is faithful. He does not change!! God is not jealous of us because He wants to be like us or wants what we have, or because he’s insecure. He is jealous of us as a faithful husband with a wayward bride. Would a husband that didn’t care if his chosen cherished bride had become a prostitute be considered loving? Of course not!
God’s jealousy is rooted in His deep, abiding, faithful love for us. Spiritually adultery/idolatry is such a big deal to God because He created the spirit/soul that dwells in us. As created beings, we are not our own; we are not “single,” we are HIS. When we chase after “the world,” we are saying, “He is not enough.” “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (1 Cor:19-20).
I love God’s jealousy, and I praise God’s jealousy; I take comfort in God’s jealousy. I NEED God’s jealousy because I am continually turning away from Him, chasing after the world. Rather than meeting my infidelity with weak indifference or righteous wrath (let there be no doubt that our sin justly angers God), and He responds with intensely powerful and beautiful jealousy that leads him to pursue me to the ends of the earth!
6. But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.
In the depths of our sin, in the height of our rebellion and idolatry, literally caught in the act of spiritual adultery, it is God that reinitiates relationships. Though there is still the condition of hostility, hatred, the enmity between God and us, though we MADE ourselves his enemies deserving his rejection and wrath, He is the agent of reconciliation for no other reason than his good, faithful, and loving grace that he shows us through Jesus Christ. “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8).
God’s grace through Jesus and the Cross is at the heart of the Gospel. While we proudly give God the spiritual middle finger and run off with our new lover, He humbly pursues us with Jesus, sending him as God in the flesh. He with Jesus calls out our sin and calls us back to Him. He reconciles us with Jesus willingly taking the punishment for our rebellion on the Cross, his shed blood washing us clean of our sin. By His resurrection, he restores with Jesus providing newness of life with Him, no longer slaves to this world.
God gives grace; it is unquestionably undeserved. James reminds us that God opposes (sets himself against) the proud. The truth is in our spiritual adultery, we are all proud, thinking we are justified in our actions. “This is the way of an adulteress: she eats and wipes her mouth and says, “I have done no wrong.” (Proverbs 30:20).
Spiritual adultery has become as natural as eating, and we indulge in it proudly. It has to be God that humbles us because we won’t do it on our own. By the power of the Holy Spirit, he melts away the unbelieving pride in our hearts to see the power of the grace he has shown us in Christ. God’s grace, His Gospel, will lead us away from pride to a place of humility as he uses His Spirit to convict us of our sin and see the beauty of his grace. When we see the Cross, Jesus suffering and dying, we are shown the consequence of our sin, and our response is joyful humble gratitude. Seeing the length that God goes to pursue, initiate, reconcile, and restore us to Him transforms us so that we are not the same person. We are redeemed, renewed, and born again to no longer pursue or serve “the world” but that we desire, follow and serve God. The saving/transforming grace of Christ leads us to a response. James tells us what the answer looks like as our lives are turned upside down.
7. Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
James blows up this idea that I, and many others, bought into the idea that God’s grace meant you could continue to live a life of open sin and rebellion, content that all was forgiven so you could go to heaven when you died. Don’t hear me wrong; the Cross of Christ is vast enough to cover all our sins, but it doesn’t just save us from the wrath of sin; it also saves us to a life of freedom from sin. While we were actively resisting God, by his grace, we now willingly submit to His absolute authority in our lives and vigorously denounce and resist the world (Titus 2:11-14).
So, salvation leads here and now to renouncing ungodliness, and because we are redeemed, we zealously obey God. As new creations, we joyfully submit ourselves to God and actively resist the devil. The devil/Satan in the NT is often referred to as “the god of this world.” He seduced Adam and Eve, and he drew us away from God to the world. We didn’t resist him because, in our spiritual adultery, we were sleeping with him. As we repent and turn to God, renouncing our friendship with the world, Satan, like a jilted lover jealous not out of love but out of pride/anger, is now an enemy we resist by God’s power. “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith” (1 Pet. 5:8).
It doesn’t say Satan will no longer battle us or attack us, but we have the assurance that we will be delivered from him by God’s power. It’s still a battle, day by day; we resist his temptation and seduction, knowing, in the end, we will be victorious, not by our power, but because our allegiance is to the Creator.
It’s important to understand that life in Christ is still going to be a struggle. We are given challenging instructions to partner with God in our sanctification, where we are shaped in the image of Christ.
8. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify. your hearts, you double-minded
“Come near to God and he will come near to you.” Through His grace, He breathes life into a relationship that, for all purposes, was dead. His grace is not the end but rather a new beginning for life with Him. We haven’t just traded in one Master for another. We submit to Him, yes, but it’s more than reluctant obedience; it’s the restoration of an entire, deep, affectionate relationship with God through Jesus. He doesn’t pursue us, save us, and then leave the rest up to us. When challenges and temptations come, and they will come, He tells us to run to Him as our help, our strength, and our confidence. “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. With confidence draw near to the throne of grace, we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:15-16)
This is beautiful! In our struggles, our pain, our temptations, our failures, he still longs for us and calls us back to Him. With Christ, we are never alone! He says, “Come! Come to the throne; there’s mercy here, there’s grace here, I AM here!” When I was a good church boy, I proudly came before God in my self-righteousness. When I was in rebellion, I resisted and ran from Him. When I approached Him in my sin, I hid in shame unworthy to be in his presence. But by the Cross, no longer God’s enemy, I will stand with him face to face at His throne with confidence, not pride, because of Jesus’ blood shed on my behalf. He instructs us to continually seek and desire him to promise that He will be there! So over the days, the weeks, the years we are granted on earth, we move towards Him in every aspect of our lives. The alternative is standing still, remaining paralyzed when He’s told us to rise and walk, or worse, deceiving ourselves that we can receive his grace, turn, and walk away again.
“Wash your hands, you sinners.” Justified before God, by the cross, our relationship is restored. He found us in the filth and mire of sin, dove into a world set up as His enemy saves us by His grace and calls us friend. As our relationship grows in depth and intensity, we begin to work with the Holy Spirit through the process of sanctification, which means cleansing and purifying. He accepts us in our mess, but He loves us enough not to let us stay there. Hands symbolize actions, deeds, behaviors. The Holy Spirit is cleaning us, so we stop playing in the mud. Our lives look different; we are not just hearers of the Word but doers. But what does that look like? “Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause” (Isaiah 1:16).
We have to stop doing evil!! This doesn’t mean throwing away your CDs or erasing your iPod, but it might mean you’ll have to chuck out the porn or even your computer; it might mean some relationship you have to change or even end. It might mean there are places you can’t go to anymore, activities you don’t engage in, and behaviors that need to change.
Learn to do good! We can’t just rid ourselves of evil, leaving an empty void for evil to return to. We have a lifetime of sin and man-centered worldliness that needs to be deprogrammed and a new Christ-centered worldview that needs to be installed. Ask God for wisdom in prayer and to seek it in his Word. You might need to humble yourself and sit under some teachers. You might surround yourself with Godly people that can speak the truth into your life and walk alongside you. Christianity is never intended to be lived alone; we need to be surrounded by mirrors shining light into our lives; without them, we can’t see where we need to be cleaned. Self-reliance is NOT a virtue! “There are those who are clean in their own eyes but are not washed of their filth” (Proverbs 30:12). “Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound judgment” (18:1).
As much as we need the mirror of Gospel truth through His Word, we need the mirror of Gospel Community through his Church, to equip us to shine light into the world through lives lived on Gospel Missions. As restored and renewed brides that are ceasing evil and learning good, we don’t hide or retreat from the world. We reengage the world to proclaim and live out the Gospel by seeking justice, correcting the oppression of sin that binds our world individually and corporately, and act as agents of grace and mercy to the disregarded. Jesus didn’t tell us to hide or withdraw from the world in fear or disgust but re-enter it on a rescue mission to seek and save the lost with the power of His Gospel. “I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one…As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them…” (Jn. 17:15-18).
“Purify your hearts, you double-minded.” Cease evil, learn good, do good, engage the world, not to fulfill lusts, but out of an overflow of a heart that is singularly devoted to Christ. Our actions have to come from a new heart that is not divided in allegiance. James echoes the words found throughout Scripture:
o Joshua - we must choose this day who we will serve. Josh. 24:16
o Elijah – we will continually limp and stumble if we are vacillating between God and the world. 1 Kings 18:21
o Jesus- We can’t serve two masters, we will hate one/love the other Matt. 6
Our sanctification has to come from a heart that at its deepest desires no longer yearns for the world but has joyfully given its allegiance to Jesus. A new heart that by cleansing is humbled and contrite and is described in verse 9
9. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.
This is a humble heart that is broken by the conviction of sin. It doesn’t see evil and rebellion the way the world does, happily laughing it off. It does not take sin lightly but sees it as God does with a weightiness that sees our hearts’ affliction and the world’s condition and is moved to tears. It’s a heart that praises God for his grace and mercy but looks at the world and our hearts through fresh eyes that cry out for the restoration that only He can give.
I have experienced this in my own life. My former life was best defined by spiritual adultery and rebellion. Last month, I listened to a sermon on the way to work that just cut to the core of the sin I was mired in during that time of my life. As I ran by my church, the sermon’s very words defined and encapsulated the pain of my life’s darkest period. I fell to the ground, not because I tripped, but because I felt the weight of sin and His saving Grace. I lay on the sidewalk, arms and legs spread, sobbing as tears fell on the old cracked sidewalk. I was there for minutes, unable to rise, mourning my sin and rebellion, brokenness before a perfect, loving, powerful Creator in a way that I had never felt before despite God working on my heart for years.
I am not known for my humility, you may know me as prideful and arrogant, but God humbled me on that morning as my face was pressed into the concrete.
I was only able to get back up and stand as I mediated on the Cross, that Jesus paid the penalty for my sin with his shed blood, and that I could stand before God, even as a selfish, rebellious murderer, because of what Jesus did. Because he rose again, I can rise as well and am no longer defined by who I am and what I’ve done, but by faith in Him, I am represented by who Jesus is and what he’s done.
10. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
I pray that our lives are defined by humility. That we are humbled by our sin, that we are humbled by a God that loves us enough to pursue us, that we are humbled by His grace shown on the Cross. We humbly submit and draw near to God. In pursuing sanctification by Gospel Truth and Gospel Community, we humbly pursue sanctification, leading us to engage the world by Gospel Mission. We humbly wait to be reunited to Christ in exaltation.
True Humility Comes from Above
Humility is essential, but submission to Christ must come first. You must not only submit to him; you must accept Him as your Lord and Savior. Humility will become a characteristic that defines you. Listen to what Micah said in Micah 6:6-8.
6With what shall I come before the LORD
and bow down before the exalted God?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
7Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousand rivers of olive oil?
Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
8He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to WALK HUMBLY WITH YOUR GOD.
