October 17 2001
Central Christian Church
James 4:4-8
October 17 2001
Central Christian Church
James 4:4-8
James 4:4 You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. James 4:5 Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: "He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us"?
James 4:6 But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, "GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE."
James 4:7 Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
James 4:8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
Physical adultery is one thing, it does irreparable damage to most marriages, I tried to teach the youth as I ministered to them, to keep themselves Holy and Pure because their bodies belonged to their future husbands or wives, even though they probably have not met them yet.
But James is talking here about even a worse adultery and that is Spiritual adultery.
You see Christians once we obey the Lord in full submission to His Baptism, we are added to His body the church. That is why James uses the feminine use adulteress her for the adulterer because we the church are the Bride of Christ.
He is coming one day to receive us and I believe "that day" is near. So we need to be ready and the BIG part of being ready is that when He finds us, He will find us spotless, pure, holy and without blemish.
If we are going to embrace the world with its sensuous pleasures and carnal appetites, than we put the satisfaction of our flesh ahead of our devotion and loyalty to Christ than we are Spiritual adulterers.
Now any adulterer physical or spiritual may repent and return to God and have a wholesome relationship with him once again. It is a continued practicing of sin any sin that makes a spiritual relationship with God impossible.
I have to tell you and I am not meddling, but this sin of loving the world more than loving Christ is so common with Christians that few seem to know the terrible adultery, in which they are involved.
Yet James is saying "you adulteresses don’t you know better than this."
Incidentally, this book written by James is to take the church to a higher level of maturity. He is giving them the requirements for a mature church-one that is preparing for perfection.
I don’t think we are violating the “one true meaning” principle of Bible study by saying that James intended this passage of Scripture to impact genuine believers and those who were simply playing church.
Theologians are virtually split down the middle on this issue. Through my own study, I think to take the higher ground is to say that James is writing to believers who run the risk of losing their faith, by neglecting it; who have deluded themselves about their spiritual condition.
Still we all know the very nature of sin is to deceive the sinner, so before too long he is unable to tell the difference between right and wrong. The church has become blinded by tolerance. Oh, we are told we must be tolerant. That is just the way the culture is, we lower our standards and we loose the opportunity to receive God’s best. Please understand that 21 0f the 27 NT books are written to Christians and they are filled with pleas by the authors to shun the embrace of the world and cling to Christ.
For us to become a friend of the world breaks the heart of our God, who sent His Son to die for the church. The ecclesia the ones called out of the world. In the world Yes! Of the world NO!
If we are in perpetual spiritual adultery we find ourselves tolerating more and more of the world. People eat, drink, get engaged, marry and die, like they have always done, not understanding that to be a friend to the world makes one an enemy of God.
That is why people in the world are an enemy to God, if they love God, truly love God they know they must end their friendship with the world, but they love the world more. Therefore their only option is to curse God and hate God.
Continued Spiritual adultery is not done accidentally, it is a life lived deliberately.
If we do this than all scripture is spoken in vain, because we cannot serve God and the Devil.
James asks his readers the question, “Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God?” With his words, James expresses a sense of surprise. It’s as if he was shocked to learn that his readers were claiming not to know the truth he has already conveyed through three chapters, and the truth of which he is about to remind them. James asks the question in such a way as to remind his readers of truth they already knew. He’s not going to let them get away with playing dumb.
The word James uses here for “friendship,” which comes from the Greek verb phileo, which means, “to love,” is found nowhere else in the New Testament. The word phileo is seen throughout the Scriptures to describe love. But unlike agape, another Greek word for “love,” which is best described as the kind of love that involves the act of sacrificing oneself to the object of that love; phileo is an emotional, deeply affectionate feeling for someone or something.
A person cannot claim to love God and know God while, at the same time, he or she is giving his or her emotional and affectionate love to a perishing, sinful world. Again we read in John’s first letter, “Do not love the world nor 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 lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world” (I John 2:15-16).
There are no shades of gray, here. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t insist on living your life according to your will and desires and claim to be a follower of Christ. You can’t be a part-time Christian. If you profess to be a Christian, yet the fruit of your life shows that your commitment is to the world and to your own pleasures and desires, then you should honestly consider whether or not your faith is genuine.
If you consistently justify to yourself or to others that reading books, listening to music, or watching movies that are diametrically opposed to the truths of Scripture, is harmless entertainment, you are living like a friend of a fallen world system and an enemy of God. If you never seem to have the time to read God’s Word, pray, or regularly gather with believers on Sunday morning and throughout the week for fellowship, edification and worship, if the sport of the season or activity of the week consistently takes precedence in your life over time with the Lord and other Christians then you are living like a friend of a fallen world system and an enemy of God.
I know you think I have gone to meddling, I am sorry, but God is serious about this.
Friendship with the world and friendship with God is like oil and water—the two do not mix. You can’t be both at the same time. You will either be one or the other.
A hard truth that James is teaching here is that if you claim to be a follower of Christ, yet you consistently live your life in such a way that says, “I am a friend of the world,” the only person you are fooling is yourself. And if you are here today and this applies to you, James is calling for you to repent and turn to God.
Oh you may be fooling people in the church, but so what. What have you gained, they do not have the power of salvation or the power to cast you into Hell.
Paul, agreeing with James, put it very plainly. Paul wrote to the Philippians, “For many walk, of whom I have told you, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things” (Phil. 3:18-19).
If we are having conflict with God, we should first take an honest look at the state of our relationship with the world. Where do our loyalties lie? How do we spend our time and money? Is it spent to show our love for Christ or is it spent to show our love for the world and our love for ourselves?
We are about to enter a capital campaign and for most of us it will require 3.5 years of sacrifice, some of us will sacrifice and some won’t, but what a perfect time to give up some worldly things and convert it to some Godly things.
If you want to understand conflict with God, first look at who or what has hold of the bulk of your affections, emotions, and attentions. Are the things of God the source of your pleasures or do you look at the things of God as a hindrance to the things you really desire?
One of the reasons believers sometimes see the line between godliness and worldliness as blurry or adjustable, and one of the reasons unbelievers don’t see the line at all, a line that when crossed leads to conflict with God, is a result of man’s ignorance of the Scriptures. When we find ourselves at odds with God, it can often be attributed to our lack of knowledge of His Word.
Deceived people simply refuse to seek the truth, because they know it is going to cost them some earthly pleasure.
Bottom line, cut and dry.
Christians who are friends of the world deny Christ and are enemies of God.
To be friends with the world means to be accepted by the world, which of necessity means you are like the world. You see the world has a philosophy of its own, a life of its own, its own dress code, music, movies and value system. The world system has no tolerance ) tolerance for true biblical Christianity. Don’t try to adulterate the two, the world with the church, that is like mixing oil and water.
That is what adultery is, bringing in something foreign to something pure. The world favors a generic brand of religion, but despises those who are true and faithful followers of Christ. Isn’t that what Jesus said" " If the world hates you; you know it has hated me before it hated you." If you are of the world, the world will love you, but you are not of the world, therefore the world hates you."
Therein lies your tests are you loved by the world?
The more a church makes the same demands on its members as Christ made on his followers, the more the church will be despised. The more the church resembles the world in its doctrines and practices, the more th eworld will tolerate us.
I have to tell you and I am proud of it, when I enter some places, people become uncomfortable. Not because I am rude or obnoxious or that I shove Christ down their throat. But simply because they know I am going to bring God’s perspective into the conversation or situation.
It is not a problem for a Christian to be in the world, the problem is when the world is in the Christian.
Here are some areas where I think we do it: We do it because we think it is loving or virtuous to tolerate what we simply should not.
We will listen to music or allow our children or Grandchildren to listen to music that is full of sexual innuendo or worldly philosophies.
We will watch TV shows that are inappropriate for the Christian.
We will go to movies that are full of violence, sexuality and vulgar language and believe it is just a cultural thing.
We become tolerant of company policies that provide benefits for same sex partners.
We keep our mouth shut, turn a blind eye when sin is sin and the time arises to speak about Christ, and we do not because it is against school or company policy.
Christians when somebody is talking about ungodliness or a decision is being made that contradicts God’s truth, if we as His people remain silent out of fear of the consequences of what might happen to us- now listen to this- we deny Jesus Christ!
Why? Because our jobs are important, or because we rationalize and say, well if I offend them now, I will never reach them.
We contemplate what will it mean to us, if we are not tolerant, what will we lose if we speak up about God, Jesus and His commands at the exact moment they are required.
What we need to understand is what we really stand to lose , if when it is demanded of us, we do not stand up for Christ.
I play racquetball with a Ph.D. Ethics professor at USF, he is a Unitarian. We were discussing why two little babies drowned in a pool watched by a young girl.
I told him about how disobedience, sin and death entered the world through one man. I told him about Jesus Christ and his obedience to God, to the point of death on a cross, so death would have no sting for the Christian and sins would be forgiven.
He told me he did not believe a whole lot about sin or any consequences for it. I said Jay, you need to know if you do not receive Jesus Christ, get baptized into him and lead an obedient life, you will surely die in your sins and spend eternity separated from God, being destroyed everyday forever without ever being totally destroyed
I said Jay " I have to share the truth with you if you are tolerant with it or not."
If Jay doesn’t change and he dies in his sins he will come before a perfectly holy God, who I believe will say, do you remember my faithful servant Joe- who shared with you my truth.
That doesn’t scare me or make me sad to share the truth- it makes me happy. I would seriously fear God if I failed to open my mouth and denied Christ.
What can Jay or the world do to me, I can lose some free racquetball, I could lose my job, maybe If I were a public school teacher I wouldn’t be one anymore- oh well, that is nothing compared to denying Christ.
Believe me I have lost acquaintances, I have lost family, but "what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul?" For what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? Take heart many have decided that the world and all that it has to offer is not worth the eternal loss of their souls and they have become friends of God, and as a result enemies of the world.
I don’t know what you tolerate or what you do not, but I know what God tolerates and what He does not.
What if every Christian said NO, I will not be silent about what God has to say at school, in the corporation, in the social club, my goodness the world might have to change.
Just a thought!
