The Declaration of Dependence
(Why Men Don’t Ask For Directions—Part 2)
James 4:1-10
Dr. Roger W. Thomas, Preaching Minister
First Christian Church, Vandalia, MO
Review: In our previous study we explored the normal human tendency to be independent and self-reliant. Independence and self-reliance are good qualities until they come between us and our God. Our human nature tells us to believe that God helps those who help themselves. The Bible teaches us to believe that God helps those who ask for his help. The Bible teaches us that what God wants from us is humility, trust, and dependence. He wants us to come to him in prayer as a first impulse, not a last resort.
Our text connects these important themes. James is one of the most simple and practical books in the New Testament. He doesn’t pull any punches. You don’t have to guess what he is talking about. Often, James, like Proverbs in the Old Testament, is a spiritual 2x4 between the eyes. The grand theme of James is “true religion.” Or as he terms it in 1:27-- "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless.” In James such religion is not about ceremonies, rituals, and rules—like the Jewish religion tended to emphasize—but practical compassion toward the poor and disadvantaged, self-control, especially of the tongue and temper, and a lifestyle and mindset that didn’t just go with the flow of the moral pollution of the surrounding culture. He explains these three principles over and over again.
The practical compassion and the self-control are fairly easy to put yours hands around. The unpolluted lifestyle is a bit tougher. This is what James 4 is about. The world acts this way; we shouldn’t. The prevailing non-Christian culture thinks this way; we must not. For example, most people think we should take care of ourselves and only ask for God’s help as a last resort. People who know the Living God think and act differently. And when we don’t, when we allow our lives to be polluted with the world’s way of thinking, is when we get into big trouble. Individually and as a church, we regularly face the struggle about whether we will be a worldly church or a praying church. Both styles pray; one prays as a last resort, the other as a first impulse.
I will call this choice—living by Plan A or Plan B. Plan A is the normal human pattern of independence and self-reliance. Plan B is a personal walk with a God who is intimately involved with the affairs of our lives and wants to be in our decisions from the beginning. In our individual lives and as a church together, we either stop and ask for directions sooner or later. The difference is telling.
Note how James brackets this section (4:1-10) with a discussion of Plan A and Plan B.
Watch for the contrast. (James 3:13-18) "Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. {14} But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. {15} Such "wisdom" does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, of the devil. {16} For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. {17} But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. {18} Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness."
Shortly after our text, he writes: (James 4:13-17) "Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." {14} Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. {15} Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that." {16} As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. {17} Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins."
Our text explains where Plan A living leads and what we can do to prevent it. James starts with a discussion of the symptoms of Plan A living. There are two symptoms and they are related.
The first is conflicts. "What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?” The terms “fights” and “quarrels” could be rendered “wars” and “battles.” The first refers to the big picture and the other to the little skirmishes or individual battles which make up a war. What comes to your mind when you hear this question? Probably wars, international hostilities, and then maybe a marriage squabble or an argument between friends. That is certainly part of it. He might specifically have in mind church fights. They do happen you know. As hard as it is to believe, Christian people sometimes don’t always agree and sometimes the disagreements actually end up in verbal combat and physical violence.
The phrase “among you” is a clue that he is not talking about wars between the Jews and Arabs or Greeks and Romans. If James is addressing church squabbles, he wouldn’t be the only New Testament writer to do so. (1 Cor 3:1-3) "Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly--mere infants in Christ. {2} I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. {3} You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men?"
I have known a few church fights in my time. I remember a church dinner when I was a kid. After the meal, a number of the men retired upstairs for a board meeting. I have no idea what went on. I just remember one of the deacons storming down stairs, angrily telling his wife to get their things and meet him at the car. He had gotten mad over something in the meeting upstairs, left and didn’t come back to church for a long time.
I have heard stories of people actually coming to blows in church meetings, of folk screaming and cursing at one another in church over disagreements. “Fights and quarrels among you” was probably not an overstatement.
When I think of church squabbles I always remember Cloyd and Laura. They were two older folk in one of the first churches I served. Fortunately they were not married to each other. Cloyd was an elder and had been for many years. Laura was the wife of another elder. They were both “mature” adults. They easily qualified for an AARP discount. Neither one of them had perfect eye sight. I never knew exactly what started it, but apparently there was one particular spotlight near the front of the church that always glared on Cloyd’s glasses when he sat in regular spot. The problem was that the same light was just right for Laura to read the hymnal when she sat in her regular spot. Cloyd got in the habit of turning that particular light off when he came into church. Laura got in the habit of turning the light on when she came in. More than once, I would watch first Cloyd turn the light off. A few minutes later, Laura would come through and turn the light on. Later Cloyd would walk back through, notice the light was back on. He would turn it off and walk away mumbling to himself. I lived in mortal fear of the Sunday the two would arrive at the same switch at the same time. To my knowledge that never happened. Nor did either ever think of sitting in a different spot. Such is the stuff of which church squabbles are made.
Some quarrels come from confusion like the deacon who opposed the plan to buy a new chandelier for the church sanctuary. He was against it for three reasons, he explained, in the business meeting. First, nobody could spell it. Second, even if somebody could spell, he didn’t know anyone who could play it. And third, what they really needed was a new light fixture.
The second symptom of Plan A Living is unmet desires. James explains that quarrels and fights are seldom caused by glaring lights or differences of opinion over the color of the new carpet for the foyer. They come from inner unmet desires. The problem is inside, not outside. Until we solve that problem, no compromise or mediation meetings will change the situation. “Desires that battle within you” is James’ explanation. This is only a slightly different twist on the same warning the Lord gave Cain when he became angry with his brother Abel just before that first murder: (Gen 4:6-7) "Then the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? {7} If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.""
We are at war with sin and desire, not our brothers or neighbors. We think if we don’t stand up for ourselves, who will? If we don’t see that we get what we want, how will we get our way? If we don’t get our way, who is going to run the show around here? According to Plan A living, that all makes perfect sense. There is just one problem: such thinking leaves God totally out of the equation.
What is the solution? This is where James turns to the theme of prayer. Living by Plan A where prayer is a last resort inevitably leads to quarrels and fights. Plan B—prayer as a first impulse—yields something better.
But first we must learn that there is praying and then there is PRAYING. James hints at some examples of bad praying. Not all praying is good.
First there is selfish praying. James says those who live according to Plan A do pray; they just pray toward their own selfish ends, to get what they want. Such praying treats God as a cosmic Santa Claus, not the Heavenly Father. He is there to tell our wants to, but not to have a personal relationship with. Prayer is not first of all about asking. As Jesus taught us, God all ready knows what we need. Prayer is about something altogether different. It is about communication and loving the God who loved us first.
In a Bill Keane Family Circus cartoon, one of the boys in the family is pictured leaning on a crushed football. He says, “I need a new football. I don’t know if I should send up a prayer, write a letter to Santa Claus or call Grandma.”
Too many of us are like the fellow who finally decided to go on a diet. His wife had been after him for a long time to do so. He decided if he was going to loose weight he had to change some of his eating habits. He even decided he needed to change his driving habits in order to avoid going by his favorite bakery where he usually stopped for donuts. All went well for a while. Then one day he came home carrying a gigantic coffee cake. His wife frowned and asked him what happened to his diet.
He smiled big and said, “This is OK. This is a very special coffee cake.” He explained, “I accidentally drove by the bakery on my way home and there in the window were all my favorite goodies. I knew this couldn’t be a coincidence, so I prayed, “Lord, if you want me to have one of these delicious coffee cakes, let me have a parking place directly in front of the bakery.” “And sure enough, “ he continued, “the eighth time around the block there it was.” 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.
There is also magic praying. Such views consider prayer a magic ritual that produces results because of some inherent spiritual power of its own. Much contemporary ‘new age spirituality” views prayer in this light. Superstitious concerns over whether we pray best with heads bowed and eyes closed, or kneeling, or with hands clasped, or hands raised, or before making the sign of the cross can all be magic praying. We would do well to remember the prayer of Cyrus Brown:
“The proper way for a man to pray,”
Said Deacon Lemuel Keyes,
“and the only proper attitude
Is down upon his knees.”
“No, I should say the way to pray,:”
Said Reverend Doctor Wise,
“Is standing straight, with outstretched arms,
And rapt and turned up eyes.”
”Oh, no: no, no,” said Elder Snow,
“Such posture is too proud;
A man should pray with eyes fast closed
And head contritely bowed.”
“It seems to me his hands should be
Austerely clasped in front
With both thumbs pointed toward the ground,”
Said Reverend Doctor Blunt.
“Last year I fell in Hodgkins’s well
Headfirst, “said Cyrus Brown,
“With both my heels –sticken’ up,
My head a-p’inti’ down.
An’ I made a prayer right then an’ there—
Best prayer I ever said,
The prayin’est prayer I ever prayed,
A-standin’ on my head.
(by Sam Walter Foss, Out of My Treasure, Vol 1.,
ed. by Willie White, College Press, p. 113)
Real prayer can come at any time, in any position. The secret is a heart of faith that genuinely wants to be in the presence of the Living God and calls out for his help.
Earlier James had warned against double minded praying. That is praying without truly believing in the God to whom we are praying or the promises that we are claiming. Such praying tries it as a last resort. “After all, what can it hurt? Who knows maybe it will help?” Don’t expect God to show up at such prayer meetings. We must make up our minds first.
Another type of praying, according to Jesus, is “show off” praying.” His instructions about going into the closet to pray (Matthew 6:5-8) is not so much about where we pray as why we pray. Jesus said that if we pray to be heard by people—to show off—then that is exactly what will happen. God is the perfect gentleman. He doesn’t listen in on conversations intended for another. God won’t pay attention to such prayers because we are not talking to him.
Where do such notions of prayer come from? From bad faith. From a faulty view of God. From thinking that we can have it both ways: live with one foot in the ways of the world and one foot in the kingdom of God. James, like the Old Testament prophets before him, uses strong language at this point. Such a way of life is nothing short of spiritual adultery. We pledge our fidelity to the Lord of the Universe and then flirt with the ways of the world. He calls for radical repentance from such thinking. {4} You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. {5} Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely?
Plan A living is deadly. We not only miss out on the best God has for us. We opening declare opposition to God’s will. God helps those who want his help. This last verse is a bit difficult to understand. Probably the NIV footnote catches the best sense. “God jealously longs for the spirit he made to live within us.” We are his creation. In our redemption he placed the Holy Spirit in us. He doesn’t take that lightly. We shouldn’t either. Note the power of verse 6: But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." God helps those who want his help! And ask for it!! (End of Part 2)
***Dr. Roger W. Thomas is the preaching minister at First Christian Church, 205 W. Park St., Vandalia, MO 63382 and an adjunct professor of Bible and Preaching at Central Christian College, 911 E. Urbandale, Moberly, MO. He is a graduate of Lincoln Christian College (BA) and Lincoln Christian Seminary (MA, MDiv), and Northern Baptist Theological Seminary (DMin).
