Who is Your Friend?
James
4:1-6
Introduction: Our vision statement at
Boothbay Baptist Church says that: “We envision a community of Christ followers
rooted in the Word, treasuring God as supremely valuable and proclaiming the
riches of His grace to the world.” We are not only a community, but a
specific kind of community, that is, a family. A family designed by our
Creator to encourage one another and to help one another, to bear one another’s
burdens. As we lay that foundation our proclamation to the world gains
credibility and we can more effectively carry out our mission “to know Christ
and to make Him known.” In fact Jesus said, “By this men will know you are my disciples: if you have love for one
another.” That is God’s design, that
is what we are made for. Even so, James reminds us that we still see
contentions, divisions, and sometimes even all out fighting, within Christian
families, even within the church! These things ought not to be!
Chapter 3 of James ends
in telling us that believers should be peacemakers, yet chapter 4 begins by
asking what then causes fights among us? If we should be peacemakers, what
are we fighting about? James has
been talking about authentic faith and godly wisdom as something that begins in
our heart and shows itself in our life: our attitude in times of trial, our
response to temptations, our care for the needy, our use of the tongue, the
things he has been talking about in this letter make it clear that genuine
Christian faith involves the head and the heart, and it will carry through to
our feet and our hands.
“Joy” is a prominent
theme in James, it is an aspect of the abundant life God wants us to have. It
doesn’t mean there will be no conflict and struggle in life (James 1:3; see
John 16:33!). But if we find ourselves in a battle, struggling with people
around us, in the family, or in the church, James is saying that it may be time
to look deeper to see if we are living in the light of our profession of faith
in Jesus. Yes, there is conflict between light and darkness, so if we are
walking with God we will have tribulation in the world. But we had better be
sure that we are not guilty of closing our eyes to the Light and stumbling
along in the darkness, living in a way that looks more like the world than the
true church. That is the question that
James lays before us in this passage: Who is your friend, your best friend, the
one to whom you turn daily in the search for happiness? Is it the world, or is
it the God who made the universe, the One who so loved you that He gave His
Son? To be God’s friend we must acknowledge who He is, and humbly submit to
Him, then we’ll be transformed, increasingly enabled to reject strife and live in the peace and with the peace He wants for us.
The Big Idea:
If we choose to be faithful to God and to humbly submit ourselves to Him, we’ll
be enabled to rise above the chaos around us.
I. Look within: Our battles start in the heart
(vv.1-3)! James is writing to a particular audience so it is likely that he
knew of specific needs they were struggling with. It is also certain that he
wrote under the inspiration of God to the church more broadly. The sad truth
is, there are always conflicts going on at different levels all around us.
Now Jesus did say that “wars and rumors of wars” would be a characteristic of
this age. But it seems likely to me that James here is talking about
in-fighting in the churches and Christian families to whom he is writing. James does not debate whether or not there is
conflict. He simply asks, “Why? Where
does it start?”
James answers his own
question in verse 1: The wars outside start with the war in our heart: “What causes quarrels and what causes fights
among you? Is it not this: that your passions are at war within you (v.1)?”
Whether it is division in the church, struggles in relationships, or conflict
in marriage, it will raise its head from time to time, and it starts in the
heart, in the “passions” or “lusts” within us. The word here, hedone, h`donh, , is
the word from which we get the term “hedonism.” In English it usually connotes
the unbridled pursuit of pleasure. The word is used in only five New Testament
verses, two right here in this context (4:1,3).
We also see:
Luke
8:14 Where Jesus is explaining the parable of the Sower: “And as for what fell among the thorns, they
are those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares
and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature.”
Titus
3:3 Paul explains the characteristics of a life “B.C.” (before Christ!): “For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to
various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy,
hated by others and hating one another.”
Perhaps the most intense passage of all, Peter
speaks of those who have been led by false prophets into indulging the flesh in
2 Peter 2:12-14, “But these, like irrational animals,
creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about
matters of which they are ignorant, will also be destroyed in their destruction, 13 suffering wrong as the wage for
their wrongdoing. They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime. They
are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, while they feast with
you. 14 They have eyes full
of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts
trained in greed. Accursed children!”
Wow, that is tough
language from Peter! Think about what James is proposing in our passage: the
wars on the outside start with the war in our hearts. The root cause of many
of the battles we face in life is the passion for pleasure within our own hearts. It’s a question of priorities, but more than
that it points to the deeper questions of our purpose in living, what we are
striving for. James suggests that some of those to whom he is writing have
drifted far from the attitude for example of the psalmist: “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so
pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God…”
(Psalm 42:1-2a). The kind of intimacy the psalmist longs for is what we as
humans were designed for. Yet rather
than giving God the place He should have, we are blinded by the world and the
devil and seek to satisfy the longing in our hearts for things that won’t last.
James shows how we can become so earthly minded that we are of no heavenly
good.
Wrong thinking will
lead to wrong choices: “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 (v.2). I don’t think
James is talking about literal murder here (remember Jesus said that if we hate
our brother we have already committed murder in our heart). He is speaking
about the conflict that begins as coveting and desiring in our hearts. If envy
and jealousy are our motivation we are never satisfied, we always want more,
it’s us against them. That’s the flesh, not the Spirit.
God
wants to bless us but our heart needs to be right: You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on
your passions” (v.3). The Bible
makes a lot of statements about prayer, we saw some in our study of John. James
has many parallels with the sermon on the mount (see the chart in the “James” pamphlet
from Rose Publishing). One of those is right here, talking about the promise of
answered prayer. Jesus said, "Ask,
and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be
opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and
to the one who knocks it will be opened” (Matthew 7:7,8).
We sometimes take those things out of context
and assume it is an unlimited gift card from God’s storehouse, a blank check to
get anything we want from God. John R. Rice wrote a classic book on prayer
which he entitled “Asking and Receiving.” There are certain potential impediments
to that kind of effectual prayer that are presented in Scripture and virtually
all of them go back to our heart. If we are truly praying in Jesus’ name we
will be praying according to His will. We might ask expressing our momentary
desires, without even considering or seeking the will of God. James says that
our asking, if it is wrongly motivated, will not be answered by God in the way
we might expect. To be God’s friend we must believe God and humbly
submit ourselves to Him, and when we do, we’ll be transformed, increasingly
enabled to reject strife.
II. Look around: Have our choices revealed a love
for God or an affair with the world (vv.4,5)? We need to look
within to find the source of much of the conflict we face in life. James uses
strong language to challenge his readers to examine their lives for evidence as
to where their hearts lie.
First of all, are we living as salt and light in the darkness, or have we
been conformed to the world? James says,
“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” (v.4). Now
wait a minute, wasn’t Jesus accused of being a friend of sinners? Yes – and we
are called to be light in the darkness and the salt of the earth. We are also
called to be in the world, but not of the world. The opening declaration
reveals what James is getting at…
“You adulterous people!” James is
not accusing his readers of literally being unfaithful in the marriage
relationships. He has another relationship in view. His main point is that
they are acting in a way that amounts to spiritual
adultery. This language would have been very familiar to the Jews. God
repeatedly admonished the nation for their unfaithfulness to him (Jer 3; Ezek
16). They were his chosen, his special possession, and they chose to lust after
the pagan world around them. Jesus repeatedly called the nation of his day an
“evil and adulterous generation” (Matt 12:39; 16:4). James is making the same
accusation. They were chosen by God, His special possession, and yet rather
than pursuing Him they were running after the temporal pleasures of this world,
as if that was where they would find meaning and purpose in life.
It is because believers are susceptible to temporary worldliness that Paul
warns, “Do not be conformed to this
world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove
what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect”
(Rom 12:2; cf. 1 Pet 1:14–16), and, “Set
your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth” (Col
3:2). Christians are “to live the rest of
the time in the flesh no longer for the lusts of men, but for the will of God.
For the time already past is sufficient for you to have carried out the desire
of the Gentiles, having pursued a course of sensuality, lusts, drunkenness,
carousing, drinking parties and abominable idolatries” (1 Pet 4:2–3). You
get the idea. Those things, the “desire of the Gentiles,” elsewhere “the lusts
of the flesh,” are not where we will find meaning and purpose in life. God has
a better way.
Rhetorically he asks, “Don’t you know that friendship with the world is
enmity with God?” I don’t believe he is
accusing them of being unsaved sinners, and so the enemies of God (though there
were probably some in exactly that position in the congregation). I think he is
talking to the believers who are living like the world. He is saying “You make a choice: will you
live like a child of God and citizen of heaven, or like the unredeemed sinners
who are in rebellion against him?”
Next
he asks, “Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, ‘The Spirit who dwells
in us yearns jealously’" (v.5, NKJV). There
are several questions about the translation of this verse. First of all, what
Scripture is being referred to? It is not a direct quotation, but the Old
Testament does affirm repeatedly that our God is a jealous God (e.g. Exod 20:5).
I think that’s the point, and it fits the context. Commentators and translators
are really divided over how best to handle this verse but it seems to me that
the “Spirit” is referring to the Holy Spirit (hence the capital “S” in the
NKJV), and He is the subject of the verb, “yearns jealously.” We are, after
all, the bride of Christ! He has loved us, and laid down his life for us, and
yet we are so easily tempted by the world, the flesh, and the devil. That fits in this context that is talking
about the spiritual adultery that we so easily fall into. God loves us.
He chose us and made us his own. I’ve dealt with people who have experienced
the heart break of being betrayed by a spouse. The worst thing imaginable, to
have the one you love, the one to whom you pledged your life turn to another to
share the intimacy they had pledged to you alone. Heartbreak. Devastation. How much worse even than that the infidelity
of humans whom God has chosen, to whom God has extended grace, for whom He has
given His Son? Does our life reflect our
committed love to God, or an affair with the world? To be God’s friend we must humbly submit to Him, we’ll
be transformed, increasingly enabled to reject strife.
III. Look
up: God is gracious to those who humbly trust Him (v.6).
First, the great hope is introduced by the word, “but”: “But he gives more grace…” God is gracious: Grace, the unmerited
favor of God, is something we desperately need. That is the foundation of the
Gospel. That is the only basis upon which we, as fallen creatures, can hope to
be reconciled to God. He saves us by grace, through faith. And He graciously works in us, reaching out to
us, picking us up when we fall, drawing us back when we wander, molding us into
what he wants us to be. Max Lucado told a story that beautifully illustrates
the idea of “Grace”:
Longing to leave her poor Brazilian neighborhood, Christina wanted
to see the world. Discontent with a home having only a pallet on the floor, a
washbasin, and a wood-burning stove, she dreamed of a better life in the city.
One morning she slipped away, breaking her mother's heart. Knowing what life on
the streets would be like for her young, attractive daughter, Maria hurriedly
packed to go find her. On her way to the bus stop she entered a drugstore to
get one last thing. Pictures. She sat in the photograph booth, closed the
curtain, and spent all she could on pictures of herself. With her purse full of
small black-and-white photos, she boarded the next bus to Rio de Janiero. Maria
knew Christina had no way of earning money. She also knew that her daughter was
too stubborn to give up. When pride meets hunger, a human will do things that
were before unthinkable. Knowing this, Maria began her search. Bars, hotels,
nightclubs, any place with the reputation for street walkers or prostitutes.
She went to them all. And at each place she left her picture--taped on a
bathroom mirror, tacked to a hotel bulletin board, fastened to a corner phone
booth. And on the back of each photo she wrote a note. It wasn't too long
before both the money and the pictures ran out, and Maria had to go home. The weary
mother wept as the bus began its long journey back to her small village.
It was a few weeks later that young Christina descended the hotel
stairs. Her young face was tired. Her brown eyes no longer danced with youth
but spoke of pain and fear. Her laughter was broken. Her dream had become a
nightmare. A thousand times over she had longed to trade these countless beds
for her secure pallet. Yet the little village was, in too many ways, too far
away. As she reached the bottom of the stairs, her eyes noticed a familiar
face. She looked again, and there on the lobby mirror was a small picture of
her mother. Christina's eyes burned and her throat tightened as she walked
across the room and removed the small photo. Written on the back was this
compelling invitation. "Whatever you have done, whatever you have become,
it doesn't matter. Please come home." She did.
[Max Lucado, No Wonder They Call Him the
Savior, Multnomah Press, 1986, pp. 158-9].
It’s a long
quotation, but it’s a beautiful illustration. And it is God’s invitation to
every one of us. Christina abandoned her mother, ran from her, but her mother’s
love was steadfast, enduring. Don’t ever
let the enemy convince you that it’s too late for you, you’ve gone too far,
you’ve been away too long. Like the Father in the story of the Prodigal
Son, God is waiting, looking toward the horizon, waiting for you to come home. He
knows your past, He knows your struggles, and still He loves you so much
that He gave His Son. His invitation still goes out to you: “Whatever
you have done, whatever you have become, it doesn’t matter, please, come home.”
James says, “He gives more grace.”
It is
also true that God delights in humble submission to His lordship: “Therefore
it says, ‘God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.’” Humility
is not thinking badly of ourselves, it is merely admitting the truth. We are
sinners, desperately in need of His grace. Paul asked the Corinthians “…What do you have that you did not receive?
And if you received it why do you boast as if you had not?” (I Corinthians
4:7b). We can’t save ourselves. Our only
hope is in Him. If we affirm that truth He is there, extending grace, inviting
us: “Whatever you have done, whatever you have become, it doesn’t matter.
Please, come home.”
What is God saying to me in this passage? Are
there battles that you are facing right now? Look within, because the battles
around us often start with the battle in our own hearts. Look around, do the
choices you have been making reflect love for God, or an affair with the world?
It’s not too late to get back on course, to “Look up,” to turn back to
Him. If you haven’t yet trusted Him, now is the accepted time, now is the day
of salvation. If you have put your trust in Christ but honestly have not
allowed Him to have His rightful place, on the throne of your heart, God is
inviting you: whatever you have done, whatever you have become, it doesn’t
matter. Please, come home. To be God’s
friend we must humbly submit to Him, we’ll be transformed, increasingly enabled
to reject strife and to live in the peace He wants us to experience.
What would God have me to do in response to
this passage? Who is your friend? Is your life focused on pursuing
things that won’t matter 100 years from now? Has God been pushed into a tiny corner of your
life, acknowledged and appreciated from time to time, but low on your priority
list when it comes to what you really are pursuing? Come home, experience
the relationship with God for which you were created, the abundant life He
wants for you. Listen, if God is who He claims to be, if He demonstrated
His love by giving His Son, if He has purchased eternity for us and created
humans to have intimate fellowship with Him, why would we look elsewhere? The
Lord gave the invitation to Israel through the prophet Isaiah, and it extends
to us as well: “Why do you spend money
for what is not bread, And your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen
carefully to Me, and eat what is good, And let your soul delight itself in
abundance” (Isaiah 55:2). That is
God’s offer to each of us. Life. Abundant Life. Life with meaning. Think about
that. Consider what God may be saying to
you through this passage. Amen.
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