James 4

Sermon • Submitted 2 years ago

0 ratings

· 7 views

Notes

Transcript

Introduction

Welcome back guys. I hope you guys all had a good Christmas and New Years. Congratulations to Ray and Sarah and their new born! I feel like I haven’t seen anyone in a really long time. There has been so much sickness going around that has kept alot of us from meeting together so I am glad that those who could make it today are here and we should make note to pray for those in our community who are sick and unable to meet. We are going to continue our study in James today, but I have to say, for being a book with only five chapter this series is taking a long time! Between Christmas and New Years, and then me getting sick and cody being sick as well, I feel like we have been in James for such a long time! But we are going to do Chapter four today and then finish with chapter five next week.

Since it has been a few weeks since we last discussed James, I wanted to give a little summary of what we have covered so far. Throughout the book of James we see this reoccurring theme where James talks about what a true relationship with God looks like. We see him compare people who serve both the world and God as double minded and unstable. And ultimately, the point that James is trying to get across is that you can’t claim to be a follower of Christ, and then act like everyone else in the world. If we have truly been transformed by God and we are earnestly seeking him, then proof of that is seen through our actions and our speech. Multiple times James uses this phrase ‘double minded’ to illustrate someone who is divided, so when you hear me say spiritual wholeness, I am using that phrase to describe someone who is aligned with God’s will. they aren’t divided, or double minded, they don’t praise God with their tongue and then turn around and curse their brothers and sisters. We see evidence of this all throughout his letter because he consistently hammers on it. Speech is probably one of the most covered topics in the first three chapters, but actions is also in there. So what I wanted to do was quickly go over what the first three chapters talked about because Chapter four is the climax if you will to the letter, the call to repentance.

In chapter one James encourages his readers who are struggling with hard times. His audience for this letter was Jewish Christians who had been scattered throughout the region, The majority of them were living in poverty, facing persecution, and dealing with other social issues that were happening during that time period. So he reminds his audience that when we persevere through hard times, and we stick with God, our faith is strengthened. He goes on to say that when we lack wisdom, all we need to do is pray and ask for it, but when we do it must be done earnestly and not from a selfish heart. This is the first time we see James uses the phrase double minded. He then reminds his audience that when they are facing trails and temptations that those do not come from God. God does not and can not tempt us, but rather we are tempted because of our own sinful nature. And finally that if we considered ourselves religious, but don’t actually do what Jesus says, the our acts of worship towards God are hollow gestures and that our faith is worthless. He finishes by saying that we are to keep ourselves from being polluted by the world. This will play a factor into Chapter four today.

In chapter two James really drills down on the whole actions and faith theme. Cody preached on James 2 for us but I wanted to just give a quick summary of what James said. We need to abandon this idea that one sin is greater than another. Sin is sin regardless of what it is. In the western church, we view sin as an action that we commit. Sin is something we do, and we tend to assign a value to sin and say that one sin isn’t as bad as another because it helps us rationalize and justify our behavior. But James says no, whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. Sin isn’t a thing that we do, but rather it is a nature that exist within us. So instead of judging others because of actions they commit, we should show mercy and love. Because mercy triumphs over judgement. To drive his point home further James talks about the evidence of a true relationship with God and says that if our actions and speech don’t compliment our faith, then we really don’t have a faith in the first place. Belief in God does not equal Faith in God. In Hebrew, those to words have very different meanings.

And where James two talks about actions complimenting our faith in God, James three talks about our speech. The theme of three is that if we can’t control our speech and watch what we say to others and about others, then there is no evidence of a true relationship with God. We also shouldn’t claim to have wisdom and have the authority to teach if we are doing so for our own selfish ambitions.

And this brings us to James 4 which, like i said, is the climax of the book in my opinion. This right here is the reason that James wrote the letter in the first place. So let’s dig in and read chapter 4:1-3

Main Body

Now this may be the start of a new chapter, but it isn’t the start of a new topic. James hasn’t transitioned yet from his last argument in Chapter 3. If we rewind a little bit we see James talking about two kinds of wisdom, but really, when we break it down, James isn’t talking about wisdom per se, but in the fruit of wisdom which brings order and peace to the church. These verses in chapter three set up James perfectly for rebuke of quarreling in the church. He says true wisdom brings about peace, but what is causing you to fight and quarrel amongst yourselves. He goes on to say that you desire but you do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want so you quarrel and fight. Now these are some pretty heavy accusations levied against the audience here. James talks about how they are killing each other because they aren’t getting what they want. So do we think that the early Christian are so far gone that they are literally killing each other to get something they don’t have? Certainly this type of behavior would be expected from non-civilized people, but we are talking about Jewish Christians, who were living in Rome, which was already pretty civilized, and who had a background of Judaism which forbade murder. So let’s look at the word fight and quarrel here to see if that will help us at all.

We will start with the word quarrel here because that is the easier one. The word quarrel translates to mache, and when this word is used in the NT it is mostly used to describe bickering and arguments, or generally conflict. Nothing as intense that would result in murder, but more just frustrated disagreements that produce strife.

The word for fight translates into polemos, which is used 18 times in the NT. Only one time does it translate into the English word for fight, the other times it translates into war or battle, and one other time as attack. So considering this words often literal translation into war, and then the presence of the word kill, a good case can be made that James is suggesting there is actual physical violence going on in the community. Keep in mind that religious climate back then was very different than ours today and that the Jewish Zealot movement was very influential. it is possible that some of the violence was stemming from former Jewish Zealot. But the only problem is that even Zealots don’t kill their own members because of an argument. But that begs the question of if people are actually killing each other, why does James so casually and briefly mention it? James makes clear that frustrated desire is what is breeding the quarrels and battles among believers so I think what is going on here is James is warning about an hypothetical eventuality rather than an actual occurrence. throughout the OT and even in the NT we see murder as the end result of envy. Some basic examples in the OT would be the story of Cain and Able and the story of David and Bathsheba. There are several more examples, but we see time and time again in the OT that murder is a byproduct of envy. In the NT we see that envy is what caused the Pharisees to kill Jesus. So considering how James just casually mentions this, perhaps James audience are not to the point where they are actually killing each other, but fightings and wars are already in evidence among them and that if that envy goes unchecked, the danger of violence is real.

At the end of the day, we don’t know what the disputes that James refers to were about. The fact that James does not comment directly on the issues involved suggests that his concern was more with the selfish spirit and bitterness of the quarrels than with the rights and wrongs of the various viewpoints. And for us today, it might not result in physical violence, we might not kill like James is suggesting here in a literal sense, but we most certainly can in a metaphorical sense. How many church communities have been “killed” because of something that started with envy. How many relationships have been killed because we let our lust for something we can’t have get the better of us. If we want to live in a community where we truly are living for Christ, we cannot let envy produce quarrels and fights among us.

James goes on to say that the reason that they do not have is because they do not ask God, and when they do ask, they ask with the wrong motives, a selfish desire to use whatever they are asking for, for a selfish purpose and self gratifying one. This here is a callback James 1:5-6. James reminds his readers that when we pray from a selfless standpoint God will honor our prayers, but if we are praying for something to purely benefit ourselves, God will not give it to us. Let’s dig into the next part lets read James 4:4-10

James 4:4–10 NIV

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. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us? But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.” Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

So here James takes off the gloves and he really hits them hard. Throughout the book James has been calling his audience dear brothers and sisters in Christ, but here is goes from a friendly greeting to a slightly more harsh one. And this is where we see James call his audience to repent from their ways and realign themselves with the Spirit of God. James gathers up all the specific issues that he has been addressing in his letter and he deals with it in one all embracing demand to submit to God. Now this word adulterous would have certainly caught the attention of the reader. The Greek word that James uses is actually the feminine version of the word which is adulteresses. Now James isn’t calling out the females within the group, but rather he is using a theme that is common in the OT. The Israelites were often referred to as the wife of God throughout the OT. So James is using the language of the prophets and the OT to emphasize the error of their ways. By seeking friendship with the world, they are, in effect, committing spiritual adultery. Now no evidence that James’s readers were overtly disclaiming God and consciously deciding to follow the world instead. But their tendency to imitate the world by discriminating against people (2:1–13), by speaking negatively of others (3:1–12), by exhibiting “bitter envy” and “selfish ambition” (3:13–18), and by pursuing their own destructive pleasures (4:1–3) amounted to just that. James, as it were, wants to raise the stakes so that his readers see their compromising behavior for what it really is. God tolerates no rival. When believers behave in a worldly manner, they demonstrate that, at that point, their allegiance is to the world rather than to God. And his use of OT imagery in regards God as the spouse of his people is key to understanding this verse . Verse 5 explains why flirtation with the world is so serious a matter by bringing to mind the jealousy of the Lord, which demands total, unreserved, unwavering allegiance from the people with whom he has joined himself.

Now what is interesting about verse five is that James quotes scripture here, but there is not actual scripture in the OT that says this. So either James is quoting scripture that was lost and we no longer have access to, or he wasn’t directly quoting the OT but rather pointing to a theme of multiple OT scriptures that describe God as jealous. Either possibility there is likely but lets move on to the question of the spirit that James mentions. Is he talking about the Holy Spirit or the creative spirit that God breathed into us in Genesis. The problem here is that it is not clear, perhaps it is the later because no where else does James refer to the Holy Spirit, but in either case the phrase reminds us God has a claim on us by virtue of his work in our lives. The most important part of this verse in my opinion is the end where he says but he gives us more grace. And this is a critical part of this verse because we are reading that God is a jealous god and that he is a consuming fire and demands our allegiance and unwavering loyalty then it can be a little intimidating. But James says our God is also merciful, gracious, loving, and willingly supplies all the grace that we need to meet his demands. God will never demand more from us than his grace can cover. He may ask what seems like a lot, and when we screw up or stray from that path we might think that God is out of grace for us or that there is no way that God’s grace can cover the multitudes of our sins, but James reminds us God always gives more grace.

But what response does God expect from this grace that he freely gives, humility. Here James quotes proverbs and says that God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble. He goes on to tell us to submit to God and resist the devil and he will flee from us. When we humbly submit ourselves to God and come to him he will come near to us. These next parts emphasis his call to repentance. Wash your hands and purify your hearts you sinner and double minded people, again we see this concept of someone who is double minded and pursuing friendship with the world. Clearly, he sees his readers as both Christian and in need of a wake-up call that will bring home to them the seriousness of their departure from godly attitudes and behavior. They must repent of both this external behavior—wash your hands—and the internal attitude that leads to such behavior—purify your hearts. The imagery of both “washing” and “purifying” stems from the OT laws regarding priestly duties. He continues to use OT imagery as he tells them to Grieve, mourn, and wail, which are all used by the prophets to describe the reactions of those who suffer God’s judgement. James isn’t saying that we need to live in a perpetual state of gloom, but rather when we recognize how far from God we have strayed we will inevitably mourn for our spiritual state, and better to mourn now then on the day of judgement. James reinforces the need to take sin seriously by adding Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Laughter, is ofter the mark of the fool in the OT and Jewish literature. it is someone who scorns the idea of living according to God’s will and lives life the way they want to. Jesus says something similar when he says Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and week. James’s insistence that we turn our “joy into gloom” might sound strange in light of Paul’s instructions to “rejoice in the Lord always” (Phil. 4:4). But the joy Paul speaks about is the joy that comes when we realize that our sins are forgiven in Christ; the joy James warns about is the fleeting and superficial joy that comes when we indulge in sin. True Christian joy can never be ours if we ignore or tolerate sin; it comes only when we have squarely faced the reality of our sin, brought it before the Lord in repentance and humility, and experienced the cleansing work of the Spirit.

The final command in this paragraph, humble yourselves before the Lord, returns to the note on which the commands began: submit yourselves to God. It also brings us back to the quotation from Prov. 3:34 that serves as the springboard for the series of commands. If God gives grace “to the humble,” then humbling ourselves before God is obviously the way to experience that grace. To “humble ourselves before the Lord” means to recognize our own spiritual poverty, to acknowledge our desperate need of God’s help, and to submit to his commanding will for our lives.

I don’t know about you but I feel like I need to humble myself before God all the time. I am in constant need of God’s grace. But a call to repentance is much more than just realizing that we need God. It is submitting to him and changing your lifestyle to be aligned with his will. We can humble ourselves before God all we want, we can mourn and grieve and be gloomy every time we hear a call to repentance, but you know what, none of it means anything if we don’t actually submit ourselves to God and allow his word to change us on a daily basis.

James wraps up his call to repentance with yet another reminder that we are supposed to watch what we say and not judge others. I’ll read James 4:11-12

James 4:11–12 NIV

Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against a brother or sister or judges them speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?

Here we see James remind us once again that we are not suppose to speak ill of or judge those around us. In fact James goes as far to say that when we judge others who have had the same grace given to them that we have, we judge the one who gave that grace. When we judge others we judge the law, and remember we are talking about a law that was made perfect through Christ and is Christ. We have zero authority to judge other people, we are not the judge or even on the jury, who are we to judge someone else when we have just as much sin in our life as anyone else.

James calls us to unify as a community and to quit the bickering and the fighting and for us all to humbly submit ourselves to God. And when we do this we can truly experience the Joy that God intended us to experience by living a life in line with his will. And that community, the one that is living for God, that is the community that is a light on the hill and will draw people in like moths to the flame.

But a community with in fighting and quarreling among its members will have the opposite affect. And the sad reality is that people take notice when Christians aren’t living according to God’s will. They always have, they did in the time James wrote this letter and all throughout history to this very day. I want to leave you with a qoute from a 17th century Jewish Philosopher named Spnioza. He say’s this:

The Letter of James (B. True Wisdom Brings Peace (3:13–4:3))

“I have often wondered that persons who make boast of professing the Christian religion—namely love, joy, peace, temperance, and charity to all men—should quarrel with such rancorous animosity and display daily towards one another such bitter hatred, that this, rather than the virtues which they profess, is the readiest criteria of their faith.”

See, even in the 17th century this was an issue. And now, with the addition of the internet, everything we say and do is scrutinized by people who are just looking for an excuse to tear us down. Let us be a community who proves them wrong and lives in peace with one another and a community who submits itself to God. Let us repent and not seek friendship with the world, but humbly submit ourselves to the will of God. Let’s pray.

Related Media

Related Sermons