Faith Submits

We have a chapter break after 3:18, but the reality is that the fights and quarrels James refers to in chapter 4 flow from the worldly wisdom that was permeating the community of faith in chapter 3. In fact, the word "covet" in 4:2 comes from the same word James uses in 3:14 and 3:16 that is translated "envy." James illustrates in chapter 4 the disorder and evil that is the result of the envy and selfish ambition of chapter 3. This picture is summed up in 4:4: "Adulteresses! Don't you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? So whoever wants to be the world's friend becomes God's enemy." We've seen two pictures of wisdom that lead us now to think about two pictures of friendship.

First we'll consider friendship with the world, which is what we should be fighting against. Keep in mind that this word "friendship," though it may seem casual to us today, was a serious word describing close intimacy in the context in which James was writing (Moo, James, 187). James tells us that friendship with the world causes conflict with others, conflict within yourself, and ultimately conflict with God. James is talking about fights and quarrels in the church in chapter 4, and I can't help but think that the adversary had succeeded in getting these churches 87to fight with one another to the extent that they lost sight of where the true battle was. As we focus on battling with the world—a world system that encourages us to want more stuff, to prioritize our comforts, and to ignore the poor while we focus on ourselves, the adversary would like nothing more than to divide us so that we fight battles among ourselves and have little energy for the real battle that is going on. We must fervently resist friendship with the world.

Friendship with the world comes from the sinful desires of the flesh. In verse 1 James talks about desires that battle within each of us. We want selfish gain, pleasure in this world, and that which is best for us. The problem is that putting people together who all have these sinful, selfish desires creates fights and quarrels. Isn't this the picture of marriage? When you put two selfish sinners together, you certainly aren't going to get perfect peace all the time. These quarrels James talks about get serious when it comes to our relationships, whether it's marriage or friends or in the church. James says, "You murder and covet" (v. 2), which is almost certainly hyperbole; i.e., there probably wasn't first-degree murder taking place within the church. But it does take us back to the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus equated anger between brothers with murder (Matt 5:21-22). Sinful desires are dangerous.

All conflict comes from desires within us, desires that are motivated by a longing for earthly pleasure. You're not going to God in prayer, James says to these believers, or if you are, you are going to Him in order to get more in this world for yourself, which misses the point (v. 3). Even the prayers of these people were self-centered. Jesus, on the other hand, taught us to begin prayer like this: "Your name be honored as holy" (Matt 6:9). We are to seek what is best for the sake of God's name. We want His will, not ours, to be done. Friendship with the world says, "My will be done, and my name be great." This is where we realize hostility toward one another is really evidence of hostility toward God. All of this leads to the startling statement in verse 4 concerning friendship with the world.

So far we've seen that friendship with the world comes from the sinful desires of the flesh and that it is motivated by a longing for earthly pleasure. Now in verse 4 we see that friendship with the world results in spiritual adultery against God. Throughout this book James has been addressing his hearers as "brothers" (see 1:2, 16, 19; 2:1, 5,14; 3:1, 10, 12). But then in 4:4 he says, "Adulteresses!" Throughout the Old Testament, God describes His relationship with His people like a marriage, and 88when His people forsake Him in sin, it is a picture of spiritual unfaithfulness or adultery. In Jeremiah 3:20 God says to His people, "As a woman may betray her lover, so you have betrayed Me, house of Israel" (see also Ezek 16; Hos 1-3). The picture is serious: the more we are conformed to the pattern of this world, living like this world and loving this world, the more we betray our God and cheat on Him. The pain and heartache involved in adultery are wrapped up in this imagery.

In our culture and even in the church, we have sought after the pleasures of this world in sexual immorality, impurity, and debauchery. We have satisfied our flesh with the things of this world with more possessions and nicer cars and bigger houses and better luxuries. We have pursued positions, plaudits, and popularity. We have lived for what is best for us in this world. And in the process, we have run around on our God. We need to repent and come back to Him.

The need to repent helps make sense of James 4:5: "Or do you think it's without reason the Scripture says that the Spirit who lives in us yearns jealously?" There's a lot of debate about how verse 5 should be translated. In light of the context, we should probably understand James to be saying that God jealously longs for the spirit he made to live in us. We're taken back to Exodus 20:5 and 34:14 where God tells His people that He is a jealous God. An illustration may help to explain why this is good news for us. As a husband, I am jealous for the affections of my wife, and anyone or anything that threatens to steal her love from me is met with the strongest of opposition. This is a good thing in marriage; it's the way it's supposed to be. And it's a good thing in our relationship with God that He is jealous for our affections. God is infinitely jealous for His people, and He will oppose with divine force anything or anybody who threatens their good. God is jealous for the affections of your heart as a follower of Christ. This is not an insecure jealousy that is afraid you're going to find someone or something better, for there isn't anyone or anything better. This is a secure jealousy that seeks what is best for you by guarding your heart from adulterous pursuits. He tells us to run from the things of this world and cling to Him in order to find all that we need.

Instead of running to friendship and intimacy with this world, we ought to run to friendship with God. This kind of friendship is not birthed in the sinful desires of the flesh, but rather it comes from the gracious 89desire of God. "[God] gives greater grace" to the humble. As we have had our worldliness exposed in this letter, it is possible for us to look at these truths and commands and feel that it is all too difficult. Yet this is where we see the grace of God. It is not easy to resist the appeal of this world, and there are so many areas where we have bought into this world's friendship. We sometimes wonder whether this struggle will end. However, as Paul tells us in 1 Thessalonians 5:24, "He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it." By God's grace He will produce the fruit of faith in you. Go to Him. Trust in Him. The words of Augustine are appropriate here: "Give me the grace to do as you command, and command me to do what you will" (Confessions, 233). God is merciful, gracious, all loving, and He willingly supplies all we need to obey His bold commands. I love what one writer said:

What comfort there is in this verse! It tells us that God is tirelessly on our side. He never falters in respect of our needs, he always has more grace at hand for us. He is never less than sufficient, he always has more and yet more to give. Whatever we may forfeit when we put self first, we cannot forfeit our salvation, for there is always more grace. No matter what we do to him, he is never beaten ... His resources are never at an end, his patience is never exhausted, his initiative never stops, his generosity knows no limit: he gives more grace. (Motyer, James, 150; emphasis in original)

Praise God: He gives more grace.

Friendship with God not only comes from the gracious desire of God, but also it is motivated by a longing for eternal satisfaction. Friendship with God realizes that if we seek friendship with the world now, we will experience the opposition of God in eternity. Therefore, friendship with God results in submission to the authority of God. "Submit to God," James says in verse 7. James lists nine imperative verbs—commands—that tell us what submission looks like. If we want to grow in intimacy with God, these are the things we ought to do:

Resist the Devil forcefully. This is evident in 4:7b. James wants us to stop resisting God and start resisting the Devil. It is baffling that, from the lives of Adam and Eve in Genesis 3 to the lives of every one of us in the present, each of us believes the lies of the Devil. This is the essence of sin—trusting the Devil while distrusting God. Sin is believing the lies of the prince of this world that say we need some thing or person or status, 90all the while disbelieving God who says, "You need Me." Resist the Devil, and he will flee. Whatever power or influence the Devil may have, your life in Christ is far greater. When you are tempted to go to that site on the Internet, resist him. When you are tempted to speak selfishly to your wife or husband or friend, resist him. When you are tempted to anger, discouragement, doubt, pride, or worry, resist him. Resist him, and he will flee.

Seek God repentantly. In verse 8 James tells us to draw near to God, which implies that we have turned away from Him. This is a call to repent of sin and return to our gracious Lord.

Pursue purity holistically. Purity is both internal and external. James says, "Cleanse your hands, sinners, and purify your hearts" (v. 8). James wants us to purify our hearts, our minds, our desires, our motives, and the core of our being. By God's grace we are to be clean inside and out.

Treat sin seriously. Verse 9 can almost sound depressing: "Be miserable and mourn and weep. Your laughter must change to mourning and your joy to sorrow." Those who live in friendship with this world do not see sin as a big deal. But James tells us not to be trivial with sin. Rather, we should grieve over our sin, mourning and wailing in tears over it. We need to see sin this way. Cornelius Plantinga has talked about how we have lost this view of sin:

The awareness of sin used to be our shadow. Christians hated sin, feared it, fled from it, grieved over it. Some of our grandparents agonized over their sins. A man who lost his temper might wonder whether he could still go to Holy Communion. A woman who for years envied her more attractive and intelligent sister might wonder if this sin threatened her very salvation.

But the shadow has dimmed. Nowadays, the accusation you have sinned is often said with a grin, and with a tone that signals an inside joke. At one time, this accusation still had the power to jolt people. (Plantinga, Not the Way, ix)

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones has noted how the awareness of sin grew in times of revival:

Go and read the history of revivals again. Watch the individuals at the beginning. This is invariably the first thing that happens to them. They begin to see what a terrible, appalling thing sin is in the sight of God. They temporarily 91even forget the state of the Church, and forget their own anguish. It is the thought of sin in the sight of God. How terrible it must be. Never has there been a revival but that some of the people, especially at the beginning, have had such visions of the holiness of God, and the sinfulness of sin, that they have scarcely known what to do with themselves. (Lloyd-Jones, Revival, 157)

When was the last time you grieved over your sin before God? You may think that sounds self-defeating. What about feeling good about yourself and self-esteem? True beauty comes in verse 10, when James says, "Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you." When we humble ourselves before God, we don't have to lift ourselves up; He does the lifting for us.

Trust God completely. God will give you grace in your humility, and He will be the one to raise you up. You need not do that on your own.

Two Pictures of Speech

James 4:11-12

When you have been humbled before God, it inevitably affects the way you speak to others. This is where James puts a bookend on the discussion he started at the beginning of chapter 3 regarding the tongue. Worldly speech does two things. First, it discourages one another. To "criticize" is to speak against, to attack, or to slander another person. Or it can refer to speaking critically to someone else about another person. Gossip and slander will kill community. It is self-centered rather than God centered. Proverbs 6:16-18 says, "The Lord hates six things; in fact, seven are detestable to Him: arrogant eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that plots wicked schemes, feet eager to run to evil, a lying witness who gives false testimony, and one who stirs up trouble among brothers" (emphasis added).

The second thing worldly speech does is that it dishonors God. When you slander, you put yourself above the law of God, as if it is not necessary for you to love your neighbor in the way you speak. In the process you offend the Giver of that law, who is God Himself. Obviously there are places where God says in His Word that it is right and good to confront one another in sin, which can be difficult, but this is done not out of selfish ambition or to hurt your brother, but to help him and to honor God. Criticizing does neither.

92Worldly speech discourages one another and dishonors God. Godly speech, on the other hand, encourages one another and exalts God. This is the kind of speech that ought to characterize believers—speech that demonstrates a love of God and neighbor. Out of the overflow of our hearts we want our words to glorify God and to point others to His truth. This is true wisdom. This is what flows from the one who is a friend of God and not a friend of the world.

One Prayer in Faith

O God, for the glory of Christ

amid urgent spiritual and physical need in the world,

we submit our minds, our hearts, our voices, and our lives

to You.

Reflect and Discuss