Faith Submits

As we walk with God in faith on a day-to-day basis, we face many challenges, trials, and temptations. For this reason James addresses 83issues of wisdom, friendship, and speech, showing how faith in Christ inevitably affects ordinary, everyday life in this world.

Two Pictures of Wisdom

Two Pictures of Wisdom

James tells us in this passage that there are two sources of wisdom, and we need to be discerning as to where our wisdom comes from. A kind of wisdom comes from God, is pleasing to Him, and good for our lives. Another kind of wisdom does not come from God and is not good for our lives or for others' lives. After his introductory statement about "wisdom's gentleness" in verse 13, James starts with worldly wisdom.

Worldly Wisdom (3:13-16)

There is a wisdom that comes from hell. It's of the Devil. Yes, it's a worldly wisdom—it's earthly—but the problem goes even deeper than the earth. This kind of wisdom is the complete antithesis of anything that is from God. It is subtly yet powerfully demonic. In Genesis 3 the serpent tempted Eve to trust in his wisdom instead of God's wisdom, and the adversary is doing the same thing in every one of our lives today.

This is where we need to remember one of the most important factors in our growth in wisdom: our perspective. Worldly wisdom views life from a limited perspective. It doesn't see things in light of eternity but in terms of the perceived immediate impact—what is best for self-advancement and self-pleasure now. This is dangerous, and it is motivated by self-centered ambition. A wisdom in the world measures everything by how it affects you. It's concerned with how you can advance yourself, promote yourself, or assert yourself. When looking at conversations and circumstances, the question at the forefront is always, What can I get out of this? James says this is from the Devil. Remember the favoritism James confronted in chapter 2, a favoritism that was driven by nothing but self-centered ambition. People were ignoring the poor because they could not get anything from them. This kind of wisdom is common in the world, and it is common in us, yet we don't even see it.

Is self-centered ambition not the root of struggles in marriage? "What is best for me?" is the question we ask. Is this not the root of the entire American dream—climb the ladder, achieve your aspirations, assert yourself, promote yourself, advance yourself? Meanwhile, Jesus says, "Deny yourself." Self-centered ambition is at the heart of worldly wisdom, and it is demonic. It is filled with envy, always comparing itself84 to others to see who is better or worse. James says this results in disorder and evil (v. 16). In a home that is marked by self-centered ambition, you will have disorder and evil. In a church that is filled with men and women driven by self-centered ambition, you have a recipe for disorder and evil. There is a danger in all of our families and our churches whenever we pursue selfish concerns or partisan causes to the neglect of the good of others, and so we need to be on guard. Such wisdom produces anger, bitterness, resentment, divisions, and divorce. Such wisdom robs us of love, intimacy, trust, fellowship, and harmony with others.

Godly Wisdom (3:17-18)

What we need is godly wisdom that comes from heaven. This takes us back to James 1:5-6: "Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives to all generously and without criticizing, and it will be given to him." You don't get this wisdom from intellectual effort or practical experience as much as you get it from being with God. A kind of wisdom, a godly wisdom, sees things from an eternal perspective that can only come from God. We must go to Him constantly in prayer and in the Word, crying out to Him in order to receive His wisdom. This is the point of Proverbs 2:1-8:

Individually and corporately, we need to go before God and pray for wisdom. We ought to be desperate for it. All believers should have the 85attitude of Solomon in 1 Kings 3, who confessed that he was but a child and in need of God's help (1 Kgs 3:7-9). Only God can give this wisdom, which is why godly wisdom is motivated by God-centered humility. In verses 17-18 James says, "But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peace-loving, gentle, compliant, full of mercy and good fruits, without favoritism and hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who cultivate peace." Consider how these characterizations of wisdom in James are evident in the Beatitudes in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:3-12:

• Pure: "The pure in heart are blessed, for they will see God" (Matt 5:8).
• Peace-loving: "The peacemakers are blessed, for they will be called sons of God" (Matt 5:9).
• Gentle/Considerate: "The gentle are blessed, for they will inherit the earth" (Matt 5:5).
• Compliant/Submissive: "The poor in spirit are blessed, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs" (Matt 5:3).
• Full of mercy: "The merciful are blessed, for they will be shown mercy" (Matt 5:7).
• Full of good fruit: "Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness are blessed, for they will be filled" (Matt 5:6).

When you read James 3:17 in the original language, you see that James has organized these characteristics of wisdom in a beautiful literary style. They are grouped by the way they sound, and the result is a beautiful picture of the blessing of the wisdom that comes from God (Blomberg and Kamell, James, 175). This wisdom is God-centered—"The pure in heart are blessed, for they will see God" (Matt 5:8)—not self-centered. It's also humble, which is what James means in 3:13 when he refers to wisdom's "gentleness." Wisdom from God produces humility in man. But the world is exactly the opposite: Wisdom from the world produces self-centered pride in man.

In contrast to the disorder and evil that result from selfish ambition, James says in verse 18 that the wisdom from God results in peace and righteousness. God's wisdom produces that which is right, that which is pleasing and honoring to God, and that which is good for the people of God. "The peacemakers are blessed, for they will be called sons of God" (Matt 5:9). Peace is what God desires in our relationships, our homes, and our churches. Now this is not peace at the expense of truth, as in 86"let's just all get along" by avoiding truth and conviction. No, it's first of all "pure" (v. 17) and true, trusting that purity produces peace.

Think about how the peace James talks about plays out in your home. When a husband and wife are humbly going before God and pursuing wisdom that is pure and honoring to God, it produces peace in that home. This also happens in the church. When men and women are humbly going before God, leaving self-centered ambition behind and pursuing wisdom that is pure, it produces peacemaking and righteousness in that church. It doesn't mean you always agree on every single detail, but it does mean that together you are humbly seeking God's wisdom and putting aside selfish ambition.

We need to ask God to remove from us worldly thinking and worldly wisdom. Humble yourself before Him and ask Him to give you wisdom that is "first pure, then peace-loving, gentle, compliant, full of mercy and good fruits, without favoritism and hypocrisy" (v. 17). And pray that He would use you to sow not disorder and evil but to harvest peace and righteousness in your relationships with others.

Two Pictures of Friendship

Two Pictures of Friendship

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.

Friendship with the World (4:1-5)

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.

Friendship with God (4:6-10)

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

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

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

Reflect and Discuss

1. Who in your life has exemplified and imparted godly wisdom? What characteristics mark his or her life?
2. How does the world's definition of wisdom differ from Scripture's definition?
3. According to James 3:13, why can't someone whose life is marked by immorality be considered wise?
4. What's the difference between knowing facts and possessing godly wisdom?
5. Explain what it means to be a friend of the world.
6. What is God's role in keeping us from pursuing sin? What is our role?
7. Practically speaking, what does it mean to submit to God and resist the Devil?
8. How would you define repentance for someone who has no Bible knowledge?
9. How is it in James 4:11 that speaking evil against a brother is speaking evil against the law?
10. How is intentionally engaging unbelievers different from pursuing friendship with the world?