James 4

Hook:

When I was in college, I lived in the dorms and was assigned to be a part of a specific dorm section. There were two other guys, Drew and Taylor, in that dorm section hat I became pretty good friends with. We got along pretty well and seemed to have a lot in common. Then one day about a month into the semester, a position opened up that was always for someone who had finished at least their first year of university. Yet for some reason, they gave the job to Taylor.

Almost immediately after that, me, Drew, and Taylor had a falling out. It was almost as if everything Taylor did was annoying to me and Drew. And to be fair, Taylor did start acting as if he was better than a lot of people because he was picked for this position. It really frustrated me and Drew.

And over the next three to three and a half years, me, Drew, and Taylor lived with an underlying and growing tension. At different points we would try to clear the air and confront each other on what bothered us and what caused issues, but it wasn’t until our final year of college that Taylor really saw a lot of the mistakes that he had made, and that Drew and I were finally able to forgive and apologize for our own sins.

The issue between was driven by a lot of different things, but it ultimately comes down to the fact that Drew and I were hurt because we weren’t picked and then hurt because we felt belittled. We wanted to be respected and thought we knew more than we did. Our internal desires drove us to sin and ultimately caused issues among three Christians who are supposed to be brothers.

Sometimes the people that can hurt us the most or the people that we seem to fight with the most are our fellow followers of Jesus. Or sometimes we, who claim to follow Jesus, can hurt others. And it all stems from our worldly desires that are at war with in us.

Last week, we read and talked about chapter 3 of James. I know a lot of you weren’t here for that and I encouraged you to go back and read the chapter and maybe ask Tessa for a brief synopsis later… Tessa’s lesson on chapter three talked a lot about the differences between biblical Wisdom and worldly ‘wisdom.’

Now we’re going to read chapter 4 and then I’ll share a few brief things about it and then we’ll jump into small groups to talk a little more deeply about the chapter.

Book:

James 4 ESV

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? 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. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. 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. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor? Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

Look:

Like I said earlier, chapter three talks about wisdom. This chapter continues that theme by showing the after effects of worldly wisdom and Godly wisdom. I see four sections in this chapter: 1-4, 5-10, 11-12, and 13-17.

Verses 1-4 show us that ultimately when we live with worldly wisdom it means we are walking in worldliness. It is our worldliness and our sinful desires that cause issues for us. It causes us to have problems with others because we get jealous and covet, it causes us to ask for things from God with selfish motives, it causes us to live as enemies from God, and it causes us to live prideful lives that keep us from grace.

The next section shows a brief glimpse of God’s heart for us and what our response to Him and biblical wisdom should be. Verses 5-10 remind us of God’s desire for us. It reminds us of the fact that God constantly gives us grace. It’s because of that grace that we are able to submit ourselves to him! James gives some pretty clear commands in this section too.

1. Resist the devil When we resist the devil, the devil will flee from us. This is important because when we are tempted to sin and feel like there is no way out, its easy for us to just give up. But James tells us that when we resist, the devil will flee. That’s powerful!

2. When we draw near to God, God will draw near to us. Now it’s important to really think about this. I feel like I often hear of people claim to be drawing near to God but not hearing from Him. I think it’s important to remember that God isn’t tied to our timeline. It’s not like we can go a day trying to draw near to God and then not feel his closeness and then give up as if His words not true. If we draw near to God with patience and humility, He will answer us. He will draw near to us.

3. James continues on by commanding us to Cleanse your hands and purify your hearts. That is to rid ourselves of sin in light of God’s grace. Don’t confuse this with fixing ourselves in order to receive forgiveness. We are command to do the hard work of living in Grace in light of the Gospel because of what has been done for us and out of his strength. We can only cleans our hands and purify our hearts because of Jesus’s death and resurrection.

4. In light of our sin, we need to be wretched and mourn and weep. That is we need to take our sin seriously in light of God’s grace and truly repent of it.

5. And finally we need to humble ourselves before the Lord. And ultimately we can trust that when we do that, one day we will be exalted. We will be lifted up with Christ. That is the hope of our faith.

This next section, verses 11-12 is a caution for us. Again, it’s so easy for us to fall into gossiping about others or just straight up disliking fellow believers who we feel like are annoying or who bother us for whatever reason. But when we do this, we are sinning against God and then. If that’s you, then you need to reconcile with that person. If you are gossiping, you need to ask for accountability to stop gossiping. If you are judging others in your heart, not even saying anything out loud, you need to humble yourself and ask God for help to have a right view of His children.

And finally, the last section in verses 13-17 tells us that our lives and our days are not controlled by us. Therefore, we shouldn’t make plans apart from God, through prayer and wisdom in Him. This is not to say that you shouldn’t plan at all, you should definitely think about the future! But when you do, don’t think about the future as if to say, “What can I do to make my future great?” Think about the future in light of the Gospel. Ask yourself, “What can I do in my future that will most glorify God? Where is He leading me and how can I follow Him?”

I think this is especially important as you guys think about life after high school. It’s easy to think about college or your future and think about what will give you a good education? Where does your family want you to go? What do you want to do? All of these questions are good questions that have merit, but first and foremost, you need to in prayer as the Lord where he is leading.

James ends the whole chapter with a verse that shows us that living according to worldly wisdom when we know we need to be living with biblical wisdom is sin. Knowing the good that we need to do and not doing it is sin. One commentator I like named David Guzik writes this about this verse: “Here James returned to his consistent theme through his letter: the idea that genuine faith is proved by action.”

That means for all of us here, we know the truth and we have a faith. If your here and you don’t have a faith, that’s totally okay, but I want to encourage you not to stay there. Ask questions, come talk to me or Rachel or Tessa. Everyone in this room has heard the truth. Therefore, we need do our best to live it out. We’re going to talk a little bit about this in small groups now. So let me pray for us and we can split into our normal groups.

Took:

Small group questions

1. Highs and lows. Followed by prayer for each other Spend a moment praying for each other.

2. Follow up on the Following and Fishing goals from last week: (I’ll text them next, for any student not there see if they remember their other ones or did them).

3. Re-read the passage once or twice: James 4

4. Take a moment to have 1 or 2 people summarize the whole chapter. After they share, as group, try to retell the whole passage together.

5. What does this passage teach us about God (the Father, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus)? (Look for specific things in this text)

6. What do we learn about people in this passage? (Again try to stick to examples in this chapter)

7. What are one or two things from this passage that you want to practice in your life over the next two weeks?

8. How can you live out this passage this week in these two ways, 1, Following: what does it look like to be more obedient to God in the things we’ve read about tonight? 2, Fishing: who is someone in your life that you want to share something you’ve learned from this passage?

9. Have someone write down the fishing and following goals for the week and then take some time to pray for the goals.