We're Just Friends

Our church calendar has been pretty packed lately, this past Friday and yesterday we had our progressive dinner. it is my favorite event of the year. We started at the dyes and ended at our house. Yesterday morning we had our virtual prayer event, we are still working out how those should work, but those of us who gathered here did pray for the things we knew needed to be prayed for, and the requests that were posted on the forum.

Sermon:

If you are just tuning in, we have been studying in the book of James. We just finished chapter 3 - turning this morning to chapter 4.

Last week we looked at the characteristics of heavenly wisdom,focusing primarily focused on whether or not we are open to reason. The challenge being, as a person who claims to be a believer in Jesus, are you able to be corrected? Are you capable of listening to opinions that are different from yours?

We contrasted two different sources - two pictures of wisdom, the things that the world sees as wise, and then the things that God gives as wisdom.

Chapter 3 tells us that we aught to be seeking wisdom from God, not from the world.

Chapter 4 continues this conversation to explore a different side - not only should we not be seeking wisdom from the world, we should also not be seeking friendship with the world. Let’s pray, and then we will go into the word together.

Pray

James 4:1–10 CSB

1 What is the source of wars and fights among you? Don’t they come from your passions that wage war within you? 2 You desire and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and wage war. You do not have because you do not ask. 3 You ask and don’t receive because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. 4 You adulterous people! Don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? So whoever wants to be the friend of the world becomes the enemy of God. 5 Or do you think it’s without reason that the Scripture says: The spirit he made to dwell in us envies intensely? 6 But he gives greater grace. Therefore he says: God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. 7 Therefore, submit to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be miserable and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

We are going to work through this passage of scripture from the frame of relationship. And the way that it plays out is worthy of it’s own 9am soap opera.

We start out with the engagement.

The engagement: We know that we are created and called to be in relationship with God. We have been learning about the benefits of that, we want that relationship. So we may pray the sinners prayer. Agreeing in part at least to enter into this covenant relationship with God. Even if we don’t at this point, we are created for this relationship. We are supposed to be following after Jesus. Before that, mankind was supposed to be in relationship with God in the Garden. It was created to be wonderful.

Our relationship with God is supposed to be different from anything else that we have. The bible describes Jesus as the groom and the church as his bride.

My relationship with Eden, is different from my relationship with anyone else. There are benefits to that relationship that I get to enjoy that are unique - and there are challenges in that relationship that are unique. We are committed to each other in a very special way. In a lot of ways, we are responsible for one another. We take care of one another. It is a beautiful thing.

Our relationship with God is supposed to be that way. Beautiful, connected, with us dependent on him.

And yet somewhere along the line we have the affair. but we don’t call it an affair. We’re just friends.

The Affair: The affair is this. We get tangled up in the world. And the first round of this seems to happen when we are born.

This is how we know. We have been raising babies for the last 10 years of our lives, and we have to teach them everything. We have to teach them how to brush their teeth. We have to teach them how to eat at the table. We have to teach them how to use the toilet. We have to teach them how to drink from a cup.

You know what doesn’ need to be taught? Sin. We come out of our mothers womb, and we are ready to deceive others. We come out into the world ready for selfishness.

We come into the world so incredibly capable of lying.

And in that, we get intangled into the world.

We start just by hanging out.

We just happened to be in the same place as the world is so we may as well spend a little bit of time getting to know one another; we’re just friends.

And we start to like the same things that they like. We’re just friends.

And we start to spend more and more of our free time together. We’re just friends.

We let them in on the intimate parts of our lives. We’re just friends.

We start to get excited when they come around. We’re just friends.

We engage with them immediately after waking up. “Good morning beautiful!” We’re just friends.

Until you’re not.

We go deeper and deeper into this friendship until its a full blown romance.

And the things of the world are the only things that matter.

And we will definitely get back to church after this thing we are going to do first.

And it’s not going to change us, its just a show that we have to watch as soon as the next episode comes out and we know the color of the lead actors socks. We’re just friends.

We start to get lost.

And it starts with in us. In our own desires. in our own wanting of things.

James says it like this: James 4:1

James 4:1 CSB

1 What is the source of wars and fights among you? Don’t they come from your passions that wage war within you?

James 4:2 CSB

2 You desire and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and wage war. You do not have because you do not ask.

James 4:3 CSB

3 You ask and don’t receive because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.

James 4:4 CSB

4 You adulterous people! Don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? So whoever wants to be the friend of the world becomes the enemy of God.

There are a couple of principles in this passage that I want to set aside for a moment, I know that they are often used to portray specific ideas, and I want to visit that; You do not have because you do not ask and resisting the devil - I want to cover those two principles seperately, because they are worth spending more time on, and it may just be after we finish James.

See in that - the relationship that I was describing a few moments ago. Connection. Our desires seem to line up. Our motives line up. So we fall into the same things that the world is doing. We fight. We covet. We steal. We cheat.

We fall in love with the world. Tangled up in the mess. Why does all of that matter?

Because God cares. He is a jealous God.

James 4:5 CSB

5 Or do you think it’s without reason that the Scripture says: The spirit he made to dwell in us envies intensely?

He wants you, for himself.

Like any good spouse. We have this picture of our relationship with Christ, and a good marriage would reflect that.

And any good spouse, starts to get upset when things start to look funky.

And its for multiple reasons.

You have to be careful about what you might say about my wife.

You can say that she is beautiful - as long as you say it respectfully. . Anything past that, and the space behind my eyeballs will start to itch.

She’s my wife.

And you don’t get to cheapen who she is by saying something off hand.

I work very hard to provide for her. I give of myself for her. She is my best friend. She is the most important person to me. No one values her the way I do. So be careful what you say.

My kids have learned that too.

Listen, I love you, don’t talk to my wife that way. There are circumstances where she isn’t your mother any more, we aren’t talking about that, you disrespected my wife.

We are still talking about demonic spirits - from chapter 3; the enemy does not value you the way God does. You didn’t cost him anything.

The world does not care what you are worth. The enemy sees no potential, they see no value.

God sees you. And he is jealous for you. That you would be properly honored. James 4:10

James 4:10 CSB

10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

His plan is to exalt you. To lift you up.

God is also jealous in that He wants that place of importance in your life, it is his place. And giving it to anyone else cheats him.

The seat next to my wife is mine. The head of the table in my dining room is mine.

If I walked into my house after a long day of work and found another man in that seat, unless it was a man that I would give the seat to my self, I am going to be upset. I am going to feel some sort of ways about it. I will be jealous.

We want and so we look to the world. But God has said he is our provider.

We are lonely and so we fill the void with nonsense when God has said that he is our comforter.

We fill God’s role with anyone or anything else, and he gets upset.

He is a properly jealous groom. So what do we do about it? We are going to find ourselves in this trap throughout our lives… James was writing to Christians. What do we do? It’s all right here.

James is the blue collar scholar. He is the Carpenter pastor. He’s not going to make you guess.

This book is full of instructions and we see a bunch of them here. We are going to call this the breakup.

The breakup:

We have to end it. Or God will end it for us… we don’t want God to end it for us.

James 4:7–9 CSB

7 Therefore, submit to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be miserable and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.

Submit to God. This is going to mean that you make real efforts to be obedient.

Resist the devil. James knows - from his brother’s experience, that you can actually just resist. When the enemy comes to tempt you, you resist. When you are offered the world, resist. When its all shined up for you, resist. Jesus resisted every temptation that the enemy could throw at him. He resisted in the face of hunger and thirst. He resisted in times of great pain. He resisted temptations for power. He resisted the temptation of vengeance. James knows what the enemy will do. Hes going to flee. Show some strength!

Draw near to God. We are doing that here.

Repent. We have to break up with the world. We have to break up with the enemy.

Continuing that relationship is to be in conflict with God. And you cannot win it.

God ending it for us looks like this: Phil 2:9-10

Philippians 2:10–11 CSB

10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow— in heaven and on earth and under the earth— 11 and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

At the end, it won’t matter. Every knee will bow. Every tongue will confess.

And We will have the divorce we want.

Hell is God’s last effort to give you exactly what you want. Eternity without him.

The Marriage: James 4:10

James 4:10 CSB

10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

This is the plan that God has. That he would exalt us. His plan for us is Good. His plan for us is to honor us. His plan is to glorify us. To make a place for us. To extend love for us.

But he’s not going to do that, if we are cheating.