Who's Bae?

In ch 3 James started a section talking about how we should interact with others, specifically he was talking about how we should speak…

He continues in the passage tonight to address the way people interact with each other, getting into the attitudes that we should and shouldn’t have. The shortest way to describe it is that we don’t need to be selfish! Pretty easy right! Selfishness is the cause of so much fighting in our world! Think about it!

Who has siblings? How many of your fights or arguments with your siblings come from wanting something they have? So many right? Our two youngest last night were about to get into it because they both wanted to sit by Kristen. I was like, “I get it dudes, she’s the best! But we’re not going to start into this!”

James talks about how our inner motivations affect the relationships that we have with other people.

pray

People living by faith in Jesus will seek God over the world and that will lead to good relationships with other people.

True Wisdom

We need true wisdom, not the world’s false wisdom.

verses 3:13-18

I remember one time me and my half brother were watching TV in his room and my dad brought us some cake. He came in and we were sitting on the floor so all we could see was that he had two different sized plates and one was bigger. My brother real quickly called the bigger plate thinking it had the bigger slice of cake. My dad said, “ok that’s the one you get then!” I don’t know if he did it on purpose or not, but that bigger plate had a slightly smaller piece of cake on it and my brother got what he asked for! And I got fat!

That’s what satan is doing with this worldly wisdom. He’s trying to make it look good because we don’t have a vantage point that lets us see the whole picture.

But God gives us the whole picture in his Word, right here in James!

Notes in Journaling NT Inductive

Deuteronomy 4:5–6 ESV

See, I have taught you statutes and rules, as the Lord my God commanded me, that you should do them in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. Keep them and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’

Everyone is going to put faith somewhere, and faith always has action. What we’re talking about here is if we will have faith in what God has told us in Scripture is wisdom, or will we put faith in what our culture, our world, tells us is wisdom. We will pursue whichever one we put faith in.

So will you be led by selfish ambition… ?

Or led by godly wisdom that thinks of others…?

You will choose one or the other, you will be a friend of God or of the world…

Who’s your friend?

We can not be a friend of God’s and a friend of the world’s.

4:1-10

I’m going to be honest with y’all for a second. There are some people who tell me they’re Tennessee fans but they cheer for Bama when they aren’t playing Tennessee. That doesn’t make sense to me. I’m not cheering for Tennessee. Sorry I’m not sorry…

Notes in Journaling NT Inductive

God wants us to love Him first and then love others.

Mark 12:30–31 ESV

And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

He tells us not to be looking out for ourselves and what we can get, but to look out for others. Students, reject the lie the world is trying to convince you of! The world wants you to believe that wisdom is getting as much popularity, power, stuff, money, whatever else for yourself as you can. James is saying that is going to lead down a bad road. To bad and broken relationships and fighting and hurt. We need to reject worldliness and put faith in God and put it into action.

Living by faith in God means we are submitting to him. Trusting in him. In what He says is wisdom. What He says is right. What He says is best, for us and for others. So we submit to God, as it says in verse 7…

When we do that, it changes the way we speak, yea James is circling back to that!

Speak No Evil

4:11-12

So lets say that we get a new law in Dyersburg, Mayor John puts it out tomorrow. What’s the new law?

Ok, and I decide that I don’t like that law. I decide that I’m not going to follow that law. I go out and break the law on purpose. I’m saying that I think I’m above the law and the one who gave the law.

When we speak evil of others, slander, talk about others so that people will think they look bad, we are rejecting Mark12:31 and saying that we are above the one who delivered that law. If we pass judgement on another person, that’s what we’re doing.

Let’s be clear about what “passing judgement on a person” means though…

We’re told to judge others behavior, or maybe not to judge but to use the judgments on behavior that God has revealed in Scripture…

But when we are seeking godliness instead of worldliness, we will stay away from speaking evil against other people.

When we put all this together we will find that our relationships will be God honoring and marked by peace most often. But we can’t truly do that until we have our relationship with God right through Jesus…