Friendship with the World: Are You Playing the Wrong Game?
Picture a card game with friends. Everything's going fine, then you switch games. You deal new cards, set up right, and from the outside it looks like you've changed. But you're still playing by the old rules, keeping the wrong cards, running a strategy that doesn't fit the new game, looking like you don't actually know what you're doing. Your team gets frustrated. You lose. Not because you didn't switch games, but because you kept the old goals and priorities inside the new one.
James 4 and 5 say a lot of us are doing this with our lives. We say we've changed, we say we're following Jesus, but we're still running on the goals and priorities we had before.
James doesn't waste time getting there.
You Adulterous People (v. 4)
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. (James 4:4, ESV)
James isn't talking about people running around having affairs. He's not talking about people committing the big, open sins, the ones straight off the Ten Commandments. What he addresses is people who say they are Christians but still live like they're not.
He calls them adulterous people not because they're committing the big sins. He's referencing the way God talked about the nation of Israel throughout the books of the prophets. God saw his relationship with Israel as a marriage, one he had committed to. He was going to provide for them, care for them, protect them. In response, they were supposed to submit to and follow him. But instead, they went through the motions of the relationship. They showed up for sacrifices on Saturday. They used his name. But they were also constantly worshiping idols on the side.
Friendship with the world isn't about having friends outside the church. It's adopting the goals and priorities of the people around you instead of the ones Jesus called you to. Maybe that's ignorance, you stepped into salvation but never realized the rest of your life was supposed to change too. Or maybe it's a choice, you knew, and you drifted back anyway because it's not fun to be different than everybody else.
He Yearns Jealously (v. 5-6)
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." (James 4:5-6, ESV)
Verse five is one of the most controversial verses in the New Testament. Depending on your translation, it can mean one of two things. It can mean what the ESV says right here, he yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us. Or it can mean, honestly, no bias in the translation, that your spirit longs for sin. It's a genuinely ambiguous Greek sentence, and we're not real sure which one James meant.
Here's why I'm not worried about it. Either one works. Either one is true. My own self longs for sin. I want it. I strongly desire it. That's true. But what's also true is that Jesus longs for me, that God's plan was to rescue me, to send Jesus to die on the cross to rescue me. And whichever one James meant, here's what's true: I am always going to be tempted to adopt the priorities and goals of the world. I'm always going to be tempted.
That's the hinge of the whole passage. In spite of all of this, God gives more grace. My favorite word in that verse is more. The thing that's going to rescue you from having the wrong goals and priorities, from playing the wrong game despite whatever cards are in front of you, is the same thing that saved you in the first place. Grace. You cannot fix this on your own. There's a part for you to play, but it's probably not what you think it is. He's the one who changes you if you don't get in the way.
Four Things, Not Fix Yourself (v. 7-8)
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. (James 4:7-8a, ESV)
Submit to God. The first step is humility, the second step is submission. Go to God and say, I'm wrong, I messed this up, I want to be different. I want you to change me. I want to see where my goals are wrong. Jesus, change me.
Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. There's a force actively working against you to keep you where you're at. But the reason his voice is so loud is because that's generally the only voice you're hearing. When you adopt the goals and priorities of the world, you get farther and farther away from God, and God's voice is quiet. You've got to want to hear it. But Satan talks loud, and when you're not spending time in the word or in prayer, all you're going to hear is him. Resist him though, and he'll flee from you. The moment you say, I reject this, I don't care what everybody else is doing, I want to honor Jesus, Satan moves away.
Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Spend time with him, spend time in the word, spend time in prayer, gather with the church, be stirred up to love and good works. It gets a lot harder to hear Satan because there's not room for him. Your body's still going to want sin, you're still going to be tempted. But when you're not filling your life with his voice and his word, there's a vacant area Satan can move into, and he will. So push him out.
So he gives us four things to do. Humble yourself. Submit to God. Resist the devil. Draw near to God. You want to know what he doesn't say in any of those four things? Fix yourself. The way you solve this isn't by muscling through it on your own. It's all about relationship. It's all about what you're putting into your life and what you're listening to. And who changes you? God changes you.
The Reaction God Wants (v. 8-10)
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. (James 4:8b-10, ESV)
He says, cleanse your hands, you sinners. Wash the sin off your hands. We don't have the actual purification rituals of the Old Testament anymore, so instead it's seeking forgiveness, getting the sin away from your hands, removing the things that are leading you into it. And purify your hearts. This purity isn't just about cleanliness, it's about singularity of purpose. Get yourself figured out. Determine that you're going to chase after God.
But then this is important. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. You don't get to go in this and say, "Ah, I messed up, I'll do better." Be broken over the depth and depravity of your sin. Humble yourself. Point out how bad you are and how great he is. Honor and worship him, not just because of what he's done for you, but because of who he is.
And if you do that, he will lift you up. He will exalt you. If you keep walking around like it's not that big of a deal, if you keep walking around knowing what you know and not willing to change, then he will humble you himself.
This is week one of a series in James 4-5. Watch the full message below.
Catching up on this series?
