SSL 12 - James 4:6-17
LAST WEEK: In James 3:1-12, we heard James focus on the "Taming of the Tongue." He illustrated how small things, which he compared to the bit in a horse's mouth or the small rudder of a large ship, can potentially cause great harm and evil. James lets us know that what we say to others is a very big part of what we do, and gave us a very critical analysis of how we should speak to others. There were three main points of application: 1. Teachers must always be conscious of the potential influence they have over what they say because words are at the heart of the teaching ministry. Having an untrustworthy tongue will nearly always prove detrimental to those being taught. If you don't know the correct answer to a question say, "I don't know"-opinions are irrelevant. 2. Although the human tongue is small, it has power, for either good or evil, all out of proportion to its size. Of all the different ways our sin nature is capable of revealing itself, our tongues are the most likely outlet. Only when we understand and come to grips with the extent of the evil our tongues can cause-a "raging inferno ignited by hell itself" according to James-will we truly appreciate how potentially destructive our words can be. 3. The mastery of the tongue is a important sign of Christian maturity. The control of the tongue has both positive and negative characteristics: (1) it involves the ability to restrain the tongue in silence when you have nothing god-honoring or constructive to say; and (2) being able to control it with kind, respectful, and caring speech when and where it's needed. Speech and silence, appropriately expressed, are a milestone of Christian maturity.
THIS WEEK: We move to James 4:6-17, and hear him talk about how to befriend God and plan for the future with God's will in mind. Specifically, James tells us that God's grace will be extended to us if we will draw near to Him in humble submission, and how we can, with God's help, simultaneously resist the temptations of the devil. He sternly warns us against speaking evil of our Christian brothers and sisters and judging one another. The chapter ends with a call to conform our lives and make our plans according to the will of God-because we no assurance of tomorrow.
Read James 4:6-10 - THE SOLUTION FOR STRIFE: DRAW NEAR TO GOD
6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." 7 Submit yourselves therefore 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, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be wretched 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.
Note: In the first five verses of the chapter James describes the sinful condition of humanity, and in v. 5 states, "Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, "He [God] yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us"?
v. 6: "But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble" - The answer to the question of v. 5 is "God gives more grace." This greater grace informs us of God's desire and His power to overcome humanity's sinfulness. In fact, God gives us greater grace than we need. Conversely, citing Prov. 3:34 James also makes it clear that God does not give grace to the proud, the self-reliant, and self-righteous person; He opposes the proud. Instead, He gives grace to the humble-those who will admit that they are empty and ask God to fill them.
v. 7a: "Submit yourselves therefore to God" - You can go to a lot of seminars on how to be more assertive, but you won't find any on how to submit. It's not a popular concept, but it is a Biblical one. The word for "submit" (Gk. hypotasso) means to put yourself in rank under someone and accept their authority over you. The natural order of the created universe calls for us to submit to God, to allow God to rule our lives, and live in conformity to God's will. This is the starting place-submitting to God-everything else in the Christian life proceeds from it.
v. 7b: "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you" - This is the other side of the coin: We submit to God and at the same time, the devil will flee from us. When we humble ourselves and fully submit our life to God, God will grant us victory over-the power to resist-the devil. But it's not a one-time victory; Christians should expect the devil to attack again and again, but each time we resist, our ability to resist grows stronger. Since we live in a sinful world, this is an inevitable part of growing in Christian maturity.
TRUTH 1: Our submission to God should be unconditional. God is the ultimate and only sovereign authority in the universe. It should be obvious, not only to us as Biblical Christians but to anyone that rebelling against God's authority is foolhardy and dangerous.
TRUTH 2: Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. The word for "resist" (Gk. anthistémi) is where we get the term antihistamine. It means to actively oppose someone or something. When we humble ourselves and fully submit our life to God, He will equip us with the power to resist the devil.
v. 8: "Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded' - Here, James flips the coin again: If we resist the devil, we can expect that he will flee from us; on the other hand, if we draw near to God, we can be sure that God will draw near to us. But drawing near to God requires spiritual discipline, such as, prayer, reading of Scripture, private and corporate worship, serving in the church, and helping those who are vulnerable. This promise can be summed-up as: if we run toward God, we will find God running toward us. Even when we are guilty of sin, God is watching and waiting for us to repent-i.e., to be cleansed, purified, and stop being double-minded-humble ourselves, and return to Him.
TRUTH 3: If we draw near to God, He will draw near to us. It's easy for believers to drift away from God, but the truth of that statement is that it's not God who moved but us. Yet, God is always calling us to draw near to Him, with the promise that He's always ready to draw near to us.
v. 9: "Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom" - James is speaking of Christians: those who are outwardly happy-laughing-but are inwardly self-centered and selfish, who dislike or even hate others in the church and don't help the needy or give sacrificially to God's work. James uses the OT expression "mourn and weep" (Isa. 15:2; Jer. 6:26) to signify the repentant attitude these sinful believers should have toward God's impending judgment on them. True repentance requires us to be sorry for our sin-truly distressed for grieving God. Yet, this goes with joy: to truly experience the joy of forgiveness, you must feel the grief of your sin. Jesus said, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted" (Mt. 5:4).
v. 10: "Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you" - Returning to the theme of v. 6, James declares that God will exalt the humble. The word for "exalt" (Gk. hupsoó) means to lift up on high. If we recognize our own spiritual poverty and submit to God, He will lift us up, a promise!
James 4:11-12 - THE SOLUTIONS FOR STRIFE
11 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. 12 There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?
v.11: "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." - Here, James restates the basic problem of "taming the tongue" covered last week in Chapter 3. As we learned, speaking evil and slandering others stems from the sins of arrogant pride, jealousy, envy, and self-centered desires. When James says "speaks evil against the law," he is referring to the "royal law" that "you shall love your neighbor as yourself" (James 2:8). The point James makes is that those who wrongly judge others not only break God's law but show contempt for God Himself.
v. 12: "There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?" - (Note: James's isn't referring to secular law and courts but to the law of God). When anybody attempts to wrongly judge another, he is, in effect, assuming the place of the One lawgiver and judge-God. God made the law and only He has the right and authority to judge. On the flip side of vv. 11-12, if we obey the commands of vv. 7-10 and (1) submit to God, (2) draw near to God, and (3) humble ourselves before God, we will naturally feel led to seek right relationships with our Christian brothers and sisters, non-judgmental relationships characterized by love, caring, and consideration for one another.
TRUTH 4: If we speak evil against and judge a Christian brother or sister we are violating the royal law of God that "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." If we commit this sin, we not only break God's law but show contempt for God Himself. If we conscientiously obey the commands of vv. 7-10 and (1) submit to God, (2) draw near to God, and (3) humble ourselves before God, we will naturally and logically feel led to seek right relationships with our Christian brothers and sisters, non-judgmental relationships characterized by love, caring, and consideration for one another.
Read James 4:13-17 - BOASTING ABOUT TOMORROW
13 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"-14 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. 15 Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that." 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. 17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.
v. 13: "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" - In James' time, the cities of Palestine were heavily involved in commerce and trading in that part of the eastern Mediterranean. James' concern here is not with someone making a profit, but people who make plans with a this-world-only attitude that overestimates their own limitations and disregards God's providential control of events-people who plan and go as if God were unimportant or did not even exist. This same mindset extends to people today-and I mean Christians-who plan their education, their work, their location, their family, their retirement, etc. with little or no thought for God or what He would have them do in life. They make the mistake of segregating their lives between secular activities and spiritual activities-they go to church on Sunday, then on Monday, they're back in the world for the rest of the week.
vv. 14-15: "-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. 15 Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that." - C. H. Spurgeon, commenting on v. 14, said, "There are two great certainties on things that shall come to pass: one is that God knows, and the other is that we do not know. When James says our lives are like "a mist that appears for a little time and vanishes," he's telling us to stop and realize that every moment of our life, down to the smallest detail, is under the sovereign control of God, and we can't take tomorrow for granted. James isn't suggesting that we shouldn't make plans or invest wisely; he's simply saying that we should never do these things apart from reliance on God. With regard to our decision-making and planning, what James is telling us to do is to "submit to and draw near to God" according to the spiritual disciplines we discussed in v. 8, above, (let's go over it again). We should include God in everything we do, every day of our lives.
TRUTH 5: Christians who plan their lives with little or no thought for God or what He would have them do in life are guilty of having a this-world-only attitude that grossly overestimates their own limitations and disregards God's providential control of events. As we plan and make decisions in life, we must stop and realize that every moment of our existence, down to the smallest detail, is under the sovereign control of God, and we can't take tomorrow for granted.
v. 16: "As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil" - Anyone who thinks he or she can be self-reliant and live independent of God is boasting in his or her own arrogance. The word for arrogance (Gk. alazoneía) was derived from an expression about a wandering quack who makes fake boasts about having "miracle cures" to rid people of all their ills, like the old medicine shows. Very simply, anyone who has this attitude is deceiving himself or herself. Boasting has two distinct aspects: (1) it's always positive when it's about God and (2) always negative-sinful-when it's about self. It's about giving credit to God for every good thing.
v. 17: "So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin" - Plain and simple, James is talking about sins of omission. These are the things we fail to do. It happens to all us: We see some type of good work that we should do, e.g., a general request from the church to help with something, or maybe a person we need to minister to or pray for. We think about it and might even plan to do it but conveniently forget about it. The point is that it's not what we actually accomplish that matters, but that the good things we fail to do are equally important to God. The key word is "knows" (Gk. ginóskó = to know something first-hand). When we "know" about the right thing to do, we are obligated before God to do it, ASAP!
TRUTH 6: God not only cares about the good things we accomplish for Him but cares just as much about the things we fail to do. These are sins of omission. We sometimes see some type of good work that we ought to doing-it can be anything---we might think about it and might even plan to do it, but procrastinate, then conveniently forget about it. The point is that it's not what we actually accomplish that matters, but that the good things we fail to do are equally important to God. The key word is "knows" (Gk. ginóskó = to know something first-hand).When we "know" about the right thing to do, we are obligated before God to do it, ASAP!
