James 4:1-17 On who is wise and who is foolish. Fighting sin in the Church.
The whole of James 4 is a lesson on Christian Proverbs and a seething rebuke of the attitudes of the Church that have crept into the body of believers. He starts out with the question, “Who causes quarrels and what causes fights among you?” (James 4:1) It is the passions of the world. The desires of “self” turn us away from grace. James states that the passions of the human self are at war with the Spiritual self. It is foolishness to think that God wants us to bicker and quarrel with each other. Wisdom is to think of the other before ourselves and to consider each other’s views, circumstance and life when worshiping Christ.
James 4:2 continues with. “You desire so you murder. You covet what you can not obtain.” So what do you do? You plot against each other. Rick Warren, in Forty Days of Love, relates how we are told to care for one another fifty-eight times in the New Testament. While I have not looked them all up, I am sure that he is right. How can we care for each other if we covet or are angry because others have what we do not? How can we love Christ if we plot against one another?
James 4:3 relates that if we pray without the Spirit of God, asking for the worldly things so as to reap material or social gain, we do not receive any blessings. We must be of a pure heart, not a selfish one. James 4:4-5 equate these desires as adultery. Loving the World while claiming to Love God is being double minded, worshiping the things of the world while proclaiming to worship God. You can’t do both. He says, “Whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself to be an enemy of God.”(James 4:4) Yet James tells us that the Holy Spirit jealously yearns for our hearts and that is why God dwells within us. To seek after the things of the world and to seek to cause damage to others, grieves the Spirit within us.
James 4:6 quotes Proverbs 3:34 from the Greek, “The LORD mocks the mockers but he shows favor to the humble.” He could have added the next verse as well, Prov. 3:35, “The wise inherit honor, but fools are put to shame!” God gives Grace to those who abide in kindness. As you show love toward one another, He blesses you with more and more grace. He tells us to submit to God in His will. We are to resist the wiles of Satan and devote ourselves to being caring and obedient. If we do this and are persistent in it, the devil will flee.
James 4:8,9 may have been read as this: “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.” He seems to be talking to those who as Christians have reclaimed the ways of the flesh and in their sins, rejected the teachings of Jesus to Love one another as Christ loved them. James 4:10 admonishes them to humble themselves, to submit to God’s holy ways and to return from the wickedness that plagues the church. Be humble and let God exalt you. Do not seek glory or fame or position for yourselves but let the Spirit of God within the body of elders do it. We are to lament our wrong doings, rely on God to lift us up and be pure and blameless before the body of believers and Christ who is the head of the Church.
James 4:11-12 speaks of slander, judgement and spiritual lawlessness. We are told to not judge each other, not to quibble about the Law. God is the Judge of our hearts and the Lawgiver. When we challenge the Law of God and condone or excuse sin or when we create “new sins” we are saying that we are better than God in interrupting the Law of Christ and His Heavenly Father. When we set ourselves up as judge and jury over others in the church, without a clear spiritual understanding of the purpose of scripture, we question God. There is only One Lawgiver, and that is God. There is only one Judge and that is Jesus. Only Jesus can save or condemn, Who are we to set a standard or requirements as did the Pharisees? Do we set standards that are unlivable? Are we questioning the faith of other by standards that we set for ourselves? Do we judge others by their clothing or by their status in the community? Do we judge others by their past and not their present or future heart? Jesus didn’t, so why should we?
James speaks against the planning of the future rather than trusting in God to provide. James 4:13-14 reads, “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.” This is much like Jesus telling us that the birds of the air and the lilies of the field do not worry about tomorrow, how much more would your Heavenly Father care for you? While it is good to make wise choices and plan for the future, do not think for a moment that it matters for you spiritual needs. I can attest to the fact that all the efforts I made in my youth to secure a future for my family failed. Every investment failed. Every scheme was a disaster and when I turned it all over to God, only then did I find a future that provided me with what I needed. And only by God’s timing and His planning was I given more than I sought. God’s Grace is enough for me. If I can bless another, I am blessed, and richer for it.
That is why the next verse, James 4:15 says that you “… ought to say, ‘If God wills, we will live and do this.’” As it is, our arrogance leads us onto a path of moral destruction and an animosity towards others. As Paul fought for the unity of believers, we still persist in trying to go it alone, without each other and without God. We leave our spirituality in the church and put our trust in manna and the world.
It is our arrogance that leads us into boasting of our fortune, much as the rich man in the parable who dies in the night as he plans to build more silos (Luke 12:16-21), or as the rich man who rejected the leper, Lazarus, and found himself in Hades amidst the fires (Luke 16:19-31). The final verse, James 4:17, tells us that, “Whoever know the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.” Put aside our pride, our greed, our gloating and our arrogant self-serving natures and put on the cloak of kindness, gentleness and genuine Love. Remove our desire to be exalted and cling to humility. Let God exalt us in His time and in His Way.
