God's Friend (James 4:1-10)

GOD’S FRIEND (JAMES 4:1-10)
A clergyman once met an old schoolmate of whose activities he had long been ignorant, and finding him a judge of good standing congratulated him upon his success in life.

As they were parting, the clergyman said to him, “And best of all, Judge, I find you are a member of our church.”

“Well,” said the judge, “that’s more a matter of chance than anything else. You see, when I was getting established in my profession, my wife and I thought we ought to join a church— it was the respectable thing to do. So, after mature deliberation, we settled down with a certain denomination and got on very well for a time; but they kept harping on faith, till we pretty soon discovered that they required more faith than we had; so it became necessary to make a change. We turned the matter over considerably and at last, for various reasons, made up our minds to join another denomination. Here we found the demand was work, work incessantly; and it was presently apparent that they demanded more work than we were able to perform. It was with great reluctance that we concluded that we must change again, and we cast about with much caution, that this move might be final. At last we decided to connect ourselves with your church, sir, and have gotten along famously ever since without either faith or works.” (Illustrations of Bible Truths # 544)

The book of James famously asserted three times, “Faith without works is dead” (Jas 2:17, 20, 26). In chapter three James warns of an external threat: the tongue. In chapter four he warns of an internal threat. What threat rivals or even surpasses the tongue as a destructive force? What is so dominant and dangerous that it can lead to fights and quarrels (v 1) lust/want (v 2a), even killing and coveting (v 2b) to obtain it? How can we contain, correct and even conquer it?

Exercise Control Over Your Longings
1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. (James 4:1-3)

Hong Kong people are familiar with the name of Tony Chan. The lawsuit he filed is known as the Lawsuit of the Century. In 2007 Tony Chan producing a different will to seize the US$4.2 billion fortune, as estimated by Forbes in 2007, left by Asia’s richest woman, Nina Wang, the month she died, the money which she left to charity. Details of Tony Chan quickly emerged in the media. Born in 1959, 20-23 years younger than Nina Wang, the geomancer and a father of three claimed to be Nina Wang’s lover for 15 years and the sole beneficiary to her riches. One newspaper calls him “the one-time bartender, salesman, waiter and market researcher.” More than one witness testified that Tony Chan boasted about a medical degree obtained in Canada.

New York Times reported that Mr. Chan admitted that he had received $258 million from her, his two brothers helping him cart away more than $1.5 million cash from her offices at night in cash-stuffed bags carried out in several trips.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/15/world/asia/15hongkong.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper


After more than two years of trial, the court ruled that Wang's signature on the 2006 will produced by Tony Chan to be a forgery. Mr. Chan was arrested on the next day but later released on bail. The Inland Revenue of Hong Kong demanded (more than) HK$300 million (US$38.46 million) in back taxes on the money for services he received from Ms. Wang, which he claimed were gifts.

This week a newspaper captures the latest photo of the bucktooth man returning to court minus his “$40, 000” smile. http://news.china.com.cn/rollnews/2010-06/11/content_2633161.htm

James chapter4 gets right to the source of readers’ fights and quarrels, employing a favorite literary device called “chiasm” in Jewish literature, with verses 1 and 4 end with same word in Greek: translated as desires in verse 1 and pleasures in verse 3, plural form in both verses, or hedone in Greek, from where we get the English word “hedonism,” the pleasure principle or the playboy lifestyle. What is the word hedone? It is our impulse, itch, indulgence working overtime. It is insatiable, indecent and immoral. Vine’s describes this “desire” as “the gratification of the natural desire or sinful desires.” This word occurs only five times in the New Testament, two of which are in James (vv 1, 3), but its most vivid description is in 2 Peter 2:13-14: “Their idea of PLEASURE is to carouse in broad daylight. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you. With eyes full of adultery, they never stop sinning; they seduce the unstable; they are experts in greed — an accursed brood!”

The verb “battle” (strateuomai) in verse 1 is used in the military context, of a military campaign, conquest or cause, so it is merciless, menacing and militant. Furthermore, it is a participle (“-ing”), the only participle in verses 1-10, the gerund suggesting that the battling or warring is active, functioning, progressing and continuous.

After speaking of how our desires progress, James states its purpose. “That” in verse 3 is the only traditional “because/for the purpose of” (hina) in the whole chapter – only two in the whole book (James 1:4), which is unique and rare and unseen for a book of five chapters. The previous “because” (v 3) is a soft “because” and not the traditional word for purpose or even reason. The first “desire’ (v 1) concerns the ongoing process (“battling” participle in verse 1). The second “desire” (v 3) concerns the purpose (hina), to spend it on your pleasures. The word “wrong motives” (v 3) is kakos or evil in Greek. Spend (v 3) is used in a bad, negative sense, which means to waste, to squander. NIV’s translation is “consume.”

In between the two “desires” (vv 1, 3), James inserts five negative “not’s” in verses 2-3: don’t (“ouk”), cannot (“ou”), do not (“ou”), do not (“me”) in verse 2; and do not (“ouk”) in verse 3. The Greek transliteration for the first verb in verse 2 is you lust (epithumeo) and not (you) have. The second is you kill (phoneuo) and you envy (zeloo) and not able to obtain. Third, you strive (machomai) and you war (polemeo) – the verbs to the nouns in verse 1 (“fights and quarrels”) arranged in the reverse as “quarrel and fight.” The negation serves as a rejection of their pursuit, practice and petition.

Exercise Caution in Your Liaison
4 You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely? 6 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” (James 4:4-6)

In ancient Greece, Socrates was reputed to hold knowledge in high esteem. One day one fellow met the great philosopher and said, “Do you know what I just heard about your friend?” “Hold on a minute,” Socrates replied. “Before telling me anything I'd like you to pass a little test. It's called the Triple Filter Test.”

“Triple filter?” “That's right,” Socrates continued. “Before you talk to me about my friend, it might be a good idea to take a moment and filter what you're going to say. That's why I call it the triple filter test. The first filter is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?”

“No,” the man said, “actually I just heard about it and...”. “All right,” said Socrates. “So you don't know if it's true or not. Now let's try the second filter, the filter of Goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about my friend something good?” “No, on the contrary...” “So,” Socrates continued, “you want to tell me something bad about him, but you're not certain it's true. You may still pass the test though, because there's one filter left: the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my friend going to be useful to me?”

“No, not really.” “Well,” concluded Socrates, “if what you want to tell me is neither true nor good nor even useful, why tell it to me at all?”

Flirtation and friendship is most unfortunate and unfavorable.
James used three unflattering and unfavorable terms to call out people tied and trapped by their pleasures, lusts and desires: adulterous people, friend of the world, and enemy of God (v 4).

What is an adulteress, feminine in the text (v 4)? She is one who strays from his legally wedded husband. In this context the church is the straying bride of Christ. Believers are supposed to be married to Him, owned by Him, and true to Him.

What is a friend of the world? Friendship with the world is one’s attachment to the world, admiration of the world, and affection for the world. Christ is our true friend because, by definition, a friend is one who is unconditional but uncompromising, improves and inspires you. A true friend won’t let you do sinful, shameful or spiteful things, as a slogan against drunk driving says, “Friends won't let friends drive drunk.” A friend is one who is one who you are likely to trust in, to talk to and turn to, to travel with and think about.

James is not fond of using the conjunction “therefore” but he chooses to use his first in the book in verse 4 (before “Anyone…” in NIV). What does “an enemy of God” mean? Verse 6 will answer it: “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” The only type of people God is known to ad is sure to opposed in the Bible are the proud (also in 1 Peter 5:5). The proud (huperephanos) in verse 6 is one who seems to tower over or above others. It is from a preposition “over/above” and the verb “manifest/shine,” so the proud are those who make themselves one-up over others. “Resist” (anti-tassomai) is from “anti” (against) and the verb “arrange” or “assign” “appoint.” In Acts 7:10 “gives grace” parallels Joseph’s story: “(God) delivered him out of all his afflictions, and gave him favour (grace) and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh king of Egypt; and he made him governor over Egypt and all his house.” (KJV)

Exercise Changes in Your Life
7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. (James 4:7-10)

A kangaroo kept getting out of his enclosure at the zoo. Knowing that he could hop pretty high, the zoo officials put up a ten-foot fence. However, the next morning the kangaroo was out again, just roaming around the zoo.

The zoo officials raised the height of the fence to twenty feet. Again, however, the next morning the kangaroo was again roaming around the zoo.

This kept on, night after night, until the fence was sixty feet high. Finally, the camel in the next enclosure asked the kangaroo, “How high do you think they’ll go?” The kangaroo replied, “Probably a hundred feet, unless somebody starts locking the gate at night!”

It is obvious that sin must be dealt with.

There is an intense edge to verses 7-10 not seen in other passages of the same length, but the most extraordinary part is the record number of ten imperatives in four verses. What is an imperative? It is not an invitation, a suggestion or a request. Imperatives are mandatory, obligatory and compulsory. It is not “good to have it,” “grateful to have it” but “got to have it.” It is direct, demanding, and definitive.

The nine imperatives can be grouped into three categories:
1. Rely on God. The three actions are under God (HUPO-tasso, v 7), near God (v 8), and before God (v 10). Submit or “hupo-tasso” (“under-arrange”) in Greek is to arrange or place under – to subordinate, subject and surrender oneself under a higher authority. Draw near implies distance.

2. Resist the devil (v 7). The next is resist (anthistemi), which uses another preposition “anti.” Resist means anti-stand or withstand in Greek. The devil does not merely walk, run or leave; he will FLEE as fast as he can from you. If you notice there are three verbs from verses 7-10 that are not imperatives, but they are future tenses, beginning with “he (the devil) will flee from you.” The others are “he will come near to you” (v 8) and “he will lift you up” (v 10). The future tenses here serve as a promise to the James’ ten-step prescription (imperative).

3. Repent from sins
The imperatives involved are (1) wash your hands, (2) purify your hearts (3) grieve (4) mourn (5) wail (6) change. Hands and hearts mean internal and external. Repentance is an attitude and not an activity, transformation and not merely talk, renewal and not rejection.

Conclusion: A desire is an attraction and an amusement that turns into an attachment and addiction. No matter how fast it can run, a sports car without brakes is doomed. In the same way, a person without control, caution and care fails as a person and a believer. Is there a sin you have not confessed or committed to God? Has something or someone taken the place of God in your life? Sin results in deceit, darkness and doom, but confession of sin leads to righteousness, revival and reconciliation.