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Sunday 07/27/25
Title: Friendship with the world is hostility towards God
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Friendship with the world is hostility towards God
Now so that you do not miss the development of this thought and where James was intentionally heading with these Jewish believers from the onset, recall with me…
Chapter 1:
- Treat times of trial & and temptation with excited anticipation knowing that WHEN you are proven you will be honored with knowing Christ more.
- Don’t doubt the power of God’s word to you.
- If you lack wisdom (James draws from Jesus and Solomon)
- Quick to hear, slow to anger & words
- Receiving the engrafted word like the ‘ ‘The Good Heart’ in Jesus’ the ‘Parable of the heart soils’.
- A genuine relationship of trust and worship or produce maturity.
- Maturity will manifest in the ability to control your mouth.
- Sure worship of God this manifested by works of service and keeping yourself clean from the world
Chapter 2:
- Don’t have dead faith
- Live out your faith
Chapter 3:
- It requires maturity in Christ to live by the Spirit and tame the tongue
- Wisdom comes with maturity and both are the product of a relationship of intimacy with God and Trust
- If you are self seeking, envious with bitter jealousy then you are a child in the faith and carnal with character that is both unproven and unapproved.
Chapter 4:
So when James begins chapter 4 he starts with the statement that is essentially saying…
“All of these things being true you tell me where are all of your fights and Wars and jealousies and outbursts coming from?”
Let’s read
James 4:1-4,
“(1) Where do the conflicts and where do the quarrels among you come from?
Is it not from this, from your passions that battle inside you?”
James, like Paul in Romans 6-8, identifies the location and therefore the source of all these carnal, infantile practices and that is the body. The very place we’re sin and death still reside.
But Paul also tells us that God the Father, through Jesus has set us free from the shackles of sin & death which are in the body unto a Living Hope under a new law – that of the spirit of life that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Remember Paul in chapter 7 of Romans said that…
“if I sin it is no longer I who do but the sin that dwells in me. For I know that in me that is in my flesh nothing good dwells.”
James 4…
“ (2) You desire and you do not have;
you murder and envy and you cannot obtain;
You quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask; (3)
you ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly, so you can spend it on your passions.”
Passions are referring to unchecked carnal desires. These desires are focused upon this lower life and are therefore contrary to Christ. They are not subject to Christ nor indeed can they be according to Romans 8.
The bitter and toxic nature of these words which were patently true of these believers was so poignant and cutting in the soul of James that the next word he penned was almost an outburst! It rose from the frustration of an apostle who wished above all things that his Jewish brothers and sisters in Christ might have Christ formed in them. But their devotion to the aspirations of their petty lower lives crippled them in relation to the greatness of Christ being formed in them.
Writing them must have been much like trying to lift the attention of a child toward the academic work of grade school while they are still unwilling to let go of their preschool toys.
It truly must have been frustrating and deeply hurtful. No doubt it reminded James of the statements of God under the Old Covenant regarding the Jewish people… that they were “a stiff neck people” who “drew near God” with the emptiness of external services but whose hearts were still far, far away from Him.
So in the throws of such frustrations at their infantile and carnal natures Jame finds expression in this one emphatic descriptive word!
4) “Adulterers!”
Of course you know that the idea of Israel being in adultery was anything but new. But I want you to consider something for a moment.
Even here, in one of the harshest examples of cavalier, wanton and almost gratuitous sin in a follower of God, we hear words of revealing tender intimacy and the sting of betrayal.
One of the true tests for me and knowing I’m brushing up against the divine is when it shocks my thinking and at first looks like something out of place. Because my thoughts aren’t his thoughts and my ways are not his ways.
Seriously, out of all the words that could be used for the unfaithfulness of a religious people to their God, ADULTERY is not what would normally, naturally spring to mind.
That’s one of the reasons why I know that our faith is real.
No religion made by man would ever have aspired to the idea of being married to their God.
- His creatures, yes.
- His servants certainly.
- Those who must grovel in order to obtain favor or at very least to avoid Wrath yes as it is in nearly every expression of religious thought throughout human history.
But married?
The intimacy of that is so unbelievable that it has to be true! It’s too audacious to be anything else!
Then as the din of that exclamation was still ringing in their ears James presses them relationally to see, acknowledge & with hope be ashamed of their treason by using relational words to describe their unfaithfulness.
James 4…
“Do you not know that friendship with the world means hostility toward God?
So whoever decides to be the world’s friend makes himself God’s enemy.”
So you can readily see this is building upon all James has been saying from the beginning, so that he can arrive at this point of confrontation of these Jewish saints?
With passages like this in the Bible it’s impossible for me to understand how, as Tozer said in the 60s, that a whole new generation of Christians have been born who believe that they can accept Christ without forsaking the world. One thing is for certain. They didn’t get that from scripture!
Let’s examine these words more closely…
- Adulteress – Unfaithfulness to God out of a desire for worldly things or out of desiring the acceptance and love of those in the world. In the NT, the word is generally used of those who neglect God and their duty toward Him and yield themselves to their own lusts and passions.
- Friendship – philía -This is the noun form of the word “friend” later in the verse. To befriend, love, kiss, have fondness for. In our passage of James 4:4, philía involves the adopting of the interests of the world as one’s own.
- World – kosmos – Both here and later in the verse this has the same meaning which is the influence of the spirit or temperament of the world. It’s flesh oriented desires and pursuits – it is a world view which embraces moral corruption.
- Decides – to desire, to aim at being
- Friend – philos – loved, dear, friendly, kind – sharing the same desires, pursuits and values as another. “philos” highlights a relationship of intimacy and loyalty to the world’s values, rather than to God’s values.
Commentaries explain that this “friendship with the world” signifies a compromise with the values and methods of fallen humanity, and a rejection of God’s ways.
It implies a close relationship, an affection, or even an emotional attachment, that is directed towards worldly things and systems rather than towards God.
Here in James 4:4, it underscores the idea that those who align themselves with the world’s pursuits and values are in a state of conflict and disloyalty towards God.
- Enemy – hostile, a hated adversary or enemy.
James 4:5-17,
“(5) Or do you think the scripture means nothing when it says, “The Spirit that God caused to live within us has an envious yearning”?
(6) But He gives greater grace.”
Just like Paul who in Romans 7 said that “where sin abounds, Grace does much more abound”.
But even that fact is often misunderstood by this generation because in their ignorance they substitute Mercy for Grace. They assume what James and Paul are saying is that God’s forgiveness or tolerance increases and nothing could be further from the truth. Let me ask you to remind me….. what does Paul tell Titus that the grace of God teaches us?
“ to deny ungodliness and worldly lust and live righteously”
To think that God increasing His grace just means He is taking a more tolerant stance towards sin which frees us from having to take sin too seriously is to slip further into pride. Such thinking exalts what we want above what offends God.
What James goes on to say here is quite country to that kind of thinking. Instead of being tolerant, God actively resists the proud!
Let’s read it…
James 4
“Therefore it says,
“God opposes the proud, but He gives grace to the humble.” (quoted from Proverbs 3:34)
“(7) So submit to God. But resist the devil and he will flee from you.”
And then we get to the point James was heading at since he told us what purpose the devil was trying to serve by bringing Temptations & and trials into our lives.
Does anyone remember what the goal of Temptation is? To draw you away!
So James says the Cure is to submit to God, resist the devil’s influence of Temptation and DRAW NEAR!
“(8) Draw near to God and He will draw nearto you.”
“Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and make your hearts pure, you double-minded.”
This verse has become a stumbling block for many in the modern church who are SO in love with the fact that they HAVE been made righteous (in our spirit) that they have all but totally ignored that they rarely behave that way.
They mistakenly believe that righteousness is simply a state of legal reality and not a living truth which regulates and even dictates our actions.
As such they read the words “you sinners” and come to the unbiblical and contextually unfounded belief that this MUST be referring to non-christians OR that this book should not be in the canon of scripture.
The evidence against Jame’s letter being to non-believers is so startling and overwhelming that I feel as if I am being regressed to the 2nd grade to explain how this letter could be nothing else BUT to Christians.
Suffice it to say, that like 1 John, which seems to elicit the same juvenile and uninformed response from Christians like this, neither of these books ever preach the gospel of initial salvation. This should make these arm-chair theologians scratch their heads.
I mean, if James and John are really talking to non-believers, and if the scriptures are inspired by God, why don’t they tell them about salvation through faith and confession of the Lordship of Jesus.
Why instead do they tell them to DO things to fix their problems rather than just placing their faith in Christ?
There is not a single hint of an evangelistic note in either of these letters.
- No call to initial faith in Christ’s redemptive work
- No call to salvation
- No call to righteousness and holiness apart from the works of the law
- No mention of how circumcision no longer has any power under the New Covenant.
You know, the kind of things any thinking person would expect – especially in James which is a letter written to Jews. But these are Christian Jews!
So let me be clear.
This word “sinner” in the NT, is used metaphorically as an adjective or substantive.
The Greek word is hamartolos. It is a substantive form of hamartōlón. Or the adjective form of hamartánō(G264), and means to deviate, miss the mark, to sin. It is an erring away from the way or mark.
In our translation it is represented as a substantive or a noun thus, the word “sinner” is used to describe these people in the same way that the color blue might be used to describe a car.
Grammatically the word “hamartolos” is an adjective, meaning “sinful” or “erring“.
In the New Testament, it frequently appears with the definite article, which indicates its use as a substantive, referring to “the sinful ones” or, “sinners“. Therefore, its frequent use with the article makes it function like a noun, thus describing a person characterized by sin.
Some translations develop the sentence in verse 8 so as to arrive at “sinner” being an adjective thereby calling these people “sinful” or “evil-doers” or “realize you have sinned” rather than calling them “sinners”.
In either case it is precisely the exact same thing!
But knee jerk reactions to words like these cause arm-chair theologians to make sweeping declarations of ignorance which lead many people astray.
Who in reading the initial statements regarding the hearts, appetites and actions of these believers could flinch at their being called “sinners”?
James is now set to offer these Christian Jews who are caught up in sin – advice. It is NOT advice to get saved for they are already saved. It is advice to change what they are DOING!
“(9) Grieve, mourn, and weep.
Turn your laughter into mourning and your joy into despair.
(10) Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you.”
The time for Joy has passed!
Joy is for the journey you take with Him.
Joy is for strength in the trial so that you might not falter and fall into sin.
But if you fall into sin and remain there for a period of time, then it’s no longer a time for joy but a time for “grief, mourning and tears”.
The exaltation which results from this act of genuine contrition and humility, is the same type of exaltation God will give to ANYONE, sinning or not, if they will humble themselves before Him.
This is precisely what satan was wanting to tempt Paul away from with the “thorn in the flesh”. The devil did not want Paul to be exalted due to his submission to God in the heavenly vision he received. So he rose natural opposition up against Paul nearly everywhere he went.
James goes on and says,
“(11) Do not speak against one another, brothers and sisters. He who speaks against a fellow believer or judges a fellow believer speaks against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but its judge.”
Notice James says if they speak against one another they are speaking against fellow believers!
James also seems to be pretty well convinced that as a Christian you should be a doer of the law and not a hearer only.
“(12) But there is only One Who is Lawgiver and Judge – the One Who is able to save and destroy.
On the other hand, who are you to judge your neighbor?”
This accords well with what Paul said in Romans 14:4,
“Who are you to judge another’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand, for God is able to make him stand.”
James 4…
“(13) Come now, you who say,
“Today or tomorrow we will go into this or that town and spend a year there and do business and make a profit.” (14) You do not know about tomorrow.
What is your life like? For you are a puff of smoke that appears for a short time and then vanishes.
(15) You ought to say instead,
“If the Lord is willing, then we will live and do this or that.”
(16) But as it is, you boast about your arrogant plans. All such boasting is evil.
(17) So whoever knows what is good to do and does not do it is guilty of sin.”
Blessings!
Tri
