LISTEN
WATCH
READ
Main Idea
A desire for the things of this world will put you at odds with God and His people.
Years ago, before I existed in this world, my grandparents were a part of a church they loved and were active in. But, one day, that all changed, and their fellowship was torn apart. I don’t know what fueled this decision from the church. Whether it was a decision made from financial desperation or anger toward the non-tithers… the result was damaging. One Sunday, my grandparents and their kids walked into the church to discover their names were listed on the main bulletin board with all the other people who had not tithed that month. My grandfather knew they hadn’t tithed because they had recently taken in his mother to care for her and were buried beneath medical bills, but that didn’t matter to the church leadership. It was horribly embarrassing for them and caused a tremendous amount of anger, as you could imagine. It has also had a lasting negative impact on some of my family members to this day, who see Christians in the church as hypocrites. The church is filled with sinners who fall short of God’s glory but are justified by His grace, so we don’t expect absolute perfection. Unfortunately, our sin nature overcomes our new nature more often than not. Many of us have experienced wounds from brothers and sisters in the church, and wounds from family cut the deepest. This happens today, and it happened from the very beginning in James’ day.
Passage
James 4:1–6 ESV
What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. 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. 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.”
I – Infighting (vv. 1-2)
What are the sources of your infighting? There are quarrels (which can be defined as a state of hostility/antagonism, strife, and conflict), and there are fights (literally opposing fighters in the church who wage battles fought without weapons). As hard as it is to believe that such hostility against one another grew in the span of a decade or two (Jesus died and resurrected circa. 30 AD, and James wrote his letter in the early 40s AD), it was running rampant in the early church. I have flashbacks of fighting against my brother as a kid and mom stuffing us both into one t-shirt… or heads both poking out from the same neck hole and all… in the hopes that a vastly uncomfortable shared space would encourage us to stop fighting and get along. As the infant church grew, they seemed to act like any other toddler. You don’t need to teach them to be selfish or greedy. That comes from an inherited sin nature. Whoever said toddlers are innocent clearly have never had one, am I right? They need to be taught how to share, be kind, etc.… So, as the early church shuffled up to her legs and started to learn how to walk, James saw what was happening: their puzzling reaction to their trials, sins of favoritism, lack of active compassion toward the needy, yielding to carnal temptations, use of a destructive and unbridled tongue, and inclination to chase worldly wisdom. He is like a contractor who analyzes the symptoms of an unstable house – the windows that won’t open, cracks in the drywall, and the leaky chimney. And, like any good contractor, he identifies the symptoms but ultimately addresses the root cause… the faulty foundation. James has addressed many issues and pointed out how to trust God with those issues, but now, he zeroes in on the source: the hedonistic passions at war within you.
The inner war. Paul described this well in Galatians: the flesh and the Spirit are at war with one other, and there is a natural harvest to whichever you give yourself over to. Indulgence in the flesh leads to a host of unrighteous acts, while submission to God’s Holy Spirit yields the fruit of the Spirit. This is precisely what James just explained: how bitter envy and selfish ambition lead to every evil practice while pursuing God’s wisdom produces purity, peace, gentleness, mercy, and other good fruits. Now, James drives this reality home by addressing their hearts. Their hedonistic passions (“pleasure” in Greek is where we get our English word hedonism) wage war on what the Spirit of God is teaching them. Maybe you can relate. Do you feel the struggle as you strive to live out the moral law of Christ? Do you feel your old self rise and fight against the new person God has created you to be? Maybe seeing this in yourself will help you empathize with an early church without written New Testament instruction.
Takeaway #1: In a fallen world, we all face an inner struggle between two warriors, and it matters who we train. The more we give into temptation, the more we empower the wicked warrior of our evil self. The more we submit to the Spirit, reject temptation, and pursue righteousness, the more our new self will be strengthened to fight the wicked warrior.
The impact of the internal war overflows in the Body of Christ. Though the term “cause and effect” probably wasn’t used back then, James points it out. Your inner battles never remain caged up inside you. They will always break through to the outside. The victor will make their victory known. If the new self wins the battle, the harvest of righteousness filled with the fruits mentioned in 3:17 will benefit the Body of Christ. Unfortunately, the wicked warrior was constantly winning. Look at how James describes the battle:
You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel.
Your lust and covetousness compel you to murder. This wasn’t likely physical murder, or else Rome would have come and arrested all the murderers. This is more likely a spiritual murder that Jesus emphasized (you murder when you harbor anger/hatred toward your brother or sister (Matt. 5:21-2) because murder begins in the heart) that is equally as destructive. Your envy and dissatisfaction fuel the fights.
Takeaway #2: The war within the believer sparks a war within the body of Christ.
II – Asking and Receiving (vv. 2-3)
When speaking about trials and our need for wisdom, James made it clear that God gives generously. We shouldn’t be so narrow-minded as to think His generosity stops there. Yet, how often do we fall victim to the same mindset as the early believers? They envied, lusted, and then pursued… thinking it was all up to them.
You forgot to ask. But what happened to asking God? In addition to His generosity, isn’t every good and perfect gift delivered to us from His hand? Maybe the reason you don’t have what your friend or sibling has is that you neglected time with your Heavenly Father and failed to pray for it. I can see a few different reasons for this.
1. You neglected prayer. A relationship with God is just that… a relationship… which requires an investment of time. No earthly father wants their children to come to them so that they can hand off their wish list. That isn’t relational; it’s transactional. And, if your prayer life mainly consists of asking God for this and that, then it is no wonder why you fail to pray. You haven’t invested in a relationship. Now, when you see someone who has or is experiencing what you desire, then you take it upon yourself to be the one to go and get it.
2. You know you shouldn’t ask. This is probably what James is seeing. Certain people in the early church were envious and lustful. We don’t know exactly what they were after, but it is already clear that a godly pursuit of righteous things wouldn’t produce envy and lust. Whatever they were after was worldly. Maybe it was status and worldly riches that James addressed in chapter two, the limelight and prestige of a teacher in chapter three, or the false confidence of worldly wisdom that he mentioned next. Whatever it was, they probably knew God would disapprove, so they bypassed Him and tried to get it on their own. Does any of that sound familiar?
Your motives are off base. Even if the object of their desire was good, they still didn’t receive it from God because they asked for it with the wrong motivations. Maybe they wanted worldly wealth because they thought they could bless God’s people with it, which would be great, except that was a false motive. Sure, maybe they would hand out some cash, but deep inside their heart beats a lust for their own hedonistic desires. Does that sound familiar in a world filled with celebrity pastors who need a 3rd private jet in the hangar “for the gospel?” So what do they do? They fervently pray for God’s provision (and ask their supporters to pay for it). Only you know how you ask God for things, but don’t deceive yourself into believing God doesn’t see your real motives.
Rico Tice, a British pastor, unpacked it like this:
“We turn God into a divine waiter. He is there to deliver our daydream to us. We touch base with him on a Sunday; we put our order in via prayer; we might give a decent tip in the collection plate. But God is essentially there to give us what we feel we need … and we get furious with him if he doesn’t deliver.” (Honest Evangelism, page 43).
Takeaway #3: The function of prayer isn’t for you to ask God for what you want. It is for you to align with what God wants from you.
God is the sovereign Lord of creation and human history. He sees it all and has a plan for you to execute in His divine plan. The infant church needed to hear that. Maybe do many of us.
III – Affinity and Enmity (vv. 4-5)
Guilty of adultery. The perpetual failings of ancient Israel and their inclination to follow the idols of the surrounding nations were described as adultery. God chooses to devote Himself to her, and she is to devote herself to Him. But, soon after the covenant was made, she betrayed that devotion and continuously pursued other lovers. Nowhere is this more vividly described than in Ezekiel 16. Here, God describes Israel as an unwanted infant who was thrown out into a field by her parents to die, but He found her and made her beautiful and glorious and helped her grow into a studding bride. But then, instead of devoting herself to her loving husband, she used her beauty to prostitute herself to everyone around her. And, to describe the extent of her infidelity, we are told that instead of making money in exchange for her immoral and adulterous acts, she pays them! The depths of her depravity are unfathomable! Now, the new bride of Christ is being charged with the same crime! Let that sink in for a moment. The church may not have fully prostituted themselves like ancient Israel, but the trendline was stretching out that way. This was a severe and shocking accusation to the church, and I believe James uses this language because his audience was Jewish Christians who would have immediately recognized the severity of the accusation and used it to snap them out of it, repent, and return to Christ. Return to your first love.
You can only have one spouse. The only options given are God and the World. It’s important to note that the word ‘world’ can have different meanings. It can mean the physical earth as in [Acts 17:24, where Paul says God made the world and everything in it], the people in the world as in [John 3:16-17 where God loved the world so much that He sent Christ to save it, not condemn it], or in this case, it means the worldly system, whose morality and values are contrary to Gods. That’s it… that’s all James gives us to choose from, and there will be an affinity toward one and enmity toward the other. Affinity is an attraction toward someone or something. Enmity is hostility. Enmity makes you an Enemy. James leaves no middle ground. God and the World (at least in this sense) are diametrically opposed foes (how many of you heard that sung by Hamilton?). This makes perfect sense within a marriage covenant. A husband cannot pursue another woman who isn’t his wife, even if it’s only one other person. Baked into the design of marriage is complete devotion to your spouse, and you can bet that if you give your devotion to another woman (whether that be physically, digitally in the form of pornography, or emotionally in the heart), there will be enmity! Why, then, do we think it is okay to treat God this way?
Scripture justifies this conviction. James says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us.”
This verse is difficult to understand because James isn’t clear on a few essential bits. First, who is jealous (and does this word also mean envy as some translations have it), and what spirit are we talking about? Is Go the one yearning jealously over a human, or is a human jealous over the indwelling Spirit of God? Without going into too much detail, the Greek words for jealous can also mean envy and the reference for the spirit can go either way, so we have to look beyond their semantic domains and look at the context to figure it out. The scripture itself isn’t a direct quote, but most likely a highlighting of the scriptural theme of God’s jealousy (e.g., Ex 34:14; Dt 4:23–26; 6:14–15; Jos 24:19–20, Ez. 16). God is the spouse who has been cheated on and longs to have His bride back at His side. The next verse mentions what God does in response, so it seems the be the most natural reading that God yearns jealously (not enviously) for the heart and soul of His wayward wife as He has done many times before.
Takeaway #4: We are prone to ignore our first love and give our hearts to other pursuits. God desires your full attention and complete fidelity.
IV – But God… (v. 6)
But God gives a greater grace. God is a jealous God who, like a loving husband, desires His bride’s full attention and devotion. But James says the Bride is already being unfaithful. That poses a problem. Won’t he be angry and wrathful like He was to ancient Israel? Didn’t I just reference the scripture that says God is a consuming fire? What do we do about this? Well, I would say this poses a significant issue IF we did not have verse 6…but God. Does God hate sin? Yes. Does God judge sin? Absolutely. As reformed believers, do we believe in the depravity of man? You betcha. However, as much as we have a high view of man’s depravity and God’s wrath, we also have an equally high view of God’s grace and forgiveness that more than covers all the blunders and waywardness. Though the infidelity of the early church was great, God’s grace was greater!
He has made this known to His people for centuries. When James says, “God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble,” he quotes Proverbs 3:34 directly while indirectly alluding to Psalm 138:6 and perhaps even Jesus’ words from Matthew 23:12.
Psalm 138:6 CSB
Though the Lord is exalted, he takes note of the humble; but he knows the haughty from a distance.
Matthew 23:12 CSB
Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
So, we can see that while God’s desire for a pure and faithful bride was there from Israel’s creation, so was His grace. But we can’t miss how James frames it. Where there are humble hearts, grace covers them like the morning dew, but God will stand in opposition to proud hearts. A proud heart will not see its actions as adulterous. It will not submit or obey. It will continue to pursue its other lovers, generate infighting, and increase its hostility toward the God who called it to be His faithful bride. James’ rebuke was given to pull them back from their destructive path and rekindle their faithfulness to their first love.
Maybe you have been slowly drifting away from your first love. Perhaps you have felt this war wage within you for years but have ignored it. Or maybe you have allowed yourself to indulge in the desires of your heart that you know are unrighteous. Is that you? Is that who you want to be? These words are harsh and cut deep, but maybe you needed that. Sometimes, it takes a shocking statement to awaken us to the reality of our actions and call for action. If you have been an unfaithful spouse who has chased and lusted after what the world offers, don’t despair!
Final Takeaway: Whatever you have done, God gives a greater grace. His jealous longing for you isn’t to get you back and punish you. He wants you back to love you and clean you from all of your unrighteousness.
Questions to Consider
- In what ways can you relate to the struggles James mentions regarding our desires and motives?
- What steps can you take to align your prayers with what God wants rather than just asking for personal desires?
- How can we identify and confront hedonistic passions in our lives that distance us from God?
- What does it mean to submit to the Spirit, and how can we cultivate a lifestyle that promotes this submission?