The Epistle of James - Godly Values
Part 28 - The Key to James's Letter
James 4v4
23rd November 2018
James 4v4
You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred towards God?
Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.
This verse is the key to the James's letter. It's the motivation for everything he writes. It will change your life, if you can receive it. If you're a Christian, but you're not really fulfilled, not really happy, not really at peace in God, if Christianity isn't quite working out the way you hoped it might, this verse is for you. If you want to mature as a Christian, this verse is for you.
The same word, in two different parts of the Bible, can have two very different meanings. The word "cosmos" in Greek is translated in the NIV New Testament as "world", but it can mean the world in which we live, it can mean people, and it can mean worldly thinking - worldly ambitions, worldly priorities, worldly actions, worldly words. In John 3:16, Jesus said, "God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life". In that quotation, "cosmos" means "people", Jesus meant "God so loved people...". But in James 4v4 it means something completely different. What he's saying here, obviously, is "don't you know that friendship with worldly thinking, worldly ambition, worldly ideas, worldly behaviour, worldly speech and worldly priorities is hatred towards God?"
Well, do we know that?
We know, I hope, that we don't want to live as a double-minded person (James 1v8) with one foot in the kingdom of God and one foot in the kingdom of this world. If you do that, you won't be a happy Christian. You won't be particularly glorifying God, and you won't be fulfilled in God. Either go all in or all out. It's a real struggle being half in and half out of God's kingdom. When do you obey God? When do you go with your worldly instincts? When do you do it God's way? When do you do it man's way? We need to decide.
If we're going to find true peace and fulfilment in God, we need to decide to live in the Kingdom of God all the time, in every way. We must accept all that the Bible teaches and always do things the Biblical way.
The trouble with that is that there will be days when you really don't want to. I'm just being honest. It's easy being a Christian when everything is going well. You can be the most spiritual person in the church when you're life is perfect. But when your life is difficult, it's so tempting to adopt a worldly approach to solving your problems. When you're unhappy, it’s so easy to medicate your problems in a worldly way. It's easy even for a Christian who has been saved for many years to jump back into the world for an hour or two, and behave like a non-Christian. And - these are not my words but God’s - this behaviour is hatred towards God.
I find this incredibly challenging, and part of me would rather not be teaching this stuff because it's so tough, but it's life-changing. If you and I will decide that from this moment on everything we do will be godly, our lives will radically change. We will glorify God a great deal more, and we will know true peace and true joy in the Holy Spirit.
The Kingdom of God, Paul says in Romans 14:17, is a matter of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit - in that order. You cannot be at peace if you're not living in righteousness, and you cannot know joy if you're not living in peace. To live the kind of Christian life we could live, and we long to live, we must start with a decision to live wholly in the Kingdom of God, to live wholly according to biblical values and biblical teaching, even on the difficult days, even when things aren't going our way, even when we hurt.
This isn't easy. The very idea is something that we might rebel against but, if we do it, we will be grow into real maturity in Christ, and our lives will be radically better. Not just better in terms of glorifying God more, but in terms of our own peace of mind. There is nothing quite like going to bed with a clear conscience. You will sleep better. You will awake more refreshed.
I'm not saying any of us will achieve sinless perfection, but I am saying it would be a good thing to aim for, wouldn't it?
What James is telling us here is challenging, but it's vitally important. It's so important that James says it twice. He's said, "friendship with the world is hatred towards God". Now he says "anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God". You can't put it more clearly than that!
We can love our neighbours, our friends, and our families, and the bloke down the pub, and the guy on the bus. In fact Jesus requires us to love our neighbour as ourselves. Jesus said there are only two things that matter. One is to love God with all your heart, and one is that you love your neighbour as much as yourself. But don't love worldly attitudes - things like pride, ambition, selfishness and envy. Let them go, and know the peace of God.