Good morning and good Monday. Another day in the Lord and another opportunity to serve Him through serving others. What a beautiful opportunity that lies before us. Marge and I had a great weekend and she had a rare Sunday off yesterday. God has blessed me with an opportunity to teach at our church and it’s with a Senior Adult group at 8am, very properly called the Early Birds. What an indescribable blessing this has been in my life. I have such a deep passion and love for God’s Word and to be able to teach it and discuss it, just touches my soul. Since the class is early, we now go to early service as well and that means we are out of church by 10:30. So yesterday we found ourselves with a day off and free by 10:30…a rarity. We spent the whole day together, sharing, laughing and talking about God’s plan. It is and will always be one of the greatest joys of my life that when Margie and I are together the bulk of our conversation is about God. We talk about His Word, we talk about His unfolding plan for our lives and we talk and pray for others that He has put in our lives. My marriage is a blessing to me that ripples into every facet of my existence.
I also had a pretty big milestone on Saturday. I hit level 40 on Pokemon Go. I know what your saying, “Dan, isn’t that a silly kids game?” My answer, "yes it is." You see when I was in Maui in 2016, the game had just came out and the kids I worked with at the church started playing it and loved it. They begged me to download it and play it with them. I resisted. I mean, I’m an old guy, why would I spend time playing a game? I told myself this long enough until one day God enlightened me. He said, if you want to be close to the kids and spend time with them, show an interest in what they’re doing. Create a reason to be invited into their lives. God, that’s genius. It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes by Dale Carnegie, the author of How to Win friends and Influence People. “You can make more friends in 2 months by becoming interested in others than you can in 2 years trying to get them interested in you.” So I relented, downloaded the game and started playing with them. Something amazing happened. The kids invited me into their lives, and it revolved around this silly little game. We walked all over Maui playing that game and in the midst, we shared life. We talked about God, school and parents and we did it all playing a game that interested them. Not only did I love those kids but I found myself starting to love the game.
After I left Maui, I stopped playing the game until we went to Destin to serve. At their VBS I was working with the A/V team which was comprised of young teens. All they talked about was Pokemon Go. Could it work again? I started talking Pokemon Go with them and the next thing I know, I’m right back to playing the game with the kids after months of retirement. We even planned “play dates” and their parents would drop them off at the local mall so we could walk around and play for a few hours. All this time spent together with these kids, allowed me precious time to speak God’s truth and love into their lives. Well, basically the game only has 40 levels and it takes about 2 years to hit it, needless to say it’s very hard to do. Now that I’m back in Fort Worth I play with a group of teens and adults, mostly unbelievers. It’s another ministry opportunity and I no longer question what people do to minister. I never would have thought that God would use a kid’s game to allow me to share His Love with so many. The lesson, NEVER limit God.
This morning we’ll be looking at James chapter 4. As I studied yet another chapter of James, I realized how much I really love this book. It’s just so simple, practical and honest. This morning James is dealing with worldliness. Specifically, he calls it being friends with the world. Let’s look at James 4:4:
“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.”
James starts out here with strong comparative language, pulling no punches. He is warning us about being friends with the world. He even goes as far as saying that if we choose to be friends with the world we are like adulterers. And what are adulterers? Someone that has intimate relations with someone that is not their spouse. He is saying that we belong to Jesus as believers and if we are embracing the world intimately, we are basically having an affair. That’s strong imagery.
So what exactly is being a friend with the world? I can think of a lot of things and I bet you can too. Maybe what kind of amusements you like? The movies you watch, the TV shows you enjoy. Maybe you like to go to bars and go dancing. Nope, not so much. Maybe you say it’s more the people you hang with, the worldy crowd. He or she is running with a bad crowd, they’re friends with the world. Nope, not so much. Maybe you say it’s your love of money or your love of stuff. Also, not so much. You see all of these things are definitely worldly, but they are merely symptoms of the problem, not the problem itself. These are fleshly desires, but what’s at the root? What’s the real issue? If we look back at chapter 3 of James, he will explain it to us.
“For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is confusion and every evil work.” James 3:16
Margie gets tired of hearing me harp on this, but I think that every sinful act can be tied back to one thing…selfishness. Even the original sin of Adam and Eve was one of selfishness. Satan told them that if they ate of the tree of knowledge they too could “be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Gen 3:5) You see the original sin was one of “selfish ambition.” We as sinners have an insatiable desire to serve ourselves. In doing so, we dethrone God and put ourselves on the throne of our lives. That, my friends, is being friends with the world, allowing ourselves and our needs to be at the forefront of everything we do in this world. James tells us that jealousy and selfish ambition are the culprits. Let’s look at them each.
Jealousy. Listen to these synonyms of jealousy. Envy, covet, desire, spite, selfish, resent, grab, grasp. We all know jealousy, and if we’re honest we know it REALLY WELL. It makes me think back to working with the toddlers in church. 10 four year olds in the middle of the floor surrounded with toys. It’s a free for all. It’s only seconds before it’s a cacophony of the following words, Me, My, Mine, No, stop, gimmee and then a lot of crying. We are born to covet. We are born with an innate nature to collect things for ourselves. It’s simply the sin nature we inherited. It’s ugly and its hard to watch, but that’s what you see in the world today. People scrambling to get “their piece of the pie.”
Selfish ambition. This of course goes hand in hand with jealousy. If jealousy is the emotion we feel, then selfish ambition is the action is elicits. You see we first feel jealousy and then we do something about it, we act on it. The jealousy stirs us up deep down and that in turn spurs us into action. You see one without the other is incomplete, but when you put these two together it is the proverbial ‘recipe for disaster.’
So what happens when you mix these two up and bake them? James tells us the cake you pull out is what happens when you make friends with the world. The cake you pull out is confusion and every evil work. Those two words scare me silly. Those two words are the absolute absence of God and responsible for every problem in the world today. Let’s look at them closer.
Confusion. I have found out that when studying God’s Word, it’s sometimes really enlightening to look at opposites. We’re told we live in a world of grey, not black and white, but my friends we serve a God of black and white. We serve a God of absolutes, not a God that meddles with grey. In 1 John 1:5 we’re told, “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” Do you see that? In Him there is NO darkness…at all. It is absolute. How about this verse from John 14:6, “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." Did you see that? THE way, THE truth, THE life and NO man comes to the Father except through me. How about this verse, " So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth." Rev 3:16. God doesn't do middle ground and greys. Folks, we serve a God of absolutes and inescapable truths. There is no middle ground with God. In fact, that’s exactly why God and His Word are so apprehensible and unaccepted in the world today. The world wants an easier, softer way. We want a way that not only appeals to us, but makes us happy.
So, if we’re looking at opposites, whats the opposite of confusion? Order. There is order on one side and chaos and confusion on the other. Polar opposites. You see we serve a God of order not a God of chaos. Everything God has made follows a pattern of perfect order. The planets revolve around the sun in perfect harmony. The moon rotates the Earth and the Earth revolves to give us the perfect living conditions to sustain all life. The seasons on our planet are orderly and even the days are perfectly structured to allow us rest and productivity. We serve a God of order. So, what happens in the absence of God?
Confusion. “For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.” 1 Cor 14:33.
Let’s look at the second result of being friends with the world. Every evil work. Folks, you cannot be more inclusive than this, it’s just not possible. Out of jealousy and selfish ambition comes EVERY evil work. Evil is another absolute in God’s vocabulary. Evil is the absence of good. Evil can have no good in it. Good can have no evil in it. If you’re friends with the world you will be creating two things, confusion and evil works.
So back to our original verse. What does it do to our relationship with God? “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.” Enmity means to “be opposed or hostile towards something.” It goes on to say it makes us an enemy of God. Folks, this verse hits us right between the eyes… a few times. I can think of a few enemies I’ve had in my day, but let me tell you somebody I DO NOT want as an enemy….The God of all Creation. But yet I’m told very clearly right here, if I’m living in jealousy, envy and selfish ambition, that’s exactly what I’ve done. Made an enemy of God. Ouch and double ouch.
So how do we combat becoming friends with the world. Well, again look at the role opposites play in God’s Word. If you are a friend of the world you are an enemy of God, so therefore if you are an enemy of the world you are a friend of God. So the real question is how do I become and stay a friend of God? I’m glad you asked, there a several ways you can befriend God, and in doing so you will stay close to Him and keep the world at a distance.
1) Prayer. Daily time talking to God. Pray for others, confess your sins to Him and cast your cares on Him. Be careful to not only pray for yourself. Remember we’re talking about selfish-ambition here. You can be selfish in your prayer life if you’re only praying for your own needs. “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.” James 4:3. Try this. For the next 7 days, pray every day, but don’t pray for yourself, only others. Next Monday, let me know how it went.
2) Daily study of His Word. There’s a big difference between reading His Word and studying His Word. Go deep. There’s numerous different free Bible commentaries on reputable websites and you can use them to help you better understand God’s Word. Go deeper, don’t just read, study.
3) Serve Him by serving others. Get out of yourself and create an external focus in your life. Serve others and in doing so you will be serving God. You’ll receive a blessing that is amazing.
4) Fellowship with other believers. Fellowship is not getting together for a potluck and talking about sports and gossiping. True blessed fellowship is followers of Jesus Christ assembling and talking about Him, His Word, His Will for their lives and praising Him for the good He has done.
Think about it this way. The greater the distance of God in your life, the greater the proximity of sin in your life. If you stick close to God, sin will have a much harder time finding a wedge to sneak in to. But if God is distant, the devil can find a myriad of places to snuggle right into and make himself at home. James illustrates this picture beautifully right here in chapter 4. To live in the world and not make friends you must stay close to God…very close.
“Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.” James 4:7-8
My prayer for you today my brothers and sisters, is that you will do just that. Resist the devil and get close to God. He is our shepherd and being close to Him is a safe place for a sheep to be.
God Bless.
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