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.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor? —James 4:1-12

Friends With the World

James 4:1-12

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 4:4

We will be shaped by friendship—either with God or the world

The Biblical Idea of “The World”
1. The Physical Creation | Genesis 1
2. Inhabitants of Creation | John 3:16
3. Broken Humanity | John 1:10
4. Sinful Systems | 1 John 5:19

The world is the arena in which sin, which alienates people from God, reigns. Therefore, ‘the world’ is a shorthand way of referring to the totality of humanity in the bondage of sin. —Dwight Moody Smith

Misunderstandings
1. Not loving God’s physical creation
2. Not loving the broken people in the world
3. Not living in proximity to the world

Friendship with the world = interacting with the culture and norms around us in such a way that what God calls wrong begins to feel acceptable or normal.

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?… Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor? —James 4:1-4, 11-12

Shaped By Worldly Friendship
1. Quarrelling
2. Violence
3. Coveting
4. Apathy
5. Impure motives
6. Judgment of others
7. Judgment of God’s law

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. —James 4:5-6

Friendship with God
1. Submission
2. Draw near
3. Resist the Devil
4. Cleanse your hands
5. Check your heart
6. Learn sadness