June 8, 2025
The War On Peace 2
James 4:4-10
Last week, we started to look at the churchy word “Shalom” or “Peace”. We learned that the idea of “Shalom” was defined by God’s character because God is Shalom. When we learn more about the many meanings of "Shalom” in the Bible, we will find that we are learning more about God. We have seen that we can experience all the facets of “Shalom” that are revealed in Scripture which include, the removal of conflict from our lives, true fulfillment, eternal security, holistic wellbeing, as well as every other definition of “Shalom” that we find in Scripture only when we put our faith in Jesus Christ. Even though a relationship with Jesus eternally restores our eternal peace with God once and for all. We also saw that personal, daily peace in our lives can still be broken by sin in our lives. Because God is peace, the further we move ourselves away from Him because of the sins in our lives that we still struggle with day in and day out, the less peace we will experience in our daily lives. We looked at James 4 as James addressed some attitudes that the church was struggling with, that was causing loss of peace in their church as well as their own lives. James addresses the first of these attitudes in verses 1-3 in Chapter 4 as he spoke of evil desires. These evil desires were extremely dangerous, and he pinpointed two that were causing issues — the first being covetousness. In the first few verses, we saw the dangers of covetousness in our lives. (We see how lust, wanting what we don’t have, whether it’s others' jobs, positions, money, possessions, all of this will cause discontentment in our lives). These things cause us to resent God because we don’t have what others have, and this attitude would drive us away from God and cause us to lose peace. Jealousy was the second way evil desires could pop up in our lives because when we start to resent others because of what God has trusted and blessed them with. We saw how those thoughts and attitudes cause us to no longer be defined by what Jesus calls us to be defined by as His followers. We are called to be defined by our love (John 13:35) and jealousy is not a part of Godly love (1 Corinthians 13:4). We saw that James said the way to fix these destructive desires is to seek God in all things instead of our good (or at least what we think is our good). We were challenged to let God examine our desires, especially in our prayers, as they are usually the way our evil desires are expressed. We are to pray like Jesus prayed that not our will be done, but God’s will be done in our lives and let that repentance of sin start to bring us into the peace of God once again. Last week was the first point in a three-point sermon, so this morning I want to share what else James says that can cause us to lose “Shalom” in our lives because it causes our relationship with Jesus to be strained. Not only do our desires destroy our peace, but the world wrecks it as well.
The World Wrecks - James 4:4-5
You adulterers! Don’t you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God? I say it again: If you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God. Do you think the Scriptures have no meaning? They say that God is passionate that the spirit he has placed within us should be faithful to him.
James starts off verse 4 with some more of the extreme language that we encountered in the previous verses in chapter 4. However, this time he was not using a very violent and destructive vocabulary, but he just flat out called the readers adulterers. Because of what James had written in the previous three verses, we might tend to think that he is speaking of the lust aspect of covetousness that he previously addressed, especially since Jesus equated lust to adultery in Matthew 5:8. That is not what James is speaking of here, instead he is speaking of the adultery that was occurring in their relationship with Jesus. At first, this might seem confusing, but remember this was being written to the Jewish Christians. When they read these accusations, they would have fully understood what James was speaking of because Israel had a history of doing this exact thing. God had accused the Israelites of adultery many times in the Old Testament. We see it throughout the book of Jeremiah, specifically in Jeremiah 3:20 that says, “But like a woman faithless to her lover, even so have you been faithless to me, O house of Israel,’ says the LORD”. This theme is also seen in the book of Isaiah. The entire book of Hosea focuses on the fact that when Israel's worship, devotion, and loyalties were divided between God and any other thing, they were committing adultery concerning their covenant relationship with God. That is what James is referencing here with this extreme accusation. He is telling them that their loyalties and devotion have been divided between God and something else. God will not play second fiddle to anyone or anything and will even refuse to take a co-pilot role in the lives of those who have trusted in Jesus as Lord and Savior. Throughout the history of the Israelites, we see that they kept mingling their worship of God with the worship of false idols and other created things instead of being fully committed to the Creator. The Christians that James was confronting were falling into the same habit. While they might not have been worshiping golden calves, their loyalties and devotion were still being divided between God and the world. Whether it was in deed or just lusting after the things of this world, either of these would be causing them to commit adultery against God. This is what God had warned about in the very first commandment, “You shall have no other God but me”. From what we understand, these Jewish believers were not worshiping idols in the sense that the Israelites did when they made golden images and worshiped Baal. They were doing what Paul spoke of in Romans 1:25, they were worshiping the creation rather than the Creator. More than likely, they weren’t going out and worshiping creation by worshiping trees or cattle, even though that could have been happening, but it seems that the problem was that they were more devoted to the world’s morals, ideas, goals, and values than God. It really could be anything this world offers that caused their minds not to be set solely upon God and diverted their attention from their walk with Jesus. It’s not just first-century Christians who can have their devotion to God divided. We can have the same problem as well, remember we were told in Colossians 3:1-3 that “Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God.” James is telling the reader that anything in this world that we have become so friendly with that it takes God’s rightful place in our lives, will make us an enemy of God. The word enemy is better understood as conflicted. That is when we break the first commandment by placing the things of this world in God’s place. It will cause conflict between us and God because when we place anything beside or above God, that is a sin. Now, there were issues the first-century church was struggling with that we don’t have to deal with today when it comes to friendship with the world. However, we still have this problem. It can look like a Christian embracing things that culture deems ok, like sex outside of marriage, homosexuality, or abortion. Just because the majority of the culture embraces an idea and gives it approval, it does not define whether it is a sin or not. God has the only say in that because He is the moral law giver and the source from which we define morality in all its forms. When we embrace what the world says is ok, we conflict with God. When we conflict with God in any way, we are going to lose peace because that is a sin. Sometimes this conflict might not look like these obvious examples, but it might take the form of holding the blessings of God in a higher place than the One who gave them. This is when our mind is fixed more upon our spouse, our children, our jobs, our education, our beauty, our comfort, our hobbies, our “stuff”, or any other good thing more than God. When the pursuit of those things becomes more important than our pursuit of God, that is when we have a problem. God has given us so many things to enjoy and experience in this life, but when we don’t hold them in their proper place and misuse them — we sin. When we sin, we have conflict with God, and that is when we will lose peace in our lives. We cannot make anything other than God the focus of our lives, no matter what it is. James goes on to tell us this is a problem because God is jealous of us. James just confronted jealousy as he showed us that it was part of the evil desires that will rob us of peace. We saw last week that jealousy is the antithesis of God’s love, so how can God be jealous? It seems this is an oxymoron. However, it’s not because only God can be jealous without sinning. When we are jealous, we want what we don’t have. When God is jealous, He wants what’s best for us and knows that nothing outside of Himself is good enough for us as His children. Therefore, when He is jealous, it’s for righteousness' sake and His glory and nothing else. This problem with befriending the world is such an important point that James repeats himself to make sure we understand that this type of friendship is going to cause conflict in our relationship with God. We need to ask ourselves some important but harsh questions. Are we better friends with the world today than we were a year ago? How about with God — is that relationship closer? From which do we derive our primary pleasure? Are we God’s adversaries or His friends? How would God answer these questions? If we are honest, the answers to these questions will be telling if we have let the world wreck our peace with God.
Our Pride Prevents - James 4:6-10
And he gives grace generously. As the Scriptures say, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come close to God, and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world. Let there be tears for what you have done. Let there be sorrow and deep grief. Let there be sadness instead of laughter, and gloom instead of joy. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up in honor.
James starts off verse 6 by telling us that even though the world will promise you anything you want, it’s only God who follows through and gives grace (or what we do not deserve) so generously. To experience this grace to its fullest, there is another foe we must defeat, and that is pride. Pride is a very dangerous thing, just like the other attitudes that we have spoken about so far in Chapter 4. We are given many warnings about it in Scripture, especially in the book of Proverbs. Proverbs 16:18 warns us that “Pride goes before destruction, and haughtiness before a fall.” Proverbs 8:13, “All who fear the Lord will hate evil. Therefore, I hate pride and arrogance, corruption and perverse speech.” Pride is the final cause that James mentions as a thief of peace in our lives. However, before we address pride, we need to understand that not all pride is sinful. There is a pride that boasts in the Lord, and that type of pride is not sinful. Sinful pride is pride that stems from self-righteousness or conceit. Sinful pride gives us the attitude that we do not need God in our lives because we can do it all ourselves. When we embrace the attitude that we do not need God, we are not going to have the relationship with God that He is jealous for us to experience. It is because sin drives us away from God. Sinful pride never seeks God. It only seeks itself, and while it might seem easy to identify this type of pride, it’s usually well hidden in our lives, because it’s ingrained in us since birth. God opposes those who are proud. Having God opposed to you will never bring you peace in your life. Instead, He gives grace to the humble. We all need God’s Grace. It’s the ONLY thing we need in life, remember when Paul prayed that the thorn in His flesh be taken from Him and God replied, “My Grace is enough”. Therefore, to experience that all-sufficient grace, we have to remove pride from our lives. James tells us we do this by humbling ourselves. This happens when we realize that we need God in every part of our lives. We cannot give ourselves all we need, we surrender all parts and pieces of our life that we have tried to maintain control over for so long instead of putting them under the Lordship of Christ. I’ve shared the Gospel with many people over the years and have heard pride be the reason time and time again that they don’t want to make Jesus the Lord of their lives. Pride is dangerous because it will cause the lost to be separated from Christ forever. Pride is just as dangerous for a follower of Jesus because it will harm our relationship with Jesus and cause peace to be removed from all parts of our lives that we do not submit to God. We must surrender all to Jesus to experience the peace He wants for us.
James doesn’t just stop with telling us that humility will defeat these peace killers in our lives and help us regain shalom. He rapidly fires off multiple things that we need to do to obtain peace back in our lives. The next thing he tells us is that we are to resist the Devil. This deals with spiritual warfare, and we spoke about that earlier this year as we examined the whole armor of God. I’ll just say that this call is to put on that whole armor of God and stand against the wiles of the Devil. He then tells us that we must come close to God, and God will come close to us. When we have a closeness to God, we will experience shalom. The famous pastor and author A.W. Tozer writes that coming near to God means coming into the likeness of God. Coming into the likeness of God only comes through obedience in all parts of our lives. This is a call to submit all parts of our lives to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. He moves on to tell us to wash our hands and cleanse our hearts, which is a call to drop our wants that are focused on the world and to focus on God, the one who will supply all of your needs according to His riches in Glory. There is a call for brokenness over the sin that has separated us from Jesus and His peace. It’s best summed up by saying we need to lament just like we spoke of a few weeks ago. James closes by telling us again to humble ourselves before the Lord, to understand our need for Him alone, and submit it all to Him. When we do that, the peace that passes all understanding, and the peace that only comes from God, will be restored to us because we have turned away from ourselves and have turned back to Jesus.
