Prayer, Slander, Humility, Etc.

I. Introduction
A. We’re taking a second week to finish up a very important passage. Last week we talked about the important main point of the passage, which turned on the first part of v.6, “But he gives more grace.” If you weren’t here or if you need review, that sermon is available on our website. It was entitled Conflicts Within & Without.
1. This week, we are going back to talk about other things in the passage, including v.11-12, which we didn’t even read last week.
B. James 4:1–12 What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? 2 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. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. 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. 5 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”? 6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” 7 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. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. 11 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. 12 There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?
II. Five additional lessons
A. Two principles of prayer
1. 2 You do not have, because you do not ask.
a. Jesus said, “Ask, and it shall be given.” (Matt.7:7)
b. Now His brother James gives us the flip-side of this: “You do not have, because you do not ask.”
c. If God answers prayer, this implies that God doesn’t answer when people don’t pray.
d. This isn’t because He is not willing or doesn’t care unless we pray. “Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” Matthew 6:8
e. It is because God wants us to recognize our need and recognize that He is our helper.
f. The story of the storm in Matthew 8, Mark 4 and Luke 8 gives us a great picture of the Lord waiting for His people to pray. The disciples did all they could to save themselves from the storm, and by the time they approached Jesus, they were exasperated. Jesus, you remember, was asleep in the boat. His disciples were in a crisis; their lives were in danger. But Jesus was not going to help them – until they came to the end of their own resources and turned to Him. He was waiting patiently for them to pray. He was waiting for them to be desperate enough to ask.
g. I think most of us have seen this in our lives. We're working hard to solve some problem in our lives, to no avail. And then at some point, we get desperate enough that we remember God: “Lord, please help me!” And He does! And then we chide ourselves for not praying sooner.
h. The problem is, like the disciples, we so quickly forget that we have a God who is always watching us in love and who hears us with ears of love and who has every power at His disposal. This is why Jesus called His disciples, “Men of little faith” when they finally woke Him (Mt.8:15)
i. It’s embarrassing to admit, but, like the disciples, we forget about God, we forget about His love for us, we forget about His power to help no matter how bad our problem is. We forget that we have a God who loves us so dearly that He sent His Son to die for our sins, and who has the power to help us from the smallest or from the greatest trouble.
j. And we don’t recognize feelings that God’s not listening – or that He doesn’t care, or that He’s disgusted with us – as lies of the evil one.
k. And so, “We have not because we ask not.”
2. The second principle of prayer we see here in James 4:3, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.”
a. Here James refers to when we do pray, but we ask wrongly; we ask for the sake of our own fleshly desires.
b. My first long, intense prayer session was when I was 17 years old and had just become a Christian. We were playing a championship soccer game the next day and I spent a whole hour praying on my knees that we would win. But I never said, “Your will be done.” And God loved me too much to grant my request, because it was all about my own desires.
c. Can you pray “Your will be done.”? I don’t mean can you say the words, or can you say the words when you’re praying. I mean can you make that request from the heart?
(1) It is a request, after all. It is not giving God permission to not do what you’re asking Him to do. Praying, “Your will be done” is specifically asking God not to do what you’re asking Him to do if it is not His will. It is saying, “Lord, You are all-wise. And what I’m asking of You may not be the best thing for me or for Your kingdom. And if it’s not, I don’t want you to answer my prayer. I really want You to do Your will instead.”
d. If we can’t pray, “Your will be done,” then we are praying wrongly, to spend it on our passions.
e. I’ve heard people say that they’ve tried prayer but it didn’t work. If that’s ever someone’s attitude, it means that they have the wrong motivations for prayer.
(1) Prayer doesn’t work; God works. Prayer isn’t a magic way of getting what you want. Prayer is communicating what’s on your heart with God.
f. How many times we asked our kids when they were young, “Why didn’t you just ask? We would have said yes if you asked.” But you know why they didn’t ask? Because they didn’t want to risk the possibility that we’d say no. They wanted what they wanted & weren’t willing to not have it.
g. Well, when we aren’t willing to not have what we want, then we have an idol – no matter what that thing is.
h. This is the kind of thing James is talking about in v.3: “you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.” And when we have that attitude, it is any wonder God doesn’t give us what we ask?
B. The next lesson I’d like to point us to in this passage is in v.4, which some scholars consider the best summary of James: “Whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” Or to put it another way, “A person who lives like the world is no friend of God.”
1. In the Bible, there is some tension between
a. passages which acknowledge the conflict in the heart of each believer between the old sinful nature and the new nature wrought by the Spirit
b. passages which say we must be pure and single-minded and not double-minded
2. The NT acknowledges that a tension exists in each believer and that each one will struggle with sin. E.g. Galatians 5:17 “The desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.”
a. This reminds us of the two women of Proverbs: Wisdom in Prov.8:1-9:12 & Folly in Prov.9:13-18 (cf. Prov.5&7)
b. All of us have a battle going on inside us. In one sense, all of us are double-minded.
3. But, on the other hand, the Bible not only calls us to “walk by the Spirit” and not “gratify the desires of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16), but it also tells us that a person who lives a life of gratifying the desires of the flesh “will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Gal.5:19-21).
a. Jesus Himself said, “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.” Matthew 6:24
b. And Paul said, “What partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?...16 What agreement has the temple of God with idols?” 2Cor.5:14, 16
4. James reflects this call to live out our faith and this warning that faith which has no fruit is false faith. Whoever lives according to the ways of the world is actually not God’s friend but His enemy.
5. Now it’s easy to read James and think he has a very high standard for a person to even consider himself a Christian. But let’s read James in the larger context. Things aren’t going well in the churches to which he is writing. It seems like many are living more like the world than like Christ. And so what does James say? Does he condemn them as non-believers? Not at all. He calls them to repent. This shows that, in his mind, it is very possible for true Christians to live in a manner not consistent with the way of Christ. But they must be called to repent. They must not be allowed to go on living as if it’s OK for people in the church to live like the world. When people are like this, they need to be disturbed, called out of their hypocrisy!
6. When a person in the church lives like the world lives, he/she begins to look like a person who’s profession of faith is not genuine. And since we can’t see into each other’s hearts, we can’t tell what’s actually going on inside.
a. And, in his epistle, James raises both of these possibilities regarding a person who is living contrary to Christ.
(1) The person might not be a true believer. Being worldly may mean that the person is actually an enemy of God. OR
(2) The person might be a true believer who needs to repent, who needs to humble him/herself before the Lord. “Purify your hearts, you double-minded!”
b. So, instead of wondering where we stand with Christ, James calls us to prove our sincerity by repenting of ways our lives are out-of-sync with Christ, to submit to God, to resist the devil, to draw near to God, to cleanse our hands, to purify your hearts, to be wretched and mourn and weep, to turn our laughter to mourning and our joy to gloom, to humble ourselves before the Lord, that He might exalt us.
C. Then, James adds two more thoughts -- about speaking evil against one another.
1. 11a Do not speak evil against one another, brothers.
2. What does it mean to speak evil?
a. Paul severely criticizes people who used to be a part of the church.
b. Paul also speaks very bluntly about those who are trying to lead the church astray.
c. Jesus rebuked the disciples often.
3. So, we can see that James isn’t talking about just any kind of criticism of one another.
4. He seems to be talking about several kinds of harmful speech:
a. Criticizing fellow believers behind their backs (Ps.101:5)
(1) I can’t think of any time we see Jesus or the apostles criticize a believer behind his/her back.
(2) It’s SO much easier to tell someone ELSE other than the person who needs to hear it.
(3) I’m guilty of it too.
b. Bringing incorrect accusations (1Pet.2:12; 3:16)
c. Challenging legitimate authority (Num.21:5)
5. Jesus says over and over again to love one another. When you really love someone, you don’t want to talk about them to others in a way which would diminish their opinion of them.
6. My wife and I have realized how important this is in the context of the family. Dads teach their children how to think of and how to treat their mother by the way they think of them and treat them. If they show disrespect, then not only do they give their children permission to show disrespect, but they actually teach their children that their mother is not worthy of respect. The same is true in the other direction, in the respect a mother shows to her husband. The same is true in the way we speak about church leaders, and even about civil authorities. This is why the NT emphasizes the importance of showing respect to both (Heb.13:17; 1Thes.5:12-13).
7. So, “Do not speak evil against one another!”
D. Judging God’s law – 11b-12 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. 12 There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?
1. Apparently what James is saying here is that when we disobey God’s law, we are actually criticizing God’s law, we are saying to the watching world that God’s law is not worth keeping.
2. We are either a doer of the law or a judge of the law.
3. A doer of the law is an advertisement for the law.
4. When we obey, we recommend God’s law, we exalt God’s laws.
5. When we disobey, we do the opposite. We malign God’s law; we badmouth God’s law; we declare that God’s law is bad and not to be followed. Whether we want to or not, we declare that God isn’t worth obeying, that God’s word should not be heeded. We judge God’s word to be unworthy of being followed. When we disobey God, we are commending disobedience.
6. I’m not saying we do this on purpose, but this is the message we send.
7. So, when we judge our neighbor, we are judging God’s law!
8. And when our lives are characterized by things like judging others and speaking evil of others, we not only throw our own salvation into question, we ruin our witness to the watching world.
9. Instead of commending Christ to our neighbors, we actually make Him look worse, and give them an excuse to resist Him.
E. The centrality of humility
1. The main thrust of James in his epistle is that a mere profession of faith is not enough. The faith that saves is a living faith, a faith that makes a difference in our lives, a faith which manifests itself in how we think and speak and act and in what we desire.
2. And if we had to summarize the central feature of this transformed life in the book of James, it would probably be humility.
3. 6 “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” 7 Submit yourselves therefore to God...10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
4. Deferring, trusting, being willing to be wronged, being willing to ask for help, being alert to one’s weakness/need: in some ways it’s hard to imagine how anything could be farther from the philosophy of the world which calls us to stand up for ourselves and insist on our rights.
a. And yet, even so, it’s amazing how people have a soft spot in their hearts for true humility. And how people naturally dislike someone who complains, or who are cocky, or who are know-it-alls.
5. C.S. Lewis said that humility is the flip side of love: a person who loves is a humble person; a proud person can’t love. A person who is all into himself can’t also be into others.
6. 6 God...gives grace to the humble. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
7. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be exalted, there’s only something wrong with pursuing it in the wrong way. Exaltation comes when we humble ourselves.
a. Yesterday, the Poes, Rices and Lashes were at a memorial service for an old friend whose life exemplifies this. At the service Paul Kokulis was exalted by 500 people (and many others who livestreamed the service) simply because he was an amazingly humble and loving man who pointed us to Jesus.
8. I can tell you from personal experience that humility doesn’t come easy.
a. Remember what happened to Nebuchadnezzar? Remember how God humbled him by taking away his sanity for seven years and then restoring it?
b. Well, God is in the business of humbling people. He doesn’t do it for everyone, just those He wants to bless with humility. And it is a blessing.
c. But the process by which God humbles people is usually not a pleasant one. And we often kick against it. And kicking against it is a very prideful act, isn’t it? It is saying, “I don’t need this! I don’t need to be humbled! I can do it myself!”
d. After I graduated from college, I was hired by my church (Fourth Presbyterian) to do youth ministry. One of the main kids in my youth group was a boy named Rob who had grown up in the church. And though we are Facebook friends, I haven’t spoken to Rob for 43 years, until yesterday. After greeting him, I took this 56 year old Rob by the shoulders and said, “Rob, when I worked with you many years ago, you were so into having fun and being funny that I couldn’t tell if there was anything going on deep in your soul. I’m so glad to see that you have lived a life of faith.” And he said, “You know what happened to me? God gave me a daughter with epilepsy who needed two scary brain surgeries. And that forced me to get serious and intimate with the Lord in a way I never had before. And I wouldn’t trade it for the world!”
e. And that story can be multiplied a thousand times over. God humbles the proud through suffering, and then God exalts the humble.