The Danger of Pride (James 4)

This is your worship at home guide for Sunday 5/24/20. It's part of the "Journeying through James" series for May (see the post about this series here).

You can consider lighting a candle to set the environment for worship and to symbolize God's presence with you.

Families with little kids: There are questions in here to help your kids engage.  You may need to reword content, depending on the age of your kids.

Introduction

We were created for relationship. We were created first for relationship with God and also for relationship with each other. Jesus said the first greatest commandment is to love God and the second is to love our neighbor. Life is all about relationships. The Ten Commandments are all about how to relate to God rightly and how to relate to others rightly.

But the reality is that when we look around, we see a world having a very hard time with relationships. And if we are all honest, including me, we often have a hard time with relationships. We get frustrated, we lose our temper, we quarrel and fight with people over little things that don't really matter, we hold grudges, we feel resentment and bitterness, we have a hard time being gentle, patient, and kind, and we run away from hard situations.

Maybe in a moment of frustration, exasperation, and anger you've asked someone: why do you always do that?! But hopefully we also sometimes ask ourselves: why do I do that? Why do I get frustrated and quarrel and fight? Why do I have a hard time being gentle, patient, and kind? Why do I use my words to tear down instead of build up? These "why" questions are what James answers for us today.

Before seeing what James has to say, how would you answer those questions?

• What causes you to fight with other people?
• What causes you to do hurtful things to other people?

Let's see what James has to say.

Pride and People (James 4:1-12)

1 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. (James 4:1-4)

[FYI for parents: if you are reading this to kids, I'm explaining "spiritual adultery" in the next two paragraphs so you may want to read over it to see what you are comfortable with your kids hearing.]

James here picks up on a powerful image used in the Old Testament when God's people were unfaithful to him. In verse 4, he calls his readers "adulterous people" but an even more literal translation would be "adulteresses". He is calling them cheating wives. Whom have they cheated on? They've cheated on God! He accuses them of sleeping around on God! They are supposed to be committed to God, faithful to him, and to love him with their whole heart but they have been unfaithful partners in the relationship. They have made themselves friends with the world. They are cheating on God with the world.

What's worse is that they want God to pay for their fun. Verse 3 says they are asking God to supply them with things but they aren't receiving from him because they want to spend it on their passions. It's like a wife who is cheating but is asking her husband to pay for dinner with the other guy. Whatever it is they are desiring and coveting (same word as "jealousy" from 3:14) in the world, they are asking God to help them get it.

So what is causing quarrels and fights among them? James peels back the layers. First he identifies that their passions are at war within them. They've got unmet desires so they are doing whatever they can to get them met. They are at war with each other. They aren't asking God to get them met. Some have asked God, but they haven't received because they've asked wrongly.

But he goes one layer deeper. Second, he identifies the real problem is that they've left God. At the deepest root level, this is a worship problem. They have unmet desires because they've left the one who can meet those desires. They've left the one who is the source of their security, worthy value, signifcance, identity, and purpose and they have tried to find those things elsewhere. They are no longer being filled by the only one who can fill them so now they are scrambling around and battling with other people to be filled. They are using others and competing with others.

• How do you usually see your relationship problems?
• How would it change the way you deal with fights and quarrels if you saw the root of the problem as a worship problem? 

How does God feel about all of this?

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.” (James 4:5-6)

This picks up another Old Testament theme about God's "jealousy" or burning desire for his people to be wholeheartedly committed to him. God's "jealousy" is not the same as ours where he wants something we have. It means he wants our affection and loyalty. He isn't indifferent to his people's unfaithfulness. God does not want us to be fooling around worshiping false gods (idols). He doesn't want us flirting with the world's values and ways of finding satisfaction and significance. He wants us to love him with our whole being - everything we are and everything we have with nothing left out.

But these verses show how often we fail to live up to that. Not just these verses show that, but the whole book of James, the whole Bible, and our very own lives show just how difficult it is for us to be wholly committed to God. But that's where verse 6 comes in because God never meant for us to do it on our own. 

God longs for us to be faithful to him and to worship him alone and to be totally committed to him. And he gives grace to us to be able to actually fulfill that. But we have to want it, because God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Proud people don't think they need God. Humble people are willing to admit their need for him. Proud people refuse to do things God's way. Humble people will do things God's way. So James gives an instruction based on this truth that 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. (James 4:7-10)

This is a group of people needing to repent. They've been unfaithful to God. And because they turned from God, selfish ambition and jealousy took root in them which caused them to fight and quarrel. God wanted them to be wholeheartedly devoted to him and they weren't.

But there's good news! God will receive them back if they turn to him. God gives grace to the humble. If they draw near to God, he will draw near to them. James calls them to outer and inner purity by telling them to both cleanse their hands (outer purity) and purify their hearts (inner purity). He calls them double-minded, which reminds us of chapter 1 verse 8. They are divided in their loyalties but they need to return to the Lord and be single-minded in their loyalty to him.

James calls them to respond to their sin appropriately with mourning and weeping. They ought to feel sorrow and grief for how they have been unfaithful to God. But again, he tells them in verse 10: humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. There isn't a period of being in the doghouse and wallowing in the mud before God. Think of the scene in the story of the prodigal son returning to his father (read it in Luke 15:11-32).

We have two tendencies when it comes to our sin. First, we have a tendency to downplay the seriousness of our sin. James paints the picture in all its horridness here as sleeping around on God. Second, we have a tendency to underestimate God's grace in response to our sin. James isn't soft in describing their sin, but he also makes clear there's nothing standing in the way of drawing near to God and being forgiven.

Well, there's almost nothing standing in the way of drawing near to God and being forgiven. Only one thing stands in the way: our pride. Pride will keep us justifying and defending ourselves, arguing with James and with God that what we did wasn't that bad and that James is really painting too bad of a picture of us. Pride will keep us trying to make ourselves good enough for God instead of turning to God. Pride will keep us telling ourselves that our sin is too bad for God to handle like somehow our sin is more powerful than Jesus' death on the cross. Pride will keep us stuck in our own methods of saving ourselves rather than submitting to God's way of salvation. Pride makes us into our own savior.

Here's a pride test when it comes to sin:

• When you sin against others, do you see it as a sin against God and take it seriously? Or do you downplay it's seriousness and try to think of it as not a big deal? Maybe you think you weren't expected to obey that command anyway or God's grace has you covered so you don't have to worry about it. A good test is whether you have remorse when you realize you have sinned against God and others.
• When you have sinned, do you humble yourself before God and receive his forgiveness? Or do you try to earn his acceptance in some way? Do you try to save yourself from his anger? Do you work your way back into his favor and presence?

Repentance doesn't stop at forgiveness. James calls them to action:

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? (James 4:11-12)

In this section of chapter 4, we have still been dealing with the taming of the tongue that began in chapter 3 verse 1. The people James is writing to need to get their speech under control. They are "speaking evil against one another" which could mean many different kinds of hurtful speech.

The problem is that they are supposed to be loving one another. But in speaking evil against one another, they are instead judging one another. Instead of doing the law, they are breaking the law. They are putting themselves above the law, acting like judges who know a better way to live than what the law says. And in so doing, they are putting themselves above God, the one and only Lawgiver and Judge. Who are they to judge their neighbor? They were never given authority to be judges of their neighbors. That's God's job. Their job is to obey the law by loving their neighbor, not judging their neighbor. Leave judging to God.

Once again we are dealing with the issue of pride. Pride is an inflated view of self. Pride is replacing God with ourselves. And as long as we do that, we cannot be in a right relationship with God or with others. In this case, James says we are tempted to replace God as the Lawgiver and Judge. We make ourselves the Judge of other people. Instead of obeying God's laws, we break them in order to play judge in other people's lives. In our pride, we take God's place as the Judge over people.

• How have you let yourself become a judge over other people's lives?
• How would your relationship change with them if you let God be the judge over them and you focused on obeying God by loving them? 

In the next verses, James continues on the theme of pride.

Pride and Plans (James 4:13-17)

13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— 14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. 17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. (James 4:13-17)

"Come now" marks a transition to a new topic. Here, James address businessmen who did a lot of traveling. He points out that they make all their life plans without any regard for God. They don't consider God's will in it. They don't consider that God may not want them to do what they plan or God may not allow them to do what they plan. He calls their planning boasting coming from arrogance and says it is evil.

Again, we are back to the issue of pride. Pride is replacing God with ourselves. God is the only one who knows the future and has the power to make his plans come about without frustration. When we plan our future without regard for him, we are acting like God. When we plan today or tomorrow, this week or next week, this month or the year with no regard for God, we are not submitting to his will. We are living as if we run our lives on our own and have control of our future. We are living like we are in control instead of him. James is asking us to live in humility, recognizing God as the only one who knows the future and to whose will we submit.

• How many of your plans for this week, month, or year have you brought before God?
• Are you willing to submit to God's will for your life, whatever he brings?

Response 

The driving theme of this letter is: What does true, genuine faith look like in someone's life? Today, a big theme was pride and humility. Faith looks like humility before God. We learned this about pride:

1. Pride is replacing God with ourselves as Savior.
2. Pride is replacing God with ourselves as Judge and Lawgiver.
3. Pride is replacing God with ourselves as Master of our lives.

Some possible responses for today:

• Do you have any relationships where there is fighting and quarreling right now? Or where there has been fighting and quarreling?
• What's the worship problem at the root? How can you look to God to get the desires of your heart filled?
• Which role of God's do you try to take on the most: Savior, Judge, or Master?
• You can repent of this pride by confessing to God the ways you are bad at this role and praising him for how he is really good at this role.
• If you are doing The Gospel-Centered Life with us on Friday nights, reviewing Lesson 5 on repentance could be helpful and the Exercise for that lesson could be a practical tool for repentance.

Worship with others:

As a church, we want to encourage one another every Sunday by worshiping together on WhatsApp. Take a few minutes to post in the Encouragement group on WhatsApp.

Here are some examples of what you could post:

• how God spoke to you through your time of worshiping at home
• a verse that stood out to you
• a song that touched you from the worship playlist
• a truth that God reminded you of that you needed to hear
• what God is teaching you
• a prayer
• thankfulness to God - who he is, what he's done
• and more!

Bonus

If you haven't heard of The Bible Project, they are great. They make short, animated videos for books of the Bible and themes in the Bible. Here is their video for the book of James.