Worldliness is Selfishness Part 2
a commentary on James 4 (Interpretation)
Thank you, Lord, for this day. May it be used for your glory!
Good morning everyone and welcome back to this week’s Biblit on James chapter 4!
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Yesterday we jumped right into James chapter 4. We saw him break down what happens to our relationships when we put the things of this world above all else.
We were also warned by James not to put all our focus and energy on future plans if they don’t include God; this will only lead to ruin.
But we are still left with some questions; we still need to dive deeper to know what James’s main points are really telling us.
So without further ado, let’s jump into this commentary on James chapter 4!
Interpretation
Yesterday’s Biblit was broken into 2 main sections. Worldliness and Relationships and Worldliness and the Future.
Following that pattern, we’ll break down each of those sections one by one.
Worldliness and Relationships
In yesterday’s passage there were 2 main relationships James talked about. Our relationships with others and our relationship with God.
Relationships with Others
Once again, what James is saying in this section is that if our wants and desires are tied to the wrong motives, it produces sin.
This isn’t really a new truth, it’s a pretty common phenomenon even in the secular world.
Ever heard the term: “keeping up with the Joneses”? If you break that concept down, it’s all about coveting.
You covet what your neighbor has, whether it’s the fancy car, huge deck, nice job, pool, or fill in the blank.
You yearn for that thing.
You desire it, but for the wrong motives.
James says you probably desire it so you can spend it on your own pleasure instead of God’s kingdom.
Not only that, but we might also be driven to hurt or belittle others to get what we want. We may railroad over someone who deserves the promotion, for the sake of our own pleasures.
Some commentaries suggest that part of James’s inspiration here comes from Jesus’s teachings found in Matthew:
“I tell you that on the day of judgment people will have to account for every careless word they speak. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.” (Matthew 12:36-37 CSB).
These wise teachers are suggesting that when our desires come from wrong motives, this will inevitably lead us to either speaking or acting ill towards our neighbors.
We are not loving them as Jesus preached in the greatest commandments.
You may not steal your neighbor’s stuff, but jealousy sure can breed a whole slew of underhanded comments, gossip, or anything to try and bring the Jones’s down to your level.
You Don’t Ask Because You Know It’s Wrong
James says something interesting before this too:
“You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and don’t receive because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.” (James 4:2-3 CSB).
To me, it seems like James is actually highlighting two issues. The second, we’ve covered: sinfully desiring things for our own pleasure, not for the Kingdom.
The first, however, seems like James is saying when we desire things (good or bad), we still try and achieve them on our own strength, not recognizing that it is God working through us that we can ever accomplish any good works.
Not only that, but James is saying we have a tendency to not even trust God with our wants and desires. We are afraid He’ll say no because we know it’s for a wrong motive, so we hurt others or find our own way to get what we want.
This leads perfectly into the next relationship, God.
Relationship with God
There is an odd phrase in this section that says:
“Or do you think it’s without reason that the Scripture says: The spirit he made to dwell in us envies intensely?” (James 4:5 CSB).
Commentators are not 100% sure where in Scripture James is quoting. He is probably saying it this way because the idea that God yearns for us jealously is riddled all over scripture.
Here are two different examples:
“Do not bow in worship to them, and do not serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, bringing the consequences of the fathers’ iniquity on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me” (Exodus 20:5 CSB).
“For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.” (Deuteronomy 4:24 CSB).
This is another reason why James uses the powerful example of adultery to describe us choosing worldly pleasures over God.
It also goes hand in hand with the last point where we don’t even include God in our lives in the first place. We think He’ll say no, so we don’t even go to Him at all.
Not only are we cheating on Him, but we are ignoring Him all together.
But, again, James reminds us of the beautiful grace by quoting Proverbs 3:
“He mocks those who mock but gives grace to the humble.” (Proverbs 3:34 CSB).
And so once again, James gives His answer to the problem: humble yourself before God, run to God, ask Him for anything and everything, and include Him.
But those sound more “applicable” so we’ll save that for tomorrow.
In the meantime, James adds a few odd commands I want to jump into real quick:
Be miserable and mourn and weep
Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom
These are followed up with another command to humble yourself before God so you may be exalted.
After some research, I found that a common explanation for these commands ties into the context of humility.
We are talking about adulterous humans who abandoned God, judged others, and potentially hurt others to satisfy their own pleasures. That “pleasure” is often attributed with laughter, happiness, or joy.
It’s all fleeting and fake, but that’s not the point James is making either.
He’s commanding us to drop those fake happy emotions and humble ourselves before God. To truly recognize the atrocity of sin, to recognize our adulterous behavior, and feel that weight of sin.
That’s why he is saying to mourn and weep. He is saying to mourn and weep over our sin.
And by doing so, and humbling ourselves before God, we will be exalted by grace.
I feel like that is a great way of also showing, the mourning and weeping is repentance. But that guilt is not something we should hold onto for God is abundant in grace!
But we’ll get more into that tomorrow too 🙂
Worldliness and the Future
The next section of James is all about future planning.
Once again James is saying we can either include God and His wisdom, or depend on worldly wisdom.
Worldly wisdom involves a lot of decisions in terms of building wealth, career, generational wealth, etc.
This leads James to give us the first of many warnings against the danger of wealth.
Again, a lot of his wisdom here comes straight from Jesus Himself:
“But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you. Therefore don’t worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” (Matthew 6:33-34 CSB).
“No one can serve two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” (Matthew 6:24 CSB).
James is using Christ’s wisdom to warn us of a life divided. Just like our desires, our plans can have right or wrong motives.
When we talked about desires earlier, part of the issue was having motives of pleasure. But the other part was not even asking God at all. He was excluded.
James says the same thing about our plans.
When we make future plans all around building wealth, then we are doing it for our own selfish desires.
But, once again, James’s solution is simple: go to God, include Him in your plans.
His solution is actually very elegant:
“Instead, you should say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.’” (James 4:15 CSB).
Boom, simple!
With that, I’ll call it a day. I know a lot of information today was similar to yesterday, but again, sometimes we need that repetition to get things to click.
Tomorrow, we’ll break things down a little simpler and walk away with some application points.