James - Part 7 ("The World")

Would you stand uh one more time?

Uh and I'm gonna read out of James chapter four.

What causes fights and quarrels among you?

Don't they come from your desires that battle within you?

You desire but do you but do not have, so you kill.

You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight.

You do not have because you do not ask God.

When you ask when you ask, you do not receive because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

You adulterous people.

Don't you know that friendship with the world means enmity be against God?

Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.

Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the Spirit He has caused to dwell in us?

But he gives us more grace.

That's why the Scripture says God opposes the proud, but he shows favor to the humble.

Submit yourselves then to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Come near to God, and he will come near to you.

Wash your hands, you sinners.

Purify your hearts, you double-minded.

Grieve and mourn and wait, wail.

Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.

Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

You may be seated.

I've had a uh I've had a lifetime full of friends.

Uh a lot of my earliest memories are of friendships.

Uh I remember in kindergarten Josh and I played Atari.

Anybody have Atari?

Yeah.

A few of us, yeah, nice.

Um in uh in third and fourth grade, I built forts and had secret clubs uh with a good friend named Kyle and another named Jory.

I I uh that's when I learned how to ride a snowmobile.

We lived for a portion of our life uh in North Dakota, and my friend James had snowmobiles, and that was a thrill.

Uh in fifth grade, on the very first day of school, I ran into a friend or ran into a kid uh from Pakistan named Ibrahim, and his nickname was Bumper.

Uh his grandma was a uh um was a farmer, and so that word bumper has to do with crops.

Uh, for those of you you might know that.

Uh and so his nickname was Bumper, and he became my best friend in fifth and sixth grade.

Um then my family packed everything up, moved to Las Vegas, and put their roots into the Desert Valley.

And it was there that I grew into some friendships that had become lifelong friendships, uh, where I met Brad and Michelle and Robin and Kara and Dan.

Uh and we played pickup big games of basketball in the park on weekends.

And once we got our driver's license, we did road trips to California uh quite often.

Uh and and so those friends, those friends actually taught me how to love Jesus well.

They encouraged me to love Jesus.

Um in fact, uh 36 years later, my good friend Dan texts me every Sunday morning and says he's praying for me.

Uh this is also where I met my closest friend and somehow convinced her to marry me.

Uh and uh Dawn and I we uh I told her I loved her for the first time at an air supply concert.

The power of a ballad band.

Uh looking back, I was actually thinking about that this week.

I'm like, why did we go to air supply?

Uh like smashing pumpkins would have been a lot more fun if you know that band.

Uh my junction.

Uh so oh, and she has uh walked beside me uh as we raise children, we've weathered difficult struggles, um, learning how to be grandparents, we've traveled the world together, we've served side by side in ministry, and she encourages my walk with Jesus all the time.

She reminds me of God's character often.

And she challenges my thinking about how we engage with this world.

Um and she puts up with uh with me a lot.

I was reading something this week that reminded me uh that although she's sharing some things that she struggles with from the day, that does not mean I'm supposed to try to fix it.

And I cannot learn that lesson.

Like I constantly, I was thinking that this week, I just don't know that lesson well.

And she she can attest to that.

I'm sorry.

Uh Thomas Aquinas, uh, hundreds of years ago said, friendship is the source of the greatest pleasures.

And without friends, even the most agreeable pursuits become tedious.

Healthy friendships are meant more to be about, uh meant to be about more than utility and pleasures.

Uh Aristotle, he mused on this idea of friendship, and he said that a good, mature friendship is a friendship that is between the good and those who resemble each other in virtue, meaning that friends should encourage each other towards virtue, that we would actually become more virtuous because of our friendship with one another.

And so we find in the Hebrew scriptures we have uh a virtuous friendship between King David and uh Jonathan.

We learn about friendships with Saul, the Apostle Paul, who had friends like Barnabas and Silas and this dynamic duo named Aquila and Priscilla.

And if you at all study the ancient world, they wrote a lot about friendships.

Not just like mere like uh um casual acquaintances, but friendships that that formed us.

Scott McKnight uh reflects on those writings, and he says that it's a friendship that involves commitment to one another, a fidelity, and the expectation of mutual instruction for mutual moral development.

Again, towards virtue, that our friendship would produce more virtuous, uh more virtue in us.

Okay, can you think of a good childhood friend?

Let's say their names.

What are some of their names?

Oh okay, nice.

Anybody have friendships that still continue from childhood?

Oh, that's good.

Okay.

Anybody have a parent who told you not to hang out with that person?

Not particularly that good friendship, but any friendship.

Yeah, did you ever have a parent who warned you, no, I don't want you hanging out with that one?

Uh or a teacher pull you aside and say, uh, that might not be a good idea.

Don't hang out with them.

Um James is doing that in this passage.

He is saying, okay, uh, there is some danger towards some friendships.

Let's go back and look at this intense language.

Oh man, James is intense.

He's taking some Old Testament language and he's applying it into this.

And he begins at verse 4 You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God?

Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.

Or do you think Scripture says without reason that jealousy longs for the Spirit?

He has cause to dwell in us.

So James is saying we can't be friends with the world while trying to maintain a friendship with God at the same time.

It's kind of like when Jesus, if you grew up in Scripture at all, you would remember Jesus said something like, Hey, no one can serve two masters.

You either will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and you'll despise the other.

You can't serve both God and money.

So what does James mean by the world?

What's he talking about here?

Because it doesn't sound very friendly.

So, first off, I'll share with you what I don't believe James is saying.

James is not saying we should not have friends that do not follow God.

James isn't saying, hey, if your friend is an atheist or an agnostic or has a faith in some other religion, you shouldn't be friends with them.

That is not what James is saying here.

Nor is James telling us, oh, you cannot uh you cannot like creation.

You you have you can't have any affinity towards this planet and all the things that are created.

He's not saying we can't enjoy creation.

In fact, uh there have been some different thoughts in Christianity through the hundreds of years.

One of which is saying, hey, we should completely withdraw from society and the world and just be our own little people in this little group, or there's been other beliefs to resist all pleasure.

You should not enjoy anything.

You should have a sour face, and you should not enjoy anything and delight in anything that's created.

Lewis Smeads, a theologian, says, God is so great that he does not need to be our only joy.

There is an earthly joy, a joy of the outer as well as the inner self, the joy of dancing as well as kneeling, the joy of playing as well as praying.

So, what does James mean then by the world that we shouldn't be friends with it?

What's he saying?

And why would he say that to be friends with it would put us at odds with God?

So the Apostle John, he writes, he uses the phrase the world a lot.

And uh, and so at the very beginning in John chapter 1, he's gonna say something uh about the world.

John 1 · chapter mention

He says, the true light, which is Jesus that gives us light to everyone, was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.

So so does the world mean our planet?

Does the world mean the people on the planet?

Sometimes both, sometimes one or the other.

And John would later say in John chapter 3, uh a little more well-known passage, for God so loved the world that he gave his own one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

John 3 · chapter mention

For God did not send his world this his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

John later writes another letter, and it feels like it's a little contradictory.

It's one that we just read.

It's in 1 John, and he says, Do not love the world or anything in the world.

If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them.

Doesn't that feel contradictory towards what we just read?

God so loved the world, and then now we're reading this this letter to the church, don't love the world.

If you do, the love of the Father is not even in you.

So so what is James and John talking about then?

Because they're they're using this phrase, this sounds like a little bit like James, this don't love the world, and if you do, the love of the Father is not in you.

But if we read the rest of this passage out of John, it gives a little bit more clarification for everything in the world, and now he's gonna tell us what it is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life.

It comes not from the Father, but from the world.

The world and its desires pass away.

But whoever does the will of God lives forever.

All right.

So what is the world?

What'd you say?

Okay, well, we're getting there.

Thank you, Dwayne.

Ooh.

So James and John are both gonna say, hey, anything that is contrary that pushes back on the will of God would be considered the world.

So when we see that phrase in this context, it would be anything that like pushes back on what God's desire is for you and for me that would that would cause us to flourish rather than lead us to destruction.

So let me let me read a couple of definitions.

We're getting to where I want to go.

Uh let me read a couple definitions of what theologians say they mean by the world.

Simon Chan, uh, a Southeast Asian theologian, says the world is an organized humanity in opposition to God.

Abraham Joshua Heschel, a Jewish theologian, says, the world is where man reigns supreme, with the focus of forces of nature as his only possible adversaries.

Man is alone free and growing stronger.

God is neither non-existent or unconcerned.

It is human initiative that makes history, and it is primarily by force that constellations will change.

Man can attain his own salvation.

Are you following?

Are we catching on?

Okay.

Pastor John Mark says this about the world.

It's a system of ideas and values and morals and practices and social norms that are integrated into everyday life, the mainstream, and eventually into all of our institutions in a culture corrupted by the twins of rebellion against God and the redefinition of good and evil.

Okay.

That's a lot.

The world doesn't say, when we're talking about the world in John and James, it's not where we're saying there is no God.

It's the phrase we are anti-God.

We are against anything that God would want for us.

That's what James and John are talking about.

Listen, to be friends with something that says, no, we don't want anything to do with God, we want to do it our way.

And there is an evil force, an enemy of God that's behind all of that.

And it's not humanity.

And so that's where James and John are going to say, hey, be careful, don't become friends with them.

So uh I shared the story, I think, last year.

Don and I went to England a few years ago to celebrate one of our uh um anniversaries.

And we went to this church, this beautiful church, and on that particular day, there were some people getting baptized.

And we went outside to where they were going to be baptized, and this was in a very public place and a very touristy place.

And so people were so curious.

They were coming around, and you start to see this crowd start to build up around the person being baptized.

And before they're baptized, this church, and many churches have practiced for hundreds of years, they began to they asked the people being baptized to renounce some things.

These statements that have been said over and over again by many Christians.

And I'm gonna read a couple of these statements, and if you agree with them, you can read the words in yellow aloud.

They asked them, Do you renounce Satan and all spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God?

I renounce them, they said.

Do you renounce the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God?

I renounce them, they said.

And then they went on and said many more.

And then they moved into do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Savior?

And they said, I do.

It's amazing that Jesus called us into a way of life that would that would follow and live out the will of God.

And the church has been called to do that collectively.

We do that individually, but we really has been called to do that together as a gathering.

In our American culture, it's hard for us to separate, it's hard for us not to be individualized.

Uh but but the church is gonna keep on saying, hey, no, this is what Jesus has called us to do together.

This is the way that most reflects who Jesus is, who God the Father is, and we're gonna live this out together.

And that has played out over and over in different ways.

We we may not agree on all interpretations of scripture, and that is okay.

But for the most part, the church has been contrary to the to the world.

And when we say the world, again, I don't want you to have a mindset of a person's face or a group of people's faces, it's this movement behind anything that's against God, or a movement behind being against God.

And so so the church has held on to some things for 2,000 years, like that we hold on to the dignity of every human being.

All life has dignity.

The church has held that for 2,000 years.

Or how we love our enemy, which is so strange to do.

Or how we become generous with the poor.

The church has always been about doing that.

Not always perfectly, and not in every local locality, but in general, the church should be generous to the poor.

It's how we turn the cheek and we forgive those who have hurt us.

It's how we care for the widow and the foreigner, it's how we resist lust and greed, it's how we resist pride and gossiping about our neighbor, it's how we avoid unrestrained sexuality, it's how we pursue justice for the marginalized, it's how we do the hard thing by going against the grain of society.

And as Eugene Peterson says, sometimes when you go against the grain, you get a splinter.

So the church has stepped into those places and it hasn't always been easy.

Because sometimes the church wants to look like the culture around it rather than rather than to infuse the way of Jesus into the culture.

So how how does that look how does that look uh throughout history?

I want us I want to take us back uh a couple hundred years ago, or 150 years ago, roughly.

Into a time where in our culture, in American culture, where the church had to decide what do we think about this together?

The church had to like take something into account and say, hey, this is what's happening in our society, this is what's happening in our culture, but what do we together think about this?

And for them to really wrestle with what is the way of Jesus in this particular thing.

The revivalist Charles Finney uh challenged the church in the mid-1800s specifically about this topic, and he's gonna ask the question Is this thing sin?

And that is a role of the church, it's a big part of the church where we have to consider that.

Like, oh, is this the thing that we should be okay with?

Or should we not, and should we turn our backs against that and and and and do it a different way?

And so the question was, is slavery a sin?

And it's odd that he would even be asking the church that.

I mean, for us today, it'd be like, oh, that's weird that that would be even asked.

But at that time, many churches supported and championed slavery, which would be like, ah, that just blows my mind how it could ever be justified.

And some were even complicit where both the slave and the master came into the same space to worship Jesus.

And you think, I can't believe that.

But but that is where the church and the culture become so ingrained with each other that they don't know where it is that Jesus wants us, how does he want us to land on this?

And so it takes this collective thought to be like, no, slavery is a sin, and the church should have nothing to do with it.

In fact, Charles Finney, when he preached, I'll let me just read a portion of the of the sermon to you.

He says this to the the church.

Hey, the church testimony must be given on this subject.

They are God's witnesses.

The silence of Christians upon this subject is virtually saying that they do not consider slavery as a sin.

The truth is, it is a subject upon which they cannot be still without guilt.

The church cannot turn away from this question.

It is a question for the church and for the nation to decide, and God will push it to a decision.

The church must testify, and testify the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth on this subject, or she is perjured.

And the Spirit of God departs from her.

She is under oath to testify, and ministers and churches who do not pronounce its sin bear false witness for God.

It is doubtless true that one of the reasons for the low state of religion at this present time is that many churches have taken the wrong side on the subject of slavery, have suffered prejudice to prevail over principle, and have feared to call the abomination by its true name.

This is what James is talking about.

He's talking about these moments in time where he's kind of looking out and he's telling, looking at what's happening around in the culture.

And James is saying to those who are the leaders of the church, this is a time where you have to kind of separate.

Oh, is this thing a sin?

Is it part of the system of the world that doesn't really believe in the dignity of all human beings, or is this of God?

Are you following with me?

This is a heavy topic.

Generation after generation after generation has to deal with the same thing.

We have to wrestle with what does Jesus think about this right now?

And we have to do that together.

We have to collectively talk about it together.

Because we have to look back through the 2,000 years of people who've gone before us and what have they thought about this particular topic and where do we land right now?

And so that's why over the last, and this church has been a part of that, where over the last uh few decades, this pushback on sex trafficking and the slavery that's happening throughout the world today.

And I know that that's been a conversation that this church has had in the past.

Like, hey, how do we stand up against that?

And how do we support those who do?

And so, yeah, oh, oh, these big topics that keep rising up.

Church, where do we land on this and how do we respond to it?

Because quietness and silence is not uh the response.

Sometimes silence is good.

Uh-huh.

I sure like it.

Uh some of you are thinking, I wish you'd be silent now.

Um.

So, but silence is not good when it comes to what is happening in our world.

And what does God think about it?

And how do we infuse what the Jesus way is into culture rather than the church being impacted by the culture?

Would you say?

Yes.

Yes, we do.

I'm pushing through a lot of things.

There's a we're already at 11:30.

Let me jump uh to just a conclusion here.

James is worried that there's a friendship with the way that's against Jesus.

That the way of Jesus is not being lived out by this church.

And that is a big concern.

To be a friend of the world would put you at as an enemy of God.

You can't be friends with both.

And sometimes a church has been in a place where they call themselves a church, but they are actually the friend of the world.

Systems that are against the will of God, and systems that are against the way that God loves the world.

I appreciate uh Tammy, I think, read it.

Uh Tammy, you read John 15.

Is that right?

It's amazing how the king of the universe, the one who created all things, called his disciples his friends.

It's pretty remarkable.

Can we go back and just read that for a moment?

John 15.

He says, I have called you friends.

For everything that I learned from my Father, I have made known to you.

You did not choose me, but I choose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit, fruit that will last.

And so that whatever you ask in my name, the Father will give you.

Now look at the result of what will happen with this friendship with our Creator.

This is my command.

Love each other.

And I think that's the greatest litmus test for the church is how well do we love our community, the world around us?

When we speak about our neighbors, does it just is it saturated in our love for them?

When we speak about one another in this room, is it saturated with our love for each other?

And when we have to do some hard things like Charles Finney did 150 years ago and many others like him, where we have to speak into hard things, but it is out of love that we do it.

And I think James is applicable to today.

I mean, you might have something in your mind already that of a topic of how does the church respond to that particular thing.

Um and James is gonna keep on pushing you, be a friend with God so you know how to how to respond to that particular thing.

We're gonna talk a little bit more next week about this so we could have a fuller conversation.

This one we're kind of stopping at a at a midpoint in a way, and we'll finish out John James 4.

Would you pray with me?

Jesus, how does my life show that that we are friends?

I'll let you have a conversation as I prepare for communion.