The Danger in Being a Friend of the World, Pt. 1
James 4:1‑2
Let's turn in our Bibles tonight for our time of study in God's Word to James chapter 4...James chapter 4. And we have an ongoing study of James' epistle. We're not in a hurry. It's a brief epistle and even if we take our time we'll get through this in my life time. So we are not pressed to run ahead of the things that the Spirit of God would have us study together.
We come for our message tonight to the first six verses of chapter 4. That's really a unit of thought, although we never are guaranteed that we'll get through any single unit of thought in one time together. That is a unit of thought and I'd like, if I might, to read you that section, James 4 beginning at verse 1 and through verse 6.
"From where come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence of your lusts that war in your members? You lust and have not, you kill and desire to have and cannot obtain, you fight in war yet you have not because you ask not. You ask and receive not because you ask amiss that you may consume it upon your lusts. You adulteresses, do you not know that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. Do you think that the scriptures says in vain the Spirit that dwells in us lusts to envy? But He gives more grace. Wherefore He said, God resists the proud but gives grace unto the humble."
Let's ask the Lord to bless our study together, can we bow for a moment?
Father, as we come to this passage, we do plead the power and the teaching ministry of Your blessed Spirit. We would understand and we would apply what it is that You are saying to us and we give You praise in anticipation of that for Christ's sake. Amen.
This, I believe, is one of the most potent texts in this epistle and it deals again with another test of living faith, another test of genuine faith. Do I need to say again that James gives us in this epistle a series of tests by which to evaluate the genuineness of one's faith? I heard today, in fact in our prayer time earlier tonight with the elders, we prayed for a lady, a lady well known to most of you in our congregation if you've been here for any length of time. She and her husband were very active in our church, very aggressive in serving with our youth ministry and serving with our children's division. He was serving in spiritual leadership in the church. They were high profile. I knew them well, watched them through the years. We had not seen them in quite a while and she appeared in the church in recent days to announce to the folks that she met and talked with that she no longer believed anything that she once said she believed, no longer affirmed the deity of Christ, no longer would even admit that she was a sinner. In fact made the statement, "I don't believe I'm a sinner anymore, I've put that all aside and I believe Grace Community Church is a cult," and she went on and on and on.
Frightening and almost inconceivable thing to hear from the lips of this particular person whom I knew so very well and from whose lips I heard the affirmation of faith in Jesus Christ so repeatedly. Further information about the situation has determined that she has left her husband, is pursuing a divorce, engaged in adultery and a life that is displeasing to God and has demonstrated a heart that is a friend of the world and not a friend of God. And that's the issue James speaks of in this passage.
This is another test of genuine faith. It is one thing to say you believe, it is one thing to say you're a Christian, it is one thing to go through the motions, it is another thing to prove it by your life. And all through this epistle James is giving us tests of living faith. The first test was how you respond to trials, chapter 1. And then there was how you respond to temptations and who you blame for them. And then there was how you react to the Word of God, do you receive it and obey it? Are you a doer of the Word or only a hearer? And then how you respond to people in need, do you have the true religion that reaches out to the fatherless and the widows, or do you demonstrate, as chapter 2 outlined, partiality toward some people? And then there was that great and comprehensive test of works in chapter 2 verse 14 and following where James says if your faith is real it will prove itself in works, for faith without works is...what?...it's dead. And then there was the tongue in chapter 3 and the tongue is a test of true salvation, it's a test of transformation because out of your mouth comes the evidence of what's in your heart. And James is really reiterating what Jesus said that it's the heart that produces the vocabulary and the speech.
And then we just studied at the end of chapter 3 another test of living faith and that is the kind of wisdom that you exhibit. Is it the wisdom that is from above or is it the wisdom that is not from above which is earthly and sensual and demoniacal?
And now he comes to another key indicator of true saving faith and that is one's attitude toward the world. For to be a friend of the world is to be...what?...be enemy of God. And it's not so much that you are God's enemy as it is that God becomes your enemy, which is far more fearful a perception. Typically, by the way, as James unfolds these tests through the epistle, he really cycles back very often through something he has already said. And in chapter 1 verse 27 he really introduced this when he said, "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this...to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction...in their affliction...and to keep oneself...what?...unstained from the world." So he already introduced the fact that pure religion has a definition that keeps it separated from the world, unspotted, unstained, unsoiled by the world.
Now the key phrase that we want you to note in verses 1 to 6 is the phrase in verse 4, "the friendship of the world." Let me talk about that phrase for a little bit...the friendship of the world. We must understand to whom James refers. The phrase is the dominant theme in this context, either by explicit statement or by implicit statement. All the elements in those six verses, as I see it, fall in line under that concept of friendship with the world. Now the word "friendship" is the word philia, it comes from a Greek verb that's a somewhat familiar verb to us, phileo, it's often translated "love" in the New Testament. There is a word philos which means "friend." The word philia, friendship, is used only here but it's of that same word group. It means to love in the sense of having an emotional attachment to or an affection for. If I can make a distinction and I would admit to you that agapao, the strong and familiar word for love we see throughout Scripture, and phileo are very close in meaning. As I perceive it, if there is any distinction at all, it seems as though in agapao kind of love there is a stronger volitional drive, whereas in phileo kind of love there is a stronger emotional drive. It is the word group phileo that gives us the word "kiss" to demonstrate emotion and affection. And so what we're talking about here is an affection for the world, an emotional attachment to the world. In fact, we might even imply that it's a strong affection for the world. It's not casual but it implies a deep and an intimate longing to be involved with the world. It is a falling in love with the world, with all the drives and impulses that we would associate with that.
James is not referring to some accidental or some incidental occasion where a believer might be doing something he doesn't want to do or not doing something he does want to do...a time when we fall into some sin or error. This can happen to any believer at any time. What James is referring to is a settled affection, a strong attraction, an intimate relationship. He is not referring simply to some sinful hankering after evil. He's not referring to some luring of the unwilling self into the clutches of the world. He's not referring to those times we fall into sin because in temptation we don't take the ekbasis, the way out, which God always provides. He's not referring to those sins that we stumble into because we do not strongly hold to the means of victorious grace. That happens to all of us. James is not speaking of the acts or circumstances related to spiritual weakness which can pull any believer into the world and into its sin.
But James has in mind a strong love and a determined affection for and an intimate relationship with and a desire to embrace joyfully the world. Philia implies, as best I understand the word, common concerns...common interests...common objectives...common enterprises...deeply felt affection...sharing of experiences. And by the way, the word form in one way or another is used about 29 times in the New Testament. It has the idea of an emotional bonding, of a real affection. And that I believe is the force with which James intends to use the Word. For example, it is used to describe the affection Jesus displayed for repentant sinners in Matthew chapter 11 verse 19, a love definitely of affection. "The Son of Man came eating and drinking and they said...this was the criticism of His contemporary religionists...Behold, a man gluttonous, a wine bibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners." He demonstrates His affection for tax collectors and sinners.
It was even used by Jesus Himself to describe His loving affection for His disciples in Luke 12 and verse 4. It is used to describe the common interest in killing Christ that Herod shared with Pilate in Luke 23:12. They had a common interest, common concern, common objective and a common affection for one another in terms of their common enterprise to put Jesus Christ to death. It is the term used in John 3:29 to describe the relationship of the groom's best man to the groom...a close kinship, a close friendship, one of affection.
Perhaps a usage which gives us the simplest and clearest definition would be to look to John 15 for a moment. In John 15 and verse 13 here we have the usage of this phileo root and it says in verse 13, "Greater affection has no man than this, than that a man lay down his life for his philos, his friend."
In other words, it is a bond of intimacy which attaches you so deeply to a person that self‑sacrifice even to the point of death could occur. Not every such use of the word "friend" implies that, but this one does. And then in verse 14 He says, "You are My friends if you do...what?...whatever I command you." It's a bond then of obedience. In verse 15, "Henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant knows not what his lord does." He's not privy, he's not intimate. "But I have called you friends for all things that I have heard of My Father I've made known unto you." You have entered into intimacy with Me. You have entered into affection with Me, to common cause, common interest, common enterprise, common objective. And He goes on to say, verse 18, "If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own, but because you're not of the world I've chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you." And He emphasizes that the union is so great and the identification is so strong that the way the world treats Christ is the way the world would treat the friends of Christ because they are so commonly bound to Christ.
So there it is used to describe the loving affection believers have toward the Lord Jesus Christ which sets them fully apart from the world. And may I take it a step further and remind you that that John 15 passage tells us very clearly that a believer is a friend of the Lord Jesus Christ, right? You are My friends if you do whatever I command you, I used to call you servants, now you've been promoted to intimacy. That could happen very easily in a household where a servant became a friend. You can understand that. And so Jesus is saying, I see you as My friends. And so if believers and disciples are identified as the friends of Christ, then people who are identified as the friends of the world have entered into a deep affection with the world, as the friends of Christ have entered in to a deep affection with Him.
Now what does it mean "the world"? Let's go back to James and just talk about that for a moment. I'm sure you're aware of the use of this term, kosmos, throughout the New Testament. Let me just give it to you simply because we've covered it in other studies together. But the term "world" refers to the man‑ centered, Satan‑directed system of this world which is hostile to God, Christ and the Christian. It's not talking about the earth, it's not talking about the globe, it's not talking about terra firma, it's not talking about anything physical, it's talking about the spiritual reality of the lostness and the ungodliness of this system in which we live, a Satan‑directed, man‑centered system hostile to God, Christ, the Holy Spirit and the Christian. It refers to all the values of the world, all the mores of the world, the life style of the world, the ethics of the world, the morals of the world, the institutions of the world as they are established apart from and antagonistic to God.
Robert Johnstone who has written a very helpful commentary on James, in fact he wrote it in 1871, has an interesting paragraph which sort of pulls things together. He says, "God made the world very good with beauty and harmony everywhere. All things around contributed to man's rational happiness, ever sending up his thoughts and his affections in admiration and love to the great creator so that he in the sublimity of reason and free will the Lord of the creatures led the chorus of the world's praise. But sin alluring his heart from his heavenly Father brought in jarring discord. The devil became the prince of this world and what God had made order, he made chaos. The world was not enveloped in a distorting and misleading atmosphere of falsehood. All things presented themselves to man's mind and heart in untrue dimensions and relations. And instead of drawing him toward God and leading him into the land of uprightness, guided him further away into the far country of wickedness and death. Thus now God and the world which He created are morally in opposition to each other."
Now the goal of the world is self‑glory. The goal of the world is self‑fulfillment, self‑control, self‑indulgence, self‑ satisfaction. And all of it is hostile to God and all of it is antagonistic to His Word. And all of it opposes His will. And so James is very direct. James says in verse 4 that a deep affection for the world is utterly incompatible with loyalty to God. Okay? Pretty clear cut. In fact he says it is enmity with God...enmity. That word enmity means personal hostility, personal hated. It is a very strong word. It is a form of the term that could be translated enemy. The people James has in mind are hostile to God. They are the enemies of God. They hate God.
Now it's important that we follow this through because we have to know who he's talking about here. In my study of this passage and in my discussions through the years about this passage, I have found that many people believe he's referring to Christians here who are friends of the world. But my study of this scripture indicates that that's an impossibility by the very use of the terms which he is so careful to choose.
Now it says, "Anybody who is a friend of the world is at enmity with God." Hates God, is personally hostile to God, is an enemy of God. Now let's find out who the enemies of God are, okay? Get your Bible ready and let's take a look. Let's begin in Acts chapter 13...Acts chapter 13. And it says in verse 6 when Paul and Barnabas just having been commissioned by the church at Antioch were sent out to the isle of Paphos. They found a certain sorcerer, that's one who performed magic, who may well have been a medium contacting demonic spirits, a false prophet, a Jew named Bar‑Jesus, son of Jesus. He was with the deputy of the country, Sergius Paulus, a prudent man who called for Paul and Barnabas. Barnabas and Saul, still called Saul, and desired to hear the Word of God. But Elymas the sorcerer, for so is his name by interpretation, withstood them, seeking to turn away the deputy from the faith.
So here is this sorcerer who is contact with Satanic sources and he tries to stop the gospel from penetrating the heart of Sergius Paulus. So Saul, who is called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit set his eyes on him and this is what he said to this man. This is a no doubt a medium contacting false prophet who conjures up evil spirits and represents the Satanic enterprise. And he says to him, "O full of all deceit and all mischief, you child of the devil, you...what?...enemy of all righteousness."
Here is the enemy. The enemy is one who is closely and intimately aligned with the devil, with Satan and his enterprises.
Chapter 5 of Romans. Let's move a little further into the New Testament and find out who the enemies of God are. In Romans 5 verse 10 we read, and this is a recitation really of the blessings and benedictions that comes to us in our salvation, the results of our justification. Verse 10 says, "For if when we were...what?...enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son." And we'll stop at that point. Before our salvation we were what? Enemies...enemies.
Chapter 8 of Romans and verse 6, fascinating text. In fact in verse 5 he starts, "They that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh, they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. To be fleshly minded is death, to be spiritually minded is life and peace because the fleshly mind is enmity against God. The enemy of God. It is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be, so then they that are in the flesh cannot please God, but you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit if the Spirit of God dwells in you." Clearly here the enemy, the one at enmity with God is the fleshly person who does not possess the Spirit and verse 9 says if you have not the Spirit you don't belong to Christ. The logic of what Paul is saying then is an enemy is an unbeliever...an enemy is an unbeliever.