Submitting Yourself to God (4:1-12)

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. 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 is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely? But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: "God opposes the proud but gives grace 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, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you--who are you to judge your neighbor?

We can be so arrogant and independent towards God! If there's a single obstacle to growing as a disciple of Jesus it is our pride. Not the good kind of self-esteem pride that we need to grow as people. But that variety of "I-can-do-it-myself" pride that we can so easily fall prey to. It all starts in the heart.

Fights and Quarrels (4:1-2)

I expect that as a leading elder of Christendom's Mother Church at Jerusalem, James had seen all too much bickering and picking and criticizing. This, too, finds its root in pride, and James addresses it in this chapter. Some of the words he uses are:

• Fights, Greek polemos (4:1) -- literally "armed conflict, war, battle, fight," then figuratively "strife, conflict, quarrel"1

• Quarrels, Greek machē (4:1) -- "fight, quarrel, dispute."2

• Battle, Greek strateuō (4:1) -- "do military service, serve in the army," then figuratively, of the struggles of the passions within the human soul (James 4:1; 1 Peter 2:11)."3

• Kill, Greek phoneuō (4:2) --"murder, kill."4 Jesus compared unrestrained anger with murder (Matthew 5:21-22), since anger is one of the roots of murder.

• Covet, Greek zeloō (4:2) -- in a bad sense "be filled with jealousy, envy toward someone."5

• Quarrel (polemeō) and fight (machomai) (4:2). See related words above.

 I remember two pretty good basses in one church I attended. One was filled with jealousy at the other -- who was the better singer -- and he couldn't find a kind word to say. Sounds like the "bitter envy and selfish ambition" that James talked about in 3:14. So many church fights that are outwardly about issues, are under the surface are about power ("selfish ambition") and bitter envy. God help us!

That isn't to say that churches don't have to work through difficult problems sometimes. They do, just like families. But we need to do it with love and not with spite.

As long as we are on this earth we will have strife and conflict, since we are different people with different points of view. But we must let our love flow in spite of our differences. And we can examine ourselves, and purify ourselves of base motivations.

Hedonism as a Way of Life (4:3)

Twice in the first three verses of chapter four, James uses the Greek word hedonē, from which we get our English word "hedonism."

 "What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires (hedonē) that battle within you?" (4:1)

"When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures (hedonē)." (4:3)

 In these verses, hedonē is variously translated "desires," "lusts," "passions," or "pleasures." It means "pleasure, enjoyment, pleasantness," usually in the bad sense of "(evil) pleasure, lust."

 We generally use the word "hedonism" as a kind of synonym for "decadence." But I would guess that at least 50% of the people on the face of the earth live by this unwritten rule: "I will choose what seems to offer me the greatest happiness."

 Sounds pretty innocent. Everyone wants to be happy. But seeking personal happiness as our main goal in life means -- by definition -- (1) that we are not living to love others and seek their good when it conflicts with our own, and that (2) we have not surrendered our lives to fulfill God's will for us. Pursuit of personal happiness is selfishness, pure and simple. But it is so common a personal philosophy that we take it for granted. A great many Christians are more committed to their own personal happiness than they are doing God's will. And that may sometimes include you -- and me.

We don't have what we want, James says in verse 2, because we do not ask God. Why is that? Sometimes it is because we are afraid to bring God into our lives too much, since we might not like what he would say. We prefer to go it on our own rather than be obligated to God.

There's an old story about a lady who told her friend about a terrible problem she had, and that now all she could do was pray. "My, my," answered her friend. "Has it come to that?"

"You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives (Greek kakos), that you may spend what you get on your pleasures." (4:2b-3)

One of the reasons God doesn't give us what we ask for is because of our heart selfishness, literally, "you ask badly or wrongly." Our motivations are wrong. We ask not for a good purpose, but for an evil one, a self-centered one, to spend it (dapanaō) on our hedonism. The Greek word dapanaō means "spend, spend freely."

It's like asking our Dad for money and then using it to go out and carouse. How long do you think he'll be giving you money if he knows that's what you'll do with it? Our selfishness, our pleasure-serving, can and does block answers to our prayers.