James 4:4–8 - Friendship with the World Is Hostility to God (Session 13)

In this episode of Reasoning Through the Bible, James 4:4–8 is explored verse by verse, revealing why friendship with the world is hostility toward God. This study explains James’s strong warning against spiritual adultery, worldliness, pride, and divided loyalty, while also highlighting God’s greater grace for the humble. The passage calls believers to submit to God, resist the devil, draw near to God, cleanse their hands, purify their hearts, and walk in genuine repentance.

This Bible study is especially helpful for listeners searching for teaching on friendship with the world, spiritual adultery, Christian humility, resisting the devil, drawing near to God, and practical Christian living. James continues to speak with direct force and clarity, offering both a warning against worldliness and a path back to holiness and closeness with God.

Transcript

Glenn 0:15

The book of James tells us that friendship with the world is hostility towards God. Why is it that the world that God made is hostile towards God? The worldly ways are so far apart from God. Today we're going to learn that as we study through James and Steve James is such a practical book. Today we're going to get even more practical things from him, and he gets increasingly direct, which makes a lot of us uncomfortable here.

Steve 0:44

in chapter four and in the first three verses that we talked about, james pulled out the hammer. Well, he still got it out in these verses, too, that we're going to talk about today.

Glenn 0:53

We're in the midst of James, chapter four, and we're going to start in verse four, where he's giving instructions to the Christians at the various congregations. He's writing to, telling them to live righteous lives and to avoid issues and problems. Last time he talked about wars or quarrels that go on in the members of the church and inside us as individual Christians, and today he's telling them to avoid friendship with the world. Let's go ahead and start reading. You, adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility towards God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the scripture speaks to no purpose? He jealously desires the spirit which he has made to dwell in us, but he gives a greater grace, for it says God is opposed to the proud but gives grace to the humble. In verse four here, steve, he starts out calling his congregation adulteresses. We talked last time, a couple of verses earlier, he called them murderers. What does he mean here when he calls them murderers and adulteresses?

Steve 2:06

They're going after the world and an adulteress is somebody that goes after another love. They abandon their true love or their love that they committed themselves to to go after another love. That's where he's drawn the connection here their adulteresses, because they're abandoning their love for God and going after this worldly love that's opposed to God altogether.

Glenn 2:35

Can't think of too many church leaders I've heard of that'll stand up on a Sunday morning and just lay into his congregation calling them murderers and adulteresses. Perhaps it might be needed, but you're absolutely right there, steve. He's talking about a spiritual adultery here, not a physical adultery. Remember, james was Jewish and he's writing to a very Jewish audience. James is tying together these Old Testament concepts here of spiritual adultery that God mentioned many times in the Old Testament with this New Testament idea that the church is the bride of Christ.

Glenn 3:12

In the Old Testament God spoke good number of times to his people, israel, saying that they had been whoring after other gods. The idea that God had instilled in them is that if you're going to be faithful to me, then you're not going to worship other gods. If you are worshiping other gods, you're committing spiritual adultery. Anything that we set up as an idol, then we're committing spiritual adultery. People set up physical idols of stone and wood and bow to them. Other people make other things. Idols such as gambling, money, sex, work or things like this become a substitute for God. Anything that we worship or put in a greater position than God, whether or not we think it's religious or not, if we put more attention on anything else than we do God, then we're committing spiritual adultery.

Steve 4:05

I also want to mention here that in verse four, when he talks about therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. John says that over in 1 John, the same thing the world is an enemy of God, but God is not an enemy of the world. What do I mean by that? What's John 316? For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, so that whoever believed within him shall not perish but have everlasting life. God is not an enemy to the world, but the world is an enemy of God. I just want to call that out here and make sure that it's clearly understood. The worldly thoughts and ways are an enemy to God, but God loves the world.

Glenn 4:52

It says here in this passage that friendship with the world is hostility towards God. I agree with what you just pointed out, steve. Why is it that what this calls the world, that worldliness, is hostile towards God?

Steve 5:08

Worldliness is absence of God in a way, in that the worldliness is selfish things. It's things that are tied and connected to the things that we can touch, feel and see in our lifetime. It pulls us away from the ultimate destination that we all have. Whether we're lost or saved, we have an eternal spirit that's going to live on. The question is, are we going to live eternally with God or are we going to live eternally separate from God? It starts here in the world. That's what we kind of anchor ourselves to as human beings, because we're attached currently to this world. I think that if we could truly understand where we're going to spend eternity, there'd be a whole lot more people that wouldn't be attached to this world and thus an enemy of God.

Glenn 5:56

There's an old book written by a man named John Bunyan called Pilgrim's Progress, and it was an allegory of spiritual things. I would recommend it to our readers, but get the modern English version. It's more understandable. But in the allegory you have a Christian that's on this path towards heaven, the celestial city. He tries to stay on the path, but periodically there's things that try to pull him off of the path. Some of them are bad and some of them are just normal everyday things, but they're still trying to pull him off of the path. There's one character that he meets in the book called Worldly Wise man, and Worldly Wise man tries to get him off of the path. That's what James is saying here is that there's things of the world that may or may not be bad in and of themselves Many of the things we encounter in our daily lives. There's nothing necessarily evil about them, but when it gets us off of the path, it gets us off of godly things. It gets us off of learning about the Lord. It gets us away from a love relationship with our Lord Jesus. The Bible calls us the bride of Christ, and that's where it's talking about here. If the bride is focused on somebody else, that's adultery. That's what the problem is. In verse 4, the tone here is quite blunt. He calls them adulteresses.

Glenn 7:21

Too many of our churches, steve, are operating like a business. They're more focused on getting numbers of customers in and having those customers spend more money than they are about whether the congregation is growing spiritually. I think it was Spurgeon that asked the question are we feeding sheep or amusing goats? That's the question we should have in our churches. James wasn't concerned with amusing the goats. If the goats left, he didn't really care so much. What he cared about was are the sheep growing and following the shepherd? If the church leaders are only trying to get more people in the door, then I'd say they have wrong motives and they need to reevaluate their career choices, because too many of our churches their only focus is more numbers of people and more numbers of money they're not really focused on. Are we truly following the shepherd and, in our lives, growing from the shepherd?

Glenn 8:20

Each of us should ask ourselves whether I am more friends with the world than I am with the Lord Jesus Christ. Where am I spending my time? Is it worldly things? Where am I spending my thought life? Am I thinking about worldly things or am I thinking about the Lord Right now? The Christian should feel like I'm a person out of place. A Christian should feel like, yeah, I'm in this world, but I'm a foreigner here. I don't feel comfortable here. If you feel comfortable in the world, something's amiss with your spiritual life. You should feel out of place. You should feel I need to go home because I don't like it here.

Glenn 8:59

It has all these other things in it that's not godly the things in there. Again, it's not so much that it's evil Some of it is it's that it distracts us from being godly. Each of us needs to look ourselves in the mirror and the mirror is the scripture and ask myself am I friends with the world? Here's just one practical tip to say am I focusing on godly things or am I focusing on, as James said, self-pleasures and worldliness In my prayer? What are the pronouns I'm using? Am I saying I and me and my a lot in my prayer? God helped me. Fix my problem. It hurts me, solve my problem. Am I saying that? Or am I saying you to God, lord? Thank you, lord, I praise you. Am I focused on me or am I focused on the Lord in my prayers? That's just one, one tip I've used, steve. What other things can we use? What can we do to focus more on God and less on the world?

Steve 9:58

This word here in verse four. Wishes can also be desires or to will. He's talking about people that desire to be attached to the world, to do the worldly things you rightfully said it a while ago is we should long to go home because that's going to be our eternal dwelling place is not here in this world. It's going to be in a new heavens and new earth. He's talking to these people that want to be in this world. That's what he's mentioned in here.

The Solution to Worldliness and Strife

Steve 10:32

If you want to be in this world and be attached to this world, then you're an enemy of God. The question to our audience is are you attached to the world so much to the point that you don't want to go home, that you would rather stay here because of what you have? The thought sometimes is yeah, I do want to go home, but I don't want to go home right now. I'm not talking about having a wish to die right away. That's not what I'm talking about but it's a desire. The long-term desire for me is to go home.

Steve 11:06

The things of this world. Here. There are some pleasurable things. I have family members that are here. I have daughters and grandchildren that are here, that I love and I like being around them, but my long-term desire is to go home, to be with my other loved ones that have already passed away and to be with God. That's what I'm looking forward to. This is just a temporary stop on the way of eternal, so don't be longing, willing, desiring to be a part of this world. If you are, you need to think you're an enemy of God.

Glenn 11:44

Now here's another issue that comes up Stephen and you and I have seen this is some churches get so focused on fighting worldliness that they turn to legalism. Legalism means making up rules to put on other people. A legalist would go around looking at other people trying to make sure they're not worldly instead of looking at myself trying to make sure I'm not worldly. We don't need to be adding rules to the Word of God and laying it on other people. That's the problem. The way I would phrase it is this is that we need to be less concerned with the separation of church and state and more concerned with the separation of church and the world. That's the way I would say it and less of adding rules onto the Word of God and more of living by the royal law, the law of liberty, which is due unto others, as you'd have them do unto you.

Steve 12:35

One thing to add before. When you're talking about some churches just focus on numbers to bring people in and because they want to feed the goats rather than the sheep, that's what they focus on. They need to be aware what I've said before is those type of churches need to be cautious of how much of the world they allow into their church, because many times that's what they end up doing is we're going to become more worldly, just a little bit, just a little bit of world in here, so that we can get the worldly people in to hear the gospel. What happens many times is is that little bitty part of the world starts to grow, grow, grow, grow. Why Is? Because people are naturally pulled to the world.

Steve 13:21

Don't get me wrong. I think there needs to be outreach in order to get lost people into the church. But the question is do we need to let the world become part of the worship service of God in order to have those people and entertain them up to the point that they then hear the gospel? I think that's the wrong approach and we should be cautious whenever we take that approach of letting the world in a little bit to entertain the worldly people so that they then can hear the gospel.

Glenn 13:52

Jesus warned us against that exact thing In the gospels he told the parable of a woman who took leaven and hid it in a loaf and it grew until it filled the whole loaf. Well, leaven, or yeast, is always, always in the scripture, a sign of sin and worldliness. So if we take a little bit of sin and worldliness and bring it inside of our lives or the church, it'll grow. There's a question about verse five. We'll go ahead and answer that real quick.

Glenn 14:20

In verse five he has a quote here at least he phrases it like it's a quote, but as if and he says it from the scripture. But there's really no Old Testament verse that says that. But what there is is there's many Old Testament passages that teach that idea. The idea there is that he jealously desires the spirit which he has made to dwell in us. That concept permeates the Old Testament. I mean, all the way judges and kings, god always was jealous of his people and himself. But there's not a passage that says that. So not really an issue Moving on, it has there in verse six that God is opposed to the proud. Why is pride given as a sin? You know, I remember meeting people that says why do you want to be a doormat, you should have some self-confidence, right? Is that what he's talking about, or is it some other sense of?

Steve 15:13

the word pride. No, this pride, and the pride that's spoken of in the scripture, is self Self pride. I did it all myself. Look at the things that I've done. It's a prideful thing that I don't need a God. I don't need him in my life. What I have done, I've accomplished on my own. What do I need God for? That's the type of pride that he's talking about here and that's spoken all throughout.

Glenn 15:37

Scripture. Other passages support what you just said. Quote for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not of the Father but is from the world. 1 John 2.16. And the Bible calls humility a virtue. Jesus said, quote whoever exalts himself will be humbled and whoever umbles himself will be exalted. Jesus said that in Matthew 23.12. He's saying there this boastful pride of life, this idea that, oh, I pulled myself up by my own bootstraps and I don't need God. I'm bigger and batter and meaner than everybody else on the block. I'm the one that deserves respect. That's the one. That pride comes before destruction. That's the pride that will ultimately destroy your loved ones around you and end up destroying your legacy. Let's move on, steve. If you could start at verse seven and read down through verse 10.

Steve 16:35

1. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts. You double-minded, be miserable and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord and he will exalt you.

Glenn 16:57

What we see here, steve, is that starting at verse seven and going down to the beginning of verse 11, there are nine commands in a row. Let's look at it again, just so you can kind of see the flow of the literature here. Submit to God, resist the devil, draw near to God, purify your hearts, be miserable and mourn, humble yourselves, do not speak against one another. It's a series of imperatives. It's a series of commands. He's being very clear. They're not complicated. It's not something I have to sit and know. What did he mean by that? No, it's very clear. Why does he give all these commands right in a row, kind of machine gun style, that are so clear, so direct? Why does it make me uncomfortable?

Steve 17:42

He's given a solution. He's been drawing out the problem, the problem that you have. The rhetorical question that the people he's writing to should ask themselves is are you a friend of the world? If you're a friend of the world, you're an enemy of God. Why is it that you have quarrels in your churches and conflict and strife? Well, it's because it's becoming from inside of you. Well, as he points out all the problems, he doesn't leave it there. He then provides a solution. That's what he's doing in these verses Submit yourself to God, draw near to God. Now he comes into and is talking about. Well, here's how you can solve these problems and issues that are taking place. It's always go go to God, draw close to God, ask for wisdom from God. God, in a relationship with God, jesus Christ, is always going to be a solution to any issues or problems that we have.

Glenn 18:39

The first one in the list, verse 7,. Submit, therefore, to God. The verb there is a passive verb Submit yourself. What he's saying is that to consciously make the decision to allow God to come in and change me. That's what it means to submit. It's something I do to myself, but it's a passive verb in the sense that God's going to be doing the action to me. My part is just to stop resisting God, resist the devil, stop resisting God and submit to him, and God will then come in and change me. Stephen, the way it always is is that when I don't grow, it's because I'm resisting God and I'm taking over. But if I would just stop resisting God, submit to him, fall at his feet and say Lord, what would you have for me? Then I read his word and he'll tell me that's when my life gets better.

Steve 19:31

My life got so much better whenever I finally did that. I finally submitted myself to God. I said you know what I'm tired of trying to make things work on my own. I had been trying to grow in the company that I had been working with. We were moving around every six months because I was trying to work my way into, or I could work my way up, and been doing that for several years. I finally got to a point where I said you know what, lord, I'm tired of doing that. I'm submitting myself in my life to you. You do with my life what you want to do, and it's been a total change ever since I've done that. I've followed through that. Any type of major decisions I've had ever since that point, I always go to God and I continue to submit to God. Lord, what is it that you want me to do? Where is it that you want me to be? He?

Glenn 20:26

says in verse seven submit to God, resist the devil and he'll flee from you. So the idea there is to submit to God but resist the devil. How? How do I resist the devil? Well, one way is to just learn God's word. If I learn God's word, then I get it in me. That gives me the power change, it renews my mind. The idea there is that now I'm changed because God changed me. That gives me the power to resist the devil. If we give in to the devil, he's not going to run away, but if we resist him, he'll flee. Here's the way I look at this.

Glenn 21:03

Steve and I had a teacher that said this just one time in class once, and it clicked. I've remembered it ever since. If we talk about the struggle that we have between the world, the flesh, and the devil that all Christians have, don't think of it as a power struggle. Think of it as a truth struggle. That's what he's saying here resist the devil and he'll flee from you, but look at it as a power thing with the devil. Look at it as a truth thing with the devil. I don't have to worry about the power. The power comes from God. What I have to worry about is what is my position in Christ? My position in Christ is I'm a child of God. I'm an heir of the king. I have inherited a royal inheritance is what it told us. We learned all those things when we went through Colossians as a child of the king. I don't act that way. Child of the king doesn't act that way. That's a truth statement and all I have to do is remember that truth and the devil will flee.

Steve 21:55

Another way that you can interpret this word resist is to take a stand. What does that mean? That means that you have already thought ahead of time this is a line that I'm not going to cross. I'm going to take a stand Whatever might come against me. I'm not going to let them go any further. That's a thought that's here. Resist the devil. Take a stand against the devil. As you pointed out, learn God's word so that we understand what it is that can help us take a stand against the devil, that we won't be deceived. Deception is a great tool that Satan uses all the time. Well, if we know God's word, he can't deceive us, or at least it's more difficult to deceive us in different ways. Resist, Take a stand against the devil.

Glenn 22:42

Notice in verse seven and eight what he says will happen. He mentions these things as a certainty. Submit, therefore, to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. The contrast is clear. If we submit to God and make a truth statement that I learned from the Bible into my life, then the devil's going to flee and God's going to draw near to me. How do I draw near to God? I draw near by reading his word. I draw near by saying God, I will do whatever you say. Let me read what you say in your word and I'll submit to it. Lord, give me the power to do that. Then I'm submitting to God, I'm drawing near to him. The devil will flee and God will draw near to you. How do you get more godly? Reading God's word and submitting to it? It's so practical, it's so clear, but it's so profound. I think, steve, we mess it up by trying to make it more complicated. We do.

Steve 23:40

Don't think about it too much. When we think about it too much, we make it more complicated.

Glenn 23:46

Then, in verse eight, he says Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, use sinners and purify your hearts. You double-minded. He had used that word double-minded before. He's talking about people that are split between the truth and a falsehood. But why would he say cleanse your hands and purify your hearts? What's he talking about? Why is he saying that? Why does he tell us to wash our hands and purify our heart?

Steve 24:13

Well, he's talking to Jewish people. That was a part of their ritual was that they were to keep themselves clean. They were to have pure hearts and their thoughts. We think of the day of heart as the kind of a Western culture way of that. It means to be mindful or to gain more knowledge. I think in the Jewish tradition the heart was the center place of where you communicated with God and it's where you had that and built that relationship with God. He's saying here cleanse your hands. It's a call back to make sure that you're keeping yourself clean so that you can approach God and purify your heart so that you can grow close to God.

Glenn 24:57

In the Old Testament animal sacrifices. There's a point in the ritual where they are to wash their hands. If you also remember Jesus, when he was up against the Pharisees, they had a hand washing ritual amongst the leaders there. Jesus was accusing them of saying you're more concerned with whether or not we ritually wash our hands at the appropriate point than you are about whether our hearts are really following God. James here picks up on that idea.

Striving for Holiness and Avoiding Legalism

Glenn 25:26

The Jewish religion had these hand washing rituals and the reason they were there was because God is holy and pure. God is good and holy and pure and in him is no spot or filth at all. The picture of the hand washing was because of God being so holy and pure. The priest couldn't approach God unless he was clean. We can't go into where God is with dirty hands. The idea of being clean before God is a good motivation. God is indeed holy and pure and we are indeed sinful. We need to purify our hearts, wash our hands. Holiness is something we should strive for. Steve, there's been different movements over the course of church history for holiness. The motivation is good. Many of those movements kind of fall into legalism sometimes, but the motivation towards holiness is good. Our holiness churches can teach us something. Probably a good time here to stop for today. We're still not through this great chapter four of James. So practical, so wonderful. We'll be reasoning through it next time as we continue our, verse by verse, bible study.

Steve 26:44

Thank you so much for watching and listening. May God bless you.