Center for Biblical Theology and Eschatology
Friendship With The World Is Enmity With God
by Rev. George van Popta
Liturgy: Reading: James 4 Text: James 4: Singing: Ps. 147:1,4,5; Ps.
147:6; Ps. 39:3,5,6; Ps. 144:1,2; Ps. 144:5,6 Beloved congregation of the
Lord Jesus Christ: From where do you expect what
you need? We need earthly things-food, clothing, shelter-to exist
in this life. From where do you expect such things? What do you think of your labour?
Your work? How do you view your daily work? Does your daily work
have anything to do with your religion? With your Christianity?
Your faith? With that you are a child of God? Are the various
aspects of your life-your faith, your status as one redeemed
by Christ, and your daily work-connected to one another? How do you view yourself? Your
life? Are you every struck by how fragile life really is? How
a healthy person can be struck down with a crippling disease
in no time at all? Do you ever reflect upon your own life? Your
heart beat? The rhythm of your breathing? Your blood pressure?
How fragile it all really is? And how everything can change in
a moment? Beloved, we are fragile people
living moment by moment by the grace and power of God. Nothing
else keeps our hearts beating and our breath breathing. Nothing
but the grace and power of God. I preach: THE WORD TELLS US OUR LIVES
ARE JUST A MIST This evaluation teaches us 1. Who we are; 2. How to speak;
3. How to live. 1. James says we are a mist
that appears for a little while and then vanishes. "What
is your life?" he asks. "You are a mist," answers
he. Like steam from a kettle. You
boil some water on the stove. Steam comes out of the spout. But
you cannot hold on to the steam. It just disappears into the
air. It vanishes. Or think of your breath on
a cold day. You can see your breath. But it vanishes in a second. Or an early morning mist on
a summer day. The mist hangs in the air but is quickly burned
off by the rising sun. That's what life is like. A
man is here for a little while, and then he is gone. A few years,
really, and then he vanishes. And within a few years people have
forgotten him. Here James uses the image of
a mist to refer to how temporary our lives are. In ch. 1 he used
a different image. He said (vv 10,11) that we need to think about
how we all pass away like a wild flower. The sun rises with scorching
heat and withers the plant; its blossom falls and its beauty
is destroyed. In the same way, we fade away. It was not always like that.
It is the way things are now, but once it was different. God
created us to live. God created the man, Adam, the father of
us all, and breathed into him the breathe of life. God breathed
breath into man. God created man to live, forever. But when we sinned we brought
death into our existence. Our sin turned us into mist. We return
to the dust of the earth from which God made us. The breath of
life leaves our nostrils, we die and turn to dust. "All
we are is dust in the wind." But thanks be to God, He sent
us his only Son to redeem us. The eternal Son of God became a
man to set us free from the dust of the earth. To breathe new
life into us. To give us eternal life. We begin to live that eternal
life now already. And yet, we know that we will die. Loved ones
die. In the mean time, we are still dust. We are still mist,
a vapor. Even though we may begin to enjoy the new life we have
in Christ, life that will last forever, we still await the consummation
and perfection of all things-the day of the return of our Lord
Jesus Christ when he will take what is mortal and make it immortal.
In the mean time, we still struggle with weakness, with illness,
with death. The Psalms speak about this.
(Psa 144:4) Man is like a breath; his days are like a fleeting
shadow. (Psa 39) "Show me, O LORD, my life's end and the
number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life. You have
made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing
before you. Each man's life is but a breath. Man is a mere phantom
as he goes to and fro: He bustles about, but only in vain; he
heaps up wealth, not knowing who will get it.... each man is
but a breath. There are many other places
in the Psalms (Ps. 90), also in the Prophets, that repeat the
same theme. Man, even redeemed man, is a mist that is there one
moment, only to vanish the next. Do we realize that, beloved.
Will we realize it, that our life is like grass before the mower,
like the flower of the field, like an early morning mist, a bit
of steam? Each year at this time, the
first Sunday of Spring, we offer to God a prayer for crops and
labour. We, mist that we are, are completely dependent upon God
for the food we eat to keep our fragile lives alive. It is God
who make the seasons change. He brings the cold and the snow.
He brings the heat and the rain that makes things grow. The earth
needs his blessing. And what is true for the produce
of the field holds true for all the works of our hands. Whatever
your work may be, in school, college or university, in the home,
on the road, in the market place, you need God's blessing upon
the labour of your hands. We need to acknowledge that we are
but a mist-redeemed by Christ, but yet a mist. Completely dependent
upon God for what we need for our earthly existence. Realizing that we will cast
ourselves upon God. We will pray to him to bless the crops and
our labour. It will also affect how we
speak, and how we act. 2. The Word tells us our lives
are just a mist. This evaluation teaches us who we are; it also
teaches us how to speak. In light of how man is but
a mist, James criticizes the way the people to whom he wrote
this letter were speaking. Likely James (brother of the Lord
Jesus Christ and leader of church in Jerusalem after the ascension
of the Lord) wrote this letter to Jewish Christians who had been
dispersed because of persecution. Jewish Christians possibly
scattered as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Syrian Antioch. They
had settled into their new towns and homes and had begun working
there. Pastor James wrote them to encourage them in their trials
and difficulties, but he also had a word of rebuke for them.
They had forgotten they were mist dependent upon the hand of
the Lord. This came out in how they spoke. They had become quite confident
of themselves. They said things like: "Today or tomorrow
we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on
business and make money." They were guilty of a sort of
practical atheism. They were making their plans apart from God.
Ignoring God. Do not think that James was
condemning doing business, travelling, and making money. The
problem was that they were doing business, travelling and making
money without giving a thought that man is dependent upon God
for every breath he takes. They were acting like the people in
the days of Noah before the flood. The people were eating and
drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, without giving a thought
to God. And they were wiped out by the flood. They lived as if
God did not exist. So did the people to whom James wrote this
letter. Not only did they make their
plans without God in mind, but they boasted and bragged about
their successes. They were worldly people. In v. 4, James condemned
friendship with the world. He said: 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. Working in the world without
giving God a thought is also a type of friendship with the world.
It is expecting the things you need from the world and your labour
themselves rather than understanding that God gives you what
you need by way of the world and your labour. They bragged about their successes
of yesterday and boasted of their plans for tomorrow. They should
have remembered what Proverbs 27:1 says: Do not boast about tomorrow,
for you do not know what a day may bring forth. As James said:
You do not even know what will happen tomorrow. Is that not just so true? One
day you can be the epitome of health and strength. The next day
you can be struck down with an illness, or by an accident, or
dead. Realizing that we do not know what will happen tomorrow,
and knowing that we are a mist, we will speak differently. As
James teaches us, "Instead, we ought to say, 'If it is the
Lord's will, we will live and do this or that.'" It's from this that the expression
Deo Volente, D.V., comes from. God willing. Or, the Lord willing.
Lord willing, I will do this or that. The more sophisticated
like to say: I will do this or that, under the condition of James
4:15. Of course, they like to say it in Latin. And so we read about Paul saying,
in Acts 18:21, as he left Ephesus, "I will come back if
it is God's will." In Hebrews 6 we read about the desire
of the author to take his readers on towards mature teaching.
Then he added: "And God permitting, we will do so." There are a few other examples.
Actually, surprisingly few. We read in the NT about people stating
their plans without adding, "If the Lord wills." From
that we learn that the point is not that we utter certain words
all the time. Actually, the words "Lord willing" can
become an overused pious formula, a meaningless clichÈ.
The point is that in our speaking and planning for the future,
we must take God into account. We cannot speak and plan as if
we were in total control of our lives. As if we were the masters
of our destiny. James is not teaching us a religious formula.
Of course there is nothing wrong with using these words. But
what James is teaching us is to speak, plan and live as children
who know that we are secure in the protective care of the Father. Our world was created by God
and redeemed by Christ. It is the place that we are called to
live, work and play to God's honour and glory. We speak and live
as people who acknowledge the Lordship of Christ the redeemer
over all the spheres of life. When we forget those gospel
truths we begin to boast and brag about ourselves and our accomplishments.
We need to understand that God opposes the proud but gives grace
to the humble. Beloved, do not begin to boast
about your accomplishments and possessions. So often a sense
of self-sufficiency comes along with success and prosperity.
And a reliance on oneself rather than God. Boasting. James says that human boasting
is evil. Not just empty or foolish, but evil. We are good at compartmentalizing
our lives. Perhaps we are pious at church and in the home, but
we do not think about God when it comes to work and leisure.
That's practical atheism. It's evil, says James. No part of life
is outside the rule of Jesus Christ. Church, home, work, leisure-it's
all under the rule of our Lord Jesus Christ. Reckon with that
fact in how you speak-in the plans you make, in how you talk
about your activities. Humbly bring it all under the Lordship
of Christ. Your life is but a mist. A
mist redeemed by Jesus Christ. Dust that will be raised up by
the power of Christ to life everlasting. But in the mean time,
a mist. Acknowledge that in the humility of your speech. 3. The evaluation that our
lives are a mist teaches us who we are; how to speak; thirdly,
how to live. As v. 17 says: Anyone, then,
who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins. A stern warning against the
sin of neglect. The sin of omission. And not accidental omission,
but purposeful. Knowing what one must do but not doing it. Not only must we reckon with
God in how we speak. We must also reckon with him in what we
do. Just as a practical atheism
affected how the people James wrote to spoke, so it affected
how they lived and acted. James touched on this throughout his
letter. They coveted earthly stuff. They became friends with
the world. Some lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. Let the warning of James 5:5
ring in our ears. Those who live in this way are only fattening
themselves for the day of slaughter. Let us not think that we are
masters of our lives and labour. Let us not leave God out of
the picture. If we do, this is where we will end up. If we don't
bring our labour under the Lordship of Christ, we will spend
the fruits of our labours in self-indulgence and not for the
glory of God's name and the furtherance of his kingdom. And is
not the glory of God's name and the furtherance of God's kingdom
not a better cause than the indulgence of the flesh? Beloved, our lives are but
a mist. We are here for a short while, and then we are gone.
In the brief moments we are here, we must live out of the generous
hand of God. Bring your vocabulary, your grammar, your syntax-your
speech-under the Lordship of Christ. Bring your work and your
leisure under his Lordship. Work under the blessing of God. Depend
upon God for a blessing upon your labour. For the fruit of your
labour. Pray to Him for his blessing over crops and labour. And
use the fruit of your labour for the advancement of God's glory
and kingdom in the world. Beloved, you know the good
you ought to do. Do it, for then you will be doing well.
Amen!
| The Rev. George van Popta earned a BA at Trinity Western University, Langley, BC, and an MDiv at the Canadian Reformed Theological Seminary in Hamilton, Ontario. He started off his ministry at Jubilee Church in Ottawa in 1987. In 1992 he left to serve a church in Taber, Alberta from where he moved to Ancaster, Ontario in 1997. There he served a church for eleven years. In 2008, he was called back to Jubilee Church. He considered it a singular privilege and joy to be living again in Ottawa and serving the Jubilee congregation as pastor. In 2016 he retired from the active ministry because of health challenges and now lives in Hamilton, Ontario, together with Dora, his wife. He has written a number of books, which can be bought from http://www.vanpopta.ca, Amazon or other Christian nook outlets. He is also the general editor of New Genevan Psalter. |