Friday, October 9 –
We come to the end of the workweek and also the end of the
book of James. Our reading today is in
James 4:12 – 5:20. Please come back and we’ll take a second look at the text.
Playing God was the last thing James said in yesterday’s reading, and it’s the
first thing he says today -
“Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that
city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do
not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that
appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say,
“If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” As it is,
you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. If anyone,
then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them” (4:13-17).
Most of us are planners, and we do so in order to get things done. James says, “now listen”, to confront a
lifestyle that believes God is not involved in life. It’s easy to adopt a posture of presumption
when it comes to life. In some ways, we
all do it. It’s not that planning is
wrong, it’s that we often forget God in our planning. God is sovereign, and even though none of the things James mentions is wrong, when we ignore God in our plans, thinking, we
run perilously into a brick wall of our limitations. Why?
We have no idea of the future, but God does, and we have no assurance of
how our lives will last – but God does.
James reminds us that life is like a steam vapor that arises from the
kettle. Our lives are a short-lived time
in relation to eternity. The point is clear
– keep God’s will in making plans. It might be that the phrase “if the Lord
wills” is only a cliché, but it can also reflect an attitude of humility in
submitting our lives to God.
When we turn the page to chapter 4, it seems that James has
gone back to a previous subject – the wealthy.
Yet, this is part of a larger section that he began in 3:13, and the
point that real faith leads a believer to humility and service. Where he had begun with “Now listen” to deal
with presumption, now he uses it again to address the wealthy. The words in 5:1 – 6 seem so harsh,
especially since he had just warned of using speech in hateful ways. How do we reconcile what he is saying? He must be talking to a specific group of
people. They are rich, but have gotten
there with “wages…you failed to pay…living in luxury and self-indulgence”
(5:4-5). When he adds “You have
condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you” (5:6), we
cannot help but wonder if there was not something specific that had occurred
that we don’t know anything about. It is
possible that he is referring back to robbing people of their wages. No matter, we must never think that wealthy
people are favored by God. In fact, they
are held to a higher standard. Wealth and
faith meet in good stewardship, where the Christian understands that everything
they have is from God, and for God’s purposes.
James then turns toward those who were being oppressed,
abused, and suffering from it all. He
reminds them of two things: First, be
patient in suffering by remembering it will end someday (5:7-8), and secondly, be
certain that God will deal in judgment with those who have been unjust
(5:9). Patience in the face of injustice
is not easy, yet it is God’s way. We
have patterns of patience in suffering with Job and with the Prophets who spoke
the truth, but suffered for doing so -
“Brothers and sisters, as an example of patience in the face of suffering,
take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. As you know, we
count as blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job’s
perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is
full of compassion and mercy” (5:10-11).
The opposite of patience is to either take things into your hands – which is an
act of the flesh and will most certainly not be blessed by God – or complain,
become bitter, and give up trusting God cares.
Both will not lead us back to humble dependence upon God, and that is
where we find “compassion and mercy”.
In verse 12 James reminds them that taking oaths by calling
on God in our circumstances is unnecessary, and in fact, wrong – “Above all,
my brothers and sisters, do not swear—not by heaven or by earth or by anything
else. All you need to say is a simple “Yes” or “No.” Otherwise you will be
condemned” (5:12). Jesus had taught
this in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:34 – 37. It’s a principle of avoiding duplicity by
using words to hide our decisions. A
simple “yes”, or a simple “no” is the godly way to avoid subtle lies and hidden
motives. He’s already talked about our
speech before, and this seems to be a post-note to affirm simplicity in
honesty.
All of these point out that when we put God first in our
lives, making his will our primary purpose in decision-making; being good
stewards, dealing in honesty and being generous with our money; learning to live
patiently when circumstances turn against us; and be honest, straightforward,
without duplicity when dealing with others, we will discover gratefulness instead
of bitterness. The world we live in is a
world of blame. That is also why the
world we live in falls easily into complaints.
We don’t know what the future will hand us, but gratefulness is always a
good way to live it out.
Lastly, James reminds us that God always witnesses and
answers our prayers. “if any one
among you” brackets the beginning of this (5:13), and the end of it
(5:19). He gives us a picture of prayer
in four kinds of people: the Christian (5:13), the Elders (5:14-15), Friends
(16a), and the Prophets (16b – 18). The
principle is basic to the Bible’s story – Sin has corrupted our world, and
suffering will happen. We have to face
it with faith in God, demonstrated by our prayers –
“Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them
sing songs of praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders
of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the
Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the
Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven.
Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so
that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and
effective. Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly
that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half
years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced
its crops” (5:13-18).
Circumstances, suffering, sickness all happen – daily. James reminds us that God welcomes the saint who
is like Jesus in Gethsemane, “not my will, but your will be done”. We pray, with hope, gratitude, confession,
grace, and praise – especially praise and thanksgiving. He is ending this book the way he had begun
it (1:5-8), with the challenge to come to God in all things, with all things,
without doubt, and in complete trust in Him.
James ends his book by reminding us that when someone in the
church has slipped away from the church and the truth of the Gospel, they need
help, and we must do our best to return them to faith in Christ (5:19-20). The faith we all need is a faith that
contains the truth about God, and ourselves.
In the world we live in, truth from Scripture is not embraced. What is sad, is that in many churches that
call themselves “Christian”, truth in Scripture is also being set aside. I end this with J Alec Motyer’s commentary –
a convicting end I might add:
“‘Truth’ and ‘godliness’ belong together. It is impossible
(in Scripture) to make ‘truth’ a mere matter of holding some propositions or
credal statements in our heads. Truth is a living thing; when it grips our minds,
it changes our lives. If we claim to know the truth, then the Bible would
require us to prove our claim not only by reciting a creed and understanding
it, but by the evidence of a way of life matching the truth. The Lord Jesus meant
the same thing when he spoke of the truth making us free (Jn. 8:31-32) … More
and more, we have witnessed people in leading ecclesiastical positions denying
central Christian truth, departing from Christian morality, and yet continuing
in office as official teachers of the church. Correspondingly, society has
withdrawn from anything but a vague ‘folk’-attachment to Christian sentiment.
Sunday school attendance has plummeted from that which we remember in the late
1940s and early 1950s. Its descending graph has been matched by the rising
graph of juvenile delinquency, just as the churches’ abandonment of biblical
truth has been matched by the increasingly open licentiousness and
lasciviousness of adolescent and adult life-styles. Truth and life belong together.
There is a way of life which matches and which grows out of the truth as it is
in Jesus, and which cannot be had in any other way. It is one of the crowning
follies of the present time that people think they can have Christian standards
without Christian convictions. But it is beaten into second place by the folly
of church leaders who think that they can deny, or acquiesce in the denial of,
biblical truth and still maintain, in the church and in society at large,
Christian moral virtues.”[1]
Think about all James has written. The Church is a place of truth, with a
lifestyle of godliness. Prayer, speech,
wealth, judgment, suffering, and most of all, real faith. It is everyday life, our everyday living that
God works faith into us. We are not
perfect, and never will be – until that day when we shed this “body of Sin”
(Romans 7:24), and step into life eternal, where none of those things will be
concerns again.
Peace
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