Have you ever heard a preacher say, I don’t drink, and I don’t chew, and I don’t hang out with those who do? That’s a very bad attempt at humor, number one. Number two it makes light of, and even pokes fun at the call to holiness. As Christians, we are called to a different lifestyle, we are called to different standards, and we are called to be unspotted from the world. 

We saw last week that God’s wisdom, which we find in the Scripture, is the opposite of what our natural minds would think to do. Being a friend of God causes you to be an enemy of the world. Just as we are to think differently from the world, we are also to act differently. Now we aren’t going to get in the weeds and exegete a bad joke, but we will look at what James says is the difference between friendship with the world and friendship with God.

James 4:1-6 TLV “Where do quarrels and conflicts among you come from? Don’t they come from this, namely your passions that battle within your body parts? ² You crave and have not. You murder and you envy, yet you cannot get it. You fight and you wage war. You do not have because you do not ask. ³ You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives so you may spend it on your passions. ⁴ You adulteresses! Don’t you know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. ⁵ Or do you think that in vain the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit which He made to dwell in us”? ⁶ But He gives greater grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud,
but gives grace to the humble.”

What is the source of conflict? Selfishness. When we desire our own pleasure, when we put our needs ahead of others, that is selfishness. And selfishness is the reason we desire and don’t have; it’s the reason we are envious of what our neighbor has but we cannot obtain. Being envious is another way of saying covetousness, and God laid out His hatred of covetousness in the law. But here’s the kicker; you ask and do not receive, and you don’t receive because you ask with wrong or selfish motives so that you may spend it on your own pleasures.

That is a quick summary of verses one through three, but let’s look at it a little deeper. You lust, but you don’t have. Now, we need to understand that lust is not only a sexual desire but a strong desire for anything. You desire something, but you don’t have it; no matter how hard you try, you can’t obtain it. It’s the same with your desire for someone else’s stuff, and even in your prayers, they aren’t getting answered because you are praying with the wrong motives.

Look at the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount; Matthew 6:25-34 TLV “So I say to you, do not worry about your life—what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothing? ²⁶ “Look at the birds of the air. They do not sow or reap or gather into barns; yet your Father in heaven feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? ²⁷ And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? ²⁸ And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin. ²⁹ Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. ³⁰ Now if in this way God clothes the grass—which is here today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow—will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? ³¹ “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ ³² For the pagans eagerly pursue all these things; yet your Father in heaven knows that you need all these. ³³ But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. ³⁴ Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

That is the difference between approaching things from the world’s perspective versus God’s. After James talks about the difference between worldly wisdom versus godly, he goes straight into worldly behavior versus godly behavior. So why is it such a big deal to desire and not have, to be envious and not obtain, and to ask and not receive? It all goes back to our motivation, why do we desire, why are we asking? The people James was writing to had forgotten about God, they were all about themselves, and his next words would strike at the hearts of his readers.

“You adulteresses! Don’t you know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. ⁵ Or do you think that in vain the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit which He made to dwell in us”? ⁶ But He gives greater grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud,
but gives grace to the humble.”

Friendship here is a Greek word meaning love. They loved the world. 1 John 2:15-17 TLV “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. ¹⁶ For everything in the world—the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, and the boasting of life—is not from the Father but from the world. ¹⁷ The world is passing away along with its desire, but the one who does the will of God abides forever.”

God desires that we walk with Him, and He will give grace to those who humble themselves, but He will oppose the proud. Take time to think over these six verses and look at your own desires. Put your prayer life up next to the model prayer in Matthew six and see if your prayers are coming from the right heart. Examine your behavior and see if it lines up with Scripture. Don’t be like the world; we have been called out of darkness and into the light. Don’t buy the demonic lie, the twisting of grace and freedom that says you aren’t under the law. God does not change, we are not saved by keeping the law, but it is still a guide for right living. 

Peter has this to say about false teachers in 2 Peter 2:18-20 “For by mouthing grandiosities that amount to nothing, they entice in sensual fleshly passions those who are barely escaping from those who live in error. ¹⁹ They promise them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption—for a person is a slave to whatever has overcome him. ²⁰ For if—after escaping the world’s pollutions through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Yeshua the Messiah—they again become entangled in these things and are overcome, the end for them has become worse than the beginning.”

Much of the freedom teaching in the Church today; twists the Scripture and actually leads further into sin. The freedom teaching encourages us to be like the world; we do not want to be religious or legalistic. In the Bible, religion is a good term, satan has twisted it, and too many in the Church have followed his twisting. Any lifestyle of holiness is now considered legalism. Friendship with the world is hostility against God; let us not take that lightly.

We cannot be the friend of the world and God at the same time. We cannot appease the world and worship God at the same time. If our churches are attracting the world and not producing an inward change in the lives of people, we can be assured we are repulsive to God. Friendship with the world is hostility toward God. Trying to curry favor with God-haters is a slap in the face to a holy God. James says we are adulteresses when we are friends with the world. We need to take his words seriously and examine our hearts and lives. Are we living to please the world, to have the things of the world, or are we living for God?