James 4:1-12: Choosing Our Path

April 2025

James has covered several aspects of wisdom by chapter four. In this section, James has his audience reflect on the source of their conflicts and content of their attitudes. He lays out two paths: humility vs pride. Then he exhorts his audience to choose the path God empowers. This will bring us success, whereas following our natural desires will cause us heartache.

James 4:1-3. What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Don’t they come from the evil desires at war within you? You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it. And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure.

These are reflective questions. What is causing the quarrels and fight among you? James wants his audience to slow down and think about it. Is it not your own evil desires, causing you to jealously fight and argue to gain things you want but don't have? His suggestion is much of life's conflicts come from our own evil desires. What!? Hey now James, I'm not sure I like where this is going! Maybe I was selfish and foolish as a kid, but surely I am mature and controlled now. My desires are reasonable.

This reminds me of a great book I read recently, The Truth About Us by Brant Hansen. The entire book is about humility and having a non-self-righteous and correct attitude about our flaws. The author states his thesis on the first page:

"We have a serious problem: All of us think we're good people. But Jesus says we're not."

As shocking as this sounds, James would agree. The Bible teaches this clearly. Consider the following passages.

And then he added, "It is what comes from inside that defiles you. For from within, out of a person's heart, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. All these vile things come from within; they are what defile you." (Mark 7:20-23)

This is Jesus speaking. He says evil comes not from without, but from within. He gives a long list of horrible moral wrong-doing and cites them all as coming from within people, from their own evil desires as James says. While Jesus readily acknowledges evil from outside humanity, the vast majority comes from us.

"You brood of snakes! How could evil men like you speak what is good and right? For whatever is in your heart determines what you say." (Matthew 12:34)

Again, Jesus says that everything out of our mouths originates with our hearts. Sure, sometimes we are able to suppress some negative comments and hold our tongues. But every time you say something that surprises even yourself with its acidity, that came from within you and your own evil desires. The point James is making, which Jesus agrees on, is we are not as good as we think. This has been backed up with modern studies. We overestimate ourselves, particularly on morality. (Interestingly, we underestimate our sociability.) If the majority of people believe they are morally superior to the average person... that can't be true!

The Truth About Us, the author says we have our own PR firm. He quotes Rudyard Kipling, "I never made a mistake in my life; at least never one I couldn't explain away afterwards." Maybe we feel the same but are not so blunt about it. We tend to rewrite past history to make others the villains, us the heroes, or at least reasonably justify the choices we made. It reminds me of something that happened this week. My garage door got hit by a car. Notice my use of the passive voice there. My garage got broken, culprits indeterminate. Was it I ran my car into it while my wife was shutting the door? Or did my wife shut the door on my car as I was pulling out of the garage? Don't ask her about it! But we can see how a simple perspective in telling the story changes where responsibility is assigned. Hansen would say we are doing this all the time without realizing. How are we blind? It's not we don't make mistakes or do bad things, we're just excellent at selectively forgetting, excusing, justifying, and minimizing these things.

James implicitly raises the question, how much can we trust our take on the situation? Hansen uses a funny illustration on our perspective. Consider a garage sale. We rate our stuff highly, how much of a collectible it is, the quality, how it has been well maintained. Others see it all as a bunch of junk. Both sides then assign very different dollar amounts to each object. What would an outside perspective say about you? What if we asked your siblings or your spouse? How morally perfect would they rate you? My family would quickly inform you I am bad at loading the dishwasher and slow to apologize when wrong.

We like to think of ourselves as a good person. Often we justify with, "at least I don't..." and then fill in some immoral thing we don't do. We also like to believe most things are other people's fault. We deflect responsibility to others as naturally as breathing.

What are some ways people like us deflect moral responsibility to others? Not us but people like us, obviously...

What about the part in 4:3 where James indicates we do not get our prayers answered? Recall from chapter one, James has already taught we often do not receive things from God because we don't bother to ask for them. Now, he expands potential reasons for unanswered prayers with another reason. God may be protecting us from ourselves. We may not receive something because we would use it wrongly, for our own selfish pleasures. Why do so many prayers for winning the lottery go unanswered? First, winning the lottery is rare. Second, coming into vast amounts of money suddenly usually ruins peoples lives rather than fulfills them. God may be protecting you by not giving you the thing you want. Prayer is a subject where our unconscious biases play in strongly. Answered prayers may be written off as coincidence or luck, yet unanswered prayers often trouble us. Is God mean or distant? No, it may be you think about things but do not pray them. Also, sometimes God says no to us for our own benefit.

Recall, James has been asking refection questions. He wants his audience to consider their position and their perspectives. We should consider our own. Am I morally superior to others? Does conflict in my life find its root in me? What do I ask God for? For whose sake do I ask for things? Do I pay attention to whether prayers are answered?

James 4:4-6.You adulterers! Don’t you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God? I say it again: If you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God. Do you think the Scriptures have no meaning? They say that God is passionate that the spirit he has placed within us should be faithful to him. And he gives grace generously. As the Scriptures say,
"God opposes the proud
but gives grace to the humble."

More tough language from James. The point is he making is we choose either to be friends or enemies with God. He uses the illustration of adultery and underlines God is personal and has feelings, for instance he is capable of jealousy. Not only does God has feelings, he takes a position. He opposes arrogant people and gives grace to humble people. James is passionate since God is not an enemy we want. God is powerful and cannot be outwitted. If we cozy ourselves up to worldly values: pride, vanity, and selfish pleasures, we are turning our back on the God who yearns for us. Those who lead such reckless lives deserve to be taught a lesson. On the other hand, God is gracious and welcomes back those who admit they've strayed. Being humble is not the same as being good. James gives us an achievable standard. You do not have to be good, you only have to be honest. The main point of the Bible is the same. We do not have to be perfect, we just have to ask to be forgiven.

Hmm. Often a proud and arrogant person seems to have fun, while the humble person gets trampled. Let's discuss.

How can an incredibly selfish life end up not being all it seems?

A selfish, arrogant life ends in empty relationships and broken families. Even worldly success, like money and fame end up being empty, just consider all the celebrities in rehab. It is a path to being lonely and possibly hated. James is warning his audience, and us, off this destructive path.

James 4:7-10. So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come close to God, and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world. 9 Let there be tears for what you have done. Let there be sorrow and deep grief. Let there be sadness instead of laughter, and gloom instead of joy. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up in honor.

The last point James has in our section is to embrace God and reject temptation. These are imperatives. James says we have choices to make, whether we will humble ourselves and follow God. We need to choose this because we are naturally proud. We must choose to resist the devil, since we naturally fall to his schemes if we are not wary. We should come close to God because it will result in a rewarding relationship.

How do we combat fatalism about our ability to draw close to God or resist worldly temptations?

What is our takeaway? Life is better if we choose humility. We are more self-aware, more honest, and vulnerable. We will have better relationships with others, since our evil desires no longer cause so many conflicts. We open ourselves to new experiences and people we, in our judgmental state, would have rejected trying. Since we are no longer fighting to be acknowledged, we have less pressure and tension. We are free to be authentic, which feels great. God will reward and exalt the humble. The pressure of achieving greatness on our own power is also gone. We can also accept, or not worry about assigning blame, like in mysterious garage door incidents.

God doesn't ask us to be good. He only asks us to be humble. This is a small ask, to see yourself as you really are.

Consider, what is a small way I can choose humility this week?