So we have problems expressing active faith and it shows up in what we say! Too many who claim to be wise are just plain selfish! What's the missing ingredient? It is contained in a word that was unpopular then and is still unpopular - submission.
In an age of self-expression, "doing your own thing" is what life is all about. No wonder faith doesn't move into action! No wonder the tongue is unruly! It needs a bit! It's the old problem of wanting Jesus as Saviour, but not wanting Him to be Lord of our lives!

Chapter 4
1These arguments among you - where do they come from? Don't they come from the pleasures warring for satisfaction within you? 2You desire, but it's beyond your reach! You murder and covet, but still don't get what you want! You fight and do battle! You don't receive because you don't ask, 3and when you do ask you don't receive because you ask in the wrong way just to use it on your pleasures! 4Unfaithful people! Don't you understand that to be friendly with the world is to be hostile towards God? The person who wants to be a friend of the world shows himself to be an enemy of God! 5Or do you have the idea that the Scripture doesn't have good reason to say that the Spirit that has come to live within us longs jealously over us? 6But he gives more grace. That's why it says, "God resists the ones opposing others, but gives grace to the humble" (Prov.3.34). 7So submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. 8Draw near to God and he will draw near to you! Sinners, cleanse your hands! Double-minded people, purify your hearts! 9Be wretched! Mourn and weep! Let your laughter turn into mourning and your joy into gloom! 10Humble yourselves before God and he will lift you up!
11Don't speak against one another, brothers! The one who speaks against a brother and judges him is in fact speaking against the law and judging it. If you do that you are no longer a doer of the law but a judge. 12There is only one lawgiver and judge - and he is able to save and to destroy! So who do you think you are, to judge your neighbour?
13Some of you say, "Here are our plans - today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city. We will spend a year there, do business and make a profit." Come now! 14You don't understand about tomorrow! You don't grasp what your life is like! You are like steam, appearing for a little while, then disappearing! 15What you should be saying is, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and will do this or that!" 16You make your boasts on arrogant assumptions - all that kind of boasting is evil! 17That is the sin of the one who knows what is right and doesn't do it!

Submission to God
What is the central focus of our life? That's another way of asking - who is really Lord? to whom do we really submit?
Here is how Jesus put it in the Sermon on the Mount - "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'" (Matt.7.21-23). He went on to tell the story of the wise and foolish builders, the point of which is hearing his words and putting them into practice.
The problem among them was the result of the problem within them - the pleasures warring for satisfaction (v.1). And while Jesus had said, "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you"(Matt.7.7), even their prayer to God expressed their total life's attitude of selfish demand.
James is not necessarily suggesting that fighting and murder were occurring in the Christian communities. "He is rather underlining what can and does happen in human life when people choose pleasure to the exclusion of God" (Tasker, James, p.87).
This focus on pleasure in our lives leads to what James calls being friendly with the world (v.4). What's he getting at here? Didn't God love the world (John 3.16)? Isn't that the whole point of Jesus coming into the world? Haven't we got good news to carry out to people in the world?
That is all true - so it is clearly not what is in mind here at all! To quote Tasker again, "The Christian cannot, without compromising his position, divide his affection between God and those forces in the world which show either complete indifference to God or are openly hostile to Him. Similarly, selfishness in any form, whether it be the love of pleasure, self-gratification or arrogant self-seeking, is all 'friendship with the world'; and for the time being causes the Christian to be at war with God, though God's attitude to him remains one of Fatherly love. He remains faithful" (ibid., p.89).
James uses a strong word - "Unfaithful people!" (literally adulteresses). Perhaps we could say that the problem is our deep desire for approval by others - that becomes a real barrier to humility and submission before God.

• What are the points of conflict we feel between our faith in God and our life in the world?

• How can we have both a genuine faith and a genuine care for others?

In verses 11-17, James is back on his theme of what we say. The first part of this is in the area of what we say about others (vv.11-12). "Don't speak against one another, brothers!" How characteristic of the world we live in! It's as if it makes us more comfortable in pulling someone else down! It is in fact the classic example of not being humble and submitted to God! We set ourselves up as judges - but finally God himself is both Judge and Saviour!
He then goes on to write about our attitude to our own plans (vv.13-17). Here too we must live in humble submission before God - not making our arrogant assumptions, but acknowledging that the Lord's will overrides all our plans. Recall the words of the prophet Micah, "And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God" (Mic.6.8).

Active Faith. Studies in the Letter of James (c) Peter J. Blackburn 1990. Permission is given for this study to be copied in its entirety for group use. Courtesy advice of the use of these studies would be appreciated. Any other proposed use must have the written permission of the author. Email Peter Blackburn.
Study 5: Prayer that Works! - James 5
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