James 4:11-17 Notes from Sunday

Here are my teaching notes, mixed in with the handout, from Sunday:

JAMES 4:11-17 ON SLANDER & RIGHT PERSPECTIVE

Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”—yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.
(James 4:11-17, ESV)

INTRODUCTION

After the harsh rebuke and call to repentance at the beginning of chapter 4, James now returns to addressing his readers as ‘brothers’ and pleads with them not to slander one another. In the second section, James brings God’s sovereignty into view as he encourages his readers to have a right perspective of themselves.

DISCUSSION

What thoughts and/or emotions come to the surface when you think about the future?

EXPLANATION

• In v.11 James exhorts his readers not to slander or speak evil against one another.
• What does it mean to slander someone? Review Numbers 21:4-7, Psalm 101:5, and 1 Peter 2:12 for some examples of what slander encompasses.
• Numbers 21:4-7 – the people have witnessed God's miraculous judgment on Egypt, deliverance through the Red Sea, being led by a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night, finding God's daily provision of manna, getting water from the Rock – and they have the audacity to speak against Moses and God Himself
• I love the resolution here – read Numbers 21:8-9. How weird does that sound? What's that all about? In a word, Christ. Who knows John 3:16? Who knows John 3:14-15? “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” (ESV)  The wilderness serpent pointed to the One who would become the curse bearer, the One who would become the curse so that we might be blessed.
• Psalm 101:5 – through David, we see that God's just wrath stands against the arrogant & slanderous
• 1 Peter 2:12 – we are not to be people who speak evil against others; but are to be people who do good and endure being spoken evil of by non-Christians
• Two reasons are given for this prohibition. When you slander:
• You stand in judgment of both your brother and the law.
• In chapter 2, James referred to the “royal law of Scripture” from Leviticus 19:18 – “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
• You assume a role that is God’s alone.
• Who am I to judge? Judgment belongs to God alone, and yet as James reminded us earlier in chapter 4, He is a grace-giver. How can I judge those to whom God has extended the grace of the gospel? Is my standard higher than God's?

As we come to the part of the passage that speaks about planning for the future and God's sovereignty, I wanted to share some quotes I recently heard in a sermon from Mark Dever.  I'd like to call them, "Great Moments in Predictions of Technology:"

• "Everything that can be invented, has been invented." - the commissioner of the U.S. Patent Office in 1899
• "I think there is a world market for maybe 5 computers." - Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM in 1943
• "Computers in the future may weigh no more than one and a half tons." - Popular Mechanics in 1949.
• "I have traveled the length & breadth of this country and talked with the best people and I can assure you that data processing is a fad. It won't last out the year." - editor in charge of business books at Prentice Hall in 1957
• "But what is it good for?" - engineer at the advanced computing systems division of IBM in 1968 commenting on the microchip.
• "There's no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." - Ken Olsen, president, chairman, and founder of Digital Equiment Corporation, in 1977
• "640 K ought to be enough for anybody." - Bill Gates in 1981

We don't have to look far to find examples of how bad we are at predicting and planning our futures.  Though we seem to rarely acknowledge it, there is so little in our lives that we actually control.

• The economically mobile merchants James addresses in v. 13 are probably Christians.
• James is writing to believers, and there is no reason to expect non-Christians to acknowledge God's sovereign will.
• Vv. 13-16 reveal that their problem is not in the plan to carry on business or make a profit; rather it is the arrogant self-dependence that is undergirding their plans.
• They have substituted a dependence on God’s sovereignty for a worldly self-confidence.
• One of the interesting & important things to note here is that James doesn't just encourage us to say, “If the Lord wills, we will do this or that” but even “If the Lord wills, we will live.” God is sovereign over every aspect of our lives, and He is sovereign over just how much “little time” our mist appears.

• James reminds us of the fleeting nature of life. How does viewing life as a ‘mist’ help inform your perspective on life, time, and eternity?
• If you've heard me teach before, you know that I love a good quote. Well, I've got a couple that apply here, and I thought I'd turn it into a little game of “Guess the wise man.”
• Quote 1: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” (Ferris Bueller)
• Quote 2: “I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.” (King Solomon, from Ecclesiastes 2:11)
• Remember our study in Ecclesiastes? This word “mist” or “vapor” that James uses is related to the “vanity” that was repeated throughout Ecclesiastes. It sounds like Solomon found out what James tells us – that our life is a vapor.

• And then we come to verse 17.
• How does the reference to sins of omission connect to what James has been talking about in this section?
• Who thinks boasting is good? How about boasting in your arrogance? What about slanderous gossip? How about loving your neighbor as yourself?
• James has been pointing out many symptoms of indwelling sin in the lives of a Christians. The answer is not to clean up your own act, but to humble yourself before God. Repent and believe in the gospel. When Martin Luther wrote his 95 Theses that sparked the Reformation, the first was that Christ “called for the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” As we return to the cross time & time again – God's grace continues to work in us. As believers, as dearly loved children of God, we are not to judge our neighbors, but to love our neighbors. We are not to depend on our own strength and planning, but commit ourselves to the strength of God that is perfected in our weakness and dependence on him.