Introduction
Attitudes to adopt in life.
Verses
1Where do wars and fightings amongst you come from? Don’t they come from your pleasures that war in your members?
2You lust, and don’t have. You murder and covet, and can’t obtain. You fight and make war. You don’t have, because you don’t ask.
3You ask, and don’t receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.
4You adulterers and adulteresses, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility towards God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
5Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who lives in us yearns jealously”?
6But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
7Be subject therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
8Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners. Purify your hearts, you double-minded.
9Lament, mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to gloom.
10Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will exalt you.
11Don’t speak against one another, brothers. He who speaks against a brother and judges his brother, speaks against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law, but a judge.
12Only one is the lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge another?
13Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow let’s go into this city, and spend a year there, trade, and make a profit.”
14Whereas you don’t know what your life will be like tomorrow. For what is your life? For you are a vapour that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away.
15For you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will both live, and do this or that.”
16But now you glory in your boasting. All such boasting is evil.
17To him therefore who knows to do good, and doesn’t do it, to him it is sin.
Questions
1. What are the consequences of wanting to be a friend of the world?
v 4 ... Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
2. What do we need to do to enable the Lord to exalt us?
v 10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will exalt you.
3. How ought we to refer to our future plans.
v 15 For you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will both live, and do this or that.”
Summary Points
- v 1 to 10 Self-centred attitudes lead to conflict. We should be humble and seek to please God
- v 11 and 12 We shouldn't judge each other, God is the judge
- v 13 to 17 Although we can make plans for the future, the outcome will be in God’s control, not necessarily ours
Audio