Who Is Your Best Friend? - James 4:1-17

My wife walked in to my office just as I started to write this lesson and I ask her “Who is your Best Friend”. “You,” she answered quickly, trying to make me feel good, as is her usual desire to always make others feel good when it is possible. I suggested that she should reconsider her answer when she thinks about the only one that would never, ever let her down. She reluctantly agreed that she should have said that Christ was her Best Friend. When anyone has been married to the same person for fifty years or more, and has been blessed with a happy relationship, it is difficult to realize that anyone, other than the spouse, can be considered a better friend. However, we must realize that Jesus has never ever, let us down one single time; and never will—and that makes Him our very best friend.

As we together study this lesson I pray that God will help us see how we can behave as His friend. God must show us the necessity of being a friend of God by being friends of men and by simply living the life of the golden rule—where we do unto others as we would that they do to us.

James taught us to seek wisdom. In chapter three, James emphasizes the need for wisdom of men in the church. He teaches us the dangers of a loose tongue, and exhorted us to watch our words carefully. After many years in the church it is time to look back and find those who have been steadfast in both word and deed. You will find that your best friend [friends] in the church are those who experience and practice sincere love for others while expecting nothing in return.

Look back over your worst days in life. Most likely the worst of your days have been those when you were quarreling and even fighting each other or one another. The worst of days come when you want something but do not get your way. Do you know why you do not get things you desire most? James says that it is because you do not ask God; or if you ask God and do receive your desire it is because you ask with the wrong motive. The wrong motive is that your desire is for self-satisfaction and does not include the desires of others.

James is setting before his people a basic question—whether their aim in life is to submit to the will of God or to gratify their own desires for the pleasures of the world. We can look about us and see a raging conflict among people and wars between nations and know that this constant and bitter conflict is nothing more or less than selfish desires. The Ten Commandments closes in the forbidding of covetousness or desire—for selfish desire is the worst of all the passions of the soul.

Conflicts and disputes among believers are always harmful. James explains that these quarrels result from evil desires battling within us. Man has a nature that causes him to want more possessions, more money, higher status, and more recognition. When this sin reaches its zenith, we are willing to fight others who get in our way. Our faith is not strong enough to believe that God will help us eliminate our selfish desire if we will only trust him to give us what we really need.

Do you trust God at all? When you seldom do, what do you talk about? Be honest—do you seek God’s approval for what you already plan to do? James says our big problem is that we do not ask; or we ask for the wrong reasons. Our prayers become powerful and bring the right answers when we pray that God will change our motives so that our desires will always correspond to His will for us.

Look at verse four and you will see that your best friend can not be of the world because anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. This book says that “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Therefore; we are to submit ourselves to God and resist the devil—and when we do the devil will flee from us. God will lift up the humble. There is a war taking place at this moment between the Master and the devil and we do not need to wait until the end-time to see who will win.

If God is you best friend [and he is] how can you draw near your best friend? James gives us five ways here in this short space in the bible. 1. Submit to Him and yield to his authority. 2. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. 3. Wash your hands and purify your heart…do right. 4. Morn and grieve for your sins…repent. And 5, humble your-self before Him.

We can be humble only by recognizing that our worth comes from God alone. We work using His power and His guidance willingly.
James tells us that we must be very careful about our boasting of what we will do tomorrow. We have no promise of tomorrow. Life is ours only as we live each moment…it is as a mist that appears for a moment and is driven away by the winds if time. Our promise or proclamation should always begin with the preface “If it is the Lord’s will I will do the best I can with what I have. We should never boast or brag for that is evil. However we should always do that which we know to be right and good because to know to do right and fail to do it sins.

Jesus Christ is my best friend, He died for me. I was dead in trespasses and in sin until He purchased my freedom and when I accepted his love for me I automatically became his best friend. It is now my responsibility to prove to Him that I am proving my sincerity by my daily life in Christ.