A BELIEVER WHO IS “SLOW TO ANGER” WILL BE BLESSED
AND BE A BLESSING TO OTHERS
James 4:1 - 5:6
As taught by Dave Lindstrom
I. James completes the main body of his letter to the scattered Jewish Christian churches in James 4:1 - 5:6. His desire has been to instruct these believers in the way of the engrafted word (James 1:21) which can bring the righteousness of God (James 1:20) and blessing to their lives (James 1:25). He desires for these believers to live out three sanctifying principles in their life (James 1:19) to be:
A. “quick to hear” (James 1:21 - 2:26) - by this believers should be work-doers, serving and caring for others as God directs them. This will help them not to listen to their sinful flesh.
B. “slow to speak” (James 3:1-18) - by this believers should restrain their speaking by leading a life of gentleness and meekness. This will help them not to speak with sinful words which steers their lives off course.
C. “slow to anger” (James 4:1 - 5:6) - by this believers should lead a life of humility and total dependence on God. This will help them to not deceive themselves by their sinful motives.
II. Fleshly anger comes from worldly thinking and self-centered motives and therefore cannot be used to bring about God’s righteousness (James 4:1-5; James 1:20).
A. Some of these believers were having wars and fights among themselves in their churches (James 4:1,2).
B. All believers have new natures (2 Cor. 5:17) as well as remnant’s of old flesh (Rom. 7:23) are a war zone until our final glorification. James uses a word in verse one that describes a war campaign or military battle that is currently going on in the life of every believer (stratuomenon - present tense, middle voice,
participle).
C. Are we as believers choosing to live according to our old self-centered, pleasure grabbing ways or Christ’s way? The first way will exalt ourselves and be quickly used up and the second way will exalt Christ, express friendship with God and last forever (James 4:3-5, 2:23; Exodus 20:5, 24:14; Zech. 8:2; I John 2:15-17).
III. God’s solution and remedy for a believers self-centered, prideful anger is humility. Humility brings our life back under the control of the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit (James 4:6 - 5:6).
A. James quotes the Scripture verse of Proverbs 3:34 for the solution to fleshly anger and then properly exegetes it (James 4:6-10).
1. The Proverbs 3:34 verse translates out in Hebrew “Yahweh stands against the ones who think above (the proud) but gives His grace (unmerited favor) to the afflicted, low ones” (James 4:6).
2. James then uses ten command form words (imperatives) to describe the process for a prideful anger-filled believer’s repentance (submit, resist, come near, wash, purify, grieve, mourn, wail, change, and humble) (James 4:7-10).
3. Notice that James mentions nothing about receiving Christ by faith here as he is writing this to believers. Therefore, he is writing about repentance for believers who have erred from the way of Christ, not justification for unbelievers (similar to I John 1:8 - 2:2).
B. Angry Christians speaking evil of each other bring problems on themselves and the church (James 4:11,12; Lev. 19:16).
1. Christians are not called to be the final judge for unbelievers or believers. Only Yahweh of Hosts, The Ancient of Days, Jesus the Messiah makes those calls (Dan. 7:9-14; Matt. 7:1, 25:31-46; 2 Cor. 5:10; Rev. 19:11-20:15)
2. Christians are called to discern and exercise judgment on believers in the church for the purpose of warning, exhortation, discipline, and hopeful restoration from a church standpoint (Matt. 18:15-20; I Cor. 6:2-5; I Thes. 5:14; I Tim. 5:19,20).
C. Angry believers boast in themselves and humble believers boast in the Lord (James 4:13 - 5:6).
1. Humble believers submit their plans to the Lord’s will and have a spirit of thankfulness rather than bragging (James 4:13-17; I Thes. 5:18).
2. Angry believers are warned by James in the spirit of Zechariah the Prophet (Zech. 14:12-15) that living for material wealth now, not paying your workers on time, living for pleasure, and condemning righteous believers is a short-sighted and miserable way to live (James 5:1-6).
3. By deduction, the opposite of angry believers living this way would be the humble believers. Humble believers live for eternal purposes which gives a higher quality of life now and future eternal reward (Prov. 3:34; Matt. 5:5).
