But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind. Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do.
James 1:6-8

What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Don’t they come from the evil desires at war within you? You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it. And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure. You adulterers! Don’t you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God? I say it again: If you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God. 
James 4:1-4

This week we outlined four symptoms of a divided loyalty from James's text: 

  1. Crippling Doubt
    1. Have you ever felt you could not obey God in a situation because another perspective seemed equally good or attractive? How did that situation work out?
  2. Instability
    1. Instability is the opposite of being “set” in a position of responsibility. Do you know where God wants you to be at work in His mission? Have you experienced feeling like you “know your place” in the church or in ministry outside the church? What might God be saying to you about using your gifts?
  3. Discordant Desires
    1. Is there conflict in your life that does not reflect the peace (shalom, right relationship) that God intends for us? What is it you want out of that situation (i.e., what are your desires/motivation)? How does your desire line up with what Jesus taught and demonstrated about God’s wisdom for our lives?
    2. What do you pray about? Do you pray with Jesus’s kingdom values in mind? How is kingdom-motivated prayer different from prayer from “evil motives” (James 4:3)? Can you give an example of each for a particular situation?
  4. Treasonous Betrayal
    1. How does the phrase “spiritual adultery” make you feel? What do you think about the Bible’s depiction of God as “jealous” (Jeremiah 2, Hosea)? Is it positive or negative?
    2. Pastor J-M related the story of Jack Barsky as an illustration of why friendship with the world makes us enemies of God (James 4:4). How is divided loyalty like being a “sleeper agent”? 
Further Discussion Questions
  1. Thinking of your own birth culture, what is an aspect of it that Jesus’s teaching would affirm? What is something from your birth culture that doesn’t fit with Jesus’s kingdom?
  2. What are some types of human wisdom (ideologies, political systems, philosophies) that compete with the wisdom of God in Jesus?   
    1. Is there anything in them that is affirmed by Jesus’s teaching? What about them is challenged by Jesus’s teaching?
    2. Do you feel that the North American Church has compromised kingdom values for human ideas or philosophies?  In what way(s)?
  3. In the current political climate, what can the Church do to look more like ambassadors of Jesus kingdom, rather than proponents of a particular party or system?   

 

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