Conflict
Notes
Transcript
Greeting
Greeting
Good morning and thank you for letting me preach again.
Pray
I preach at a small country church south of Anadarko a couple of months ago. I showed up about 15-20 minutes early and was visiting with my contact. He told me that most of the men were not there that day and it was mostly women. I didn’t think anything of it. It ended up only being 3 men there that day including me. So I go up to the pulpit after the singing and introduce myself and say that God had given me a message for this church and that the message was on being a submissive wife! There was dead silence and no one was smiling!! I said I was just joking and gave them the real text we were going to be in. One lady wagged her finger at me while she was shaking her head. It ended up being pretty funny, but we almost had a conflict and I don’t think I would have won!!
Today we are going to see about the conflict among believers. We are going to see what is the origin of these conflicts and we are going to see James call us to be submitted to God and see the grace that He gives and finally to humble ourselves. Let’s read our verse’s and get into it.
James 4:1-4
James 4:1-4
James 4:1–4 (ESV)
What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
James 4:1
James 4:1
What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?
In verse one James gives us not just one question, but two this time. He is asking what is the cause of our fights, he tells us that it is our passions. The Greek word used hedone, which is were we get the English word hedonism. Hedonism is the belief that pleasure is the chief good in life. James is saying that our fights come from our desire for pleasures that battle within us. The strife and trouble in the church for the last 200 hundred years has been rooted in the overreaching personal desires of her people for personal pleasure and enjoyment. James calls out how that searching for pleasure works misery in one’s life. As these conflicting desires victimize us, our lives become a battleground. Our old nature that is self-seeking and focused on personal pleasure, battles against our new nature that is selfless and humble. To many times the old nature wins out. When this happens we naturally diminish the importance of others and only focus on pleasure. This is never more true than today, in our me first society that we live in. I used to always say that I wish our churches could go back to the way of the early church. The Sunday School class that I was teaching was going through the book of Acts. The early church described there is a dream church. Everyone was of one mind and met together daily for food fellowship and the study of the message that was preached last. But it didn’t take long for the problems of the flesh to rear their ugly heads. This is why James is wrote this letter.
James 4:2
James 4:2
You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask.
The first reason James gives for the conflict is the desire that is not met. I don’t think that people we actually murdering people, i believe that James is using Jesus’ example in the Sermon on the Mount where He says that if you have hatred in you heart towards your brother, they have committed murder. This is what James is talking about here, we desire something (either someone’s belongings, status, relationships, or influence) and we don’t get it so we harbor anger towards our brothers and sisters. That anger that is not resolved will eventually turn in to a conflict that will affect the church and its members. When we are seeking pleasure, nothing matters but ourselves. They found a prayer in the among the papers of John Ward, a member of the British Parliament when he died. The prayer said this:
O Lord, thou knowest that I have mine estates in the City of London, and likewise that I have lately purchased an estate in the county of Essex. I beseech thee to preserve the two counties of Middlesex and Essex from fire and earthquake; and as I have a mortgage in Hertfdordshire, I beg of thee likewise to have an eye of compassion on that county. As for the rest of the counties, thou mayest deal with them as thou are pleased.
This is the prayer life of a person who is losing the battleground and seeking pleasure for their life. It is self focused. When we begin to seek pleasure in our lives, we ruin our prayer life. We can see this in the last part of this verse and verse 3. Instead of a prayer life that is focused on God and others and repentance, we are asking for things to satisfy our desires. It says that we have not because we ask not. James is echoing what he heard Jesus teach. Jesus said in Matt 7:7
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
We turn God into a genie in a bottle trying to get our desires(wishes) met. That is not what prayer is for. Prayer is for us to have an intimate relationship with our Father in Heaven. We are to have an attitude of that like a child looking to his loving Father for provision. We are to bring our needs to him and the needs of others. Our desires will become His desires when we are feeding the Spirit in us with His word.
James 4:3
James 4:3
You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.
James tells us that we don’t receive because we asked with the wrong intent. The petitions offered are inseparable from the wicked motivation( pride, greed, lust or some other sinful desire). God wants us to come to Him with our prayers, but those prayers must be done according to His will. 1 John 5:14
And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.
Our desire should be to be like Jesus. Jesus didn’t treat His Father like a holy vending machine who dispenses toys indiscriminately to those who ask. God is our holy Father who relates to His children so as to promote His ultimate glory and our good in conforming us to the image of His Son. Romans 8:28-29
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
God desires us to come to Him in prayer. The bible tells us that we are to pray without ceasing. God loves us and wants to talk with us. We must do it in the right way. We must humble ourselves before we come to Him.
James 4:4
James 4:4
You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
If we don’t humble ourselves and we continue to seek pleasure, James tells us that we make God our enemy. In the New Testament we as believers are called the bride of Christ. James calls those who seek pleasure adulterous people! When we seek pleasure, we are becoming like the world and our old selves. We are going back to our old master, sin!! God’s children share loyalty, faithfulness, and relational intimacy with Him, when we violate that intimacy, we put ourselves at odds with God. The bible tells us that we can not serve two masters. We can only be devoted to one person. Matt 6:24
“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.
Friendship with the world is a Christian who buys into the world’s values of prestige, pride and honor. They desire to be the leader of their local assembly and covets the position belonging to another, slanderously accusing the current leader and stirring up strife in hopes of replacing him. They do not desire to serve others of use his gifts. He seeks the role of leader for the power that comes with it, and the social status that they desire. When we hold to these values and act upon them, we become an enemy of God.
We must seek after the things of above. Our whole reason for being is to glorify our God. We can not do that if we are focused on our own fleshly desires. Jesus put aside His desires and left heaven to come to earth and die on the cross. Every morning we must begin the day at the foot of that cross. We must remember who put Him on that cross. Who is responsible for the beatings that He endured. We are, I am. It is my sin that put Jesus on the cross. If we start every day with this on our minds, we will do well. We must die to ourselves and live for Him. The bible tells that we are to pick up our cross daily and follow Him. Luke 9:23
And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.
It is hard to harbor anger towards anyone when we are carrying our cross and denying ourselves daily. Jesus put others first. He talked to women in public, which Jewish men did not do. He talked to the Samaritans. Jesus died for all people. We should too! This life here is temporary, our home is in heaven. If we truly want to be first, Jesus said then we must be last. To be a master, we must first be a slave.
Let’s pray
