Where does fighting come from
James 4:1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? [2] You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. [3] When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. 4 You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. [5] Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely? [6] But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:
"God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble."
7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. [8] Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. [9] Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. [10] Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. 11 Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. [12] There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you--who are you to judge your neighbor?
1) The Folly of Fighting. We would like to think that there are more noble reasons for our disagreements. (verses 1-4) James says that at the bottom of it all is that we aren’t getting what we want or we aren’t having our own way.
Toddlers Rules Of Ownership
1. If I like it, it's mine.
2. If it's in my hand, it's mine.
3. If I can take it from you, it's mine.
4. If I had it a little while ago, it's mine.
5. If it's mine, it must never appear to be yours in any way.
6. If I'm doing or building something, all the pieces are mine.
7. If it looks just like mine, it's mine.
8. If I think it's mine, it's mine.
9. If it's yours and I steal it, it's mine.
Even wild donkeys understand the importance of proper relationships. When they are attacked they get their heads together and kick blindly outward. There are times in the church when God’s children do just the opposite. They get their hind ends together and kick each other to death.
Dr. William Gaylin, in his book Feelings: Our Vital Signs, pointed out that "resentment often arises when we believe we aren't getting what is due us from another person. We feel unfairly cheated or betrayed. And brooding leads to all kinds of trouble." In her book Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion, Carol Tavris defined resentment as "readiness to feel anger, a rehearsal for anger that doesn't flower. And the saddest part of it is that we all tend to want to blame another person for the resentment we feel, instead of larger, pervasive issues like stress related to unemployment."
a) First of all it takes two people unwilling to move toward each other for relationships to remain in shambles. We often look to the person who started things to be the one to make the relationship right again with an apology or some other penitent act. I believe that anything that keeps people apart is wrong. Generally there must be two people who are content to let things stay as they are in order for relational fracture to persist. Both people are wrong.
b) One will not move because he/she is in the right. This is pride and the willingness to sacrifice relationships for some principle. I would say to you that there is no principle in the world that I am aware of that would justify a broken relationship with another person.
c) Another will not move because of purely wrong desires or motives. Perhaps they want this or that and it is clearly wrong.
d) They are both in reality – wrong. Why do we allow ourselves to be so driven by our agendas? I believe that we are driven by restless hearts and souls, searching for something that we think will satisfy an inner craving of some sort. It is the common discovery that nothing material can satisfy this soul stirring. There are so many folks who are absolutely frustrated by life and people. They live a harried impatient existence. (Guy pulling through Tim Horton’s parking lot – old man pulls out in front of him. Rolls down the window sticks his head out and shakes it as if to say – “you are so stupid.” I think that people like this believe that people do those sorts of things deliberately to make their lives more miserable.
2) The Friendship That Fractures Our Faith. (verses 4-6) Instead of fighting with each other over the things that we want or holding ill will that springs from envy or jealousy we should ask God. We will have a tendency to turn to the source from which we feel most likely to gain what we want. Perhaps this is why we go to God last rather than first. This tells us little about God’s faithfulness and much about our willingness to let him be God.
a) Only God can satisfy what you are looking for. I think that the scripture says that we do not have because we do not look to God for whatever it is we are looking for.
b) God must be your best friend. He is not content to be
i) an afterthought
ii) an alternative
iii) a spiritual attachment
iv) an adornment
c) God will not satisfy our carnal desires. In other words, God will not give us the things that we tend to fight over. Anything that you are willing to fight over is out of bounds if you expect to receive from God. If unsatisfied desire is so strong that we will sacrifice relationships in order to achieve or acquire it – then God will never supply it for you. As a matter of fact, He will oppose you in your quest to achieve or acquire it.
d) If we truly look to find satisfaction from God then we must be willing to receive His answers. We must be willing to submit to a higher power or authority if we hope to receive.
3) The Fix For Fractured Relationships. (verses 7-12)
As church people, we sometimes assume that we are immune to the temptations of power. We don't make much money. Society gives us so little power that we think ambition--the drive to succeed, achieve and have prestige and influence over others--is a problem only for people in business or politics, not for people like us.
We thus sometimes fail to see how we get caught up, for the very noblest of reasons, in the same ambitions that motivate everybody. Eventually, the people climbing to the top of the body of Christ can look just like those scrambling to the top of General Motors. Often you can't tell much difference between our leaders and those of the gentiles.
n William H. Willimon in The Christian Century (Feb. 24, 1988). Christianity Today, Vol. 33, no. 11.
An ability to get along with people is a spiritual problem and it certainly creates them. It fractures your relationship with God.
a) Submit – Often we must submit to God before we can find the strength to either admit our wrong to others or to swallow our pride and take the first steps to rebuild a relationship.
b) Resist – Just don’t go along willingly. Don’t make it easy for the Devil to have his way in your life. He flees at our resistance the scripture says.
c) Draw near – So much of abundant Christian living is lost simply because people lose the desire to pursue God – to discover his heart and learn to love Him for who He truly is.
d) Cleansing – deeds and desires. Wash your hands and purify your hearts. Seek forgiveness for the things that you have done that are wrong. Make up your mind who it is that you desire to please.
e) Get sorry about what you are doing. Sorry enough that you don’t repeat it. I believe that repentance is one of the aspects of what it means to come to Christ and to get along with others that is often sidestepped or neglected on the behalf of the seeker and consequently we find ourselves with an experience that we can hardly define. Coming to Christ involves repenting or “turning” from your past and your former way of living to something new. It means having a new set of desires headed by the desire to please God.
f) Stop kidding around and get serious about relationships.
g) Resign from the bench.
h) Get down.
A resident in a posh hotel breakfast room called over the head waiter one morning and said with a wonderful and cheerful smile.
"Good Morning sir. What a wonderful morning I'd like two boiled eggs, one of them so under cooked it's runny, and the other so over cooked it's tough and hard to eat. Also, grilled bacon that has been left out so it gets a bit on the cold side; burnt toast that crumbles away as soon as you touch it with a knife; butter straight from the deep freeze so that it's impossible to spread;
and a pot of very weak coffee, lukewarm."
"That's a complicated order sir," said the bewildered waiter. "It might be quite difficult."
The guest replied, "Oh? I don't understand -- that's what I got yesterday!"
Beware the fury of a patient man.
n John Dryden
A young woman teacher with obvious liberal tendencies explains to her class of small children that she is an atheist. She asks her class if they are atheists too. Not really knowing what atheism is but wanting to be like their teacher, their hands explode into the air like fleshy fireworks.
There is, however, one exception. A girl named Lucy has not gone along with the crowd. The teacher asks her why she has decided to be different.
"Because I'm not an atheist."
Then, asks the teacher, what are you? "I'm a Christian." The teacher is a little perturbed now, her face slightly red. She asks Lucy why she is a Christian. "Well, I was brought up knowing and loving Jesus. My mom is a Christian, and my dad is a Christian, so I am a Christian." The teacher is now angry. "That's no reason," she says loudly.
"What if your mom was a moron, and your dad was a moron. What would you be then?"
A pause, and a smile. "Then," says Lucy, "I'd be an atheist."