Conflict vs. Communion with God
Notes
Transcript
Conflict vs. Communion with God
Conflict vs. Communion with God
Scripture Reading
Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”?
But He gives more grace. Therefore He says:
“God resists the proud,
But gives grace to the humble.”
Prayer
Message
Ill. During my time at home I watched a great deal of TV. New series, “Virgin River” which is about a nurse that left Los Angeles, CA for a change of life and joined forces with a rural physician.
One episode dealt with a case where the family were all dealing with life threatening symptoms and were all in critical shape almost simultaneously. In the drama of moments, question and answer, and delving investigations, the doctor and nurse deducted that the contaminated water source from the well for the home was causing the sickness.
We have prayed in recent days for many people relating to health matters. The interesting thing is that we see the symptoms, but the physician looks at the root cause of the problem.
In other words, a great surgeon understands that he must cut below the surface many times to correct the root cause of the symptoms displayed to address the real problem.
Prior to my time out of the pulpit, we were studying the letter to James. This morning we are in Chapter 4:1-6.
James has guided us on a journey of mining or digging down to the root cause of the many issues each of us face each and every day. James’s goal for God’s people is that we could experience civility during times of calamity and chaos in the world.
We know the root source of civility and we know that we term it “making peace with God” is found in a personal relationship with Jesus.
This morning James is attacking the issue in the life of the believer of dealing with unresolved disputes. The idea that warring within reveals itself outwardly in conflict, disputes, and as the Scripture states this morning, “warring and fighting”.
James was ministering to a persecuted people during the infancy of the early church. James was teaching a message of civility vs. being caught up in the chaos, calamity, and conflict of the day. Is that not where we find ourselves?
Since March, we have sought the Lord’s divine hand to direct us through a time as such we have never experienced. COVID and every kind of byproduct of this fatal sickness. We have experienced fear of the unknown, fear of contracting, fear of being a silent carrier and infecting another loved one, economic disruption, we have seen business closures, social deprivation, the sense of isolation, crime escalate, demonstrations, rioting, looting, depression, anxiety, not being able to come and go as we would like and not being able to visit others as we desire. Masks, the infamous mask, the smothering, the fogged glasses, etc.
As those that love Jesus, we reside in the fact that:
This is the day the LORD has made;
We will rejoice and be glad in it.
The New King James Version. (1982). (Ps 118:24). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.
For those of us “in Christ”, our aim, our goal is that never would we allow life to rob us of our joy and abundant living found in Christ.
But as it relates to happiness, these aren’t the happiest days for many of us. We would not score 2020 as box office year.
I listened to one of the anchors on the Today Show that “many of us will be glad to usher 2020 out.”
Post from Facebook
I read this post on Facebook from a former member of the first church I served as pastor.
I don’t know who wrote this but SOMEONE FINALLY put into words what many of us have been thinking and I couldn't agree more!
I’m sick of covid-19.
I’m sick of blacks vs. whites.
I’m sick of Democrats vs. Republicans.
I’m REALLY sick of the media.
I’m really sick of the wearing a mask debate.
I’m sick of no one being allowed to think what they want & feel how they do without offending someone.
I am sick of the people who are out there jumping on the bandwagon just to spread hatred. And start riots, looting & destroying others properties.
I am sick of blaming the world for the sins of a few.
We’re one race - the human race.
You want to support Trump? You do it! It’s your choice!
You want to support Biden? You do it! It's your choice!
You want to believe in God? You do it! It's your choice.
You want to believe in magical creatures that fly around & sprinkle fairy dust to make life better? Awesome... you do it!!
BUT how about being MATURE enough to be able to deal with the fact that everyone doesn’t have the same exact mind-set as you. Having our own mind-set is what makes us all individuals and beautiful. If you can’t handle that fact....oh well!
I don’t have to agree with everything you believe in & YOU don’t have to agree with me.
It's your choice! It's my choice!
Just be a decent human being.
Obviously, I do not necessarily agree with every aspect of that excerpt, but I think you would agree with me that many people today could incorporate some aspect of those comments into their stand upon which the days we live.
God has a word for us from His letter, James for such a time as we find ourselves in this morning.
Platform verse to build upon:
The New King James Version Chapter 1
for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.
Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
James is offering this message to the early believer, the infant church and He is addressing strife among the people. Yet, we can apply this text to any conflict you are encountering right now. You may say Brother Luke, “this message isn’t applicable to me. I am not in dispute with anyone right now.”
How are you on the inside? Do you have unresolved conflict that is waging war within you? Do you have something you are holding on to or an internal battle within?
This is what James is drilling down to help us discover. The Word of God brings us to a crisis of understanding about our inner psychic. Outward manifestations of antics, outburst, mood swings, hostility, temperament, reclusive behavior , isolation, are all signs of an internal battle raging. James shares where the source of those conflicts are birthed.
1. Source of Conflict v. 1
Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members?
James states that the source of our conflict is when we our pleasures, our desires to override His will for our lives. Everyone of us can fall prey to wanting our way and satisfying the desires and pleasures we want.
Pleasure
Noun: εὐδοκία (eudokia) GK 2306 (S 2107), 9×. eudokia can mean “good pleasure, purpose; desire.”
Most all of the issues we confront or create conflict is related to selfish interests.
But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and strife and disputes about the Law, for they are unprofitable and worthless.
Pleasures
New American Standard Updated Edition Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible (4×)
life, Lk 8:14 2237 enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, Ti 3:3 2237 to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, Heb 11:25 619 pleasures that wage war in your members?
Now the ones that fell among thorns are those who, when they have heard, go out and are choked with cares, riches, and pleasures of life, and bring no fruit to maturity.
For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another.
Our former lives are alluring, it can be seducing, and the moment we point our tents toward Sodom, each step after becomes easier to migrate in the wrong direction.
Ask yourself this question this morning. Are you playing both sides of the fence? Are you trying to be a friend to the world and a friend of God?
Ill. Lawrence Phipps-golf.
James is telling us that when we are at war with another, we are in conflict with one in the church, or at odds with anyone for that matter, the source of the conflict is our selfish desires, our wants, our pleasures, what we think, our attitudes and we allow those hungers to rank over anyone else. Most importantly, we allow our savage desires to rank more important than God’s will, His directive, and we even know how He wants us to respond, yet we follow our way, our will, our desire.
As it relates to the church and feuding, our way, our feelings, our pleasures are more important than what is best for the church and the Lord.
Do you struggle with a worship style because of your selfishness? Do you struggle with the times we hold service because of selfishness? Do you struggle with your place of service here among God’s people over not wanting to compromise your own agenda, schedules, and a simply a non-committal attitude of just blowing in when you want and blowing out when you want?
Listen dearly beloved, the Bible itself is not how God fits into our lives. The Bible is His story and how We fit into His world.
Dearly beloved each of us face a great battle every day, friendship with the world and the things of this world vs. friendship with God.
2. Symptoms of Compromise v. 2
Look with me at verse 2:
You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask.
In verse 2 we see the symptoms of conflict and how they come about. Living a life of compromise. Everyone of us struggle in this area everyday.
Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world.
When our hearts compromise with the world, we begin to think like the world, we want what the world wants. James uses the words, “lust, murder, covet”, in other words, we become envious of what others have, we become lustful of the positions other people serve in the church, of certain status others may attain, of the things others own, or of the family dynamic of one family vs. another, educational degrees others receive, accolades one gain, and the list goes on.
James drives home the fact that it creates within us this unhealthy, sinful motivation, almost a ravenous burning desire to “murder” to either take one down for what they have or take it away from them. “If I can’t have it, you aren’t either.”
But notice what James closes with in verse 2:
You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask.
I love Musicals. There is a musical that has been out the last couple of years called “The Greatest Showman”. It is the story of the birthing of the success of P. T. Barnum and the Barnum and Bailey Circus. The musical begins from humble means of a simple boy that fell in love with a girl from the other side of the tracks. The Father to the wealthy young lady pushed P. T. Barnum away from seeing his daughter. He thought the young man was not fit for his daughter. They fall in love and have children and start from very humble means, but slowly over the course of the musical P.T. was out to prove both to his father-in-law, his wife, but especially to himself that he could rise to even greater heights than her father. And that he did, at a price. Mr. Barnum was overseas and the newspaper takes a photo of a famous singer that he had sponsored kissing him that made international news. It brought embarrassment to the family and P. T. Barnum came to the realization that he was sucked into the system and that he had veered off tract from his love for his wife, family and his value system. This is just a musical and I do not know how much of the facts of the musical were true. This musical ends with a happy ending. It doesn’t always end that way when you try to live on both sides of the fence.
3. Supplication when we Commune w/ God vv. 3-6
You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”?
But He gives more grace. Therefore He says:
“God resists the proud,
But gives grace to the humble.”
Listen dearly beloved, the issue is that we spend more time on our pleasures and selfish wants and desires and not enough time praying. James is telling his fellow brethren, “listen brothers and sisters, you are living your life and caught up in this world and looking at what everyone has around you, rather than looking to the Father of lights.
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.
Listen to me dear brother and sister, if you live your life always focusing on what others have, what others accomplish, what others have that you do not, what they get to do that you can’t, that they go places you can’t go, that they have gifts you wish you would have and whatever else you can think of.
Focus on where the Lord has you today and where He is taking you with each passing day. Look inward rather than outward. Measure yourself and what God has accomplished in your life. Live a life of thanks of where you were and where He has taken you. Live out an attitude of gratitude for what the Lord has accomplished in your life.
James says that the reason you do not have those things you want is threefold.
Dissident-you do not ask at all. You do not make time to allow God to do great and wonderful things in your life because of living that life of compromise and trying to live in the world and live in the Lord.
Distorted-You ask amiss. Your wants and desires for you do not align with what God wants for you. The Lord knows best and wants best for you and wants to give you His best. But it only comes about when we align witn Him.
Distracted-”you may spend it on your pleasures.” You are too busy fulfilling a world agenda rather than a God agenda for your life.
But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
1Jo 3:22
And whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.
1Jo 5:14
Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.
Well, I close with the Lord sharing one of those “get in our face” type statements.
Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
As yourself this question. Do you want to keep carrying this luggage in your life? Do you want to carry the anchors around your neck that haunt you from some sort of unresolved conflict in your life? Do you have a friend, a family member, a church member, or me, or anyone for that matter that you know there is a wedge driven in the relationship?
1)Understand that the source of your conflict lies in the fact you have selfish interest, desires and wants that you are allowing to override what the Lord would say about the matter.
2) The symptoms are seen by others and you are harboring these feelings because you are living a life of compromise, trying to be everything to everybody, trying to please the Lord at the expense of pleasing God.
3) Until you call out to the Lord to intervene, begin to pray, and begin to ask you to help cleanse me of these feelings by spending more time with Him, you will be amazed at the real peace you will find in Him.