AM Bible Study Group: July 10, 2024 from James 4:1-3
Theme: The true source of the conflicts among us is not the people outside of us but the passions inside of us.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
In James 3:13, Pastor James asked a very remarkable question of his Christian readers: “Who is wise and understanding among you?” It was a rhetorical question; intended to introduce the whole matter of the danger of prideful ‘worldly’ wisdom. He spoke of a sinful kind of faux wisdom that’s characterized by “bitter envy and self-seeking” (v. 14); and then explained that true wisdom—’the wisdom from above’—“is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy” (v. 17); and he then affirmed that “the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace” (v. 18). And if we’re reading those words as we should, then we’d have to admit that the competitiveness, harshness, stubbornness, and divisiveness within the household of faith is proof that we’re not as wise as we think we are. It’s for good reason, then, that James went on to ask another question: “Where do wars and fights come from among you?” And with that question, James introduces one of the most convicting sections in his entire letter. In James 4:1-10, he wrote;
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.” Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up (James 4:1-10).This teaches us a very surprising thing. Ordinarily, we think of the cause of our personal conflicts to be particular people we encounter outside of ourselves. It’s the other guy’s fault. But instead, James shows us that the real cause of those conflicts is a kind of spiritual ‘adultery’ within ourselves. It’s because of an unfaithfulness in our hearts toward the God who loves us and gave Himself for us—an unfaithfulness in which we cease to look to Him for our fulfillment, and seek our satisfaction instead in those things which are in enmity toward Him. What a tremendous revelation this is! Most people strongly believe that conflict comes strictly from external causes—never internal causes. Many important and powerful people, in fact, build entire programs for the sociological cure of conflict upon the idea of changing and controlling strictly external matters. Such efforts, however, ignore the internal reality of sin within the heart of every human being; and that’s really where the source of external conflicts is to be found. The word of God plainly tells us so. In Isaiah 57:20-21, for example, we’re told that
the wicked are like the troubled sea, When it cannot rest, Whose waters cast up mire and dirt. “There is no peace,” Says my God, “for the wicked” (Isaiah 57:20-21);Or think of 2 Timothy 3:1-5. Paul wrote to Timothy and said
in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power (2 Timothy 3:1-5).In none of the things Paul listed in those words will you find any ‘external’ causes. They’re all internal. So; James’ words in this new section seem harsh, but they are much needed. When it comes to conflict within the church, we each need to stop looking at other people as the cause … and look instead into the mirror. In verses 1-3, James revealed that the cause of the conflicts among us as believers is our yearning for our own selfish pleasures. In verses 4-5, he shows us that the character of this yearning is a sinful desire for that which is hostile to God. And in verses 6-10, he shows us that the only cure for that sinful desire is to humble ourselves in repentance before God and let Him restore us. This whole passage is worthy of being absorbed slowly, carefully, and prayerfully. And so, in this particular study, we’ll just focus on verses 1-3. They teach us the vital lesson that the true source of the conflicts among us is not the people outside of us but the passions inside of us.
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Now; it would be important to clarify that not all ‘conflict’ is inherently sinful. Jude, for example, wrote to his fellow believers in Jude 3 “to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints”. That, obviously, would be a conflict that would be necessary. And not all conflicts are necessarily our fault. In Romans 12:18, Paul wrote to his fellow believers and told them, “If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men”—as if recognizing that living peaceably with some men is not always possible. But James’ words in this passage have to do with unnecessary conflicts—in the context of personal relationships within the body of Christ—against those with whom we have a duty to be at peace. James 4:1-3 can be divided into three parts: (1) the cause of such a conflict, (2) the conduct of such a conflict, and (3) the condemnation of such a conflict. So; let’s begin with verse one, where we see … 1. THE TRUE CAUSE OF CONFLICT (v. 1). James asks the question: “Where do wars and fights come from among you?” It’s not a question that he needed to defend in order to ask. We all already know the sad story of conflicts that exist within the church. Their existence shows that we are not yet ‘wise’ with ‘the wisdom that is from above’ yet. And so, having asked, he then answers: “Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members?” In the original language, the phrase “desires for pleasure” is the translation of one single Greek word hādonā; and you might recognize that the word “hedonism” comes from it. Hedonism is the ethical system of philosophy that declares ‘pleasure’—rather than obedience to God’s commands—to be the highest good. So; James is not speaking of desires that are legitimate; but rather that are—by nature—in opposition to God’s will for us. In verse 3, he used the same word to show that God doesn’t give us the things we ask for when asked out of an evil motive; saying that we ask so that we can “spend it” on our “pleasures” (hādonā). In telling us this, James shows us that these destructive passions are not just characteristic of the unsaved world. When James speaks of “wars and fights” among us, he shows that the divisive pursuit of pleasure is a problem within the household of the Lord. And when he says that those desires “war” in our “members”, he puts it in the present tense—indicating that this pursuit is a principle within the members of our body that wages a constant, ongoing campaign of warfare within us—continually driving us away from satisfaction in the Lord Jesus, who calls us away from the things of this world and to Himself as our ultimate good. As the apostle Peter put it in 1 Peter 2:11:Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul (1 Peter 2:11).The desire for those pleasures that wage war within us individually is the true cause of the conflicts between us. And unless we face the truth—and allow God to deal with the real source of the problem within us—then there won’t be any peace among us. As the apostle Paul warned us:
For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another! (Galatians 5:13-15).So; that’s the true cause of the conflicts between us in the body of Christ. And that leads us, next, to consider what James says about … 2. THE SAD CONDUCT OF SUCH CONFLICT (v. 2a). How ugly it is! In verse 2, James holds up the truth to us like a mirror—helping us to see that there’s a three-step pattern to how our sinful inner passions lead to outward conflict:
- First, there’s an unsatisfied desire. James says, “You lust and do not have”; and the word that he uses for ‘lust’ means ‘to set one’s heart hotly upon something’ or ‘to desire longingly’ for it … to ‘want’ it in an inordinate and God-ignoring way. The desire itself may be normal and natural, and the object desired may itself be morally neutral. But the problem is that we ‘want’ it or ‘long’ for it in a way that leaves us ‘unsatisfied’ at a fleshly level … when we should instead be satisfied in God and His provision for us. We “lust” and do not “have”.
- Second, because of that unsatisfied desire, there’s a resentful attitude. James says, “You murder and covet and cannot obtain.” When James says that we “murder”, we shouldn’t think that he only refers to the actual ending of another person’s physical life. We commit ‘murder’ in God’s sight whenever we diminish another person in thought or word or deed. As our Lord said in Matthew 5:21-22; “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.’ But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca!’ shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire” (Matthew 5:21-22).
- There’s a sense, then, in which a resentful attitude toward someone else becomes an act of spiritual ‘murder’ in God’s sight. As the apostle John put it, “Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him” (1 John 3:15). And James would also have us know that our ‘murderously’ resentful attitude is compounded by the sin of covetousness. We become dissatisfied with what God gave us; and we desire what God has given to someone else–wishing that He had given it to us instead of to them. We want it, cannot obtain it, and jealously hate those who have it.
- And third, these passions turn into an open conflict. James says, “You fight and war.” Even though all that James had described up to this point had been internal, those internal passions boil and bubble within us until they—eventually—break out from us into external acts of conflict.
“Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you” (Matthew 6:31-33).He promised us;
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened” (Matthew 7:7-8).The apostle John taught us;
Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him (1 John 5:14-15).The rift between ourselves and our heavenly Father is shown in the fact that we don’t bring our desires to Him in the first place. What a tragic thing this is for the people in God’s own household! It’s our privilege through Jesus—as the Father’s adopted children—to bring our every need to Him in prayer and to thus find our heart’s whole satisfaction in Him to the fullest degree. And yet, how it must break His heart when we won’t do so! Doesn’t it reveal in us a lack of confidence and faith in Him when we don’t bring our longings to Him in the first place—and then rest contentedly in His answer? But in verse 3, James spoke further of a rift between us and our heavenly Father in another way. He wrote, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.” Our wise and loving Father—who looks deeply into our hearts and knows what our true motives are—will never give us something that we intend to squander and waste in a selfish, sinful, and self-gratifying way; spending it on our hādonā.
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Now; after hearing such strong words, let’s take a moment to examine ourselves. Are we—right now—in a state of conflict with another brother or sister in Christ? It may not have come to ‘ten paces at dawn’ just yet; but it may have shown itself in harsh words being spoken to them, or in ‘the silent treatment’ being administered to them, or even in seeking to avoid contact with them altogether. However it may be showing itself, we would have to admit that we’re harboring ill-will toward that other believer, or resentment, or anger, or even the desire to ‘get our fair share’ from them in some way. And if we would—with God’s help—look honestly at the matter, we’d be able to trace the true cause of the conflict to something within us; some unsatisfied ‘pleasure’ within our ‘members’. It may be that something happened to injure our pride in some way—thwarting our desire to be thought of highly by others. It may be that we were cheated out of something we wanted—frustrating us in our desire to ‘possess’ it as our own. It may be that someone has disregarded our feelings in some way—making us ourselves feel invalidated. But the chances are very high that we can trace the conflict to something within us that’s in conflict with God’s promises to us. And if that’s the case, then we need to pay careful attention to the things that James tells us in this passage. The conflict will not end so long as we think that the blame for it ultimately lies outside ourselves … and not in the passions and desires that wage a continual war on our own members. We must heed the warning in verses 1-3; and then follow the pattern for dealing with it that we will find laid out to us in verses 4-10. We must humble ourselves in the sight of the Lord so that He can lift us up.AE