Worldliness & Conflict (III)
This is a transcript. It may contain some inaccuracies.
I think one of the most difficult, perhaps interesting jobs in the world is that of an aircraft accident investigator. These are the people who are called in after a plane has crashed to try to investigate what happened, to get to the bottom of it. Very often, these individuals are dealing with a situation, tragically, where there are no survivors—where all that exists is just some debris. They have to figure out and piece together what went wrong.
Very often, these investigators are looking for some kind of fire that begins, a fire that blew the systems, that destroyed the mechanics, that took the plane off course, and ultimately resulted in this tragic crash. They do this not out of mere curiosity—it’s not simply, well, we want to know what happened. They do this out of prevention. It’s because of aircraft investigators that we’ve reduced the number of crashes by a huge amount. If aircraft investigators didn’t do their work, I think we’d see a lot more crashes, and worse, we wouldn’t even know how to prevent them from happening.
I think it’s a sad fact of human nature that, though we can be so effective at producing safety aboard a machine that travels at 800 kilometers an hour at a height of 30,000 feet, we have very little success ensuring safety in another area. In this area of life, fire burns regularly. Explosions occur all the time. Devastating collisions take place. Casualties mount—and it is the area of our relationships: our marriages, our families, our friendships, our church life, our civil life, our work life, etc.
Unlike flying, which occupies a very small amount of your life, even if you’re a frequent flyer, our relationships are with us all the time. All the time, aren’t they? Yet, in relationships, we have vicious conflicts, explosive fights, deep wounds, permanently mangled relationships, raging feuds, burning malice, smoldering bitterness—and little in the way of prevention. Come to think of it, isn’t that staggering?
We have aircraft accident investigators when it comes to planes, but we don’t seem to have that when it comes to relationships. And so, we live in a world where this kind of thing is regarded as, “Well, oh well, c’est la vie—it’s normal.” We accept the regular crash and burn of divorce. We accept the ever-present wreckage of divided, feuding families. We accept as normal the smoking remains of churches split by vicious, carnal conflict. We accept as normal the awful sight of businesses torn apart by betrayal, conflict, and pride. We accept as normal that nations will be torn apart by political and racial conflict.
Wars and fights and quarrels and conflict—they’re so much a part of life that no one seems to ask, “Where does the fire begin on these airplanes,” so to speak. What starts all of this? No one seems to say, surely we can prevent future disasters if we understand where the fires of conflicts begin. If there’s a recurring source, then surely this will help us.
Well, our loving Creator has that answer, and in this paragraph that we’ve been considering together, He asks the question and answers it for us. You see, God is not only the aircraft accident investigator—He’s the designer of the aircraft, and He’s the perfect black box. He sees everything and knows everything that goes wrong, even before it goes wrong. And here, through the mouth of His servant James—His slave James—the Holy Spirit will tell us exactly why we have sinful conflicts in our lives.
You remember James is coming off a discussion of wisdom from above, with humility and peace, and wisdom from below, with conflict. And so, it’s natural for him to move into this discussion of pride, sinful conflict, and quarrels. And I guess if I had to ask, which one of us wants to live in perpetual conflicts? Well, none of us would be the answer. None of us.
None of us aim for this, right? No one wants to fight. We don’t go after conflicts. And sometimes, we have this bewildered type of approach – everywhere I go, there’s conflict. Not understanding what is the recurring spark, the fire that keeps going on.
If we want to prevent that, then we need to listen carefully to James because he’s going to show us very specific steps that we must take to learn how to deal with interpersonal conflict. The first step that we began to look at together—and we will pick up where we left off—the first step for dealing with conflict is found in the first three verses. He tells us, identify the source of the conflict. Identify the source.
He begins in verse 1 with the question, what is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Here’s the question—crystal clear. There’s no confusion about it. What is the source, the origin, the parentage, the beginning, the cause of conflict among you? That’s the question.
We looked at the two words already: quarrels, polemos, and machai, conflicts. And there’s a difference in the meaning in Greek, as we saw together. The first word, polemos, translated “quarrels” in the LSB, refers to armed conflict—campaigns of war, long-term ongoing wars that persist. The second one, “conflicts,” machai, refers to skirmishes, one-off battles.
Do you think that’s an accident that the Holy Spirit put it that way? Of course not. The Holy Spirit is very precise. The Holy Spirit understands something about us. He understands we don’t just have fights here and there; we also live in ongoing feuds. We live in relationships of mutual anger.
Tragically, you see it even among some married couples who are actually in an undeclared war, and the various skirmishes and clashes just happen to be the next expression of the war. It just gives them an opportunity to express the state of war that they are already in. Some church members are in a perpetual campaign of resistance against some other church member.
You find it all around churches—or against a church leader or the direction of the church—and they’re waiting for the next firefight where they can actually put this into practice. Some employees are living in an ongoing cold war of uneasy tension with their employer, just ready to strike should the opportunity arise. And so forth and so forth. You find it all around.
And so James says, where does this kind of life come from? Where do these relational conflicts come from? Where does the fire begin? Where does it come from?
And we say, sitting here perhaps, Oh James, James, James. We already know. We already know. You don’t have to tell us. James, we know the answer. It’s an easy question. The source of the conflict in my marriage is my thick-headed husband who’s always right. Or we say, The source of conflict is my rebellious teenager who’s always looking for a way to drag her feet. Or, I know where the conflict comes from—it comes from those maniacs on the road tailgating me and cutting me off when I need to really get to my destination.
I know where conflicts come from. It comes from my demanding wife, from my screaming infant, from my nagging mother-in-law, from the corrupt civil servant, from the poor service I get at the store, from the thieving insurance company, from the apathetic management of my building complex. I know where it comes from. It comes from the arrogant board of directors.
Thanks, James. You don’t have to tell us. We already understand where conflicts come from. It comes from other people. It comes from life circumstances that invade and disturb our wonderfully dove-like peaceful selves.
To which James might echo the words of Jesus our Lord and say, are you still without understanding? Are you still without understanding? Do you still think that your problems are around you and outside of you? Do you still think sin enters you from outside? Are you still living in self-deception?
Because look at James’ answer. What does he say? This is his answer, not my answer, and what is his answer? Is not, verse 1b, “Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members?” That’s his answer under the Holy Spirit.
James says, here’s where the fire begins. Don’t miss this. It’s clear. Make no mistake about this. This is where the fire begins: desires to please yourself. Period. Paragraph. Desires to please yourself. Strong desires in your heart to get your own way, to please yourself, to have what you want, and to have it your way.
And when your desires meet resistance from other people or circumstances, guess what happens? He says those desires now wage war. They conduct a battle. When James says, “The source your pleasures that wage war in your members,” he’s saying this is part of your being. This is not outside of you; this is inside of you. And James says this is where the fire begins. And, by the way, it’s what keeps the fire burning, strong desires to please me, myself.
James, in verse 1, uses the noun Hēdonē, pleasures, from which we get the English word hedonistic or hedonism. And then, in verse 2 of chapter 4, he says, “You lust,” the verb form epithumeo, of our word epithymia, lust—the strong, strong craving. And so, as mentioned before, he uses the two synonymously here. He’s saying that within us, within every single one of us, there are strong desires, strong cravings, which are a continual assault on our souls.
And remember, back in chapter 1, verses 13 and 14, James told us that sin comes from within, not from without. He made that clear from the beginning. Sinful conflict, according to the Holy Spirit, comes when we’re pursuing selfish desires. Bottom line – it’s in our hearts. It’s native to us. Native to us. It’s within us.
I came across this the other day. A teacher in Florida had a clever idea. He had a special needs student – he was a teacher of special needs students – and he decided every day he would begin his day by praising his students, by calling them up one by one and saying something affirming, something praising to them.
And a video goes on to talk about how there was more productivity in the class, and the kids were more self-confident, and they even started complimenting each other. And then the caption comes at the end of this video, and it says this: “Love is natural, hate is learned.”“Love is natural, hate is learned.” And sadly, beloved, there are enough Christians trapped in the sweet, sticky, syrupy world of sentimentality to nod and even wipe a tear and say, how true, how true. Oh, it’s touching. Instead of – nonsense. Utter nonsense.
Hatred is not learned. Hatred is not learned. Hatred is natural to sinners. Hatred is natural to sinners because there’s only one thing standing in the way of me getting everything I want, and that is every other person on the face of this planet.
Love is learned by the power of the Holy Spirit. The love of God shed abroad by the Holy Spirit in our hearts, Romans 5:5. And how about Titus 2, verse 4? Instructing the older women to teach the younger women what? Teach them what? To love their husbands.
Love is learned. Love is learned. Hatred is not. Love is learned by the power of the Holy Spirit. And here’s the Holy Spirit’s list of what’s natural to the human heart from Romans 1. This is what’s natural to the human heart. You want to know what’s natural to the human heart, left to ourselves? The Bible tells us. Listen to this and see if this sounds like love is natural and hate is learned.
The Holy Spirit says in Romans 1:29–31—listen to what He says concerning the human heart, what’s natural to the human heart. He says, men and women are “filled with all unrighteousness." That’s what’s natural. "Filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, violent, arrogant, boastful." There’s more, "Inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful." No, no, beloved, hate is natural. Conflict is natural to sinners.
Now let me say this—and this is an important distinction. Disagreement comes about simply because we’re different. Some people, for example, love coffee. Others love tea – which is still unexplainable, but, you know, I cultivate the fruit of the Spirit– long-suffering and patience – but still.
So disagreement comes about simply because we’re different, and we should expect disagreement even in our most Spirit-filled state. Disagreement is inevitable, and there’s nothing sinful about disagreeing, necessarily. Conflict, on the other hand, is sinful. Disagreement happens because we’re different. Conflict happens because we’re selfish, because we’re sinners in pursuit of our own way.
This is the source of conflict, and in verses 2 and 3, James tells us how this develops, "You lust and do not have, so you murder. You are envious 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 with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures."
James says, look, this is how it happens. Follow with me – This is how it happens. He says it starts with lust—that craving, that strong desire, that intense craving for something. But then you don’t get it. So you have this intense craving for something, but then you don’t get it. And since you don’t get it, you hate the person who’s denying it to you. So what do you do? You commit mental murder—hatred in the heart.
You covet. You strive for what you want so badly, but you cannot obtain it. So you fight and you war. And still, you are without what you want – what you desperately want – because you’re independent and you haven’t prayed.
So, do you see the course? It begins with a desire to please myself. And as we saw last time, these desires can be one of two kinds. Just let me remind us about this a little bit. The desires that he’s talking about—the word that he uses, epithymia—in and of itself is a neutral word. It can be a sinful desire, or it can be a good desire.
So you could desire something God has forbidden to you – somebody else’s wife, somebody else’s husband. You could be loving money, and God tells you not to do that. You could be loving your comfort, or sleep, or convenience over necessary duties – God-given duties. You could be loving something, desiring something, He doesn’t want you to have.
But very often, the desire is not something overtly sinful. It isn’t. For example, you may desire respect from your spouse. You may desire affection from a relative. A parent may desire honor from a child. You may desire a clean home. You may desire an unobstructed drive home from work. You may desire professional success. You may desire time by yourself. You may desire to fix a broken stove.
These are all good or at least neutral desires. The list of possible desires that are not sinful is endless. But, beloved, listen very carefully and follow closely. A good desire becomes something else. A good desire becomes something else when we begin looking to that desire as if it’s the only desire—when we look to that desire to bring a kind of happiness and fulfillment that belongs to God alone. Then it becomes sinful.
Martin Luther said it this way, and I quote, "To whatever we look for any good thing and for refuge in every need, that is what is meant by god (small g). To have a god is nothing else than to trust and believe in Him from the heart. To whatever you give your heart and entrust your being, that, I say, is really your god."
You see, what begins as a desire – whether that desire was sinful or good – both can come into the service of sin when we elevate that desire to the place of need. Now, that desire as a need has got to be met by others or by circumstances. So you see what begins to happen suddenly, right? I trust you begin to see it.
The clean house becomes a need that can be demanded of others. Success at work becomes a need that can be demanded from my coworkers. A convenient shopping experience becomes a need that I can demand from the people I’m working with. A healthy body becomes a need that I can demand from life and, by implication, from God.
And, beloved, here’s the next progression. When something becomes a need that I feel I can legitimately demand from whomever or whatever stands in my way, the next inevitable step is that I punish those who get in my way. If this desire is a need, I must have it. I demand that I get it, but you won’t give it to me. And if you won’t give it to me, then I punish you.
I punish you with my anger. I punish you with my coldness. I punish you with harsh words, with insults, perhaps by withdrawing or manipulating. I can exact vengeance on my child, as it were, with belittling insults, correction in anger, or a raised voice shouting. I punish my opponent at work with a long-winded email, detailing in the minutest detail how wrong they are and how right I am. I phone, I threaten, I intimidate, and I try to overwhelm my opponent.
And here’s the thing, beloved, the problem is this. Because I feel my original desire is good—because I think it’s justified—I feel that my angry punishment of you is all the more justified. You see, listen to the language that we use:
"Is it too much to expect?"
"All I’m asking for is..."
"After all that I’ve done, the least you could do..."
"I only want what is good and right."
You see, because what I want is far more justified than what you want, you’re clearly the problem, and I’m the solution. Do what I want. Do it my way. Please me. Meet my demands, and the war is over. Right? You see, beloved, “The heart is more deceitful than all else and desperately sick;” – desperately wicked. – “Who can know it?” Jeremiah 17:9.
It’s like the husband who said, reflecting on his years of marriage, as I think about the conflicts and problems that we’ve had as a couple, you see, the major problem in our marriage was that I was always right, and my wife was always getting angry about it. If she just stopped doing that, etc., etc. No, that wasn’t the problem, was it?
The problem was selfish desires in the heart. As he pursued them and believed he was right, he would punish his spouse, as it were, with ungodly actions because what I want is right, and you’re standing in the way. The answer is what? Humility, which James addresses. God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Humility.
At this point, what came to my mind is Cain. I thought of Cain. Cain, I think we could probably say, had a desire to worship God. Cain and Abel were going to worship God, and he just wanted his offering to be accepted. What Hebrews 11 tells us is that Abel had faith. Cain didn't.
As Cain walks away from his offering, the Bible says that he, “became (very) angry, and his countenance fell.” (Genesis 4:5) Because Yahweh had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering, He had no regard. So, he's walking away, thinking, all I wanted was to have my hard work accepted. Is that too much to ask?
Then God says to him gently, I think – why sulk about it, Cain? Why sulk about it? Do well, and you will be accepted. Now Cain has a choice. His choice is to submit his desire to have his worship accepted to God's ways or continue to pursue his own way and insist that everyone do it his way.
Cain was so committed to worshiping God his own way, so badly did he want God to accept him on his own terms, that his desire became what? A demand. You know what the problem is? You can't demand and make God do anything, can you? So, he did the next best thing – remove his rival. Remove his rival, remove the other choice that God had, and make sure that God would favor him. He took out his vengeance on his rival and essentially said, now, who's gonna accept whose sacrifice?
When we're like this, when we're doing this, we're so independent, so stubbornly seeking our own way. James tells us this is what happens. At the end of verse two: "You do not have because you do not ask." Verse three, "You ask and do not receive because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures."
You see, when I've made a desire into an idol, I'm going to do one of two things in that independence. Either I don't pray because I'm so independent, what's God got to do with this? I'm just going to pursue this anyway, my own way or I pray, but I pray selfishly, "God, give me my way by way of heaven."
This is the kind of prayer we pray when we say something like, "God, will you please just remove this person from my life?" Can you imagine what would happen if God answered those prayers? Can you imagine all the people who would disappear from the earth—including you—because someone would have prayed for your removal too?
Lord, please let my spouse become the person I want them to be. Lord, please let this person get fired. James says we're asking amiss, with wrong motives. As you will see in a moment, prayer is a big part of preventing disagreements from becoming conflicts. But prayerlessness or selfish prayer is one more stage in an idolatrous pursuit of my own selfish desires.
So, one more time, beloved, good desires become bad desires when we treat them like they're the only desires. Good desires become bad desires when we treat them like they are the only desires. Good desires become bad desires when we treat them like ultimate desires—ultimate desires.
Now, as you think about that as the true source, I find myself pausing, and it really raises an important question, one that I need to briefly answer. It is a sermon by itself, but I'm just going to address it very briefly because I must. It's good for us.Before we move to James's second step, here's the question that must be raised at this point: is it ever right for Christians to fight? Is it ever right to be locked in conflict with other Christians? And if it is right, what would such a conflict look like?
Well, we learn from Scripture that it is appropriate at times to be in conflict—or at least what appears to be conflict. But there are several questions that can help us discern when it's right for a believer to be engaged in conflict with other Christians, with other believers, when it's really right to fight the good fight.
Number one, ask yourself this question: what are you fighting about? What is the issue itself? What are you fighting about? What is the real issue? You see, the only acceptable issues over which we as Christians can fight are those that Scripture identifies for us. It's when we're obeying God—when God has commanded us to fight—that it's acceptable.
In the New Testament, there are two specific reasons that are laid down as acceptable causes for conflict among Christians. The first is the practice of church discipline in keeping the church pure. Church discipline – keeping the church pure. You see that in Matthew 18, where Jesus lays out a process for the church to follow. That’s one message, or a couple of messages, by itself. But that’s one reason.
The second reason we’re given for acceptable conflict within the church is when it’s in defense of the faith. Defense of the faith. Jude, the little epistle near the end of our New Testament, lays out the reality that pretenders are mixed into the church. In verse three of Jude, he writes, "Beloved, while I was making every effort to write to you about our common salvation..."
He says, listen, beloved, I want to write to you and encourage you about the great salvation that we share together, that we have in common, that we’ve received, and on all that God has accomplished for us. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t even do that. Why? He says because, “I felt the necessity to write to you exhorting that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints."
He’s saying, you’ve got to contend, you’ve got to fight, you’ve got to defend the faith. The gospel is under fire; the faith is under fire. The faith here is that body of doctrine that we have received from the generations that have faithfully proclaimed it in the past and passed it on to us—the faith once and for all delivered, the deposit of faith that we have in our hands.
And in verse four, here’s a reason, he gives a reason in verse four of his little epistle. He says, "For certain persons have crept in unnoticed … ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ." Jude says you’ve got to fight the good fight. You’ve got to fight for the truth. There can be times in the church when we’re truly fighting for the truth, and it could be a time of conflict, yet we’re commanded to do it.
The most graphic and compelling illustration of this, of course, is found in Galatians chapter two. Paul gives us an account of his interaction with Peter. He said I rebuked him publicly because he was actually undermining the gospel with what he did. I won’t go into the details—you can read that at your own leisure.
But secondly, ask yourself another question: why are you fighting? Why are you fighting? What's your motive? It's a question of motive. The only acceptable motive for fighting is the glory of God. You can have the right cause, but if the motive is amiss, it's a problem.
So, the next question is: why are you fighting? What's the motive? The only acceptable motive, really, is the glory of God, and the goal is obedience to that God. That’s the only reason to fight. So, what are you fighting about? Is it for the purity of the church? Is it in defense of the faith? Are you fighting for the glory of God? Are you zealous for the glory of God?
There have been times in church history—and even in modern times—when bedrock issues were involved, when the motives on the surface seemed to be right and wholesome, and yet it still degenerated into sinful arguing and fighting. And so, we have to be very careful.
How do you know if you're engaged in a righteous fight—both in the cause as well as in the manner? Ask yourself a third question: how are you fighting? How are you fighting? You see, even conflict for a godly cause must never be in the spirit of a quarrel or an argument being argumentative, contentious. It must never be accompanied by the kinds of sin of attitude and speech that accompany most arguments. The truth is, more often than not, the arguments and fights in our lives are sinful and selfish, even when the cause is just.
The reason we're fighting is not for the glory of God very often—not for the desire to obey—but out of pride, selfish ambition, jealousy, and dissatisfaction with our desires. The heart is deceitful above all else, desperately wicked. James says the true source of most arguments and quarrels is the cravings of our heart or our lust.
If we're going to deal with our quarreling and arguing, if we're going to see a decrease in the pattern of our sin in this area, we first have to understand the source. And again, beloved, mark it down, the source is not the other person. The source is not the issue, whatever it is. James doesn't even tell us here what the issue is among these people. That is not his point. The problem is not the circumstances. The problem is not my upbringing. The source is our own sinful hearts. We crave something, and that other person stands in the way of whatever it is we want. And so, we lash out.
One commentator writes, and I quote, "Conflict is at root no more than the existence in each of us of a self-centered heart, a controlling spirit of self-interest. This is the militant cause of all disturbance." End of quote. So, the first step in overcoming conflict is to identify the real source, the true source. What is it? It's the pursuit of our own pleasure. It's something we want, and the other person is standing in the way, and so we react.
Now, let's begin to look at the second practical step in dealing with conflict in our lives, and it’s this: Not only must we identify the source, James tells us, but we also must enlarge or magnify the real sin behind the conflict. Enlarge the real sin behind the conflict. What exactly is the real sin that lies behind arguing, fighting, and quarreling? Well, it's identified here for us in one Greek word, Moichalis. In English, it's translated: "You adulteresses." Adulteress, adulteresses.
I don't know about you, but that's a pretty shocking word. It's pretty shocking to read that in the pen of James. Shocking. Nothing short of shocking. Remember how James has, prior to this, referred to his readers? Before this, he's called them what? My brethren. That sounds very nice, doesn't it? My brethren.
Where do you see that? Just to remind us, you see that in chapter 1, verse 2; in chapter 2, verse 1; in chapter 2, verse 14; in chapter 3, verse 1; in chapter 3, verse 10; and in chapter 3, verse 12—my brethren, my brethren, my brethren. He's also called them my beloved brethren—chapter 1, verse 16; chapter 1, verse 19; and chapter 2, verse 5. My brothers and sisters, my brothers and sisters, my beloved brothers and sisters. Again and again and again.
Now, imagine for a moment that you are sitting in the congregation who originally received this letter from James. One of the congregations that received it was in Jerusalem. James was your beloved pastor, your under-shepherd, and now you've heard that a letter has just arrived from Jerusalem, written by your beloved pastor. You've gathered to hear that letter read for the first time, and James has some hard things to say. So far, he had said, of course, in the letter, and we've all found ourselves pierced by his words, sitting there listening to his letter. Yet he still maintains that love, calling us his brethren and his beloved brethren.
Now, imagine how shocking it would have been that first time to have been seated in the pew, as it were, or sitting in the house of one of the churches there in one of the cities in Asia Minor, and to have heard your under-shepherd say, "You adulteresses." It would have been just a horrible, horrible thing. They were undoubtedly horrified because that's not a label anyone wants to wear. And because of their Jewish background, they immediately understood what James meant. And notice, it’s in the feminine. They would have understood immediately what James meant because you see, this phrase, this word, has its root in the Old Testament.
You remember, of course, that in Genesis 12, God appears to Abraham and tells him that He's going to choose his descendants, and they will eventually come to be known as Israel, His own covenant people. And eventually, as the Old Testament unfolds through the words of the prophets, we learn that God pictures His relationship with Israel, the descendants of Abraham, as that of a marriage.
There are a lot of passages we could turn to. Just turn with me to one of them—Isaiah 54. Isaiah 54, verses 5 and following, Isaiah says, "For your husband is your Maker," He tells the nation, Israel. "Your husband is your Maker, Whose name is Yahweh of hosts, and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel, Who is called the God of all the earth. “For Yahweh has called you, like a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit, Even like a wife of one's youth, when she is rejected," Says your God. For a brief moment I forsook you, But with great compassion I will gather you."
Here’s a description of God casting off His unfaithful wife, but only for a short time before He throws His arms of love around her again. But the point that I want us to see here is that Israel is pictured as a wife to Yahweh. So, when Israel was unfaithful to God, when she allowed her heart to wander away, when she chose a path of sin, when she got involved in worshiping the idols of the peoples around her, God accused her of what? Spiritual adultery. There are countless passages in the Old Testament that make that point, but I think none more clear or more direct than Hosea.
Just turn with me a few pages to the minor prophet Hosea. Remember that God, through Hosea and his relationship with his wife, Gomer, pictured the unfaithfulness of Israel to Him. Hosea chapter 2: Gomer, you remember, became involved with a countless number of men in unfaithfulness to her husband.
In chapter 2, God makes the connection to Him and Israel. Listen to what He says in chapter 2 of Hosea, verse 5, "For their mother has played the harlot; She who conceived them has acted shamefully. For she said, 'I will go after my lovers, Who give me my bread and my water, My wool and my flax, my oil, my drink.' Therefore,” God says, "behold, I will hedge up her way with thorns, And I will build a wall against her so that she cannot find her paths. So she will pursue her lovers, but she will not overtake them; And she will seek them, but she will not find them. Then she will say, 'I will go and I will return to my first husband, For it was better for me than now!'"
Jesus used the same kind of language of adultery in His own ministry. You remember that He referred in Matthew 12:39 to the Jewish people, the nation living then, as a sinful and adulterous generation. A sinful and adulterous generation.
The apostle Paul used that same sort of language or image. All of them, in fact, speak of marriage, and Paul particularly uses it in 2 Corinthians 11:2. The church, all of us together, is the bride of Christ. He uses that language. We're betrothed to Christ. We are committed and betrothed to Him.
In 2 Corinthians 11:2, Paul says, "For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy, for I betrothed you to one husband, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to Christ. But I fear that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be corrupted from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ." In other words, I’m really concerned. I’m really fearful that you're going to commit spiritual adultery. That's the context in which these dear people heard James' words to them in James 4.
Beloved, I'll close with this today, and there's a lot of ground to cover here, just to introduce it. James is saying that if we as individuals, if you are engaged in and we need to get this—if you are engaged in a pattern of arguing and fighting, a pattern of arguing and fighting, he says, then you are committing spiritual adultery against God.
That obviously takes the sin of quarreling to a whole new level. You see, you and I have a tendency to downplay our sin. We say things to ourselves like, well, yeah, it was a lie, but it was just a little, tiny white lie. I mean, I didn’t really hurt anybody. It didn’t really hurt anybody. Nobody got hurt. Or, I’m not really angry. I’m just simply frustrated.
And yes, I know I argue and fight with my spouse, or my friends, or whomever, but it’s just not that big of a deal. And James says, stop. God says, it is a big deal. It is a big deal. He sees us, if we’re engaged in the pattern of that kind of sin, as involved in what? Spiritual adultery against Him. Beloved, James says, our problem is a spiritual problem, and he calls it adultery.
Let's pray.
Father, it is the prayer of our hearts this evening that we see our sin the way You see it, that we don’t blame-shift, that we don’t justify, we don’t rationalize, that we don’t explain away, that we see it as it is, as it is truly.
Lord, help us, help us to see this matter of quarrels and conflicts and fighting in interpersonal relationships. Help us to see it the way You want us to see it, Lord. Fundamentally, when we’re engaged in this pattern of being contentious and argumentative, bottom line, the problem is a spiritual one. What is involved is spiritual adultery against You, and James tells us exactly how this unfolds.
We thank You for Your word. We pray that our hearts are really convicted, and that we see the weightiness of this matter, Lord. But we thank You that we don’t have to remain there, that we can run to the cross, that we have forgiveness and we have daily cleansing. We are already bathed. We thank You for that.
Lord, be with us and help us to be a church and people who endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Help us to be peacemakers. Help us, O Lord, to manifest more prominently the fruit of the Spirit, every single one of the fruit of the Spirit, Lord God.
Help us to endeavor to live out in reality the one-anothers of the New Testament. Help us to be like Jesus, our Lord. Help us in all of our interpersonal relationships to be loving and kind and long-suffering and forbearing and patient. Help us to be like You, Lord. Change us. Make us more like Christ.
We ask in His name and for His glory, amen.
Very often, these investigators are looking for some kind of fire that begins, a fire that blew the systems, that destroyed the mechanics, that took the plane off course, and ultimately resulted in this tragic crash. They do this not out of mere curiosity—it’s not simply, well, we want to know what happened. They do this out of prevention. It’s because of aircraft investigators that we’ve reduced the number of crashes by a huge amount. If aircraft investigators didn’t do their work, I think we’d see a lot more crashes, and worse, we wouldn’t even know how to prevent them from happening.
I think it’s a sad fact of human nature that, though we can be so effective at producing safety aboard a machine that travels at 800 kilometers an hour at a height of 30,000 feet, we have very little success ensuring safety in another area. In this area of life, fire burns regularly. Explosions occur all the time. Devastating collisions take place. Casualties mount—and it is the area of our relationships: our marriages, our families, our friendships, our church life, our civil life, our work life, etc.
Unlike flying, which occupies a very small amount of your life, even if you’re a frequent flyer, our relationships are with us all the time. All the time, aren’t they? Yet, in relationships, we have vicious conflicts, explosive fights, deep wounds, permanently mangled relationships, raging feuds, burning malice, smoldering bitterness—and little in the way of prevention. Come to think of it, isn’t that staggering?
We have aircraft accident investigators when it comes to planes, but we don’t seem to have that when it comes to relationships. And so, we live in a world where this kind of thing is regarded as, “Well, oh well, c’est la vie—it’s normal.” We accept the regular crash and burn of divorce. We accept the ever-present wreckage of divided, feuding families. We accept as normal the smoking remains of churches split by vicious, carnal conflict. We accept as normal the awful sight of businesses torn apart by betrayal, conflict, and pride. We accept as normal that nations will be torn apart by political and racial conflict.
Wars and fights and quarrels and conflict—they’re so much a part of life that no one seems to ask, “Where does the fire begin on these airplanes,” so to speak. What starts all of this? No one seems to say, surely we can prevent future disasters if we understand where the fires of conflicts begin. If there’s a recurring source, then surely this will help us.
Well, our loving Creator has that answer, and in this paragraph that we’ve been considering together, He asks the question and answers it for us. You see, God is not only the aircraft accident investigator—He’s the designer of the aircraft, and He’s the perfect black box. He sees everything and knows everything that goes wrong, even before it goes wrong. And here, through the mouth of His servant James—His slave James—the Holy Spirit will tell us exactly why we have sinful conflicts in our lives.
You remember James is coming off a discussion of wisdom from above, with humility and peace, and wisdom from below, with conflict. And so, it’s natural for him to move into this discussion of pride, sinful conflict, and quarrels. And I guess if I had to ask, which one of us wants to live in perpetual conflicts? Well, none of us would be the answer. None of us.
None of us aim for this, right? No one wants to fight. We don’t go after conflicts. And sometimes, we have this bewildered type of approach – everywhere I go, there’s conflict. Not understanding what is the recurring spark, the fire that keeps going on.
If we want to prevent that, then we need to listen carefully to James because he’s going to show us very specific steps that we must take to learn how to deal with interpersonal conflict. The first step that we began to look at together—and we will pick up where we left off—the first step for dealing with conflict is found in the first three verses. He tells us, identify the source of the conflict. Identify the source.
He begins in verse 1 with the question, what is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Here’s the question—crystal clear. There’s no confusion about it. What is the source, the origin, the parentage, the beginning, the cause of conflict among you? That’s the question.
We looked at the two words already: quarrels, polemos, and machai, conflicts. And there’s a difference in the meaning in Greek, as we saw together. The first word, polemos, translated “quarrels” in the LSB, refers to armed conflict—campaigns of war, long-term ongoing wars that persist. The second one, “conflicts,” machai, refers to skirmishes, one-off battles.
Do you think that’s an accident that the Holy Spirit put it that way? Of course not. The Holy Spirit is very precise. The Holy Spirit understands something about us. He understands we don’t just have fights here and there; we also live in ongoing feuds. We live in relationships of mutual anger.
Tragically, you see it even among some married couples who are actually in an undeclared war, and the various skirmishes and clashes just happen to be the next expression of the war. It just gives them an opportunity to express the state of war that they are already in. Some church members are in a perpetual campaign of resistance against some other church member.
You find it all around churches—or against a church leader or the direction of the church—and they’re waiting for the next firefight where they can actually put this into practice. Some employees are living in an ongoing cold war of uneasy tension with their employer, just ready to strike should the opportunity arise. And so forth and so forth. You find it all around.
And so James says, where does this kind of life come from? Where do these relational conflicts come from? Where does the fire begin? Where does it come from?
And we say, sitting here perhaps, Oh James, James, James. We already know. We already know. You don’t have to tell us. James, we know the answer. It’s an easy question. The source of the conflict in my marriage is my thick-headed husband who’s always right. Or we say, The source of conflict is my rebellious teenager who’s always looking for a way to drag her feet. Or, I know where the conflict comes from—it comes from those maniacs on the road tailgating me and cutting me off when I need to really get to my destination.
I know where conflicts come from. It comes from my demanding wife, from my screaming infant, from my nagging mother-in-law, from the corrupt civil servant, from the poor service I get at the store, from the thieving insurance company, from the apathetic management of my building complex. I know where it comes from. It comes from the arrogant board of directors.
Thanks, James. You don’t have to tell us. We already understand where conflicts come from. It comes from other people. It comes from life circumstances that invade and disturb our wonderfully dove-like peaceful selves.
To which James might echo the words of Jesus our Lord and say, are you still without understanding? Are you still without understanding? Do you still think that your problems are around you and outside of you? Do you still think sin enters you from outside? Are you still living in self-deception?
Because look at James’ answer. What does he say? This is his answer, not my answer, and what is his answer? Is not, verse 1b, “Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members?” That’s his answer under the Holy Spirit.
James says, here’s where the fire begins. Don’t miss this. It’s clear. Make no mistake about this. This is where the fire begins: desires to please yourself. Period. Paragraph. Desires to please yourself. Strong desires in your heart to get your own way, to please yourself, to have what you want, and to have it your way.
And when your desires meet resistance from other people or circumstances, guess what happens? He says those desires now wage war. They conduct a battle. When James says, “The source your pleasures that wage war in your members,” he’s saying this is part of your being. This is not outside of you; this is inside of you. And James says this is where the fire begins. And, by the way, it’s what keeps the fire burning, strong desires to please me, myself.
James, in verse 1, uses the noun Hēdonē, pleasures, from which we get the English word hedonistic or hedonism. And then, in verse 2 of chapter 4, he says, “You lust,” the verb form epithumeo, of our word epithymia, lust—the strong, strong craving. And so, as mentioned before, he uses the two synonymously here. He’s saying that within us, within every single one of us, there are strong desires, strong cravings, which are a continual assault on our souls.
And remember, back in chapter 1, verses 13 and 14, James told us that sin comes from within, not from without. He made that clear from the beginning. Sinful conflict, according to the Holy Spirit, comes when we’re pursuing selfish desires. Bottom line – it’s in our hearts. It’s native to us. Native to us. It’s within us.
I came across this the other day. A teacher in Florida had a clever idea. He had a special needs student – he was a teacher of special needs students – and he decided every day he would begin his day by praising his students, by calling them up one by one and saying something affirming, something praising to them.
And a video goes on to talk about how there was more productivity in the class, and the kids were more self-confident, and they even started complimenting each other. And then the caption comes at the end of this video, and it says this: “Love is natural, hate is learned.”“Love is natural, hate is learned.” And sadly, beloved, there are enough Christians trapped in the sweet, sticky, syrupy world of sentimentality to nod and even wipe a tear and say, how true, how true. Oh, it’s touching. Instead of – nonsense. Utter nonsense.
Hatred is not learned. Hatred is not learned. Hatred is natural to sinners. Hatred is natural to sinners because there’s only one thing standing in the way of me getting everything I want, and that is every other person on the face of this planet.
Love is learned by the power of the Holy Spirit. The love of God shed abroad by the Holy Spirit in our hearts, Romans 5:5. And how about Titus 2, verse 4? Instructing the older women to teach the younger women what? Teach them what? To love their husbands.
Love is learned. Love is learned. Hatred is not. Love is learned by the power of the Holy Spirit. And here’s the Holy Spirit’s list of what’s natural to the human heart from Romans 1. This is what’s natural to the human heart. You want to know what’s natural to the human heart, left to ourselves? The Bible tells us. Listen to this and see if this sounds like love is natural and hate is learned.
The Holy Spirit says in Romans 1:29–31—listen to what He says concerning the human heart, what’s natural to the human heart. He says, men and women are “filled with all unrighteousness." That’s what’s natural. "Filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, violent, arrogant, boastful." There’s more, "Inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful." No, no, beloved, hate is natural. Conflict is natural to sinners.
Now let me say this—and this is an important distinction. Disagreement comes about simply because we’re different. Some people, for example, love coffee. Others love tea – which is still unexplainable, but, you know, I cultivate the fruit of the Spirit– long-suffering and patience – but still.
So disagreement comes about simply because we’re different, and we should expect disagreement even in our most Spirit-filled state. Disagreement is inevitable, and there’s nothing sinful about disagreeing, necessarily. Conflict, on the other hand, is sinful. Disagreement happens because we’re different. Conflict happens because we’re selfish, because we’re sinners in pursuit of our own way.
This is the source of conflict, and in verses 2 and 3, James tells us how this develops, "You lust and do not have, so you murder. You are envious 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 with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures."
James says, look, this is how it happens. Follow with me – This is how it happens. He says it starts with lust—that craving, that strong desire, that intense craving for something. But then you don’t get it. So you have this intense craving for something, but then you don’t get it. And since you don’t get it, you hate the person who’s denying it to you. So what do you do? You commit mental murder—hatred in the heart.
You covet. You strive for what you want so badly, but you cannot obtain it. So you fight and you war. And still, you are without what you want – what you desperately want – because you’re independent and you haven’t prayed.
So, do you see the course? It begins with a desire to please myself. And as we saw last time, these desires can be one of two kinds. Just let me remind us about this a little bit. The desires that he’s talking about—the word that he uses, epithymia—in and of itself is a neutral word. It can be a sinful desire, or it can be a good desire.
So you could desire something God has forbidden to you – somebody else’s wife, somebody else’s husband. You could be loving money, and God tells you not to do that. You could be loving your comfort, or sleep, or convenience over necessary duties – God-given duties. You could be loving something, desiring something, He doesn’t want you to have.
But very often, the desire is not something overtly sinful. It isn’t. For example, you may desire respect from your spouse. You may desire affection from a relative. A parent may desire honor from a child. You may desire a clean home. You may desire an unobstructed drive home from work. You may desire professional success. You may desire time by yourself. You may desire to fix a broken stove.
These are all good or at least neutral desires. The list of possible desires that are not sinful is endless. But, beloved, listen very carefully and follow closely. A good desire becomes something else. A good desire becomes something else when we begin looking to that desire as if it’s the only desire—when we look to that desire to bring a kind of happiness and fulfillment that belongs to God alone. Then it becomes sinful.
Martin Luther said it this way, and I quote, "To whatever we look for any good thing and for refuge in every need, that is what is meant by god (small g). To have a god is nothing else than to trust and believe in Him from the heart. To whatever you give your heart and entrust your being, that, I say, is really your god."
You see, what begins as a desire – whether that desire was sinful or good – both can come into the service of sin when we elevate that desire to the place of need. Now, that desire as a need has got to be met by others or by circumstances. So you see what begins to happen suddenly, right? I trust you begin to see it.
The clean house becomes a need that can be demanded of others. Success at work becomes a need that can be demanded from my coworkers. A convenient shopping experience becomes a need that I can demand from the people I’m working with. A healthy body becomes a need that I can demand from life and, by implication, from God.
And, beloved, here’s the next progression. When something becomes a need that I feel I can legitimately demand from whomever or whatever stands in my way, the next inevitable step is that I punish those who get in my way. If this desire is a need, I must have it. I demand that I get it, but you won’t give it to me. And if you won’t give it to me, then I punish you.
I punish you with my anger. I punish you with my coldness. I punish you with harsh words, with insults, perhaps by withdrawing or manipulating. I can exact vengeance on my child, as it were, with belittling insults, correction in anger, or a raised voice shouting. I punish my opponent at work with a long-winded email, detailing in the minutest detail how wrong they are and how right I am. I phone, I threaten, I intimidate, and I try to overwhelm my opponent.
And here’s the thing, beloved, the problem is this. Because I feel my original desire is good—because I think it’s justified—I feel that my angry punishment of you is all the more justified. You see, listen to the language that we use:
"Is it too much to expect?"
"All I’m asking for is..."
"After all that I’ve done, the least you could do..."
"I only want what is good and right."
You see, because what I want is far more justified than what you want, you’re clearly the problem, and I’m the solution. Do what I want. Do it my way. Please me. Meet my demands, and the war is over. Right? You see, beloved, “The heart is more deceitful than all else and desperately sick;” – desperately wicked. – “Who can know it?” Jeremiah 17:9.
It’s like the husband who said, reflecting on his years of marriage, as I think about the conflicts and problems that we’ve had as a couple, you see, the major problem in our marriage was that I was always right, and my wife was always getting angry about it. If she just stopped doing that, etc., etc. No, that wasn’t the problem, was it?
The problem was selfish desires in the heart. As he pursued them and believed he was right, he would punish his spouse, as it were, with ungodly actions because what I want is right, and you’re standing in the way. The answer is what? Humility, which James addresses. God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Humility.
At this point, what came to my mind is Cain. I thought of Cain. Cain, I think we could probably say, had a desire to worship God. Cain and Abel were going to worship God, and he just wanted his offering to be accepted. What Hebrews 11 tells us is that Abel had faith. Cain didn't.
As Cain walks away from his offering, the Bible says that he, “became (very) angry, and his countenance fell.” (Genesis 4:5) Because Yahweh had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering, He had no regard. So, he's walking away, thinking, all I wanted was to have my hard work accepted. Is that too much to ask?
Then God says to him gently, I think – why sulk about it, Cain? Why sulk about it? Do well, and you will be accepted. Now Cain has a choice. His choice is to submit his desire to have his worship accepted to God's ways or continue to pursue his own way and insist that everyone do it his way.
Cain was so committed to worshiping God his own way, so badly did he want God to accept him on his own terms, that his desire became what? A demand. You know what the problem is? You can't demand and make God do anything, can you? So, he did the next best thing – remove his rival. Remove his rival, remove the other choice that God had, and make sure that God would favor him. He took out his vengeance on his rival and essentially said, now, who's gonna accept whose sacrifice?
When we're like this, when we're doing this, we're so independent, so stubbornly seeking our own way. James tells us this is what happens. At the end of verse two: "You do not have because you do not ask." Verse three, "You ask and do not receive because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures."
You see, when I've made a desire into an idol, I'm going to do one of two things in that independence. Either I don't pray because I'm so independent, what's God got to do with this? I'm just going to pursue this anyway, my own way or I pray, but I pray selfishly, "God, give me my way by way of heaven."
This is the kind of prayer we pray when we say something like, "God, will you please just remove this person from my life?" Can you imagine what would happen if God answered those prayers? Can you imagine all the people who would disappear from the earth—including you—because someone would have prayed for your removal too?
Lord, please let my spouse become the person I want them to be. Lord, please let this person get fired. James says we're asking amiss, with wrong motives. As you will see in a moment, prayer is a big part of preventing disagreements from becoming conflicts. But prayerlessness or selfish prayer is one more stage in an idolatrous pursuit of my own selfish desires.
So, one more time, beloved, good desires become bad desires when we treat them like they're the only desires. Good desires become bad desires when we treat them like they are the only desires. Good desires become bad desires when we treat them like ultimate desires—ultimate desires.
Now, as you think about that as the true source, I find myself pausing, and it really raises an important question, one that I need to briefly answer. It is a sermon by itself, but I'm just going to address it very briefly because I must. It's good for us.Before we move to James's second step, here's the question that must be raised at this point: is it ever right for Christians to fight? Is it ever right to be locked in conflict with other Christians? And if it is right, what would such a conflict look like?
Well, we learn from Scripture that it is appropriate at times to be in conflict—or at least what appears to be conflict. But there are several questions that can help us discern when it's right for a believer to be engaged in conflict with other Christians, with other believers, when it's really right to fight the good fight.
Number one, ask yourself this question: what are you fighting about? What is the issue itself? What are you fighting about? What is the real issue? You see, the only acceptable issues over which we as Christians can fight are those that Scripture identifies for us. It's when we're obeying God—when God has commanded us to fight—that it's acceptable.
In the New Testament, there are two specific reasons that are laid down as acceptable causes for conflict among Christians. The first is the practice of church discipline in keeping the church pure. Church discipline – keeping the church pure. You see that in Matthew 18, where Jesus lays out a process for the church to follow. That’s one message, or a couple of messages, by itself. But that’s one reason.
The second reason we’re given for acceptable conflict within the church is when it’s in defense of the faith. Defense of the faith. Jude, the little epistle near the end of our New Testament, lays out the reality that pretenders are mixed into the church. In verse three of Jude, he writes, "Beloved, while I was making every effort to write to you about our common salvation..."
He says, listen, beloved, I want to write to you and encourage you about the great salvation that we share together, that we have in common, that we’ve received, and on all that God has accomplished for us. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t even do that. Why? He says because, “I felt the necessity to write to you exhorting that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints."
He’s saying, you’ve got to contend, you’ve got to fight, you’ve got to defend the faith. The gospel is under fire; the faith is under fire. The faith here is that body of doctrine that we have received from the generations that have faithfully proclaimed it in the past and passed it on to us—the faith once and for all delivered, the deposit of faith that we have in our hands.
And in verse four, here’s a reason, he gives a reason in verse four of his little epistle. He says, "For certain persons have crept in unnoticed … ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ." Jude says you’ve got to fight the good fight. You’ve got to fight for the truth. There can be times in the church when we’re truly fighting for the truth, and it could be a time of conflict, yet we’re commanded to do it.
The most graphic and compelling illustration of this, of course, is found in Galatians chapter two. Paul gives us an account of his interaction with Peter. He said I rebuked him publicly because he was actually undermining the gospel with what he did. I won’t go into the details—you can read that at your own leisure.
But secondly, ask yourself another question: why are you fighting? Why are you fighting? What's your motive? It's a question of motive. The only acceptable motive for fighting is the glory of God. You can have the right cause, but if the motive is amiss, it's a problem.
So, the next question is: why are you fighting? What's the motive? The only acceptable motive, really, is the glory of God, and the goal is obedience to that God. That’s the only reason to fight. So, what are you fighting about? Is it for the purity of the church? Is it in defense of the faith? Are you fighting for the glory of God? Are you zealous for the glory of God?
There have been times in church history—and even in modern times—when bedrock issues were involved, when the motives on the surface seemed to be right and wholesome, and yet it still degenerated into sinful arguing and fighting. And so, we have to be very careful.
How do you know if you're engaged in a righteous fight—both in the cause as well as in the manner? Ask yourself a third question: how are you fighting? How are you fighting? You see, even conflict for a godly cause must never be in the spirit of a quarrel or an argument being argumentative, contentious. It must never be accompanied by the kinds of sin of attitude and speech that accompany most arguments. The truth is, more often than not, the arguments and fights in our lives are sinful and selfish, even when the cause is just.
The reason we're fighting is not for the glory of God very often—not for the desire to obey—but out of pride, selfish ambition, jealousy, and dissatisfaction with our desires. The heart is deceitful above all else, desperately wicked. James says the true source of most arguments and quarrels is the cravings of our heart or our lust.
If we're going to deal with our quarreling and arguing, if we're going to see a decrease in the pattern of our sin in this area, we first have to understand the source. And again, beloved, mark it down, the source is not the other person. The source is not the issue, whatever it is. James doesn't even tell us here what the issue is among these people. That is not his point. The problem is not the circumstances. The problem is not my upbringing. The source is our own sinful hearts. We crave something, and that other person stands in the way of whatever it is we want. And so, we lash out.
One commentator writes, and I quote, "Conflict is at root no more than the existence in each of us of a self-centered heart, a controlling spirit of self-interest. This is the militant cause of all disturbance." End of quote. So, the first step in overcoming conflict is to identify the real source, the true source. What is it? It's the pursuit of our own pleasure. It's something we want, and the other person is standing in the way, and so we react.
Now, let's begin to look at the second practical step in dealing with conflict in our lives, and it’s this: Not only must we identify the source, James tells us, but we also must enlarge or magnify the real sin behind the conflict. Enlarge the real sin behind the conflict. What exactly is the real sin that lies behind arguing, fighting, and quarreling? Well, it's identified here for us in one Greek word, Moichalis. In English, it's translated: "You adulteresses." Adulteress, adulteresses.
I don't know about you, but that's a pretty shocking word. It's pretty shocking to read that in the pen of James. Shocking. Nothing short of shocking. Remember how James has, prior to this, referred to his readers? Before this, he's called them what? My brethren. That sounds very nice, doesn't it? My brethren.
Where do you see that? Just to remind us, you see that in chapter 1, verse 2; in chapter 2, verse 1; in chapter 2, verse 14; in chapter 3, verse 1; in chapter 3, verse 10; and in chapter 3, verse 12—my brethren, my brethren, my brethren. He's also called them my beloved brethren—chapter 1, verse 16; chapter 1, verse 19; and chapter 2, verse 5. My brothers and sisters, my brothers and sisters, my beloved brothers and sisters. Again and again and again.
Now, imagine for a moment that you are sitting in the congregation who originally received this letter from James. One of the congregations that received it was in Jerusalem. James was your beloved pastor, your under-shepherd, and now you've heard that a letter has just arrived from Jerusalem, written by your beloved pastor. You've gathered to hear that letter read for the first time, and James has some hard things to say. So far, he had said, of course, in the letter, and we've all found ourselves pierced by his words, sitting there listening to his letter. Yet he still maintains that love, calling us his brethren and his beloved brethren.
Now, imagine how shocking it would have been that first time to have been seated in the pew, as it were, or sitting in the house of one of the churches there in one of the cities in Asia Minor, and to have heard your under-shepherd say, "You adulteresses." It would have been just a horrible, horrible thing. They were undoubtedly horrified because that's not a label anyone wants to wear. And because of their Jewish background, they immediately understood what James meant. And notice, it’s in the feminine. They would have understood immediately what James meant because you see, this phrase, this word, has its root in the Old Testament.
You remember, of course, that in Genesis 12, God appears to Abraham and tells him that He's going to choose his descendants, and they will eventually come to be known as Israel, His own covenant people. And eventually, as the Old Testament unfolds through the words of the prophets, we learn that God pictures His relationship with Israel, the descendants of Abraham, as that of a marriage.
There are a lot of passages we could turn to. Just turn with me to one of them—Isaiah 54. Isaiah 54, verses 5 and following, Isaiah says, "For your husband is your Maker," He tells the nation, Israel. "Your husband is your Maker, Whose name is Yahweh of hosts, and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel, Who is called the God of all the earth. “For Yahweh has called you, like a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit, Even like a wife of one's youth, when she is rejected," Says your God. For a brief moment I forsook you, But with great compassion I will gather you."
Here’s a description of God casting off His unfaithful wife, but only for a short time before He throws His arms of love around her again. But the point that I want us to see here is that Israel is pictured as a wife to Yahweh. So, when Israel was unfaithful to God, when she allowed her heart to wander away, when she chose a path of sin, when she got involved in worshiping the idols of the peoples around her, God accused her of what? Spiritual adultery. There are countless passages in the Old Testament that make that point, but I think none more clear or more direct than Hosea.
Just turn with me a few pages to the minor prophet Hosea. Remember that God, through Hosea and his relationship with his wife, Gomer, pictured the unfaithfulness of Israel to Him. Hosea chapter 2: Gomer, you remember, became involved with a countless number of men in unfaithfulness to her husband.
In chapter 2, God makes the connection to Him and Israel. Listen to what He says in chapter 2 of Hosea, verse 5, "For their mother has played the harlot; She who conceived them has acted shamefully. For she said, 'I will go after my lovers, Who give me my bread and my water, My wool and my flax, my oil, my drink.' Therefore,” God says, "behold, I will hedge up her way with thorns, And I will build a wall against her so that she cannot find her paths. So she will pursue her lovers, but she will not overtake them; And she will seek them, but she will not find them. Then she will say, 'I will go and I will return to my first husband, For it was better for me than now!'"
Jesus used the same kind of language of adultery in His own ministry. You remember that He referred in Matthew 12:39 to the Jewish people, the nation living then, as a sinful and adulterous generation. A sinful and adulterous generation.
The apostle Paul used that same sort of language or image. All of them, in fact, speak of marriage, and Paul particularly uses it in 2 Corinthians 11:2. The church, all of us together, is the bride of Christ. He uses that language. We're betrothed to Christ. We are committed and betrothed to Him.
In 2 Corinthians 11:2, Paul says, "For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy, for I betrothed you to one husband, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to Christ. But I fear that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be corrupted from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ." In other words, I’m really concerned. I’m really fearful that you're going to commit spiritual adultery. That's the context in which these dear people heard James' words to them in James 4.
Beloved, I'll close with this today, and there's a lot of ground to cover here, just to introduce it. James is saying that if we as individuals, if you are engaged in and we need to get this—if you are engaged in a pattern of arguing and fighting, a pattern of arguing and fighting, he says, then you are committing spiritual adultery against God.
That obviously takes the sin of quarreling to a whole new level. You see, you and I have a tendency to downplay our sin. We say things to ourselves like, well, yeah, it was a lie, but it was just a little, tiny white lie. I mean, I didn’t really hurt anybody. It didn’t really hurt anybody. Nobody got hurt. Or, I’m not really angry. I’m just simply frustrated.
And yes, I know I argue and fight with my spouse, or my friends, or whomever, but it’s just not that big of a deal. And James says, stop. God says, it is a big deal. It is a big deal. He sees us, if we’re engaged in the pattern of that kind of sin, as involved in what? Spiritual adultery against Him. Beloved, James says, our problem is a spiritual problem, and he calls it adultery.
Let's pray.
Father, it is the prayer of our hearts this evening that we see our sin the way You see it, that we don’t blame-shift, that we don’t justify, we don’t rationalize, that we don’t explain away, that we see it as it is, as it is truly.
Lord, help us, help us to see this matter of quarrels and conflicts and fighting in interpersonal relationships. Help us to see it the way You want us to see it, Lord. Fundamentally, when we’re engaged in this pattern of being contentious and argumentative, bottom line, the problem is a spiritual one. What is involved is spiritual adultery against You, and James tells us exactly how this unfolds.
We thank You for Your word. We pray that our hearts are really convicted, and that we see the weightiness of this matter, Lord. But we thank You that we don’t have to remain there, that we can run to the cross, that we have forgiveness and we have daily cleansing. We are already bathed. We thank You for that.
Lord, be with us and help us to be a church and people who endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Help us to be peacemakers. Help us, O Lord, to manifest more prominently the fruit of the Spirit, every single one of the fruit of the Spirit, Lord God.
Help us to endeavor to live out in reality the one-anothers of the New Testament. Help us to be like Jesus, our Lord. Help us in all of our interpersonal relationships to be loving and kind and long-suffering and forbearing and patient. Help us to be like You, Lord. Change us. Make us more like Christ.
We ask in His name and for His glory, amen.
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