The Source of Quarrels and Conflicts

James 4: The Source of Quarrels and Conflicts

We're looking at the source of quarrels and conflicts, chapter 4, the fourth chapter of the epistle of James, this little epistle is loaded up, it's a loaded gun. James chapter 4 beginning at verse 1, and I'd like to read through verse 10, even though we will not cover all these verses today, but I'd like to read them all so we can get the context of how he begins here in chapter 4.

Hear the word of the Lord. What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? Now the literal Greek here says, from where wars and from where fightings?

Are they not from here, from your members? Verse 2, you lust and do not have, so you commit murder, strong words. 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. You adulterers, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

Or do you think that the scripture speaks to no purpose? He jealousy desires the spirit which he has made to dwell in us. Literally, the spirit which he has made to dwell in us lusts with envy. Verse 6, but he gives a greater grace.

Here's the positive of it, it seems like a lot of truth that's on the negative side. Here's the positive side, it's always the balance. The spirit of God knows exactly how to put it. Therefore it says, as he gives a scripture, God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

Submit therefore to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Then he gives that negative truth once again, which we all need. It's like a doctor with a surgeon knife.

Cleanse your hands, you sinners, purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be miserable and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. And he gives us what a good doctor always does, he gives us the remedy.

Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord and he will exalt you. Let's ask the Lord to bless our time of study now as we study his word together. Can we bow in his presence one more moment? Our Father in heaven, I want to keep this prayer as short as possible, but Lord I want to be pointed.

You, oh Lord, through your Son, taught your disciples to hallow your name. This is the prayer and desire we have set before us, to glorify your name. Honor your name, Lord. And Lord, we need a fresh word from you this morning as we come into this awesome passage in your word.

Father, we do plead for the power, the holy unction that only you could give and the teaching ministry of your blessed Holy Spirit. As the song says, Spirit of God, our teacher be, showing the things of Christ to me.

Father, so that we would understand, and just not understand it, Lord, the most important thing is that we would apply it for what is that most important. Lord, what are you saying to us? What are you saying to us personally in this grave hour?

So Father, speak, for your servant listens, and we will forever give you the praise and the glory. And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, beloved brothers and sisters, I believe on a personal note here that this is no doubt the most potent, the most powerful text in this little epistle in James as it deals with another test of living faith and another test of genuine faith.

There's a series of tests throughout the book of James. As I was reading Let's Study James by Sinclair Ferguson, I could not help myself but put this down. And this is what he says about James in this chapter.

And I'd like to set this before you this morning as we look in these verses and as we embark on chapter four. Sinclair Ferguson says, quote, When you make an appointment to see your physician, you go and hope, and you hope that there's nothing wrong, or at least hope that it is not serious.

You certainly hope that your doctor can diagnose the problem. And most of all, you hope that if there is a problem, then there will also be a prescription or at worst, an operation. That can help you.

Sometimes, however, your physician will make an appointment for you to see another doctor, someone with the appropriate experience and the necessary diagnostic or surgical skills to help you. And perhaps the first readers of this little letter, James, were in a similar position spiritually.

He goes on to say they were scattered, chapter one, verse one. They probably met in small numbers in different places. And we know that they had elders, according to James 5 .14. Ferguson goes on to say James was presumably not intending to usurp their ministry.

But perhaps they were all conscious that they needed help from outside. And I love what he says right here. Someone with greater diagnostic skills than they themselves possessed. They needed Dr. James, who had been such a help to them in the past.

And Dr. James is nothing if not thorough. And he is realistic. He is also a serious spiritual clinician and gets to the point. Watching him at work here is like being taken into the office of a master physician of the soul.

He now puts his finger on the problem, end quote. And does he? As the verses I just read, we could see that. He gets right to the point, doesn't he? And it's almost like a physician that is holding a physician's knife and ready to do surgery.

You know, all through this epistle, James has given us tests of living faith. We see this. I'd like to recap a little bit about these tests. The first test we have seen was how we respond to trials in chapter one.

And then there was a test of how we respond to temptations and who we blame for them. We looked at that. And then as we have seen, there was the test of how we react to the Word of God. How do we react to it?

These are very good tests. Whether we have genuine faith or false faith. Whether we have living faith or dead faith. Do you receive it? Do you obey it? Are we a doer of the Word of God or only just a hearer?

And then we have seen how we respond to people in need. He covers this. He covers this and calls it true religion and undefiled. Or pure religion. Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of God and the fathers to visit the orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained, or should you say another translation, unspotted from the world.

That's chapter one verse twenty-seven. That is one of the key verses of the entire book. And do we demonstrate as chapter two has outlined partiality towards some people. He speaks about that in chapter two of partiality, favoritism.

And then there was that great and comprehensive test of works in chapter two. Verse fourteen and following where James says if your faith is real, if it's genuine, it'll prove itself by its works, by its good deeds.

And then he says for faith without works is dead.

That's the Word of God.

Then there was the tongue.

Oh my.

We felt like chopped to pieces after that, didn't we? But it was a good chopping. It's the kind of chopping we need. And in chapter three, the tongue is a test of true salvation. Definitely it's a test of transformation because out of our mouth comes the very evidence of what's really in our heart.

It's the biggest tattletale, the tongue. James is really reiterating what our Lord Jesus taught. We looked at that, that the heart that produces the vocabulary and the speech is really the issue. And then we just studied at the end of chapter three here another test of living faith, and that is the kind of wisdom that you and I exhibit.

Is it earthly wisdom or is it heavenly wisdom? One of the two. Is it the wisdom that's from above or is it the wisdom that is not from above, which is earthly and sensual and demonic? Those are good questions.

And now James comes to another key, I believe, that is so true of saving faith, and that is one's attitude toward the world. And then he says this, to be a friend with the world is to be an enemy of God.

And I tell you, that's strong language. That's a verse to meditate on. That's a verse to say Selah. It is not so much, let me say, that you are God's enemy as it is that God becomes your enemy. That's something we should think about.

And it makes me think in fear because that's far more fearful. And as the writer of Hebrews says in Hebrews 10 .31, it is a fearful, or another translation says a terrifying thing, to fall into the hands of the living God.

That is so sobering, isn't it? So as James unfolds these tests before us, these tests of faith, throughout this epistle, he is really emphasizing a great truth. And that truth, as I've already said previously, is really the key verse.

It's chapter 1, verse 27. Pure religion and undefiled. Undefiled. Now I like what he says, not just before man, but before God. And the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction, in their need, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

Unspotted from the world. Not to be contaminated by the world. And that's the truth, isn't it? It's being underscored before. So the fact that pure religion has a definition that keeps it separated from the world, unspotted, unstained, unsoiled from the world, is what we need to keep before us.

Now in verse 1, James gives us a thought-provoking question. And he dives right in, doesn't he? And he gives a question. Notice the question he gives to us. What is the source of quarrels?

What is the source?

Gets right to it, doesn't he? And the quarrels and conflicts among you. Among you. What causes the fights? What's causing the quarrels among you? It's a good question. It's a wise question. You know, Psalm 133 .1 says, the psalmist says, Behold how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.

Surely brethren should live together in love and harmony, shouldn't they? They should. But it always doesn't happen that way, does it? Only in Mr. Rogers' neighborhood. And you know that's not reality.

Yet the reality is there are conflicts. And it comes right into the church. Really our reaction to James' statement reveals a great deal about ourselves, doesn't it? Our reaction to it. Our view of the church.

Our understanding of the gospel is right before us in this. We see fighting. We see quarreling through the pages of Scripture. It's nothing new before God. It's nothing new under the sun. Actually in Genesis 13 we read about Lot that caused a quarrel with his uncle Abraham.

And in 2 Samuel 13 -18 we see Absalom created war for his father David. You see that? That's pretty bad, isn't it? A son to create a war against his own father. And we think we've got problems. And in the New Testament, of course, in Luke 9, verses 46 -48, you don't have to turn there, but even the disciples created some problems for our Lord Jesus when they argued about who was going to be the greatest in the kingdom of God.

All because of their arrogance and pride. And we'd probably been right in the midst of them. And when we examined some of the early churches, we discovered that they had their share of disagreements among one another, didn't they?

We read in 1 Corinthians 6, verses 1 -8, and you can read it in chapter 14, 23 -40, a great expansion of a series of Scriptures there, but we see the members of the Corinthian church were competing with one another in public meetings and even suing each other in a court of law, in the church.

Then we read in Galatians 5 -15 that we see the Apostle Paul, he mentions in his letter there to the Galatian believers that they were biting and devouring one another. And in Ephesians 4, verses 1 -16, the Apostle Paul had to immodish the Ephesian believers to cultivate spiritual unity among one another.

And, at least I say, Philippians 4, verses 1 -3, even his beloved church at Philippi had problems. There were two women that could not get along with each other. Yeah, Paul had problems with that. That's another thing that's not new under the sun either.

So even the early church had its problems, didn't they? At least you forget about the conflict that was happening with the Jerusalem church. There was conflict, you know? Conflict you see all through the Scriptures.

You see through the ages, sadly, even in the church. But it has to be dealt with. That's why we need heavenly wisdom. Isn't it interesting that James speaks about wisdom right before he goes right into chapter 4?

And how important it is that we are to have heavenly wisdom and how to deal with conflict. You know, all that's God's perfect order.

It really is.

If people kind of mix that up, they're wrong. But there's a perfect order. They're almost like Jesus' sermon on the mount. There's a perfect order that Jesus started. Blessed are those that mourn. Extremely happy and joyful are those that mourn.

For they will be called the children of God. He goes on. The order is perfect. So there's nothing new under the sun here. So even the early church had its problems with fighting and quarrels. So as we study the first three verses of chapter 4 here, and that's as far as we're going to be able to get this morning, if that, I would like for us to see the servant, slave, the apostle James as a skilled physician, as a doctor.

You know, it's amazing. Brother Keith was talking about this right when I walked in the door, and I said, you've read my notes. But it is the Spirit of God.

It is.

And that's the way I see James here. He's like a skilled physician, and he's doing it for the health of the souls, of the believers there. He's concerned for the health of their soul. He's really a compassionate, really a true pastor.

And you know, if you think of it, only a truly humble, compassionate pastor and apostle actually here, and you know how he opened up his letter, he speaks of himself as a servant, a bond slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.

There was nothing bragging here. And you know, a true servant, a bond slave, he gives, you know, people's got it all wrong when they think of love, but this man gives you love here, because he truly tells the truth.

He gives us the warnings, and that's what true love does. I only have two points to focus on this morning, and that would be in verse 1, the symptoms, the symptoms, and verses 2 and 3, the pathology report, the pathology report.

Then we're going to look at some application. I think that's enough. Let's look at the symptoms here. There's a lot of symptoms. Verse 1, the question, what is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you?

It's not the source, your pleasures, your pleasures that wage war in your members. The Greek text of this sentence has no verb and reads more literally this, whence quarrels and where conflicts among you.

The word quarrels, from which we get the English word polemics, how do you pronounce that? P-O-L-E-M-I-C-S.

Polemics.

Polemics, yeah. It's a hard word to pronounce, but I said it before you. Relates to general prolonged and serious disputing or combat, combat, and often rendered war, war. The word conflicts, which refers to a specific fight or a battle that's taken place.

Now, both terms are used here metaphorically of violent personal relationships, which in the extreme can result to even murder. Notice the words among you. Verse 1, among you. Let's just say Dr. James is noting the symptoms of the disorder he sees among his fellow Christians, the people for whom he has a pastoral responsibility.

He does. And yes, even people who could say, you know. And have you ever thought these people that sit under him, yeah, I used to have James as my pastor. They were acting in an ungodly way. Wow. So could you imagine having James as your pastor?

And yet they were quarreling.

There was conflicts. This was his congregation in a sense. He was responsible for their souls. So what's the typical response to such situations in the church? That's easier said than done, isn't it? Conflict, as you well know, it's not a, there's never an easy solution.

That's why we need to have heavenly wisdom. But James knows that stopping the spread of infection requires getting to the very source of the problem like a good physician would. Dr. James wants to know the cause.

He wants to know the source. And he does, before he prescribes the cure for it. And he does give a cure. Hence, the first question is, what's its causes?

What's the cause?

What's the cause of fights and quarrels? The answer he gives is, well, it's your pleasures.

It's your lust.

Your desires that battle within you. Now he's not talking about outside here. He's talking about that war within us. That war within our heart. So it's a heart problem. It's not external, it's internal.

And this is the reason why the world doesn't see this, because, of course, the depravity. We're going to look at this. The problem is the cause of the conflicts and the war. And, you know, he basically says this.

Look at James chapter 3. We looked at this, but look at verses 14 through 16. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition, there it is, in your heart. Do not be arrogant. And so lie against the truth.

You could basically say the truth there is the gospel. Do not lie against the gospel. Do not lie against the truth. And then he says in verse 15, this wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but it is earthly, it's natural, it's demonic.

And then he says in verse 16, for where jealousy and selfish ambition exists, there it is again, selfish ambition exists, there is disorder, or in other words, confusion. And every evil thing. That's strong.

And every evil thing. So we see this. We see this in the scriptures. If you go back to Genesis, you see the very essence of sin is selfishness. Actually, before the Garden of Eden, there was an archangel by the name of Lucifer.

And sin really originated in the heart of an archangel that decided to rebel against God. And his arrogance and his pride and his self-centeredness turned an archangel into a devil. God allowed him to continue, didn't He?

He could have killed him right then. All God had to do was speak the word. But God's got plans. So He's even using the devil for His glory. It's hard for us to imagine, but He does. Now, go to the Garden of Eden.

You have Eve, the mother of all the living, right? She disobeyed God because she desired to eat the tree and become wise like God. That was a lie. And she bought the lie. Well, you go on a little further in Genesis.

Abraham lied about his wife because he selfishly desired to save his own life, his own skin. Now, I don't know about you, but that's a little encouraging to me because you look at Abraham, the father of faith, this giant of the faith.

He grew in faith. But at that time, he lied. He was not trusting God. He was trusting himself. He was leaning on the arm of flesh.

Amen.

And we see that in Genesis 12. Now, also you have Achan in Scripture. Calls defeat to Israel because he selfishly took some forbidden loot from the ruins of Jericho in Joshua 7. It goes on. And Scripture says this about all of us in Isaiah 53, 6.

We have turned everyone to his own way. A true believer sees this. A true believer says every one of us has turned our own way. You know, often we veil our religious quarrels, don't we, in the disguise of spirituality.

That's pride. I put a little note there, spiritual pride. Spiritual pride is dangerous. But pride is the very root of sin. Pride is the root of sin that promotes strife among us. We are, I like to say, like Miriam and Aaron at times, we complain about Moses' wife, but we really were envious of Moses' authority.

We imitate James and John who ask for special privilege in the thrones of the kingdom of God and that we really want recognition. You see, it gets to the motives of it. And that's where I'm going in this, and that's where James is going, because James is saying, I want to get to the motives, I want to get to the cause, I want to get to the very effect, the source of it.

So in both of these instances here, the result of selfish desire was chastening rod from God, back in Genesis, and division among God's people. Think of Miriam there. Miriam's sin, think of it, halted the progress of Israel for a whole week, all because of self-centeredness.

Selfish desires are dangerous things, aren't they? And they always lead to wrong and unwise, foolish acts. Every time. The word passions or pleasures here is a strong word. The Greek noun which is hedon, that's where we get the word hedonism.

Hedonism is derived, and here clearly in this unpleasant odor, attached to the idea. It refers to the spirit of putting your own pleasure, or your own lust, or your own desire, to what satisfies your own senses, above every other consideration, and it literally blinds the reason.

And you see, that's the way people live by, in the world in which we live.

They're hedon.

That's what they live by. You see this as well as I do. Look at the pornography industry. Sensuality, lust for the flesh, it continues, it continues, and people get more and more corrupt into what satisfies their own senses.

It is the instance of having my way, no matter what, which is in turn to a dangerous symptom and is not too well disguised. It's narcissism. The love of self. And James says, is it not the source of your pleasures, your lust, your desires, that wage war in your members?

Question.

Notice how he answers it with a question. He wants you to really think of it. In other words, the question, he really wants us to think and strongly meditate on it. What he's saying here, I've got a quote by Pastor John MacArthur here, and I couldn't leave this out.

I know Brother Brian would appreciate this. He says this about friendship with the world. And we're going to really be digging in about worldliness here in a few weeks, so fasten your seatbelts. But MacArthur says this about friendship with the world.

He says this, not only creates conflict with other people, but also conflict within the worldly person himself. The sources of external conflicts among people invariably arise from internal conflicts within each person.

He goes on to say this, the evidences of internal conflict are legion in society today. The proliferation of psychologists and the psychiatrists, counselors and the therapists of all sorts of clinics for the treatment of a host of emotional and psychological disorders.

The increased problems of drug addiction and of suicide give abundant evidence that personal disorders have reached a crisis point. He goes on to say the increase of impatience, frustration, anger, hostility is not only seen in street crime but vividly portrayed on modern highways where drivers use obscene gestures, dangerous acts of intimidation and sometimes even gunfire to vent their displeasure at what another driver does or fails to do.

We see this everywhere, don't we? I was in the bread truck years ago when I was delivering bread. I had this truck driver go by me. I was doing nothing. And he just, I mean, blew by me. I was, I guess, holding him up from the back and he was very impatient with me.

And I tell you what, he kind of made me jump. But he flew by me and he hit his bullhorn. And next thing I knew I looked to my right and the guy was giving me a fist and a finger gesture. And I said, that's all I did.

And he just took off. People, I'm telling you, you see it on the road. People are violent. They will literally get out of the car and you hear stories about it all the time. You go to YouTube. People getting out of their car with sticks and clubs and knocking out windows.

I mean, literally beating people up just over something very small because they're so impatient. Anger, violence, conflict. The world is just unbelievable. You keep thinking, the older you get, you think I've seen it all.

But you keep seeing more and more. And what it is, it continues to grow. More violent, more violent. And I keep thinking about the days of Noah. The last days will be the days of Noah and Jesus will come back.

But what was the days of Noah? The whole earth was full of violence. Full of violence. And then iniquity reached God's ears and God saw it. Of course God saw it. And then God makes a visitation. And we know what happened.

He judged the whole world then. But the next time He's going to judge it, you read in 2 Peter, it's going to be with intense heat and a fire. And He will come in great glory and one day as the day of the Lord, it's going to all take place and it's going to all be over.

It's going to happen. Only Jesus can end it, right? But we see here in these three verses that James points out three causes of internal conflict. This leads me to my second point. The second one is the pathology report.

And under this heading, the pathology report, pathology report, I like to bring out three causes very quickly that are connected to the conflicts and the quarrels. And it is number one, uncontrolled desire.

Number two, unfulfilled desire. And three, selfish desire. Very quickly, let's look at these. Uncontrolled desire, unfulfilled desire, and selfish desire. Most of us are familiar today with the medical crime dramas on television, aren't we?

We, the viewers, are basically initiated into the wonders of scientific analysis, even if we are somewhat amused by the technique of explaining the details to the viewers, by the members of the team, the squad, whatever they have, contributing information to each other all about what they're doing.

Well, it gets pretty interesting, doesn't it? What does James discover here? That's the question. What does James discover? Notice what is on the spiritual pathology laboratory report, according to James.

His diagnosis is a master physician of the soul. Number one, uncontrolled desire. Uncontrolled desire. Again, this is hedonism. That is uncontrolled personal desire, meaning to fulfill every passion and whim that promises sensual satisfaction and enjoyment.

The desires to fulfill these pleasures comes, of course, from selfishness, which is opposed to God. It's opposed to God's Word. It is opposed to everything that God's desires are. See, that's the difference there.

And isn't it wonderful? When we're born of the spirit of the living God and we're regenerated by God, our desires are changed. It's no longer dominated, we're no longer slaves to sinful passions and desires of the flesh, but our desires toward God and the things of God and the holiness of God.

And even though we have remaining sin, that remaining sin we hate. Or should I say we should learn to hate it and love holiness and love righteousness. I don't know about you, but that's the two things I set before myself every single day.

Lord, give me a greater passion and desire to love your holiness, to love righteousness, and to hate iniquity, to hate sin. And I'm not talking about just outside of myself, but within me.

That's the battle.

That's Romans chapter 7. See, the unbelieving and the ungodly hedonists, we could say, or according to Jude 16 -18.

Now listen to this.

Jude said, Lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious, gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasures rather than lovers of God.

And you see that in 2 Timothy chapter 3 as well. Beloved, the unregenerate persons are slaves to their desires. And you know this as well as I do. They are literally dominated. They are dominated and controlled by their passions.

Consequently, when the seed of the gospel falls on the thorny ground of their hearts, what happens? The seed is choked with the worries and the cares of this life. But it's interesting what Jesus says on the further side of that verse.

They are not only choked by the worries and the cares of this life, but by the riches and the pleasures of this life and bring no fruit to maturity. That's what happens. They hear the word of God. They hear the truth.

They hear the gospel. Yet it falls among the thorns. The thorns choke it out. And the thorns gives us the picture. Jesus gives the picture as the pleasures of this life. That's found in Luke chapter 8.

Now, very quickly go with me to... Let's look very quickly to 2 Peter chapter 2. Just want to read a few verses here in the context. But look with me in chapter 2 verses beginning with verse 10. Notice what he says.

And he's actually talking here about depravity of false teachers. False teachers. 2 Peter chapter 2 verses 10 -21. Those who are daring, self-willed. Notice that. Self-willed. They do not tremble when they revile angelic majesties.

There's no fear of God in them, of course. Whereas angels are greater in might and power, do not bring a reviling judgment against them before the Lord. And he says this. But these like unreasoning animals.

Animals.

Born as creatures of instinct to be captured and killed. Notice how he gives the picture here. Reviling where they have no knowledge. Will and the destruction of those creatures also to be destroyed. Suffering wrong as the wages of doing wrong.

They counted a pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are stains and blemishes. Almost the same kind of literature and speaking as Jude does. Blemishes. Revealing. I'm sorry. And the deceptions as they carouse with you.

Listen to this. Having eyes full of adultery that never cease from sin. Enticing unstable souls. Listen to the language there. Having a heart trained in greed. Accursed children. Forsaking the right way.

They have gone astray having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Berar, who loved the wages of unrighteousness. But he received a rebuke for his own transgression. For a mute donkey, speaking with the voice of a man, restrained the madness of the prophet.

Now he speaks of Balaam as a false teacher. And he also had the love of money in his heart. And notice this. It goes on about the deceptions of false teachers. In verses 17 through 21. These are springs without water.

Mist driven by a storm. For whom the black darkness has been reserved for speaking out arrogant words of vanity. They entice by fleshly desires. Get those words. Fleshly desires. By sensuality. Those who barely escape from the ones who live in error.