Disarm – Part 1 – Where Does Conflict Come From?
Passage:
What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet 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 wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the Spirit that he has made to dwell in you”? But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
- James is writing to a group of churches – that just seem locked in all sorts of various conflicts and fights and relational heartache. and he says before we can solve these things – before we start assigning blame – or confronting – or solving our conflicts –
- we have to talk about why our conflicts with each other start in the first place!
CONFLICTS START WITHIN:
What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?
- He says – you wanna know why you are fighting with your spouse? or your co-workers – or you family and friends – you wanna know why you are fighting and arguing with people at church?
- Is it not this? that your passions are at war in you?
Jesus talks about this in Matthew 7 – he says this –
- Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye. (Matt. 7:3-5)
- What Jesus is saying here is that before you can address the sin in the person you are arguing with – in a way that is going to be curative and helpful – what you have to do first is address the thing that you brought to the situation first – or at least look and see if you did –
The word for passions here is interesting – it’s the Greek word HEDENON
- I heard a pastor once say our greatest problems are never around us – they are in us.
I have been pastor now for almost a decade – eight years – and I have walked with people through a lot of conflict – I have gone through a lot of conflict – and something that I have noticed is that the conflict that we are dealing with on the surface, isn’t really the issue MOST of the time – the issue is usually about something that is bubbling below the surface
- usually, what the real issue is – is a desire – that may be a good desire that we have made a ruling desire – and someone stood in the way of us getting it.
That fight with your spouse about the dishes – husbands this is for free – the fight you have with your spouse about the dishes is most likely not about the dishes – it’s about your wife feeling respected or appreciated
- that tension at work or at church is probably not about the color of the carpet or the quarterly report – it might be about control or gaining recognition or being right or any other number of underlying desires that we have and elevate to our chief motivating factor rather than obedience to God
You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel.
- He says you have desire – the literal word means lust –
- you lust! something blocks you from obtaining that thing – so you murder
- you covet and something prevents you from obtaining so you fight and quarrel.
You see the progression here? – James is saying – conflict start with a desire – something we want
- maybe it’s a good thing – maybe even a godly thing – but that desire becomes a demand – and when that demand gets blocked – or someone stands in the way of it – it turns into a fight.
See what conflict reveals is what is on the throne of our heart. what we are idolizing. it’s more than just conflict with people – it shows an even deeper concern – conflict with God! look at this next part –
You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions (your HADENON). You adulterous people!
Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the Spirit that he has made to dwell in you”?
- What’s he saying? He is saying that God yearns for the soul that he has placed in you – because he put it in you for a specific purpose, and that purpose is to know and glorify him. that’s why we were made –
- James doesn’t leave us here – God isn’t done – he says – But he gives more grace. And how does he give us grace? By giving us a choice – look at this next verse
Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
- There’s some really strong language here – it says here that God opposes the proud – the word here oppose means actively against – sets his face against the proud. That’s harsh – God hates pride.
First he says, Submit yourselves therefore to God.
And what’s that mean? Submission means to place yourself under the authority of another. Basically, instead of you running the show, you gotta let him run it. and this has different practical applications –
- if you are in here today and you have never accepted Jesus as your savior. That’s where you need to start.
- It means we need to look at the conflict differently. Rather than saying “Lord how do I fix that person.
- it’s “lord what are you working on in me?”
- but submission also means that we are giving up the right to be right.
- when we submit our selves to God – we give him the part of us that needs to win.
- ultimately – when we submit to God what we are doing is aligning our heart to his – and saying God I want to handle this your way – in your timing.
The next thing – James says – is we must:
Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
So how do we resist?
- we name the lie – when the lies of Satan come up for how we need to handle conflict – we counter with truth.
- when satan says to hang onto bitterness – we look at Christ’s call to forgive
- when satan says to hang onto our pride – we remember God gives grace to the humble.
- second – we when we are tempted to dwell on the offense – we instead dwell on the gospel –
Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.
- This is a sweet promise – God doesn’t say clean yourself up then come. He just says draw near. and I will draw near to you. Bring the hurt, the bitterness, the exhaustion, let him handle it.
and finally – he talks about the importance of what to do if we find that we are in the wrong –
Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.
what he is saying is that we need to take our sin seriously. We need to own up to our part in the conflict, whether it was really big and we are the ones that started, or whether we just played a really small role. We need to own up to it – and repent our part – even before we expect the one who offended us to repent of their part.