The War Within
The Conflict We Did Not See Coming
James 4:1 Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members?
James 4:2 You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask.
James 4:3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.”
1 Where do wars and fights come from among you?
GCC Law of Unity
Conflict’s inevitable. What’s important is that you deal with it biblically.
1. Who is the Real Enemy?
James 4:1 Where do wars and fights come from among you?
James4:1 … Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members [inside you]?
The greatest threat to your peace isn’t around you, but inside you.
1. Who is the Real Enemy?
2. Beware that Cravings Turn Carnal
James 4:2 You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war…
1 John 3:15 Whoever hates his brother is a murderer and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.
• Slander is murder with the tongue.
• Bitterness is murder in the soul.
• Gossip is murder in the shadows.
• Passive aggression is murder with a smile.
• Withdrawing in coldness is murder by neglect.
It has a desire that cannot be satisfied – and when it gets what it wants – it just wants more and more – and it always leads to conflict, and everybody gets hurt.
1. Who is the Real Enemy?
2. Beware that Cravings Turn Carnal
3. Prayer Can Easily Go Sideways
James 4:2 Yet you do not have because you do not ask.
James 4:2 Yet you do not have because you do not ask.
James 4:3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.
As humans we are made up of at least these three things:
1. Opinions – this is what you think
2. Preferences – these are your ways (rathers)
3. Desires – this is what you want
3. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.
Philippians 1:9 (NIV) And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight,
Philippians 1:10 (NIV) so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ,
Philippians 1:11 (NIV) filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.
Philippians 1:9 (NIV) And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight,
Philippians 1:10 so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ,
[REMOVE-BLANK SCREEN]
“You do not have because you do not ask.”
1. Who is the Real Enemy?
2. Beware that Cravings Turn Carnal
3. Prayer Can Easily Go Sideways
1. “Lord, expose the battle within me so You can bring peace around me.”
2. “God, redirect my prayers from what I want to what You want.”
Transcript -------------------
My name is Don McKenzie. It is not Trevor Davis and I am that only cost me $2 so for five I could have gotten more but I am part of the staff here at Great Commission Church. Trevor will be back next week, but today we are actually resuming our study in the Book of James. Now we finished up Chapter 3 back in November of last year.
Now we're picking up in chapter four and we're calling all of chapter four, the War Within. And the title of today's message is the Conflict We Did Not See Coming. And it covers the first three verses of James Chapter four. So before we read those, let's pray and ask the Lord to open our eyes and our ears to see the glory of Jesus Christ as we, as we delve into His Word. Father, thank youk for your goodness.
Help us today as we hear your word, that yout would cause us to see in Jesus Christ the glory that is there. And I ask this in his name. Amen. All right, we're jumping right in. We're going to look at the first three verses of James, Chapter four.
So let's read these together. It should be up on the screen. We're using the new King James version. Here we go. It says, where do wars and fights come from among you?
Do they not come from your desires for pleasure, that war in your members or inside you you lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war, yet you do not have because you do not obtain. Ask. You ask and do not receive because you ask amiss that you may spend it on your pleasures.
All right, let's go back to verse one. And I want you to notice that James starts with a question. Where do wars and fights come from among you? Now, when we hear the words like wars and fights, we just naturally think of outward conflict, Tensions and turmoil, hostilities and hurt, strife and shouting, conflict and contention. And all of that ends up with ruptured and damaged relationships.
You know, here at Great Commission Church, we have a saying that we made up. That's biblical. You're going to see it here. We call it the GCC Law of Unity. Conflicts inevitable.
What's important is that you deal with it Biblically. Everybody's shocked when conflict happens. Well, that's inevitable. What's shocking is if you'll deal with it biblically. James is giving us biblical insight on the source of wars, fights, conflict, which is our first point for today.
Who is the real enemy? So notice the question in verse one again. Where do wars and fights come from among you? So who is warring and fighting in this verse? Do you see that all this conflict is taking place among you?
This is the people reading James letter. Christians, spiritual brothers and sisters, church members are not getting along. Who has ever heard of such a thing? Some of you have been scarred by that very thing. Well, sadly, that's real life, because there is a real enemy at work, and James wants to expose this real enemy.
So that we can fight the real enemy and not each other. So who is the greatest threat to peace and harmony among Jesus loving people? Is it Satan? Is it your spouse or a friend? Is it your boss or an ex?
Well, the answer is in verse one. So let's read the second half of verse one. He says, do they not come from these conflicts and wars? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure? That war in your members are inside you.
Now this is a jarring shift for most of us because it takes us inward. The greatest threat to your peace isn't around you, but inside you. James says outward conflict comes from our inner desires for pleasure. Now that phrase desires for pleasure is one word in the Greek. It's Hedonan.
So guess what English word we get from Hedonan? Hedonist. Hedonism is the idea that personal pleasure is life's highest goal. When it's all said and done, I just want to be happy. Now God is revealing there is a guerrilla war for pleasure that's going on in hearts.
And we naturally think, if I just had more money, if people respected me more, if my spouse or children would just be the way I want them to be, you know, if life were just easier, then I would be happy and satisfied. Can you identify with this? I can. But we never get all that we want. And when we get some of what we want, we just want more and our souls keep fighting for it.
So if you're feeling tension in your family or marriage, school, job or church, the place to start isn't with them, it's with you, it's with me. So James says the real enemy is our dark inner desires for everything to revolve around. And it totally distorts our view of people and our circumstances and it ends up causing fights and wars among us and we are to blame. Now I'm going to tell you that's not what I want to hear. I've already decided who's to blame and it's not me.
And I even sometimes will go so far as to end up just blaming God. And so there's a lot of blame that I can put out, but it's not directed toward me. Now this truth is not popular, but it is bible alright. Verse 1 truthfully but painfully tells us that fights and wars come from the darkness that's inside of us that wants to put our own personal opinions, desires and preferences above everyone else. And I'll develop that more in a minute.
So not only do we have to know who is the real enemy, we have to number two, beware that cravings turn carnal. Look at verse two. He says, you lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war.
Now, lust is sometimes translated crave. It's an intense longing for what we think will make us happy and satisfied. Now, when selfish desires or cravings are left unchecked, they don't stay internal. They turn outward. And by definition, they're carnal.
So what do our carnal cravings lead to? James says they end up murdering and coveting. Now, I have to tell you, are Christians murdering one another? I don't think I got the memo, because this seems really odd to me. So what does James mean?
That these inner selfish, Selfish desires manifest themselves in murder and coveting? Well, it started with Jesus. He was the one that said, when you hate somebody, you're guilty of murder in God's sight. Look at what the apostle John said, because he made it as black and white as it can be. In First John 3:15, he says, Whoever hates his brother.
See, this is talking about Christians. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. See, you don't need a knife or a gun to commit murder. In God's eyes, hate is the weapon and murder is the result.
Now, these cravings to get what we want, when we want it end up exploding into anger, jealousy, manipulation, bitterness, hatred, and even spiritual violence that God calls murder. And that helps us to see how carnal cravings can show up spiritually. Look at this list. It's kind of chilling to me. Slander is murder with the tongue.
Bitterness is murder in the soul. Gossip is murder in the shadows. Passive aggression is murder with a smile, withdrawing in coldness is murder by neglect. I'm telling you that God wants us to know there's a monster under the bed of our souls, and it comes out to terrorize us and those around us. It has a desire that cannot be satisfied, according to this verse.
And when it gets what it wants, it just wants more and more, and it always leads to conflict and everybody gets hurt. So in James chapter four so far, we need to understand, well, who is the enemy? And he takes us inward for the answer. Next he says, well, beware that cravings turn carnal. Well, that's taking us outward.
Now, in our third point, I'm going to say that prayer can easily go sideways, and that's where he's going to take us upward. So we find this in verse 2. Look at James 4:2. He says, yet you do not have. See, we want.
We want what we want when we want it. He says, but you don't get it.
You do not have, because you do not ask. Now, by asking, he means you didn't ask God. You didn't pray. Now, this isn't about unanswered prayer. This is about unoffered prayer.
It's when we try to just do it our way and simply leave God out of it. The selfish desires that war in our soul never scream out, I need to pray. I should ask God for wisdom. I need to seek biblical counsel as I endeavor to follow and love Jesus. Instead, it just simply wants to ignore God and convince you that you can handle this on your own.
So we just leave God out. Now, some of us are going to walk out of here today miserable or angry or just deeply frustrated that life is not going the way that you want it to go. And you're going to live out this verse. You're going to not ask God to help you. And at the end of the service today, as we always do, we will offer you the services of our prayer ministry team.
So I'm saying, hear the word of God. Don't just walk out and let prayer go sideways in your life. Come and let one of our prayer ministry teams join with you in prayer. So not asking God is just one way here in James that prayer can go sideways. The other way is in verse three.
Look at James 4:3. He says, you ask, okay, you do ask. You ask and you do not receive. You don't get what you want because you ask amiss with wrong motives that you may spend it on your pleasures. Do you see what's happening here?
Our selfishness described in verses 1 and 2, has now actually crept into our very prayers. Now we are asking God, but we still don't get the answer we want. And the problem is no longer our silence in prayer, but our selfishness in prayer. See, our selfishness not only affects how we relate and interact with people. It also affects how we relate and interact with God.
We start thinking of God as our personal genie. Lord, I want this or that. So please give it to me now. Use your great power to make me happy and satisfied in this life.
I mean, now. But God's not our personal genie. And the Lord actually tells us right here in this passage, he responds with, no, I won't bankroll your rebellion and your sinful cravings. So the second way that our prayers can go sideways is when we ask God to do our dirty work and give us all of Our selfish desires. It's like asking a fireman to put out a fire with gasoline.
It won't help, but it will sure make matters worse. So a Of course God refuses to answer prayers like that. Now I've been saying over and over that James is saying our default condition is that we are selfish to the core. And the evidence of this is our unending conflicts, frustrations and just dissatisfaction with how life's going for us. But I also know from experience, and you probably do too, hardly anybody believes they are really as bad down in their souls as James is saying we are.
So let me define my understanding of selfishness and I can't tell you how much this has helped and changed my life.
As humans, we are made up of at least these three opinions. This is what you think. Preferences. This is the way you are. It's your rathers.
It's just kind of how you like to do things. Desires. This is what you want at any given time or moment. You know, I want this. Now, would you agree that you and everyone have these three things operating in you at all times in varying degrees and, and in varying ways?
And if you don't agree, well then of course that's your opinion, because we all have them all the time.
But how does all this relate to selfishness? Well, do you know whose opinions, preferences and desires I like the most?
Yeah, it's not yours, if you were wondering. It's mine. I like mine the most. And this is what James is teaching. It's our default setting out of the box to naturally adore and love our own opinions, preferences and desires the most.
I can't help it. I was born into this slavery.
It takes the supernatural power of God to break these chains so that we can love others more than ourselves. And if God hasn't broken one of the links of those chains in your life, the thought of loving somebody else more than your.
But I love me and I want what I want, when I want, and I'll use whatever means necessary to get it. And James says, and that always ends up with conflict. And this is why James is telling us the answer is you do need to pray. You didn't pray and then you did pray with wrong motives. But you need to pray with the right motives because God wants to break the chains of selfishness in our hearts and soul.
Let me illustrate it like this. Now, if you have kids or grandkids or both, is it your dream that they grow up to be selfish, vain, egotistical, spoiled adult brats who think everything should be about Them? Well, I sure hope not. Wouldn't that be awful? Well, guess what?
God doesn't want his children to grow up like that either.
So he will regularly answer no to prayer requests that he understands and sees are selfish, vain, egotistical, spoiled brat prayer requests because he wants us to spiritually grow up and become more like Jesus. So look at verse three again. You ask, ask and do not receive. Why? Because you ask amiss with wrong motives.
They're selfish. You don't realize you're just wanting to spend it on your own pleasures. But now here's the challenge. Okay, what prayer does God want to answer for me? How can I pray for myself and it not be selfish?
Well, there are many wonderful prayers in the Bible that guide us in learning how to pray for ourselves. Like for example, just in the book of James we've seen in chapter one we're to pray for wisdom. In chapter two, for the ability to love both the rich and the poor. In chapter three we're to pray for God to tame our tongues and give us more self control in chapter four. Here we need God to deliver us from ourselves selfishness and teach us how to pray.
I want to give you a personal testimony of how the Lord did this for me. 18 years ago I stumbled on this prayer in the book of Philippians, chapter 1, verses 9 to 11. And I want to read them to you and you'll see that this is the Apostle Paul writing down for the Philippians a prayer. He was praying for them. So in verse 9 Philippians 1 it says, and this is my prayer.
Okay, My prayer is that you, Philippians, your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God. Now this is a mature Jesus centered prayer that Paul prayed for others. But I thought, well, if he could pray that for Christians, well I'm a Christian, why couldn't I just maybe even selfishly kind of just pray that for myself? Now he was praying it for others and I thought I'm going to pray that for myself because I need this. So look at verse nine again and this is my prayer that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight.
Now if you had to just pick one word, what is Paul praying for them to receive? Just one word, love. That's what I would pick. He was praying that their love would abound more and more. Now, if you had to pick two words to describe what he's praying for them to receive, what would it be?
So love is the primary thing he's praying for. If we were to pick two words, I'd pick more love. I pray that your love may abound more and more. So what he's saying is they had love, but the love you first get when God saves you is like a. Like a starter love.
It's like a small fire. And God's goal is to help you experience it growing. And thus you need more and more of this love fire from God. So I started praying this prayer for more and more love because I noticed that verse 10 had a so that that clause in it. This creates a cause and effect.
So look at verse 10. Verse 10 says, I'm going to pray that your love abounds more and more so that you can get something so that you may be able to discern what is best. People pay thousands of dollars to people to try to find out what's best. And God says, well, if my love in you just abounds more and more, you'll be able to discern what is best and you'll be pure and blameless for the day of Christ. Well, I didn't realize that the love of God would transform me into someone who could discern what was best.
And I didn't realize the solution to my selfishness was the love of God increasing more and more in my soul. Now, I have to tell you, 18 years ago, when I started praying this, my life was a selfish wreck up to that point. But I was a Christian. And I started praying this, I mean, every day, over and over. And gradually the clouds began to part and I started seeing the love of God in fresh new ways.
And he began to change me into a different person, someone who was just a little bit more like Jesus. And it rescued my life in so many wonderful ways. I wouldn't be standing up here today for sure if he hadn't have done these things for me. Now, a minute ago, I referred to God's love like a fire. And I want to expand on that for a second.
Now, James basically says the first fire to ever burn in a is the fire of selfishness. And fire needs oxygen to burn. So the fire of selfishness basically just sucks the oxygen out of your soul. And it just leaves us primarily on our own opinions, preferences, and desires. That's what we focus on.
And then God wonderfully and graciously saves you. And you see Jesus as The great Lord and Savior that he is. And you trust his promise to save you from all of your guilt. And then you experience his forgiveness down in your soul. And that's when he starts a new fire burning in your soul.
But it's just a starter fire. But you don't know that. All you know is the fire of the love of Jesus is now burning in your soul. And it's amazing. And it actually begins now to take away oxygen that was being used by the fire of selfishness.
So as your fire for Jesus grows, the fire of selfishness is slowly being smothered out. But how does God make the fire for Jesus grow in our hearts and mind? Minds? Well, James wants us to know. It starts with prayer and it ends with prayer.
He puts it so simply. You do not have, because you do not ask. Do you not hear that God is screaming, I want to answer your prayers? You're either not asking or when you ask, you pray selfishly. Learn how to ask God for what I want to give to you.
And when you do, God puts wood on your Jesus fire and it grows. And when it grows, it just takes more and more oxygen away from Mr. Selfish.
And your Father in heaven wants you to experience his love. And he just says, ask me for it. And then when we do, he smiles and he joyfully says, yes. I love answering that mature Jesus centered prayer. So we have to keep asking and asking because the love that we need is not produced by us.
If I could produce this love, I could stop praying. But I can't produce it. So I have to keep asking. It must be given to us. And this is why if we just keep praying these prayers, it thrills the heart of God and he delights to answer it.
And he does it over time. So the Christian life is not try harder to put out the old fire of selfishness. No, it's continually asking God to show us the love of Jesus. And when he does, the flame grows brighter and it lights our path to a better way of joyfully living for his glory. And as this happens, we are spiritually growing up and we gradually move from selfishness to surrender, from conflict to communion with God and others, and from unanswered prayers to answered prayers.
So here's what we've learned from James chapter four. The first three verses. First, who is the real enemy? It's me. Well, beware that cravings turn carnal.
I'm sorry, I'm going to have to murder you to get what I want. Because I think you have it and you won't give it to me and prayer can easily go sideways. You just leave God out of it. Or when you pray, you're just asking for him to give you all your carnal desires and he won't do it. Now, we're about to close, so I want to remind you that when we do close, come and let one of our prayer ministry teams pray for you about anything.
But here are two things from this passage that you might ask for. First, Lord, expose the battle within me so you can bring peace around me. This is what you want. You may be blaming others, but God may actually be trying to bring healing to your soul. And if you don't see the real enemy inside, you cannot make any progress.
So ask God to help you see and believe this truth. And secondly, you might ask God redirect my prayers from what I want to what you want.
He wants to give you more of his love, and he delights to give it away to those who will ask. So I'm urging you, ask today, now one more thing that will put wood on your fire and make your spiritual life better. And that is if you're a Christian, if you say, hey, I believe in Jesus, I trust him, and you're not a member of a local church, then join one. And I'd invite you to join Great Commission Church. You can mark on your welcome card, I'm curious about membership and we'll follow up and explore that with you.
No pressure. And next, if you've recently trusted Jesus to save you, or perhaps even in this message for God stirred your heart and you found yourself saying, lord, I believe in you, well then come and let our prayer ministry team know about that and they'll minister to you. You can also mark on the card about trusting Jesus and we'll follow up with you and we'll help you with that. And then lastly, join a small group and volunteer. Be on a team.
All of these things just give God more things to bless in your life. It's putting wood on the fire. And if you have already turned in your welcome card and you're thinking, yeah, I should probably put something on there, there will be another card sitting in a chair near you. Just grab that and you can put it in the wooden box on your way out. Now I'm going to close us in prayer.
As I'm praying. We're going to ask our prayer ministry teams to come forward. And then when I'm through praying, then we'll dismiss the service. And then at that point, if God's stirring in your soul, you know what I haven't been asking. I need to ask or there are things that I would love to go and have some people help me pray a mature Christ centered prayer.
Please come forward and let us minister to you. So if you would, let's stand together and I'll dismiss us in prayer prayer.
Heavenly Father, we're far more needy than we know. You're so good to us that we take it for granted and it lulls us into sleep and thinking that we really don't need you. So open our hearts and minds to see how desperately we cannot produce within our souls a deep and passionate love for you. Jesus Christ, as the great Lord and Savior, I call upon you. Would you stir in us greater love for you so that it would smother out these selfish desires that so consume us and restore broken relationships.
Teach us how to be kind and gentle to those who are struggling so Jesus, thank you for your mercy. Bless your people. I pray in your name. Amen. We are dismissed.
Thank you for being here. Come receive prayer.
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Great Commission Church is a non-denominational, family-friendly Christian church located in Olive Branch, Mississippi. We are a short drive from Germantown, Southaven, Collierville, Horn Lake, Memphis, Fairhaven, Mineral Wells, Pleasant Hill, Handy Corner, Lewisburg and Byhalia. Great Commission Church is conveniently located, making it easy to find and attend. Many people have even called it their go-to “church near me” or the "Church nearby" because of how accessible it is and how quickly it feels like home.
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