Sermon Transcript

0:00:14.0

I hope you brought your Bibles with you this morning.  And we’re gonna be in James 4 looking at verses 1-6.  Now, when we started our study of the book of James, I told you that James was a practical theologian.  And some of you might have said, “Well, I’m not sure exactly what that means.  But if you’ve been with us for these eight or nine weeks, now you understand what I’m talking about.  James is a very practical theologian.  Of utmost concern to him is the intersection of our faith into everyday life.  And he covers a wide variety of subjects, doesn’t he?  Not unrelated, but seemingly a wide variety of subjects.  And oftentimes, when he introduces a subject, he does so by asking a question, a provocative question, a penetrating question.  The kind of question, when you peel back the layers, you see some depth there to his understanding of the situation.  And that has been demonstrated a number of different times through our study up to this point, but we’re also gonna find a question starting in chapter 4 and verse 1.  And it’s simply this: What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you?

0:01:26.9

Now, historically speaking, 2,000 years ago there might have been some skirmishes, some conflicts happening in the early church, even among the disbursed Jewish believers to whom James is writing.  Perhaps that’s what he’s addressing here.  But I find it interesting that James introduces this subjects of fights and quarrels and conflict not by saying, “Hey, does anybody have a fight they’re in the middle of out there?  Is anybody experiencing a quarrel?  Is anybody experiencing conflict out there?”  No, he knows better than that.  He knows that conflict and fighting and quarrels and skirmishes are a part of everyday life.  And so he asks a much deeper question.  He says, “What is the source of the quarrels and the conflicts I know exist among you?”  And conflict is everywhere, isn’t it?  You just tune into the news at night, and you’ll probably see some headline related to a global conflict.  We’ve been hearing about the conflict in the Middle East for decades, some say for centuries.  There’s always some kind of conflict happening in the Middle East.  We are involved in a global conflict right now called the war on terror.  And it’s in the headlines every night.  

0:02:45.1

But let’s bring it a little bit closer to home.  I mean, global conflicts are one thing.  But what about family conflict?  Have you ever experienced a family feud?  Now, I know that’s a popular game show, but it’s also a popular pastime of most families.  I mean, what family here has not experienced a feud at one time or another?  The most famous family feud took place between 1878 and 1891.  For 13 years the Hatfields and the McCoys were in conflict with one another.  And it all started when Randall Hatfield or Randall McCoy, one of those guys…his pig wanders onto the other guy’s land.  And the rest, they say, is the kind of history you don’t want showing up in your family tree.  But maybe you’re related to the Hatfields and the McCoys.  I don’t know.  But there’s family conflict.  A little bit closer to home and near to us, do you remember the conflict, those of you who are NASCAR fans, the conflict in the Dale Earnhardt family.  When Dale Earnhardt Sr. died tragically in an auto racing accident a few years ago, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his stepmother Teresa got into this heated conflict.  They fought for control of the racing empire, and it wasn’t a pretty sight.  And then most recently, you know, supermodel Christie Brinkley ends up in the news again.  She’s in a heated conflict, or was, with now her former husband Peter Cook.  And we don’t need to go into all the details there, but there’s something about Americans who love to get into all those kinds of details.  And we drink in these kinds of high profile celebrity divorces and celebrity conflicts.

0:04:28.4

Global conflicts, family conflicts.  We could talk about political conflict.  I mean, the Democrats, the Republicans, the independents, they’re constantly in conflict with one another over this position or that position.  What about a business conflict?  Is anybody here experiencing business conflict with a business partner over some situation?  And I wouldn’t be honest with you if I also didn’t toss into the mix here church conflicts.  Oh yeah, the church has a way of getting into some heated, heated conflicts.  And really, throughout church history, most of those conflicts have been about theology.  During the first several centuries of Christianity, the church was dealing with false teaching and with heresy and was forced to sharpen its theology- what we believed about Christ, what we believed about the Bible, what we believed about God.  And we sharpened our theology in the crucible of conflict.  And much of it was good conflict, as our theology was positioned against some of the false teaching there.

0:05:35.6

But I know of a church in Houston, Texas.  I lived there for 14 years.  And I know of a church in Houston, Texas, where the conflict between the senior pastor and the worship pastor…not talking about this church, but this church in Houston, Texas.  The conflict between two staff members became so heated that the elders…get this, they had to call in a third party reconciliation team to resolve the conflict.  Now, friends, something is wrong when those of us who are called to live in peace with one another have to call in the peacemakers to resolve a conflict in the body of Christ.  And James asks the question.  Not, is anybody experiencing conflict out here?  As if there may be one over here or one over there or one up there in the balcony.  No, he assumes conflict is an everyday part of life.  We all experience it.  If you’re not currently in a conflict, you just came out of one or one is waiting for you right around the corner.  And James question is, what is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you?  In other words, how in the world did we get here?  And that’s the first question we have to ask whenever we experience conflict.  It’s the first question to ask in marital counseling.  Couples who are in distress, couples who are experiencing conflict…the reason you can’t resolve your conflict, oftentimes, is because you’re dealing with symptoms.  “Well, he does this,” or “She did that.”  Those are symptoms.  The question is, what are the root causes of your conflict?  How did you get where you are today?  And if you can honestly ask and answer that question, you’ll have a much better chance of actually resolving the conflict.  But I gotta warn you ahead of time.  The way James answers his own question is a little bit convicting because most of us want to point at that person or this person over here or this organization over there and say, “You were the source,” or “They are the source of my problems and my conflicts.”  And that’s not where James begins.

0:08:02.5

Now, this is a two-part message, “The Truth About Conflict 1”, and then you’re gonna have to come back next week to get “The Truth About Conflict, Part 2”.  The truth about conflict is this- that it can happen anywhere, at any time, and in any one of our lives.  It’s just a reality.  It’s the everyday part of life.  And it shouldn’t surprise us that James addresses this subject in his very, very practical letter.  We’re gonna look at verses 1-6 this morning, 7-12 next week.  We’re gonna talk in detail about the source of our conflicts, the root cause of our conflict.  And we’ve got to nail this down.  We’ve got to get this right before we ever start talking about the solution for our conflicts, how to resolve them, which we’ll talk about next week.  And just by way of overview, by way of outline, verses 1-6 James is gonna talk about our conflict with yourself, the conflict we have with the world or the world system around us, and the fact that we are also in conflict with the devil.  It’s the world, the flesh, and the devil that become the source of our conflicts.  And the better we understand that, the better we’ll be able to adopt the solution that he has for us next week and apply it into our lives.

0:09:19.3

So let’s first talk about the conflict with our self in verses 2 and 3.  James asks in verse 1, “What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you?”  Now, listen to this.  “Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members?”  He want us, right off the bat, to look in the mirror and to say, “What am I doing to cause the conflict here?”  “Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members?”  He goes on to say, “You lust and do not have; so you commit murder.”  Wow.  We’ll come back to that.  “And 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.”  Now, that’s enough for any of us to want to fold up our Bible, to walk out the back of the auditorium and say, “That’s way too convicting this morning.”  But he says, first of all, you need to understand that whatever conflict you’re experiencing- whether it’s a global conflict on a mass scale, or something as personal as the conflict you had with your spouse this very week- you need to start with yourself, and I need to start with myself.  The word “pleasures” there in verse 2, “Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members?”  It’s the Greek word hedone, which sounds a lot like hedonism, hedonistic, because that’s where we get our English word.  He says the source of your conflict begins with the hedonistic desires within you.  James lands upon this idea that the external conflicts that we’re experiencing have something to do with the internal conflict or the hedonistic desires that wage strongly inside of us.  And this isn’t the first time that he’s mentioned our dangerous desires.  You go back to chapter 1 in verse 14 when he was talking about temptation.  And he says, “But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust,” or desire.  Those dangerous desires, he says, they rear their ugly head in our conflicts as well.

0:11:43.3

James is not the only one to identify in the New Testament this internal conflict.  In fact, the apostle Paul talks about it in Galatians 5:7 when he mentions the fruit of the Spirit and the deeds of the flesh.  Do you remember that discussion?  And Paul says in verse 17, “The flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.”  Spirit being the Spirit of God who lives inside of us by faith in Jesus Christ.  “For these are in opposition to one another.”  They’re in conflict with one another.  The flesh wars against the Spirit, and the Spirit wars against the flesh “so that you may not do the things that please you,” he says.  Did you know that you have this conflict going on inside of you?  And unbeliever doesn’t have that conflict because he’s just driven by the flesh.  But when you receive Christ as your savior, the Spirit of God comes to live inside of you.  Now you’ve got the remnants of the flesh that we deal with, and you’ve got the Spirit of God who is wooing us to live differently.  The apostle Paul, in an autobiographical moment in Romans 7, mentions his personal conflict with the flesh.  He says, “For I know that nothing good dwells in me,” Romans 7:18, “that is, in my flesh; for the wishing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not.  For the good that I wish, I do not do, but I practice the evil that I do not wish.”  I do the things I don’t want to do, and I don’t do the things that I do want to do.  I’ve got a conflict going on inside of me.  Does it sounds familiar?  Can anybody identify with this?  And Paul kind of throws up his hands later in the chapter in a moment of distress, and he says, “Wretched man that I am, who will set me free from the body of this death?  Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”  Romans 6, 7, and 8 is a fabulous section of scripture where Paul in chapter 6 talks about the reality of our relationship with Jesus Christ.  We are dead to sin but alive to Christ.  In chapter 8 he talks about the resources we have to live the Christian life successfully.  It’s all about the Holy Spirit.  But in between there is chapter 7, the valley of despair.  And Paul’s autobiographical moment describes a Christian who is trying to live the Christian life, albeit even resolving his own conflicts apart from the resources of the Holy Spirit.  And he says, “I do the things I don’t want to do, and I don’t do the things I do want to do because I’m trying to do this all in the flesh.”  My own hedonistic desires get in the way, we might say.  And we come to that point of frustration that Paul came to.  James says, “Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members?”  I Peter 2:11, “I urge you, brethren, as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts,” those hedonistic desires, “which wage war against the soul,” Peter said.

0:14:51.0

Now, let me put this in simplistic terms.  What is James saying here?  I think what he is saying is that we have a problem with our “wanter”.  Yeah, we have a problem with our wanter.  And the problem we have with our wanter goes something like this.  I want…that is, I desire something.  I want, I can’t get what I want, and I want what I can’t get.  Let me say that again.  I want, I want what I can’t get, and I can’t get what I want.  Now, do you have a problem with your wanter?  I have a problem with my wanter.  I want certain things.  I want what I can’t get, and I can’t get what I want.  It’s all about the lust, the hedonistic desire that wages war within my members.  Let’s break that down a little bit.

0:15:41.1

James says we want some things.  He says there in verse 2, “You lust and do not have-” now, strap your seatbelts on here- “so you commit murder.”  You want some things.  This conflict that you’re embroiled in is all about your own selfish desires.  You want something that you do not have.  And you want it so badly that you’re willing to commit murder for it.  You say, “Wait a minute, James.  You have crossed the line.  You’ve become politically incorrect to suggest that I would murder somebody, that the desires that wage their war within me are so strong that I would take another person’s life.”  Well, we do know that some conflict leads to murder.  Some of the global conflict going on certainly leads to the killing and taking of lives.  But you go back all the way to the book of Genesis 4.  Remember the story of Cain and Abel?  Cain murdered his brother Abel.  Cain desired something so badly, he lusted after it.  The hedonistic desires welled up inside of him.  He wanted the blessing that God gave to Abel.  And he wanted it so badly that he murdered his own brother.  In one sense, James takes this hedonistic desire to its ultimate extreme.  And although…well, let’s just say most of us in this room will never murder anybody.  Most of us will never end up on death row in the penitentiary because we took somebody else’s life, but the potential is inside every one of us.

0:17:29.3

Now, let me back away from this a moment and really broaden our understanding though of murder in the context here.  Remember, James is very influenced by the Sermon on the Mount.  And in the Sermon on the Mount, chapter 5 verses 21-22, Jesus, James brother, said that murder was equivalent to anger and anger was equivalent to murder.  He says, “You have heard it said, ‘You shall not kill another person.’  But I say to you…”  And he raises the bar.  He ratchets the conversation up.  “But I say to you, if you have anger in your heart towards your brother, you’ve committed murder in your heart toward him.”  The apostle John, who must have been listening to Jesus deliver that sermon on the mountainside there, says in I John 3:15, “Whoever is angry with this brother is a murderer.”  You see, some desire…when our wanter gets so out of control…I want this so badly…that anger and murderous thoughts begin…oh, we may never actually act upon them, but we are so angry that that anger bubbles up inside of us toward another person because we have a problem with our wanter.  I think it was Ruth Bell, Ruth Bell Graham said of her marriage to Billy one time, “Divorce was never an option, but I thought about murder.”  (0:19:00.1) And we can all identify with that, can’t we?

0:19:03.6

I want, but I also want what I can’t have.  Let’s read on.  “You are envious and cannot obtain,” he says, “so you fight and quarrel.”  I want, but to make matters worse, I want what I can’t have.  Envy has gotten the best of me.  Now, if you were with us last week, James introduced to us at the end of chapter 3 one of his friends or enemies- however you want to look at it- named bitter jealousy.  Now, he talks about envy.  What’s the difference between bitter jealousy…because they’re in the same family, aren’t they?  Think of it this way.  Bitter jealousy wants to possess what it already has.  A jealous person wants to possess what it already has, but envy wants to have what someone else possesses.  I want. I want what I can’t have.  He says, (0:20:00.1) “You are envious and you cannot obtain, so you fight and you quarrel.”  Remember, he’s identifying the sources or the root causes of our conflict.  And the problem is we have a problem with our wanter.  We want, and we want what we can’t have.  Envy has gotten the best of us.  Shakespeare was the one who called envy the “green sickness”.  Bacon admitted “it has no holidays”.  Horace declared “tyrants never invented a greater torment than envy.”  Barry said, “It is the most corroding of the vices.”  The easiest way to satisfy envy is just to give her what she wants, right?  But that’s the problem.  I want, but I want what I can’t have.  And so it leads to fights and quarrels, because bitter jealousy and envy has the best of me.  But it gets even more difficult.  We want.  We want what we can’t have.  But, furthermore, I can’t get what I want.  I can’t seem to get what I want out of life.  And James is saying this may be the source of some of your quarrels.

0:21:08.9

He goes on to say, “You do not have because you do not ask.”  You have desires.  You have wants, many of them legitimate ones.  But he says maybe the problem is your prayerlessness.  You do not have because you do not ask.  You don’t go to the one person in the universe- I’m speaking of our creator God- the one person in the universe who has the ability to give us the desires of our heart.  You haven’t even gone to talk to Him.  Now, in a crowd like this most of you are saying, “No, Pastor, I’ve prayed.”  Okay.  Well, let’s go to the next problem.  I can’t get what I want, and maybe because of my prayerlessness.  “You do not have because you do not ask.”  But then he goes on to say, “You ask and you do not receive.”  Why?  “Because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend it on your pleasures.”  Now, at the very simple level, prayer is asking and receiving.  Jesus said, “Ask and it shall be given unto you.”  And at the very simple level, that’s what prayer is.

0:22:22.2

But there are all kinds of hindrances to answered prayer, aren’t there?  And we don’t have time this morning to list all of them, but here’s one of them that James lists.  You may pray and ask God to give you the desire of your heart, but the Lord has x-ray vision.  And He can look inside of our hearts.  And while what we may be asking for is not bad, we just want it for bad reasons.  Our motives are not pure.  Have you ever asked God for something that He didn’t want you have, and it took years maybe for you to figure this out?  You kept asking and kept asking and kept asking, and even, you know, had time for him to purify your motives.  But He still didn’t give it to you.  There have been plenty of things that I’ve asked for that the Lord hasn’t given to me.  And it may be because He doesn’t want me to have them.  And it’s time and experience that have taught me I’m glad that He didn’t give me what I asked Him to give me 20 years ago, because it might have gotten in the way of what He really wanted for me.  And I would have missed out on a blessing.  So I’m glad that the Lord is there to purify my motives, to look in my heart with x-ray vision.  But one of the reasons that I may not have something that I really want badly is I need to check my prayer life.  Am I really bringing it to the Lord, and I have I yielded my wanter to Him?  Have I laid that on the altar?  Have I asked Him to expose the motive of my heart, as painful as that might be?  To purify that motive?  But am I even leaving room open for the fact that I may be asking for something that God doesn’t want me to have?  Because He sees the bigger picture in my life, and He knows better than I do at this time.  And a little time and perspective will help me understand that.

0:24:21.9

So what is the source of our quarrels and conflicts?  James says, first of all, look in the mirror and see the conflict you have going on with yourself.  Don’t point to the other person.  Don’t point to the other organization.  You’ve got a problem with your wanter, and I have a problem with my wanter.  I want.  I want what I can’t have.  And I can’t get what I want.  And I need to take my wanter and lay it upon the altar and say, “God, give me the desires of my heart.”  That’s an interesting scripture in the Old Testament, isn’t it?  That if we delight ourselves in the Lord, Psalm 37, He will give us the desires of our heart.  Does that mean that if I delight myself in the Lord, anything I wish for and desire, willy nilly, He’ll give to me?  No, I don’t think that’s what it’s saying.  I think what it’s saying is when I delight myself in the Lord- and part of that is laying my wanter on the altar and exchanging my delights for His delights, my desires for His desires- when I delight myself in the Lord, what happens over time is what I delight in and what I desire changes.  And when I delight myself in the Lord, He begins to shape my desires.  He places in me, He gives me the desires of my heart properly motivated.  So that when I ask, the Father says, “Oh, that’s easy for me to give to you because it aligns perfectly with My heart.  You delight in the things that I delight in.  You desire the things that I desires.  So, here, I will give you the desire of your heart.”  The conflict in yourself.

0:26:09.9

Now, let’s turn to verses 4 and 5, and let’s talk about another conflict that’s going on.  Not inside of us, but in the world around us and in relationship to the world.  Let’s read on in verse 4.  “You adulteresses,” he says.  Wow, James is full of some provocative terms, isn’t he?  He calls us murderers, now adulteresses.  That’s how to win friends and influence people.  “You adulteresses, 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 jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us’?”  Now, there’s a lot packed in to those two verses, so let’s go through it rather slowly here.  The truth about conflict for James boils down to one question.  And that is, are you a friend of the world or are you a friend of God?  And he says you can’t be both any more than we can serve God and money.  Matthew 6:24.  You can’t serve both.  You have to decide which you’re going to serve.  Just as we cannot serve God and money, we can’t be a friend of the world and a friend of God at the same time.  In fact, James would tell us that friend of the world is God’s enemy.  You see, the world or the world system in which we live has a wisdom that is in contrast to the heavenly wisdom we talked about last week.  And when it comes to resolving our conflicts, there are all kinds of places that you can go in the world to get the world’s wisdom on resolving your conflict.  In fact, everyday around 4:00, 4:30 in the afternoon you can tune in to Dr. Phil.  You can tune in to Oprah.  You can tune in to the latest self-help book out there.  And you can become a friend of the world and find yourself listening more to Dr. Phil and Oprah and the self-help gurus out there to help resolves your conflicts.  And you’ve never opened up the Bible, or you’ve never given a second thought to maybe how God views the situation.  The truth about conflict comes down to that single question.  Are you a friend of the world or are you a friend of God?  

0:28:31.4

And that question goes all the way back, really, to the Old Testament and to Genesis 13.  Do you remember the story about Abraham and his nephew Lot?  Abraham was called the friend of God in the Old Testament, wasn’t he?  His nephew Lot is the proverbial “friend of the world”.  Lot chose the well-watered valley of Jordan in the east and moved his tents close to Sodom and Gomorrah.  Do you remember that story?  And Abraham obeyed God and settled in the land of Canaan.  Abraham looked and Lot and said, “You choose first.”  And Lot looked out over to those well-watered valleys and fields.  And he says, “I’ll go there.”  And he chose wrong.  Ended up in Sodom and Gomorrah, and the judgment of God came.  And Abraham had to come later and rescue his nephew.  It was a horrible situation.

0:29:25.4

Now, the contrast between the world’s philosophies and God’s way of doing things is really quite amazing.  The world urges us to push our way to the front of the line, doesn’t it?  Me first.  But Jesus says the first shall be last, and the last shall be first.  Interesting.  The world says “Promote yourself”.  Jesus taught us to deny ourselves.  The world applauds those who follow their instincts and become successful.  Jesus said, “Follow me, and make faithfulness your goal.”  The world says truth is relative to the individual.  God gave us Ten Commandments, and He chiseled them in stone so that their true from generation to generation to generation.  Absolute truths.  In the Christian life, the way up is the way down.  God humbles the proud but exalts the humble.  And, as strange as it may sound, we descend into greatness in the kingdom of God.  I also thought about this.  We live to give and give to live.  We can’t take it with us, so we send it ahead.  We pay it forward, as it were, by laying up for ourselves treasures in heaven, not on earth.  How contrarian is that?  And so to live the Christian life as God’s friend, you do have to be a bit of a contrarian.  The wide road that everyone else is traveling leads to death, Jesus says, but the narrow road leads to life.

0:30:53.8

Are you a friend of the world, or are you a friend of God?  If you choose to resolve your conflicts with worldly wisdom, you’re not a friend of God, he says.  In fact, you’re His enemy.  And worse than that, you’re an adulterer or an adulteress.  Now, wait a minute James.  You’ve already offended me by calling me a murderer or suggesting that I would want something so bad that I would take another person’s life.  What’s this about adultery?  Well, in the Old Testament, the Old Testament Israelites, anytime they wandered away from God and followed the idols of the pagan nations, the Lord described that as spiritual adultery because it broke the heart of God.  And when you study the way God has revealed Himself in the Old Testament, what you find is a being who is romantic and who is a lover and who passionately and romantically pursues His people.  And when Israel moved away from God and followed the gods of the pagan nations, God begins to respond in the Old Testament sort of like a jilted lover who will stop at nothing to win back their devotion to Him.  When we choose worldly ways to resolve our conflict, we are like spiritual adulterers.  And the jilted lover posture that God takes is described there in verse 5.  Listen to this again.  It’s a very difficult verse to translate from the original language.  It says, “Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: ‘He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us’?”  When we become spiritual adulterers, friends, by pursuing worldly wisdom to resolve our conflict, we provoke God’s jealousy.  Did you know that God is a jealous god?  I know you know He’s holy and He’s righteous and He’s just, all of those character qualities.  But in the Ten Commandments when He says, “Don’t worship other idols,” the reason for that, He says, is because “I’m a jealous god.  I jealously desire your complete and full devotion.”  It’s a lot like how a husband jealously desires his wife’s complete devotion and a wife jealously desires her husband’s complete devotion.  And if that devotion should wander in any direction, don’t be surprised if either or both of them become like jilted lovers.  And so what James is saying here is, this truth about conflict boils down to the question- are you a friend of the world or a friend of God?  If you’re a friend to the world, you’re like a spiritual adulterer who has provoked the jealousy of God.  And He will begin to relate to you like a jilted lover who will pursue you until He wins back that complete and unadulterated devotion from you.

0:34:04.0

We’re in conflict with our self.  We’re in conflict with the world and the world system.  And if that isn’t bad enough, we’re in conflict with the devil.  Remember, the world, the flesh, the devil.  This is the source.  These are the root causes of the conflicts that we’re experiencing.  Let’s go on in verse 6.  “But He gives a greater grace.”  Aren’t you glad for that?  He gives grace upon grace, and we need that in time of conflict.  “Therefore it says, ‘God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.’”  Here’s part of the contrarianism of the Christian life.  He opposes the proud.  The world applauds the proud.  But He gives grace and exalts the humble.  Brief look into verse 7.  Don’t want to go too far into next week, but he says, “Submit therefore to God.  Resist the devil…”  See, the devil is in the mix here, too.  I was visiting with a guy this week.  And he made, kind of, an offhanded comment to me.  He said, “You know, I really have…I believe all this stuff in Christianity about God and resurrection and all that.  But the reality of the devil, that’s a hard one for me.”  The devil is as real a person as is Jesus Christ.  And hell, friends, is as real a place as heaven is.  The reason we have this conflict with the devil is because of our pride.  Did you see it there again in verse 6?  God is opposed to the proud.  What problem did the devil have?  His pride, his arrogance.  It’s the attitude that said, “I’m right, and I’m always right.”  With all due respect, it may be the attitude you have towards the other person that you’re in conflict with right now.  It may be your pride.  Got a problem with your wanter?  You might also have a problem with pride.  And if pride is getting the best of the situation there, you’re in cahoots with the devil in a very fundamental and foundational way.  That’s why, by way of solution- we’ll get into this next week- James says you’ve got to submit to God.  Resist the devil.  Just give him the Heisman.  Resist him, and he’ll flee from you for a time.  But he’ll be back.

0:36:37.5

You’re in conflict with yourself.  The conflict with the world and the world system.  How are you trying to resolve this conflict?  God’s wisdom?  Worldly wisdom?  And just know that the devil prowls about like a roaring lion, seeing whom he may devour.  And he has a marriage over here and a marriage up there and a marriage…a couple of them over here right in the crosshairs.  And he’s got you embroiled in a heated conflict, 90, 100 degrees and higher.  And you’ve been right in the midst of it this week.  And the first step to resolving that conflict is identifying the source.  What’s the root cause?  Gotta look in the mirror.  Gotta look at the world around me.  Am I receiving too many messages and ignoring the wisdom of God.  And am I understanding that greater is He that is in me than he- that is the devil- that is in the world?

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But let’s come back to that phrase real quickly, but He gives more grace.  I’m glad that he tossed that in there, ‘cause what we need in times of conflict is God’s grace.  Don’t we?  Because when I look inside and I see the conflict within me, I need the grace of God to win that battle between the flesh and the Spirit.  To take my wanter and lay it on the altar and say, “God, I want what You want, not what I want.  And if I can’t get what I want, I’m gonna take that as an indication that maybe You have something else for me.  And if I want what I can’t get, I’m gonna deal with envy and jealousy and all of that.  And I’m gonna start listening to You, by the grace of God, I’m gonna start listening to You and Your wisdom more than the wisdom of this world.  I’m just gonna turn off Dr. Phil and Oprah.  For 30 days I’m gonna take a test here.  Just shut that out so that I can listen clearly to what You have to say.  And I’m gonna begin to do battle in the power of the Holy Spirit, and believe that greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world.  You’ve defeated the devil, but he hasn’t figured that out yet.  And he’s causing havoc in my life right now, and it’s time that he stop.  I’m gonna start resisting him.”

0:38:55.5

What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among us?  It’s a hard discussion, isn’t it?  But it’s the kind of discussion we need before we step into about six or seven steps that James is going to give us to now resolve our conflicts, now that we understand the truth about conflicts as it relates to the sources.  Let’s pray together.

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Father, thank You so much for Your Word.  Thank You, Father, that, from time to time, You do take that finger and poke us in the chest and in the eye and say, “Listen, you aren’t getting it.”  And, Father, I’m the first to confess that I don’t always get it.  I thank You for Your grace, grace upon grace, which every one of us in this room needs.  Because we’ve all blown it when it comes to conflict.  Our wanter has gotten out of whack.  We’ve listened too much to the world and the world system.  And we’ve not taken seriously the enemy of our soul, who is the devil.  Our pride has gotten in the way.  Father, we confess that.  We thank You for Your forgiveness and Your cleansing.  But from this day forward, Father, would You help us to resolve our conflicts with heavenly wisdom.  And we thank You for giving it to us.  Father, I think of some here in the room who have never trusted Jesus Christ as their Savior, and who, maybe for the first time in their life, realize that they’re an enemy of God.  And, Father, I pray that you would bring that person or persons in this room to a point of faith believing.  And how wonderful it is, Father, that only You by Your grace, could take Your enemies and turn them into Your friends.  Those of us in this room for whom that has happened by faith in Christ, we rejoice in that.  But we also want to rejoice with the rest of heaven in what you’re doing in the lives of others in this room who cross the threshold from death to life, and from being the enemy of God to being the friend of God through faith in Christ.  And we pray this all in the strong name of our Savior Jesus, amen.

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