Welcome to The Daily Platform from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. Today on The Daily Platform, evangelist Steve Pettit is continuing a study series called Wisdom from Above, which is a study of the book of James. Today, we'll learn the source of human conflict in James chapter 4.
I'd like to invite your attention this morning to the book of James, James chapter 4, today as we continue our series on Wisdom from Above. And we have looked at chapter 3 beginning in verse 13 down to verse 18, and we've talked about what a wise man is like. We've talked about the wisdom that is from below, the wisdom that is from above, and we understand that wisdom has to do with our relationship with God. It has to do with our fearing God. It has to do with our trusting God and walking in His will. That it's more than intellect.
It's not just about being smart. It's about being godly in the way we make choices, the way we lead, and the way we make decisions. This morning, I'd like us to look at this passage in verse, chapter 4, verses 1 through 3 as James asks a series of questions that lead us to asking this question, and that is, what is the source of all conflicts? Contention, disappointment, frustration, conflicts at home, conflicts with roommates, conflicts in politics, conflicts in the world.
Where do they all come from? Well, James in his profound simplicity tells us. Notice what he says in verse 1. From whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence, even of your lusts, that war in your members? You lust and have not. You kill and desire to have and cannot obtain. You fight in war, yet you have not because you asked not.
You ask and receive not because you ask amiss that you may consume it upon your lusts. Wars and conflicts have been a part of human history ever since Cain murdered Abel as recorded in Genesis chapter 4. Historians estimate that in the 20th century alone, over 200 million people have died in war and oppression. In 2014, over 1.1 million violent crimes were committed in the United States of America. Ever since 9-11, 15 years ago, we have been in a war on terror that has killed thousands of people.
So what is the source of all this conflict? Well, if we would go back in history, they actually tell us. Before the time of Christ, there was a historian named Herodotus.
He lived in the 4th and 5th century BC. He was known as the father of history. He wrote a book entitled Histories and in his work, he conducted a historical investigation into the cause of war, concluding that wars were caused by the relentless drive for power or imperialism.
Thucydides, who followed Herodotus as a historian, while speaking of war and human suffering, said that war will always occur as long as the nature of mankind remains the same. The cause of all these evils is the lust for power arising from greed and ambition. It's very interesting that World War I was fought between 1914 and 1918. It was the cause of 17 million deaths, including over 100,000 Americans killed. And the cause of the war?
Well, on the surface, it was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary by a terrorist organization called the Black Hand. But if you look deeper, you'll discover that the war was rooted in European imperialism in the countries of Africa and in the growing desire among European nations to show their national power and their dominance. You know, I personally believe that if Brother James were here, he would say amen to all of these statements, because this is exactly what he writes about in chapter four when he writes concerning the source of human conflict. And I want us to see the two primary causes for all human conflicts and even among believers. The first cause is what James speaks about here throughout these three verses, and that is that conflict is caused by man's sinful desires. Notice the question, from whence come wars and fightings among you? This is James's rhetorical question. You could read it this way, from where wars?
Where do all these problems come from? And notice James's answer. It's another rhetorical question that is forcing us to deeply consider the source of conflict by looking into our own hearts. For notice he says, come they not hints, even of your lusts that war in your members, and when he uses the word hints he's pointing the finger of accusation at the heart of all human problems.
And what is that? It is the problem of the human heart. The source of all conflicts is not outside of us, but it is inside of us. It is our own sinful desires. Now James has already stated this in the book of James chapter 1 when he goes back and he declares that God is not the author of temptation. Notice James 1 and verse 14.
He says, let no man say when he is tempted I am tempted of God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man, but every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. James says the problem that brings conflict in the world is our own inner lust. But Jesus, James' half brother, said the same thing. Mark 7 21, for from within out of the heart of men proceeds evil thoughts, adultery, fornication, murder, and thefts. And so both Jesus and James confirm that the problem of man is with his own heart.
But in chapter 4, James expounds it. He gives us greater detail as to the depths of man's sinful desires. And he says two things about our desires. Number one, he says man's desires are thoroughly, or you could say radically corrupted. And it's interesting here in James chapter 4 that he uses three words to describe our own desires. Look at verse 1.
He says from whence come wars and fightings among you, come they not hence even of your lusts that warn your members. That word lust is the Greek word heydone. It's the word from which we get the word hedonism.
Look at verse 3 uses the same word. You ask and receive not because you ask amiss that you may consume it upon your lusts. The ESV says your passions. What he's saying is that we actually have within our own heart a hedonistic viewpoint about life. So what is hedonism? Well essentially it is the belief that life should have the presence of pleasure and should have the absence of pain. Hedonism means living should be pleasure filled and pain free. It also includes indulgence and satisfaction in your own sensual desires. And this is not just a condition of our heart, but it's a philosophy of life. I believe in many ways our concept of the American dream is actually at its roots a hedonistic viewpoint of life.
It doesn't mean it's wrong to have a house or have a comfortable life. I think the scripture makes it clear that those things aren't necessarily wrong, but I believe the passionate pursuit and the belief in those things is rooted in the nature of man which is a hedonistic viewpoint of life. But then notice the second word that James uses and it's found here in verse 2 when he says you lust and have not. This is the Greek word epithymia. And it's the common word for strong desires. What he uses in James 1 14, every man is drawn away of his own lusts. It's also the word that Paul uses in Galatians 5 16 when he says if we walk in the spirit we will not fulfill the lust of our own hearts. And these lusts or this epithymia are strong desires that we have that flow out of our sinful nature.
And then notice the third word that James uses to describe the thorough radical corruption of human nature. He says in verse 2 you kill and desire to have. That word desire is the word for covetousness.
It's the same word used in chapter 3 verses 14 and 16. The word bitter envying or the word envy is the desire to attach itself to something, wanting something that you cannot get. And what is the result of that jealous envious desire? It is a life filled with confusion and all kinds of bad stuff.
So here's what James does. He exposes the trinity of evil desires that permanently reside in every human heart. You say well how did we become so bad?
Where did this all come from? Because this is not unique to a handful of people but this is true of the entire human race. And the answer goes back to Romans 5 and verse 12. Paul says where for as by one man Adam sin entered into the world. Adam sinned in the garden and his sin not only affected his own heart but it actually infected the entire human race. We call that original sin.
For example the Westminster Shorter Confession of Faith asks this question. Wherein consists the sinfulness of that estate wherein to man fell? So where did this come from?
What happened? And the answer is this. The sinfulness of that estate wherein to man fell consists in the guilt of Adam's first sin, the want of original righteousness. And what that means is that when Adam sinned he went from being a righteous man to being a sinful man.
And he literally had a righteous nature that loved God, obeyed God, served God, worshiped God, and fell in fellowship with God. But when Adam sinned that was radically altered so that he lost that original righteousness and the Westminster Confession of Faith goes on it says and it follows into the corruption of man's entire nature which is commonly called original sin. So what is the Bible telling us? When we look at these three things, hedonie, epithymia, zealous, covetousness.
What does that say? It says that man's entire nature has been affected by the fall. So you ask the question then to what extent did the fall affect our nature? Or you could ask it this way how far did we really fall?
Well let me illustrate it this way. Sweetheart would you come out? Well I had to have an excuse to show you my grandson so I thought this would be a perfect sermon. Okay this is little Judah, Stephen, Taiga, Pettit. Taigami is Japanese for generous and so he is a cute little thing. He's got all the Pettit qualities, no neck, long torso, short stubby legs, and flat feet so he's got them all. But he is a beautiful little boy. So I wanted to show you now let me tell you what this boy is. This boy is a bad wicked sinner because I know who his father is. And I know that what was passed down to him was a nature that is actually corrupt. His mind, his heart, and his will. Now he looks pretty cute now but wait till he gets to be two years old.
Wait till he starts eating solid food. I mean it's going to be really bad news. And so without the grace of God and without the gospel of Jesus Christ his whole heart will eventually play out into sin. And James is asking where does this problems come from? They come from our own human heart. So we're praying little buddy for you to get saved and grow up and be better than anybody in the family because we love you.
Now I want to show him to you because he's leaving today and he and his mom and dad are going to Japan for the next six months so you wouldn't be able to see him so thank you very much. Thank you sweetheart. Bye bye. So how far did we fall? Well in Ephesians 2 and verse 3 Paul writes that we have our conduct in times past and the lust of the flesh fulfilling the desires of the flesh and mind and we are by nature the children of God's wrath, his judgment. Sin has radically corrupted our minds, our wills, and our emotions.
There's no part of us that has been left uncorrupted. There's no part of us that is righteous or as the old theologians would say there's no island of righteousness that is in the midst of this world of corruption. The inclinations of the human heart are given over to self-centeredness. That's why Paul said in the flesh we cannot please God. I mean think about it.
Hedonism, lust, jealousy. That's rooted within our own natures. Now the question then has to come am I capable of changing that nature?
Am I capable in myself of becoming an unjealous person or a person that doesn't have evil desires or a person that is not hedonistic in our viewpoint? Well Jeremiah in the Old Testament asked the question in chapter 13 of verse 23 can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Can an African man change the color of his skin? That's the question.
Can the leopard go down to Walmart by spot remover and change his spots? And the answer of course is no. Then he makes the statement then may you also do good that are accustomed to do evil? You are in the habit of doing evil because it is your nature.
You cannot change what you are by nature without a change within your nature. You cannot see if you're blind. You cannot hear if you are deaf.
You cannot live if you are dead. If you're in darkness you cannot produce light. You have to be provided with light. God has to give you sight. God has to give you ears. God has to give you light.
God has to give you life. You have to be as Jesus said born again for your first birth. You are radically corrupted. Now you need a radical transformation where your heart is completely changed.
You need to become a new creature. You need to put on a new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. So James is telling us that man's desires are thoroughly or radically corrupted and without the new birth we cannot change. But let me go even further for James says man's desires are actually not only thoroughly corrupted but they are thoroughly controlling. Look at what he says in verse one. He says from whence come wars and fighting among you? Come they not hence even of your lusts that war in your members?
This is very interesting. James is saying that our internal sinful desires are actually like soldiers fighting in a battle. And those soldiers are fighting to conquer you could say it this way hills. They're fighting for territory. And what does sin fight for? It fights for your body parts. It fights for your members.
It is fighting to control your thoughts and your mouth and your eyes and your ears and your hands and your feet. That's why Paul says that we are to yield our members as instruments of righteousness unto God and not members of unrighteousness unto sin. We are to be yielding ourselves to God to serve him not to serve our own sinful desires. What is going on in our hearts inevitably is going to come out in our life.
And when sin begins to control sinners what inevitably happens? Well if you got a selfish person over here and a selfish person over here and they come together they're not going to get along they're going to create tension. There's going to be conflict. There's going to be frustration.
There's going to be unhappiness. And listen to what James declares about the desires of the heart when frustrated. Notice he says you have not. He says you desire to have and you cannot obtain. Yet you have not. You receive not.
When you want something and you are restricted and you cannot get it how do you respond? And James says the result of these restricted desires notice he says you fight, you war and you kill. Disruption and destruction are caused by our own sinful desires that dwell in our heart.
And do you know at salvation those desires do not go away even as a believer they still dwell in your heart. My wife and I were married in 1980 and I think perhaps the most difficult year of our marriage was our sixth year 1986. And it actually wasn't my wife's fault it was really my fault. Because I was so selfish I didn't even realize it. And we began to have conflicts in our marriage relationship.
I was an evangelist traveling and preaching my wife and family we were all traveling together we had two children at the time our third child was not born until 1988. And it was almost I felt like temptation sat on my shoulder all day long and the only time I got reprieve was when I went to preach and then I would come back and I was struggling. What I didn't realize was that God was trying to bring me to a deeper level of brokenness over my own selfishness. Because I had expectations and I had wants and I had desires from my wife that she was not fulfilling for me. And I got frustrated over it. And at times I didn't even know why I was frustrated but when I really began to think about it seriously and seek God about it God began to show in my heart my problem. And I'll never forget my wife and I were traveling south on I-75 we had just come out of Cincinnati Ohio we had crossed into Kentucky I remember exactly where we were we were coming up this hill and my wife turned to me and she said you want something for me from me that I cannot give you.
Only God can give you what you really want. And I remember that God used that to begin to do a breaking work in my life over my own desires that were really not surrendered to God. And the conflicts that we were having in our relationship and you would not know it externally but those of you that are married you fully understand what I'm saying. It was God breaking me over these desires that had not been fully surrendered to God. God was exposing them in order for God to deal with them. What does this tell us about the battle of the Christian life? Is it not a conflict over your own sinful desires that seek to control you? James is telling us that the conflicts that we have are caused by our own sinful desires but let me say secondly that James is telling us that these conflicts are caused not only by our sinful desires but by our own spiritual deficiency. For notice what James says he speaks of our own deficiency in our spiritual life.
He says you have not because you ask not. What is he telling us? He is telling us that our sin problem is actually a prayer problem. The presence of conflict is the sign of the absence of prayer.
Think about it as simple as that is. That many times the reasons we have conflicts with people and we do not overcome these wrong desires is when we look at our spiritual life it is very shallow, it is very weak, it is very anemic and it is absent of real genuine prayer. James says two things about our prayer problems. Number one he says simply we just don't pray. May I ask you a question this morning? Are you neglecting prayer in the busyness of your schedule?
Is there a problem with your heart? Could it be that there's an absence of real seeking God? Do you have special times in the day and in the week where you just set it aside to do nothing but seek God and you wonder why you have problems? Why don't we pray? The Bible tells us that we're to pray about everything.
Everything that would cause us to be anxious or frustrated. Why don't we pray? Well I think one reason we don't pray is because prayer requires submission to God. When we come to God we can't put our fist up and say God give me what I want but we bow our knees and say God do in my life what you want. Our Father which art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done. People who pray are committed to do the will of God first. Even Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane said Father if it's possible let this cup pass from me nevertheless not my will but thine be done. Praying people pursue God's will. What we want more than anything is for God to be glorified and for his will to be done. In the future you're concerning your future, concerning your finances, concerning your potential of marriage.
Let me ask you a question. Do you seek God first? Do you pray and say Lord I only want to do what you want me to do? James was deeply concerned about the believers. He was concerned about their double mindedness.
He was concerned about their love for the world and their love for God and they would not come to that place where they were wholeheartedly, single mindedly committed to the Lord and if they're double minded their spiritual life is not stable. We don't pray. Our sin problem is a prayer problem. But then notice secondly he says not only do we not pray but we pray or we ask for the wrong reasons.
Our prayer is definitely infected. For you ask and receive not but you ask and miss that you may consume it upon your lust. If you do pray it's not the right kind of prayer because your desires are not aligned with God's purposes. We need to align our hearts with what God wants. Natural desires are not sinful. They're not wrong. By the way it's not wrong for you to pray for a wife or husband.
Seriously it's not wrong at all. But in that entire prayer it is saying God I want to marry within your will and your guidance and your purpose and your plan. Lord I only want your will. So let me ask you as we finish are you frustrated with God because you're not getting what you asked for?
Do you live with internal issues like disappointment and depression and fear and anxiety or hurt pride? So let me ask you is it possible that you're really not surrendered to God? Are your prayers for the glory of God in your life? Are you seeking to follow God's clearly revealed will? Are you committed to following God's direction in your life? For if we prayed about the things we wanted or the things we wanted to do clearly yielding our wills to God and accepting what God gives us do you think it might resolve some of the problems that you're having in your own personal life and with others? May God help us to walk with him and not give in to the conflicts of our heart. Father thank you for your word and grace in our lives in Jesus name. Amen. You've been listening to a sermon from the book of James by evangelist Dr. Steve Pettit. Thanks for listening and join us again next week as we continue the study in the book of James from Bob Jones University Chapel Services in Greenville, South Carolina.
