“The Case for Christ - ‘Christ In Overcoming Strife’”

Turn with me to James 4 and, tonight, I would like to read verses 1-8 of that chapter - James 4:1-8.

‘From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight, and war yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.

Ye adulterers and adultereses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever, therefore, will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. 

Do you think that the Scripture saith in vain, Doth the Spirit which He made to dwell in us long unto envying? But He giveth more grace. Wherefore He saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. Submit yourselves, therefore, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh unto God, and He will draw nigh unto you...’. 

Keep your Bibles open to this passage so you can follow along with me this evening.

Two weeks ago, we were reminded that the Lord has His heart set toward holiness - the holiness of Jesus.

This is in line with the prophecy of the ‘last days’ when Zechariah, in chapter 14:20-21, prophesied: ‘In that day shall there be upon the bells of the horses, HOLINESS UNTO THE LORD...; ...yea, every vessel shall be holiness unto the Lord of hosts...’.

And, in 1 Thess 3:12-13, Paul’s prayer was for the Lord to ‘...make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men...To the end He may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all the saints.’

Jesus warned that a commitment to Him means that our moral responsibilities in human relationships must be taken with great seriousness.

He warned that there would be scenes of divisions in families, in-house strife, that would come because of Him. ‘The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law and the daughter in law against her mother in law.’ This scene is part of the end-times.

This is where my burden lies tonight. I do not know how to say all that is on my heart tonight about this subject of habitual strife, in either families or fellowship. My prayer has been that the Lord will give us insight into His Word as it is spoken to us through James and that we will seek to please Him with lives governed by His holiness.

We cannot make a commitment to Christ without affecting the way we relate to friends and family. And that commitment to Him is what shapes us - it acts upon our values, our priorities, and our behavior. 

If we are really honest before Him, Christ does change old patterns of behavior. That is best done both in the immediate family and in the extended fellowship family because it requires diligence, an unwavering resolution - in other words, a full, solid commitment to Christ. And these changes ought to strengthen those very significant relationships, not destroy nor give cause to abandon them.

This is something to think about very, very seriously. We dare not profane the ‘holiness of God’. Some of us have heard the gospel until we know all about it, and - I do say this very carefully, since the Holy Spirit searches my heart as well - but I see in some of us a resistance to our own consciences and to the Holy Spirit. Some of us have dared to carry that resistance on year after year. I think we need to be more serious about our commitment to Christ - now, perhaps, more in this day and age than ever before.

Thus - prayerfully and carefully, let me show you something in this chapter in James that I pray will help all of us in this matter of relationships.

When James, in 4:1, asked the question: ‘What causes fights and quarrels among you?’, he was discussing a philosophy of life that is characteristic of the unregenerate mind. Even though, he was writing to Christians, he was describing a worldliness that marked out their behavior.

He examined this worldly attitude as he went on. In the verses that follow, he identified the source of this influence. Then, he condemned what it did to them - it made them spiritually unfaithful to Christ - it made them an adulterous people - and lastly, he gave them the way to resolve their habitual addiction to strife.

We will look at those three points in this passage: the source, the outcome, and the solution.

Let us start with the problem - what was it?

There were terrible and constant feuds, struggles, conflicts,
quarrelings taking place in that fellowship of believers.

The two words - ‘fights and quarrels’ - normally spoke of national warfare. By the time of this writing, they were regarded as general, forceful expressions for friction and hostility.

‘Where do they come from?’ ‘What is really prompting them?’, What was the source of those conflicts?  
 
James answered that with: ‘Do they not come out from the lusts that war in your members?’ Or, more easily understood, we can say: ‘Do they not come out from your desires?’
 
The word for ‘desires or pleasures’ is in the English, ‘hedonism’. That is the philosophy that views pleasure as the chief goal of life.

Therefore, the question was: ‘Does strife not come out of an inward appetite - an appetite that makes you carry on a bitter, ugly campaign in order to gratify yourself?’ 

You see - that inward desire for satisfaction is so overriding that nothing is going to stand in the way of getting what it wants. It will fight to the bitter end. 

And do you know why? The answer is obvious: deep down within each one of us, there is that natural enmity against Christ that does not want to relinquish self wholly to Him.
We do not naturally like that calling of God upon each Christian to give ourselves up unconditionally and entirely to Christ!

Thus, the first part of verse 2, reads: ‘With all the consuming desire and bitter antagonism, you just cannot get what you want, so you lust and you fight, and you hate and you murder.’  

Now that is very strong language being used here for these Christians. And it is a very serious indictment!

Think of how critically important this is: unsatisfied desires lead to fights, fights lead to hatred, hatred leads to murder. 
I hope you take notice of verses 11-12 to see the fuel that keeps this fire burning. It is the setting up of one’s self as judge and speaking evil of the one judged. That is the start of it that leads to the fights - it generates its own momentum.

It is sin’s natural downward spiral - sin always takes that course - it is never otherwise! Take your newspaper and read about a mother who murdered her children. This did not come at a quick moment of time - there is a history of fights, quarrels, strife behind it, sad to say.

Let us continue: ‘you fight and you war and you still are not at the place where you can satisfy yourself’. Why not? - ‘...because you did not ask’, the passage goes on to say. 

‘You would rather fight than pray. And, when you do ask, you do not get what you pray for.’ And why not? 

Why is such prayer not answered as one would like?

It is because you ‘ask with the wrong motive - it was asked for with selfish ill intent’ - to ‘consume it upon your lusts’.

First, the source of the endless wranglings and fightings is because of the selfishness deep within. 

And, now, to add to that sin, you deceive yourself by using prayer as the means of satisfying that deep-seated lust.

You dare to use prayer as the way to gratify yourself!

Yes - we can actually be so self-deceived that we shamelessly use prayer to get our own way without realizing that God is reading our hearts and knows the depth of our own deception.

Verse 4: here we have the picture that condemns such behavior, of how it is being spiritually unfaithful to Christ.

‘You are engaged in spiritual unfaithfulness. You are like adulterers and adulteresses. You have been married to God through Christ but look what is happening to you.

Can you not see that you have taken on the world’s ways of dealing with your inward dissatisfaction?

Can you not see that the friendship of this world is enmity with God? If you insist on being a friend of the world and continue in its ways, then you are an enemy of God. Whoever chooses to be friends with the world takes his stand as God’s enemy.’

Could that have been more plain? I think not!

The desperate effort to satisfy the sinful desires is a bait to lure one away from this straight-on walk in Christ. 

‘You still want to be friends with the world and its ways - but trying to satisfy your own inner desires is luring your heart away from God - your behavior is the way the world behaves - you are not living according to the divine standard of Christ in you,’ is what the passage says. 

In chapter 3, verse 16, we see there: ‘...where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.’ And, certainly, this behavioral pattern of endless fighting is the result of devilish influence that is allowed in the heart.

How must the Christian resolve this problem?

It is in verse 5 that we are reminded of that power of the indwelling Christ to overcome. It is put in the form of a question: ‘Does the Spirit which He [God] made to dwell in us long unto envying?’ ‘Do you think the Spirit He caused to live in us tends toward envy?’ 

God longs to have the Spirit live out the life of His Christ Who is in you. He has not made this known in vain, but He ‘...gives more grace. Wherefore, He saith, ‘God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.’

This is how the problem is to be resolved.

The standard God has set for wholehearted love and devotion on the part of His people is very high. But, the grace of Jesus Christ that He has given the Christian is far greater than the rigorous demand He made. 

And that grace He has given helps us get beyond this spoiling of relationships with others. 

Let me say this carefully: this is the point where we must be very, very honest with the Lord, because, if we really are serious before Him, this is the point of stepping aside and letting Christ take us nigh to God.

It means to ‘humble yourself’, or ‘submit, bow’ to the inward tug of the Holy Spirit - toward that longing God has to see His Spirit at work in you bringing ‘peace and good will’ to family and friends. We do that and God’s grace, then, is ours for the asking. He will always answer that prayer - believe me!

The humble are the people who willingly submit to God’s desire for them rather than proudly insist on satisfying their own desires for pleasure.

So - rather than continuing to resist God, ‘resist the devil’, instead,’ the Scripture tells us. ‘Do you think you need a challenge - do you have a need to fight? Then fight by resisting that temptation of constantly submitting to your own self-deception and selfishness!’ Now that is a battle worth fighting! We are always on the side of victory in that battle, for - with the power of Christ - there is that full assurance that He has already overcome those devilish influences, and we do not need to heed them!

The remedy for the endless wrangling is to ‘draw nigh to God’. ‘Draw nigh to God’. Yielding to Christ will take you nigh. Yielding to Christ will take you nigh to God!

He yearns for our devotion to Him - He yearns for us to lay aside those pleasures that we think will satisfy. Seek His satisfaction instead.

Although I did not read this entire passage earlier, you can go on to note there is a series of commands: to submit, to come near, to wash, to purify, to grieve, to mourn, to wail, to change, to humble. You will see them all as you read through this chapter.

‘Grieve, mourn, and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.’

Now - do not misinterpret these commands. This is not the general characteristic that marks a Christian.    
   
But, this portion of Scripture makes clear there are those times when a person who sins so grieviously may be marked by these imperatives for a while. He has gone so deeply that to turn from his ways, he may well experience times like these.

The war is not won without a hard battle within - a battle he must face alone as he repents of his sin and, step by step, transfers the affection he has of his worldly satisfaction toward his affections to God.

‘Adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things, for the grace of God that bringeth salvation appeareth to all men, that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world: looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ.’ (Titus 2:10-13)

Employ God’s wisdom in Christ. It is pure; it is peaceable; it is gentle; it is reasonable; it is courteous; it is willing to yield; it is rich in compassion and good deeds; it is free from doubting, wavering, and insincerity. 

This is how the doctrine of God and our Savior, Jesus Christ, is to be adorned in all relationships, including those of our families and fellowship.

I would not want to see any one of our families in this fellowship, nor in any other fellowship, get caught in being a part of Jesus’ end-time prophecy of ‘in-house’ strife. That can be side-stepped by learning the art of ‘overcoming’ - if I may put it that way - by being part, instead, of Zechariah’s prophecy, of ‘every vessel - holiness unto the Lord of hosts’!  

I urge each of us to take these things before the Lord and seek His face earnestly. Be a testimony unto Him in your family life and you will know what it is to be a victorious and overcoming Christian.

There are other things that can be shared in this regard, some of which should be done in private sessions. If there is any way I can be of help to any one here, I hope you feel free to come so we can talk these things out together. 

I will leave it here for this evening. Oh, I trust the Lord will bless your week very richly as you think about these truths throughout the week. 

Amen! 

Let us pray!