What Causes Fights & Quarrels? - James 4:1-3 Series

James 4:1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You want something but don’t get it, so you kill. You covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. 4 You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely? 6 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

Introduction

Picture this: You’re driving home after work, it was an average day – things went fine at work.

Maybe you’re listening to some worship music or praying. You walk into the house, you greet your family, and then at one point in the evening your wife says something and you snap at her with some bitter, harsh words. She snaps back, or gets real quiet and goes into the bedroom. And you are sitting there thinking, What in the world - why did I say that? I’m not even in a bad mood. Where in the world did that anger come from?

Or maybe it’s your kids. They do the kinds of things that kids do and you are dealing with it just fine, then all of a sudden they do something and there is just a flash of anger. And things come out of your mouth that you’re ashamed of afterward. And you think, Why am I screaming in my kids? Yesterday I told myself I’m never going to do this again – I said that yesterday. It didn’t even last one day.

Or maybe for you it happens on the highway or at work. And you think, What is up with that? There are plenty of situations in life where I don’t get what I want or I’m disappointed or mistreated in some way and I handle it just fine. There are plenty of times when someone makes a snide remark or doesn’t treat me well, and I don’t get all upset. So why are there these certain situations where my emotions can just turn on a dime and I can go from being just fine to being irritable or flat out cruel in one second flat? We go into a situation thinking, Okay, I’m going to control my tongue, I’m going to control my tongue. And we walk out thinking, What is wrong with me? Why can I control my tongue?

Why do your kids fight in the back seat all the way to grandma’s house? Why are they always yelling at each other? Why are you always yelling at them? Why are you at odds with some of your family members? Why do churches split? Why are we forever getting into conflicts with each other?

Or maybe for you it is more long term. Something happened months ago – or even years ago, and you want to forgive, you try to forgive, but you just can’t seem to do it. The anger has a grip on you and no matter how hard you try you can’t let it go. You know God calls you to love that person but no matter how hard you try, you just can’t seem to do it. And you wonder, Why is it that I can forgive other people, but not this person? Why can I let some things go, but not other things? This hostility in my heart – I don’t even want it. Why can’t I get rid of it? That is the question James asks in verse 1 of chapter 4.

Coveting Causes Conflict

What Causes Fights and Quarrels?

James 4:1 What causes fights and quarrels among you?

It’s the Rodney King question - Why can’t we all just get along? How hard could it be? Why is it that it is just a matter of time before you and your spouse get into yet another conflict with each other? Of all the billions of human beings in the world, you picked your favorite one and married that one. And you can’t even get along with that person. What’s wrong with us?

You would think peace would be the simplest thing in the world – all we have to do is not fight. So why does it seem like such an uphill battle? The lead singer of a popular band was interviewed a while back and he said this: "The hardest thing to do is to stick together. Mates, family, marriage, business, bands. It's like resisting gravity.” That’s really true. Anyone who tries to be a peacemaker realizes very quickly that you are fighting against a force that is pulling hard in the other direction. The curse that God placed on the soil in Genesis 3 seems to apply just as much to relationships as it does to the ground. Stop tending your garden and in a very short time it will be overrun with weeds. Stop tending your relationships and they fall apart – a gravitational pull toward conflict and hostility and splitting up. Why is that?