Hostile Desires - James 4:1-3 Series

In the Church

And this principle will help you with conflicts in your family, at work, in your marriage – all kinds of different contexts. But the primary application James has in mind is conflicts within the church. And those are not as obvious, because in the church we all try to maintain our good reputation as humble, godly people. So our wars and conflicts in the church tend to be cold wars rather than hot wars. We disagree over something in the church and were usually not screaming and yelling or slamming doors or throwing things. We have to keep the hostilities within the bounds of our religious façade, so we express our anger in more subtle ways. We stop coming to prayer group because, “I can’t be in the same room with that person.” And whenever we talk about that person our words never build up their reputation – they always hurt their reputation. And we look at that person was suspicion, and we assume bad motives, and we refuse to trust them.

And if it does finally escalate to the point of direct conflict, we disguise the real issue and try to make it about something else. We don’t want to admit the real reason (I didn’t get my way). That would make us look petty and vengeful so we attack the person on some other issue. We accuse them of sin and say it’s a matter of principle. We say, “This isn’t personal – I just need to stand up for what is right.”

That is why so many church conflicts are so hard to resolve. When peacemakers come in and try to bring resolution to the conflict, it doesn’t work because they are focusing on a bunch of things that are really a smokescreen. It’s the same thing in marriages. A wife has 20 complaints, you resolve all 20 of them, and now she has 20 more. Why? Because those complaints aren’t the real issue. The issue is they wanted something and didn’t get it. Something happened that touched one of their hostile desires.

How to Spot Selfish Pride

One question we have been asking as elders is this – how can we spot this in potential leaders early on, before they get into leadership roles and cause all kinds of problems? And James gives us a good answer to that right here. One way we can spot selfish pride in someone is to watch him and see how he reacts when he doesn’t get what he wants. Three times in the life of this church we have had a leader who wanted something (all three times involving money). When they didn’t get what they wanted, they became angry, and then made an effort to split the church. This is one way you can spot selfish pride, because selfish pride will always react in peace-destroying ways when it doesn’t get what it wants. Selfish pride produces rogue, hostile desires that will attack anyone or anything that gets in their way – including their own conscience.

The War Within

Notice that James describes them in verse one as your desires that battle within you. Did you know that you are being betrayed? You are trying to follow Christ, but your efforts are being undermined by a traitor. The traitor is your own, hostile desires. James says those desires battle within you. Those cravings declare war on your conscience. When your desires are in line with what is right then there’s no problem. But when a rogue desire comes into conflict with holiness – it wants something different from what God says is right, you get an internal war – your cravings versus your conscience. Your soul says, “I want that thing,” but God’s Word says, “No, that thing is forbidden.” The submissive soul that trusts God would say, “Oh, it’s forbidden? Well, in that case, I don’t want to have any part of it.” But our souls are not always that submissive and trusting, are they? The flesh says, “It’s forbidden? I still want it.” And your conscience says, “You can’t have it - you’ve made the decision to follow Christ.” And your flesh says, “I still want it!” And the war is on - conscience versus craving.