Conflict in the church
James 4:1-6
In Charles Colson’s book, the Body, there is a chapter entitled “Extending the right fist of Fellowship.” It tells the story of and event that took place in the Emmanuel Baptist Church of Newton, Massachusetts, when a church conflict actually broke out into a fistfight at the altar of the church.
It was the right hook that got him. Pastor Waite might have stood in front of the communion table trading punches with head deacon Ray Bryan all morning, had not Ray’s fist caught him on the chin 2 minutes and 15 seconds into the fight. Waite went down for the count at the altar where most members of Emmanuel Baptist Church had first declared their commitment to Christ.
Within and instant, the majority of the congregation converged on the communion table, punching or shoving. The melee soon spilled over to an open space between the organ. Mary Dahl, the director of the Dorcas Society, threw a hymnal; the missile sailed high and wide and splashed down in the baptistery behind the choir.
When Ray’s right hook finally took the pastor down, someone grabbed the spring flower arrangement from the altar and threw it high in the air in Ray’s direction. Water sprinkled everyone in the first two rows on the right side, and a visiting Presbyterian experienced complete immersion when the vase shattered against the wall next to his seat. The fight ended when the police arrived on the scene.
Proverbs 13:10 says, “Pride only breeds quarrels,” (NIV) It is pride that makes us lust and covet and envy. Whenever conflict is in our lives as believers it is born out of the flesh. When our flesh is fed we are capable of doing anything, or saying anything.
James doesn’t mix words. Remember he is the brother of our Lord Jesus Christ. He writes this word to believers at the church in Jerusalem to show them and us Practical Christian Living. He tells us that Conflict in the Church must be dealt with. This mentality that problems just go away really isn’t true. Conflict will always be there because we believers have a pride problem.
Gary Smalley says, “In most cases people respond to conflict in two ways;
They withdraw—Feeling that they are wrong or that their beliefs and views aren’t valued can lead to feelings of inferiority. The conflict is never resolved because feelings get tucked away.
They get angry—This person tends to attack verbally. Backed into a corner they mi8ght come out swinging, (just like the altar brawl earlier). If they don’t resolve the conflict the anger comes out in other ways.
So let’s today see how the Bible defines conflict in the life of the believer.
I. The Reason for Conflict (v.1) The word “desires” means to crave pleasure; to crave gratification. This Scripture says that desire for pleasure and gratification wars within our bodies. The picture is that of constant warfare, of our bodies craving, yearning, pulling, urging, desiring, and grasping after whatever will gratify our pleasure.
We want and want, desire and desire, and the battle of wanting and desiring rages on and on within our bodies. Our bodies are a battlefield of wants and desires. Every person knows what it is to experience this warfare. Desire is strong and difficult to control. In fact, few people control it completely.
It is within this battle of our own desires that conflict arises.
Notice two truths:
A. Inside Conflict—(v.1a,c) the word “wars” refers to an inward battle. It means an inner state of chronic conflict strife within us that can burst into an explosion. It is a sense or turmoil in us. Bible scholars translate the words, “among us” as “in us.” Therefore this struggle is not between people, but a struggle within people.
Notice also that word “war” it is derived from a word that means an armed camp. It is referring to the believer as a soldier in battle. This battle within is examined in 1 Peter 2:11, “Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul,” (NKJ) Paul also reminded Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:4, “No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier.” (NKJ)
This inside conflict is within us and warring against us to trap us in sin.
B. Outside Conflict—(v.1b) “fights” here is the outward expression of the inward conflict. The fight we looked at in introduction was a battle for control of something. Perhaps the church itself, but really it was the desire for power and control that lay within each member. When that conflict is not dealt with the inner turmoil becomes an outward explosion.
In the book Anger and Conflict in the Workplace, Lynne McClure hits the nail on the head. She says we have to let go of control. Letting Go involves two steps, “We have to accept the fact that we can’t always have our way and We have to acknowledge, to ourselves, that even though we “know” this, we still don’t like it.” (pg. 36)
Remember we saw already here in James that an out of control tongue is a heart matter. The same is true with an out of control desire. The heart of the matter is the matter of the heart. The inside conflict breeds an evil desire that explodes into Conflict in the Church.
II. The Result of Conflict (v.2-3) the word “lust” in v.2 is different from the word desire in v.1 or lusts KJV. The word in v.1 refers to sensual pleasure where the word lust in v.2 means to set the heart upon. This means a person will do anything to have whatever they lust upon.
Herbert Stevenson said this “Lust is the atomic energy within human personality. It conveys the suggestion of volcanic potentialities; the terrible inherent in a lion crouched ready to spring upon his prey.”
This is precisely what is taking place when desire builds into lust. The Bible says in1 Peter 5:8, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:” (KJV) Occasional sinful thoughts become the thoughts that control our minds. They turn into thinking that becomes a stronghold of the enemy in our own minds.
How?
A. Unsatisfied Pleasure—(v.2) 3 times in v.2 the Bible tells us that those who sought for pleasure were frustrated in the process. Pleasure never gives full satisfaction. Jesus said in Luke 8:14 that the, “pleasures of life” are thorns that choke out the Word of God in a man’s heart.
The Bible also reminds us of how the thinking turns into setting the heart upon. It says we murder and covet and yet we do not obtain. We need to be reminded of the most vivid example of this with a man after God’s own heart. David lusted after Bathsheba, even though David had several wives. He murdered her husband and took her to be his wife. A man after God’s own heart!
This lust for pleasure can even cause a Godly man or woman to do something ungodly. Don’t think that a thought left unconfessed won’t turn into an action that’s result is tragedy.
B. Untapped Potential (v.2c-3) here is perhaps the greatest consequence in the believer’s life of conflict. The Bible says we do not have because you do not ask, and we don’t receive because we have impure motives for what we are asking God for. It means we are quenching the Holy Spirit, quenching what God wants to do in us and trying to get what we want by our own fleshly devices.
The phrase speaks of a neglect of praying. We don’t know what God wants to do in us because we are not seeking Him. We don’t see answered prayer because we are not fervently praying. We operate this way every time we operate on our own. God I got this. Don’t need you today Father everything’s fine.
When we operate this way we never fully realize our potential in Christ Jesus. Jesus died so we may live but we must die so He can live through us. We will never reach our full potential spiritually if we feed our flesh and its lust.
**v.3**
We ask “amiss” with wrong motives. We can’t receive God’s blessings because our hearts are not in tune with His will. There is nothing more damaging in the Christian life than to never realize the potential available to every believer.
I. The Reason for conflict
II. The Result of Conflict
III. The Reality of Conflict (v.4-5) Here we see that the believer is referred to as a Spiritual adulterer. When we are so entangled with the world and what it thinks and believes we act just like this worldly system. Think and act like a person who has never trusted Jesus as their Savior so God says that if we love the world, we are an enemy of God. What a strong rebuke. This is a powerful reality. Notice two characteristics of this:
A. Unfaithfulness (v.4) The Bible often refers to a metaphor of marriage defining the relationship between the Lord Jesus Christ and the Christian. Here the adultery is between the Christian and Christ. This person has allowed their love for the world and the things of this world to take the place of their love for Christ. The Bible says in 2
Timothy 3:4 that end time Christians will be “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.” In 2 Timothy 4:10 the Bible described this person, “For Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world,”
The phrase “friendship with the world,” involves the idea of loving and being loved. We love the world so much the world loves us back. Rather than glorifying God through us we let people glorify us. Pastor G. Campbell Morgan said, “Christians are not to catch the spirit of the world but correct the spirit of the world.”
B. Uncommitted (v.5) the reality of the uncommitted believer is the Holy Spirit is jealous. This questioning v.5 is a rhetorical question. It is not an Old Testament quote. However, it reminds us of the Ten Commandments. God said in Exodus 34:14, “For thou shalt worship no other god; for the Lord, whose name is jealous, is a jealous God.”
This battle within us between our flesh, or old nature and the Holy Spirit our new nature is a daily battle. The Bible says in Galatians 5:17, “For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.” (NKJ)
When a believer is living a lifestyle of desiring the old nature the Holy Spirit is jealous. He’s jealous because He wants to completely possess the believer to finish God’s work in us. Not only that The Holy Spirit knows the best thing for us is to be committed to Christ. A lack of commitment to Christ means that we have divided loyalties. That’s when the enemy has territory in our lives to cause us to do things we do not want to do.
IV. The Remedy for Conflict (v.6) the remedy for conflict is realizing this battle and allowing God’s grace to keep us humble. The way to be rid of pride is focusing on grace. Just as pride gives birth to conflict, grace gives birth to humility. God’s grace is available for all our needs.
We sing the song, Grace, Grace, God’s grace, grace that will pardon and cleanse within (the battle) Grace, Grace, God’s grace, grace that is greater than all our sin.
The word resists here in v.6 means that God opposes, or stands against, our pride. Why? He’s jealous when we strive to worship the world instead of Worship Him. Grace focuses us on worship and when we really worship it’s all about Him and not about us.
One of the best known definitions of the word grace is: God’s unmerited favor. The wonderful pastor and Bible scholar A.W. Tozer expanded on that definition by saying, “Grace is the good pleasure of God to bestow benefits on the undeserving.” When we humble ourselves we receive the pleasure and forget about the earthly pleasure our old nature wants. That is the cure for our conflict.
Conclusion: Martin Luther started the protestant reformation. The Catholic Church had become corrupt, and a person was told they could buy the favor of God by giving money or property to the church.
Martin Luther knew that God’s favor was not for sale. Luther became an outspoken critic of the heresy of the church. Ulrich Zwingli was a man with a servant’s spirit. He promoted unity within the reformation revival. However, one day he found himself at odds with Luther. This conflict in the revival was the enemy attacking God’s reformation. Zwingli did not know what to do.
The answer to this conflict came when Zwingli was walking one morning on the side of a Swiss mountain. He watched two goats traveling a narrow path in opposite directions. At one point the path was so narrow it prevented them from passing by each other. When they saw each other, they backed up and lowered their heads, ready to butt heads until one yielded.
But then a wonderful thing happened. The goat going up the mountain lay down on the path and the other one stepped over his back and continued down the mountain. The first goat stood up and continued his climb up the mountain. Zwingli observed that the goat made it higher because it was willing to bend lower. (Uncommon Life, Lucado, pg. 133)
What causes these battles within us and the conflict in our relationships? Isn’t it because we fail to yield to what the Lord Jesus wants to do in our lives? Maybe today you need to quit fighting against God. Maybe you need Jesus to be your Lord and Savior? Maybe Christian you have given the enemy ground in your life because of sin you refuse to let go of. You’ll never be free to receive the blessings from God unless you let God have all of you. Today you can end the conflict. Will you?
PRAY
