Confronting our Disordered Desires - The Letter of James - James 4:1-5

Nov 12, 2023 • Andrey Bulanov

Outline:

1. Our conflicts and troubles arise from our selfish desires.

2. Our selfish desires drive us to disorder and chaos.

3. Our selfish desires make us enemies of God.

Scripture References:

• James 4:1-5

• Jeremiah 17:9

• 1 Peter 2:11

Application Questions:

• Do you see your own heart as the source of your greatest conflicts and struggles?

• What are the results of following your selfish desires in your life today?

• Is Jesus the one that your heart prizes above all else?

• What are the selfish desires that are pulling your heart away from God today?

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Example of disordered desires

We are continuing our journey through James a very practical letter written to the earliest christians scattered in various regions around Jerusalem.

One thing that is clear is that the churches that James is writing to were experiencing difficulties and trials.

It is also clear that they were characterized by a cluster of problems - not a single big problem - but a collection of problems that were very unhealthy.

And James has been working directly to challenge these problems.

Today get to the heart of these problems as James comes to his most direct challenge.

James is like a brother who loves us too much to not tell us directly the thing that is wrong in our lives.

His central challenge for us today is to consider the seriousness and the danger of our selfish desires.

1. Our conflicts and troubles arise from our selfish desires.

"1. What is the source of wars and fights among you? Don't they come from your passions that wage war within you?"

The automatic tendency that we as self centered humans have is to see our surroundings as the source of our problems.

Consider the often used phrases:

• "She made me so angry when she said that. How could she say such a thing about me?"

• "We are always fighting and arguing because he is so impatient and insensitive to the things I am trying to communicate to him."

• "I can't work with him because he just drives me up the wall with all his talking."

If we pause in the middle of any conflict and ask the question - what is the reason for this conflict?

The usual answer is to direct all our fuming and burning emotion at everything that the person did or said to us.

The whole time as James has been speaking to us - he has been shining a powerful mirror to our own hearts as the source of our problems.

Here he comes to the center of the problem and he does it with another simple question.

What is the source of the wars and fights among you?

what is the SOURCE

"life is just hard and messy"

"people are so difficult and unfair.."

Almost always we like to paint ourselves in the best light - "ive been trying to do the right thing....I've done everything I could, but this person makes it impossible to have a normal conversation!"

James listens and just shakes his head -

What is the SOURCE??

"Don't they come from your passions that wage war within you??"

James starts by pointing to the wars that are outside of us - the most obvious part - but he moves to point to the wars that wage inside of us as the true conflict.

We spend a LOT of time thinking about the conflicts we have with people.

We spend a lot less time thinking about the conflicts we have inside ourselves within our own passions and desires.

James asks a question, and in this question he is pointing to the real priority.

Isn't that backwards? It it backwards to think a lot about what other said or did and spend very little time asking, "how is my selfishness and pride playing a role here?"

The most difficult thing for us to understand is our own heart.

This is the lens through which we look at all the world around us - the lens through which we interpret, decide and respond to everything that goes on.

So if your heart is driven by selfish desires it pollutes how you see everything and everyone around you - including yourself.

This is why we are often so utterly blind to our own sin while seeing others so clearly.

Jeremiah 17:9

"The heart is more deceitful than anything else, and incurable—who can understand it?"

THIS IS THE REAL BATTLE OF YOUR LIFE.

Do you know and are you honest with what is ACTUALLY going on in your own heart???

Most people are not honest with themselves about what goes on in their hearts.

This is another reason why we need christian community.

We need godly poeple to tell us what they see in us, to challenge us and help us have clarity.

2. Our selfish desires drive us to disorder and chaos.

2 You desire and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and wage war. You do not have because you do not ask. 3 You ask and don’t receive because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.

James launches into a series of statements that expand on what he means.

"don't your problems come from the desires that wage war inside you??"

Here we see that James moves a bit deeper than just talking about conflicts we have with other people - he dives to the desires that are behind those conflicts.

"you desire and you do not have."

The foundation of everything we struggle with is the fact that we desire things that we don't have.

Think about it.

All conflict, frustration, saddness, struggle, pain -- all comes as the result of unfilfilled desire.

Everything in our lives is driven by the simple words, "I want..."

I want more respect

I want more friends

I want better financial stability

I want this season of life to be over

I want a family

I want better health

I want to stop feeling the way I feel

What happens when we don't have what we want?

James says - you start to battle for it.

You murder and covet and cannot obtain.

You fight and wage war.

I don't think he is talking about actual murder here but there is a important connection between desperate desire and murder.

If you read or listen to stories about true crime and how and why it is that ordinary poeple end up commiting murder.

No one wakes up one day and say, "I think I'd like to kill someone today." Well actualy there are poeple like that but very very rare.

Most murderers are not murderers first. They are people who fight desperately for what they want - and they end up becoming murderers.

following our desires creates the chaos in our lives.

1 Pet. 2:11

“Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul.”

As sinners, our hearts are constantly filled with sinful desires and these sinful desires "wage war against your soul".

THIS is the true danger we face!

HERES THE TRICK - its that you hold on to these desires rather than examining them and letting them go to see if they are from the Lord.

We are married to our desires and we are cheating on God.