“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. You kill and 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.
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“What is wrong with me?” That’s a rhetorical question. I’m not looking for a response. “You’re so pale.” That’s true. “You’re unusually tall.” Thanks, but it’s just a rhetorical question; “what is wrong with me?”
It is a question I found myself asking a few weeks ago. I had been in a foul mood and I was quick to quarrel at home. I dare say that many of us have been quarrelsome at least once or twice during this pandemic.
The purpose of this sermon series is to hear from God regarding what we are experiencing right now. We’ve thought about fear in this pandemic. We’ve thought about plagues and prayer in this pandemic. We’ve considered this virus as a warning. We’ve considered it as a motivation to pray for those in authority. We’ve been hearing from God regarding what we are experiencing right now.
Many of us have found ourselves in the midst of quarrels in this pandemic. We’ve picked some fights. We’ve had some fights picked with us. That’s part of our experience right now.
Why have you been so quick to quarrel? Well, for starters you’ve probably been dealing with information overload. There has simply been too much new information to process over the past few months. You’ve probably struggled to keep up with all the changes that this virus has imposed upon work, stores, school, friends, church, and even family. You’ve probably been stressed over certain decisions that you’ve needed to make as a result of this pandemic.
All of that could be true, but those insights don’t go deep enough. Your problem runs much deeper. James tells you that you’ve been fighting because you have insatiable desires that demand to be satisfied. This pandemic has simply revealed some of those desires in new ways.
As restrictions lift, you might be able to quiet your insatiable desires a bit by going to the bar or the basketball court, but if that’s all you do, you haven’t really dealt with what’s going on inside of you. The desires are still boiling within you. Take this as an opportunity to recognize what’s going on inside of you. Take this pandemic as an opportunity to recognize that you fight and quarrel because you expect life to provide what only God can give. That’s the claim of this sermon: we fight and quarrel because we expect life to provide what only God can give.
We will see this in two points. First: fighting and quarreling. Second: praying and surrendering. We see fighting and quarreling in verse 1 through the third sentence of verse 2. We see praying and surrendering in the fourth sentence of verse 2 through the end of verse 3.
First: fighting and quarreling. You aren’t the first person to find yourself in the midst of a quarrel. Cain and Abel did. Adam and Eve did. I quarrel and I don’t like it. I don’t like what it does to my relationships. I don’t like how it makes me feel. I don’t like the fact that my role in my quarrels displeases God. I want to know why I quarrel, and I want to know how to stop. That’s why I love James’ question, “What causes fights and quarrels among you?”
However, James didn’t write that question hose words or his answers to me. To understand how James’ question and answers relate to me, I need to understand the church to whom James wrote these words.
The church to whom James wrote was in the midst of power struggles. People were struggling for influence. James, in chapter 3, warned these people against, “bitter envy and selfish ambition.” He said that their struggle for power could only result in, “disorder and every evil practice,” in the church. This is the background for the question of verse 1, “What causes fights and quarrels among you?” This is the background for the first answer of verse 1, “Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?”
The church was in the midst of power struggles because of the desires that battled within these members who were angling for influence. The word used here for “desire” usually implies sinful self-indulgence. This is the Greek word from which we get our word “hedonism.” These church members didn’t simply want to have an influence. They craved influence. They had a sinful, self-indulgent desire for influence.
We know that their desire for influence had become sinful because they fought and quarreled to try to get it. Rather than praying, loving, and submitting to God’s will, as we will see in our second point, they fought and quarreled. “The inner-community strife flows from the evil impulse, the lust within,” as Peter Davids put it.
The same is true for me. When I’m fighting and quarrelling it’s because I want something. I might not know what I want in the moment, but I want something, and I want it so badly that I’m willing to fight and quarrel rather than pray for it, love toward it, and submit to God’s will in hopes that He might see fit to give it.
Let’s take a hypothetical example from this pandemic. Let’s imagine a man who has had to make a dozen changes at work to deal with the virus. He’s understandably stressed. What he wants is for everything to return to normal. He craves everything returning to normal. He has a sinful, self-indulgent desire for everything to return to normal and you can tell that’s the case because he begins to get irritable about everything to do with the pandemic. He rolls his eyes in every staff meeting that has anything to do with changes that need to be made. He becomes passive-aggressive and implements the changes half-heartedly at best. He starts to mock those who take the virus more seriously than he does. Now, he wants everything to return to normal. That’s understandable, but you know that this desire has become sinful because it is expressing itself in fighting and quarreling. That’s verses 1 and 2, “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight.”
That’s just one person with sinful, self-indulgent desires. Now let’s imagine two people who both have sinful, self-indulgent desires. In other words, let’s imagine a marriage. Every husband has sinful, self-indulgent desires every day and every wife has sinful, self-indulgent desires every day. That’s life.
Imagine a husband who is concerned about the future of his job in this pandemic. He is also concerned about the future of the economy. Both of those are still live issues. His wife is concerned about the psychological toll this pandemic has been having on the family. She wants to make sure that the family still has fun together, and, of course, fun tends to cost money. I imagine we can all see the merits of both of their concerns; nothing I’ve said so far necessitates a quarrel.
The quarrel arises because these concerns become sinful and self-indulgent in each of them. As the weeks go by, the wife starts to think of her husband as a tightwad and the husband starts to think of his wife as a big spender. Each of them starts to see themselves as entirely in the right and their spouse as entirely in the wrong. The husband seems to think that he must ensure financial security, although that has always been beyond his control. The wife seems to think that she needs to keep the family happy, but that has always been beyond her control. It all comes to a head over a container of strawberries that cost $2.99. That’s how it goes, doesn’t it?
You can see in that marriage that it takes two to tango. It takes two to truly fight and quarrel. If that husband wasn’t concerned about financial security, they wouldn’t quarrel. If that wife didn’t think of her husband as a tightwad, they wouldn’t have a quarrel. Chronic relationship difficulties continue because each partner plays their role. It’s worth considering what role you play in the conflicts in your life. You can’t change the other person, but you can decide what you are willing to change.
You need to change the desires that battle within you. These desires are more dangerous than you think. James alludes to that by using the word “kill” in verse 2; “you want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want.”
Now it’s not likely that these church members were actually killing one another in these power struggles. It’s far more likely that James was saying that these desires within them were no different from the desires that lead to murder. Murder and their behavior shared the same root.
This is terrifying stuff. That’s why we tend to avoid looking to deep inside ourselves. We need to rule over these sinful, self-indulgent behaviors or they will rule over us. Think back to that husband who wanted financial security. We saw that he wasn’t merely concerned to be financially responsible, but instead felt the pressure to ensure financial security for himself and his family although that was impossible. He craved financial security to the point that he was willing to fight and quarrel with his wife in hopes of securing it. Now, if that desire remained unchecked, no amount of financial security would be enough for that husband. John D. Rockefeller saw that. At one point, Rockefeller had a net worth of about 1% of the entire US economy. Somebody asked him, “how much money is enough?” Rockefeller responded, “just a little bit more.”
Rockefeller, who was rather frugal in his private life, was pointing out that if you are looking for money to do something money was never designed to do, no amount will ever be enough. As Calvin put it, “he who suffers his sinful propensities to rule uncontrolled will know no end to his lust. Were even the world given to him, he would wish other worlds to be created for him.” You need to rule over your sinful, self-indulgent cravings, or they will rule you, and you will continue to fight and quarrel to feed what can never be fed.
To see that, consider the only man who was never ruled by sinful, self-indulgent cravings. Consider Jesus. He was as human as you. He understands what it’s like to be a human in a fallen world, but that never caused him to sin like we do. That never caused him to break with the sort of sinful, self-indulgent desires we have.
Can you imagine Jesus desiring affirmation to the point that he became moody and petulant because his disciples didn’t think highly enough of him? Can you imagine him becoming moody and petulant because you and I don’t think highly enough of him? You can’t imagine Jesus have such a sinful, self-indulgent desire.
You can’t imagine Jesus fighting and quarrelling to satisfy these desires. There is a good reason that the gospels never record the story of Jesus berating the crowd for not being worth his time. They don’t record that because that never happened. He is unlike us in that regard. He lived in this same world as us with all its lust, but he didn’t have our sinful, self-indulgent desires. That’s just one of the many reasons he can save us.
So you’ve got these sinful, self-indulgent desires that lead you to fight and quarrel. You’ve been on that merry-go-round and you want to get off. What can you do instead of fighting and quarreling? That’s our second point: praying and surrendering.
James corrected these church members who were fighting to get their own way. He offered them another way forward at the end of verse 2; he told them, “You do not have, because you do not ask God.”
God oversees everything. He oversaw the church of which these first century Christians were a part. He determined who had influence. If these church members really wanted influence, they would have been much wiser to ask God for it rather than quarreling and fighting to gain it.
This prayer that James recommends to them was an ongoing disposition to pray. We tend to think of prayer as a once and done event. ‘Have you prayed about it?’ ‘Yep, I prayed about it before I went to bed last night.’ That’s not what James had in mind. The tense of the verb he used tends to describe ongoing action. The action keeps happening and is to happen right now. The prayer James has in mind is ongoing.
Now, you can’t be committed to ongoing prayer and be willing to fight and quarrel to secure that for which you are praying. Try to imagine a man who is committed to pray for what he wants and is also willing to sin to get what he wants. He prays regularly for financial security and he also steals so he can have financial security. He prays for a good outcome for an upcoming meeting at work and he also lies during that meeting in hopes that it will have the outcome he desires. You can’t imagine him continuing to pray for what he wants while continuing to sin to get what he wants. He will do one or the other. The hungry heart will overflow with prayer or with quarrelling. It’s worth considering the overflow of your own heart in this regard. Prayer is the way forward.
Rather than fighting and quarreling, James told these church members to pray, but they obviously couldn’t ask God to fill their sinful, self-indulgent desires. God wouldn’t do that; as verse 3 puts it, “when you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.”
God is not in the business of filling sinful, self-indulgent desires. In fact, you should pity the man who finds his sinful, self-indulgent desires filled. Pity the woman who loves money and has just won the lotto. Pity the man who is lustful and has a girlfriend who is just as lustful. It is no blessing to have your sinful, self-indulgent desires filled. Asaph describes this experience as standing on slippery ground. You might know someone who is standing on slippery ground. You might be standing on slippery ground tonight. You might find your sinful, self-indulgent desires in the midst of being filled. This will not go well for you.
God doesn’t grant sinful, self-indulgent requests. He doesn’t affirm those sorts of prayers. Now there is, of course, more to prayer than what James is focusing on here. James wasn’t trying to explain everything about prayer and why all requests aren’t granted; he was simply saying that God wasn’t going to give these quarrelsome church members the influence they wanted because it was a sinful, self-indulgent desire. God is not in the business of filling sinful, self-indulgent desires.
Rather than fighting and quarreling, James that church told to pray, but not with sinful, self-indulgent desires. They needed the opposite of sinful, self-indulgent desires if they wanted them filled. They needed righteous, neighbor-loving desires. God loves to grant those desires.
God is not in the business of giving sinful, self-indulgent desires. God is not in the business of filling sinful, self-indulgent desires. God is in the business of giving righteous, neighbor-loving desires. God is in the business of filling righteous, neighbor-loving desires. That’s the flip side of verse 3.
Let’s go back to that married couple in the midst of this pandemic and consider the difference. He is concerned about financial security. She is concerned about the psychological toll this pandemic has been having on the family. We saw what happened when these concerns descended into sinful, selfish desires. Let’s see what happens when these two are filled with righteous, neighbor-loving desires.
The husband recognizes that he can’t secure financial security. He couldn’t ensure that before the pandemic. Such control is an illusion. He considers the birds of the air and recognizes that they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet their heavenly Father feeds them. He remembers that he is much more important than they are. He decides not to worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ for the pagans run after all these things, and his heavenly Father knows that he and his family needs them. He decides to seek first God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness, knowing that all these things will be given to him as well. That’s righteous.
He commits himself to dealing with his wife in a way that is, in the words of James, “quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger.” He affirms her concern that the pandemic is taking a psychological toll on the family. He lays out what he sees as a reasonable weekly budget for fun to offset the stress of the pandemic. He doesn’t do this as an attempt to appease his wife. He does so because he wants what she wants for the children. He does so out of love. That’s neighbor-love.
He is no longer operating out of sinful, self-indulgent desires. He is operating out of righteous, neighbor-loving desires. That makes a difference. His behavior is not going to lead a quarrel over a $2.99 container of strawberries even if his wife remains in her sinful, self-indulgent desires, but let’s say that she doesn’t. Let’s say that she too prays for righteous and neighbor-loving desires. Remember, God loves to answer these sorts of prayers.
She comes to recognize that she can’t make the pandemic fun for the kids no matter how much money she spends. She sees that she’s has been trying to avoid the sorrow of what’s going around her by turning her home into an oasis, but that’s not really possible. She can’t truly make her children safe and happy no matter how much she spends. She couldn’t before the pandemic. She won’t be able to do so after the pandemic. She starts to see the role of God’s providence in her life and the life of her family in a new way. That’s righteous.
She commits herself to dealing with her husband in a way that is, in the words of James, “quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger.” She affirms his concern for his job and for their finances. She lays out what she sees as a reasonable weekly budget for fun to offset the stress of the pandemic; she also lays out what she hopes they might be able to save in case the worst happens. She doesn’t do so to manipulate her husband into being agreeable to what she wants for her or the children. She does so out of love for him. That’s neighbor-love.
You know your own fights. You know your own quarrels. You know your own sinful, selfish desires. Imagine that you had righteous desires in those situations rather than sinful desires. Imagine that you had neighbor-love in those situations rather than self-indulgence. What would that look like? How would that change the lay of the land?
In other words, what would Jesus look like in these situations? That’s righteousness, that’s neighbor-love. Pray that you would have the desires that he has. Pray that you would act as he acts. That is what you are called to. You are, after all, called a Christian—a little Christ.
This is not a TED talk explaining how you can fight and quarrel less often. It is an appeal to you on behalf of Jesus. He became like you so that you could become like him.
If you a Christian, that is what your life is about. It’s not about filling selfish, sinful desires. That is the way of the world. It’s not about fighting and quarrelling. That is the way of Satan. Life is about becoming like Jesus. You can become like him because he became like you. That’s taking a bit of the new creation into today. That’s the power of the Holy Spirit in this age. That’s what Jesus came to bring.
You don’t need my tips on buffering your relationships. You need to be changed from the inside. Only God can do that. If you know Him, continue to ask Him to do that. Ask Him to change your sinful, self-indulgent desires into righteous, neighbor-loving desires.
If you don’t know Him, He can change you. Your bad habits are not more powerful than Him. Your sinful, self-indulgence is not more powerful than Him. It might be more powerful at than you. It’s not more powerful than Him.
Tell Him that. Repent of your sin. Give yourself to Jesus. That is the only way to escape yourself. That is the only way to escape these desires that rage within you. That’s the way to escape quarrels in this life and the next. Amen.