How Can God Heal the Wars Within Us That Create Wars Around Us?

Date: June 7, 2026
Series: Fruitful Faith - James
Passage: James 4:1-12
Preacher: Pastor Sammy Rodriguez

Transcript

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If you would open your Bibles to the book of James, my name is Pastor Sammy. It's a pleasure for you being here. Thank you so much. And James, we're continuing our series verse by verse through this book of James, a series called Fruitful Faith. And so if you have your Bibles, if you don't have it, there's a should be a Bible in the seat in front of you. And if you would turn to James chapter 4. James chapter 4. Jesus in John 13, verse 35, he says this, by this all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. Jesus says, the way that the world will know that you belong to me, that you are a follower of me, is by the love that you have for one another. However, if we're honest here, the church oftentimes is known more as a place of conflict than love. You know, I can't tell you how many times that I've been I've shared the gospel with someone, shared about Jesus and the truth and transformation, the peace that he causes and the new life found in him. And one of the main reasons that someone would denounce that or not desire that or deny Jesus is because they see the war and conflict and fighting within the church. Not only do they see it, a lot of them, they've experienced it. They felt the hurt themselves. They have the scars. And maybe there's some of you who've experienced that. I know there's some of you, maybe you come to this church because of the hurt or the conflict that you saw in the place before. It's a reality, and here James is talking exactly about this in our chapter. Where there's divisiveness, there's fighting, there's bickering, there's gossip. All in the church. A place that should be known for community and love and fellowship. There's only wars. And James will talk about the reason for those wars, the tensions between us is because of the wars that are within us. That in each and every one of us there is a battle in our hearts of pride, envy, and selfishness that causes division with each other and causes division with God. So here's the question that the text will answer for us today in James 4 is how can God heal the wars within us that create wars around us? How can God heal the wars within us that create the wars around us? And so would you stand, if able, for in this moment in reverence for the reading of the Word of God? And so I hope this morning that you've come expectant and hungry, amen, to receive God's word, that when this book, when the Bible is open, God is speaking. And so let us come receptive and ready. James chapter 4, starting in verse 1. He says, What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says he yearns jealously over the spirit that he made to dwell in us? But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Submit yourselves, therefore, to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep, let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother speaks evil against the law and the judges and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law, but a judge. There is only one lawgiver and judge. He who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor? Pray with me. Lord Jesus, we ask for your help humbly in this moment. I ask for your help. Or that the preaching of your word would change lives. God, so many of us have been a part of and have seen conflict within your body. And so, God, we pray that your spirit would examine our hearts and your word would speak sharply. That we would be the church you've called us to be, to love one another. And God, we need your help for that. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. You may sit. So, this question: how can God heal the wars within us that creates the wars around us? The first point is this we need to expose our inward passions. Expose our inward passions. We see there in verse 1 it says, What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this that your passions are at war within you? You see, church conflict is nothing new. This has been going on for 2,000 years. That 2,000 years ago, our brothers and sisters in Christ were dealing with the same issues that we see today. Conflict and tension, wars that were going on between them. You know, I read a story online. I was trying to just look up some of maybe the silliest reasons of church conflict and split, and maybe we've heard and seen all the things, but I read of one church that they spent so much tension and time arguing about the carpets of the church. That actually came to one point where they couldn't decide. So you had one faction of people who wanted one type of carpet and the other faction of people who wanted uh a different type of carpet, and so they actually split the church in half and got one color and type of carpet for one side of the church and one for the other. And actually, the people who preferred that decision of the carpet sat on one side and the others on the other side. And there was genuine conflict that they had with one another. It became such a small thing. There was a war, there was conflict. And we can think about our past, maybe, and our experiences in the churches where we've been hurt by others, or we see the conflict between brothers and sisters. And what James is getting at, he's saying, Where is this coming from? And what James is saying, it's not coming from the outward, it's coming from within. He says, Is it not this that your passions are at war within you? See, there's this visible war that's happening on the outside, but there is an invisible war happening within. A battle in our souls that no one can see but the Lord. And James says that this battle is the passions within us. Really, what James is saying here is our cravings create conflict. Our cravings create conflict, this passion within us. This Greek word for passion is hedone, which is is the word we get from this is hedonism, where we go to our pleasures, our desires, our satisfaction seeking that alone. Verse 2, it says, You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel, and you do not have because you do not ask. The churches James was writing to were having these carnal, fleshly desires. And these desires, they weren't being fulfilled. So what did they do? They began to attack one another. Now, many scholars would argue that it's not talking about a physical murder here, when it says murder. But it's echoing Jesus' words on the Sermon on the Mount, when he says this in Matthew 5, 21 through 22. You have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not murder, and whoever murders will be liable to judgment. But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment. Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the counsel, and whoever says, You fool, will be liable to the hell of fire. So James is referring to not that these Christians were murdering each other physically, but with their words, spiritually, attacking one another. We see this word covet, you covet and cannot obtain. That's the same Greek word we saw in chapter 3 about that earthly wisdom, that envy in the heart. Right? The unsatisfied heart begins to look at other people and what they have and desire it for themselves. And here's where we have to be careful. Because we can see this and say, you know what, I'm not really a jealous person. I'm not really an envious person. Where I see that someone else has something, and I'll get upset at them for that. But James is not just referring to the desire of physical things. No, if we're honest and we look at the heart, sometimes the things that we see and desire other that others have is not physical. Maybe it's appreciation. Maybe it's respect. And because this person doesn't respect me, or that person's receiving the affirmation I deserve, and I'm not getting that, then we lash out. This is a pattern. It's a pattern where it starts with desire. I desire this. And so we convince ourselves that we deserve it. And when we deserve it, what will we do? We will demand it from other people. That I desire this respect, I desire the affirmation or whatever it is, and I deserve it. And because I deserve it, then you have to give it to me. I demand it. So James here gives a potential solution to the envy. He says, ask. Look at verse 2. He says, you do not have because you do not ask. He says, the reason you're fighting each other is because you're not asking of God. So James is saying, just stop and ask God to give you the longings, the desires of your heart. But what happens? Verse three. It says, you ask and do not receive. Why? Because you asked wrongly. To spend it on your passion. See, James is writing to people who some they were asking God of these things. But God didn't answer. Why? Because they didn't want God. They wanted what God can give them. They wanted God to give them the things to satisfy their fleshly desires. And this is so important today. Because we live in a day and age where the church has disguised selfishness for spirituality. Where a pastor can refer to Psalms 37 that says, The Lord will what He will give us the desires of our heart. That if I want to be healthy and wealthy and successful and I desire that, then God will give it to me. Then I can name it and claim it. What's wrong with that? The heart is deceptive. And if I'm a follower of Christ, then what should be my greatest desire? Christ. It should be Christ. But if you pursue God and you pray to God only for money, Jesus is not your God, money is. If you pursue God for health, then Jesus is not your God, health is, or whatever it is. But our hearts say, God, I don't want health more than health. I want holiness. God, more than money, I want maturity. God, more than savings, I want to see my family saved. And praying for the things of God. It's not that those things are wrong, but God sees the heart, and they were asking God. But they were asking for things for their own flesh, own pleasure, own satisfaction. So how can God heal the wars within us that creates wars around us? We expose our inward passion. Brothers and sisters, right now, think of that. What are the passions within you that need to be exposed and brought under the light of God's grace? Is it greed, selfishness, pride, lust, anger? There is war within us. And it will not take long for these inward desires of war within you to lash out and expose yourself and hurt others. Can I tell you this? You know, it's really natural when um in July coming up, it'll be the the one-year anniversary of me being here, and it is so natural when you come into a position of a church that's existed to sense that as you take on this new role, there's gonna be conflict. There's gonna be people who may not like you or the way you do things, uh, your vision, or the way you preach, or maybe that there's been these conflicts beforehand. And honestly, I expected a lot of that. But you know what I found instead? I found love and grace and humility. And that's why I love this church. But this is why this message is so important. Because if we are gonna continue in that, we have to always examine our hearts and look within and say, what are the passions? What are the places that if that if we're not careful, especially me, that if we're not careful can cause wars among us. How can God heal the wars within us that create wars around us? Second point is this examine our worldly pursuits. Look at verse 4. You adulterous people. Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. What does James mean here when he says adulterous people? Is he talking about spouses within the church being unfaithful? No, remember the original audience, he's speaking to this Jewish people who would have been familiar with the Old Testament, these Jews who now have put their faith in Christ, and he would know James, that they would understand this language of adultery. That James was not referring to adultery of marriage, but a spiritual adultery of the heart. That the Old Testament makes clear that God sees himself as the husband, the groom, and his people or the bride who he pursues and loves and makes a covenant with. And what has happened is the church has made a bed with the world. Right? And we see this language in the Old Testament, Jeremiah 3.20. It says, Surely as a treacherous wife leaves her husband, so have you been treacherous to me. O house of Israel. Ezekiel 16.32, adulterous wife who receives strangers instead of her husband. Talking about the world. That Israel or us, the church within here, where we've abandoned God and therefore became his enemy. What does it mean to be a friend of the world? What is the world? The world is not just referring to the physical creation or the people in it. The world, when James is writing that, is talking about a system of values, desires, and priorities that operate apart from God and is in opposition to God. And that the Bible says actually the ruler of this world and the age is the enemy of Satan. And so to have friendship with the world is to be friends with God's enemy. Notice what's going on here. Why is James now talking about war and conflict within the church, and now it's talking about the church being friends with the world? Because here's what happens. When we hear this phrase worldly person, many of us can think of the person out in the bars at night or in the club at night or out in rebellion against God visibly. But what James is doing is he's not pointing to the nightclub, he's pointing to the pews. He's saying, What? That within your hearts there is worldliness. That in the exterior you may look all dressed up and nice and dressed for church and your Sunday best, but in your heart is the world of pride and envy and jealousy. It says that is worldliness. A person can avoid all the obvious sins of the world and still be worldly. Their hearts are ruled by pride. Pride, envy, ambition, bitterness, craving recognition from others. And this is why so many churches have been destroyed by worldly ambition that was in disguise. It was just self-righteousness. Examine. We have to examine the things within the world that we are pursuing. What are the things that we're watching, consuming, that has our attention, that is opposed to the values of God. Don't miss this. Verse 4 says, You adulterous people, this strong language. I mean, think about it. The picture I have is imagine a bride and a groom. And their beautiful wedding ceremony before God and the church and the people, and them making a commitment to one another. And they get ready to board a plane, to go, to celebrate. And go somewhere to Hawaii or vacation, their honeymoon. And they're looking forward to it. And as they're about to get on the plane, the new bride says, Hey, actually, I think I'm going to stay here. And you can go ahead. Actually, there's a couple guys I'm going to be hanging out with here. And you go on ahead. This is what James is saying. It says, You adulterous people. God pursued us. He loves us. And what we do is we choose the world over Him. James is telling the church to wake up. That we would not be enemies of God. And I pray, God, that even now, in this moment, we would realize the weight of that. I mean, picture it. What does that mean to be an enemy of God? It's as if you were getting ready for battle with a shield in hand, and sword and another, and your armor, and you're there in the front lines of battle, and standing before you in the opposition is the living God. It's a terrible thing to be an enemy of the living God. And it should scare us. Look at verse 5. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the scripture says he yearns jealously over the spirit that he made to dwell in us? See, God's desire is not for us to be enemies. God's desire is for us to know him and enjoy him. It says God is jealous, and it's not like our jealousy. It's a pure, holy, and righteous, it's a pure, passionate affection that a husband has for his bride. This morning you need to hear this. Jesus loves you. And he longs for you. He yearns for you. And you don't have to be his enemy. You can be his friend. How do we do it? How can we be friends with God? Third point. Embrace a humble posture. Embrace a humble posture. That's how we can be healed from the wars within us. Look at verse 6. It says, but he gives more grace. Therefore it says, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. What is grace? It is God giving us what we don't deserve. See, what we deserve as enemies of God is punishment. And grace is this that God, although we were enemies and we deserve punishment, took the punishment on the cross that we deserve. Right? We see that in Romans 5, 8 through 10. It says, but God, listen to this, listen to the word of God, but God shows his love for us. And that while we were still sinners, enemies, Christ died for us. Since therefore we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God? For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God, how? By the death of his son. How much more now that we are reconciled shall be saved by his life? Here's the thing: this grace that it's talking about, this salvation it's talking about, it is only grace that can be received through humility. Through humility. Why? Because at the center of a prideful heart is the desire to be the God of your life. To receive the glory or the attention or the honor that belongs to God and you want it for yourself. That's why pride is complete resistance against God. And this is the difference of the gospel. This is the difference of the gospel of Jesus Christ and every other religion. Because everything else is about what you must do. That I have to do, that I have to earn. If I'm good enough, then maybe I'll enter into nirvana, then maybe I'll reach enlightenment, then maybe I'll reach paradise, then maybe I'll get to heaven if I'm good enough. But what does that create? It's pride. It's look, I can stand before God when He asks me why I should let you in. I'm gonna say, look at my life. Look at all the good that I did. It's pride. But what's the gospel? The gospel is you could do nothing. You could do nothing to save yourself. But Christ, through his grace, through his love, has given us a way. When there was no way, there was nothing we can do that through his sacrifice on the cross for us, that through his grace, when we receive it, we can have a relationship with God. We can be friends with God. And we can say when we're asked, when you stand before God, and he says, Why should I let you in? What would you say? I'll say, God, you shouldn't. You should have let me in. Because I'm a sinner. And I'm an enemy, and there's nothing I've done to deserve to enter into your presence. But I can enter in not because of what I've done, but because of your son who loved me and died for me. Today would you become a friend of God? We embrace a humble posture. That's the only way we can experience this grace of God. Well, what else does a humble posture look like? Verse 7. Submit yourselves, therefore, to God. Humility is submission. Submission is to put yourself under the rule, the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. You cannot show humility if you don't submit to Jesus. This word submit, this is a military term of a soldier submitting to their generals. This is humility, is to say, God, your ways, your plans are better than my own. I put my life, my family, my career, everything I have, my money, my choices, my day, my breath. God, I submit them to you. That's a humble life. That's what humility looks like. Submission. Not just submission, but we see the rest of the verse in verse 7. Look there. It says, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Again, James shows us the three enemies. We talked about that last week when it talked about the unnatural and the enemy and the world and the wisdom in chapter 3. The wisdom of the world. We see in the beginning verses, what? The flesh, the passions that wage war within. Then we see the world. And those who love the world are enemies of God. And then we see here the enemy, the devil. See, before the devil was cast down from heaven, the word of God says he was an angel. Why was he cast down? Ezekiel 28, 17, talking about the devil and his followers, says, Your heart was proud because of your beauty. You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. I cast you to the ground. See, the enemy had a prideful heart. And the enemy's goal was for you to have the same heart as his. That you would be the ruler of your life. That you would receive the attention that you feel like you deserve. And so we have an enemy, an ancient enemy, who knows you, who studies you, who's seen your hurt, who's seen your trauma, and he is prowling like a lion, looking to devour you. But what does it say? If we resist him, if we resist him, what he will flee from you. That the same God who casted him down from heaven, down, he will cast the enemy from your life away when you submit to God and you resist the enemy. It's promised. There's another promise we see in verse 8. It says, draw near to God. And he will draw near to you. Don't miss the beauty of these words here. Yes, there is this submission to God. But there is a relational closeness that God desires with us. That he wants to be our friend, our heavenly Father. That if we draw near to him, he'll draw near to us. Is that your desire? Even now you can just be praying that in your mind and your heart, God, I want to draw near to you. And if you mean that in faith, the promise is He will draw near to us. But here's the thing: we cannot draw near to God with filthy hands and a filthy heart. Look, it says he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. See, when our hands are dirty physically, we wash them with water. But what do we do when our hearts are dirty? There's nothing we can do. It is only through Christ and our confession of our sins, 1 John 1 9. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That the way we can have clean hands and clean hearts is our confession of our sins and the sacrifice of Christ for us. And we confess in humility. James is saying, it is your dirty hands and hearts that are causing the battles around you. Look at verse 9. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. It is a humble heart that realizes the weight of sin against God. See the devil, he wants you to be flippant about your sin. He wants you to be indifferent, not care. That your sin is not that much of it's it's not a big deal. But humility is a true sign of repentance. James is saying that what we have to see here is it is better to mourn now over our sin than to mourn for all eternity separated from God. An enemy wants you to be silent. Why? Because these things are these things are signs of humility, aren't they? Crying, weeping, mourning, postrating. It's a sign of saying, everything isn't alright. I need help, I can't do it. And the flesh and the enemy wants to tell you the opposite. Everything's okay. No one needs to know. Keep it to yourself. You'll get over it eventually. I just don't want us to miss it. We don't miss what it means. That we can be an enemy of God. And when we see the weight and the glory of who God is and our sin against the holy God, it will break our heart. And we see that we see that in the history of revivals. You look at the the great awakenings or these m-these movements of God, and they all start with brokenness of sin. With humility. Verse 10. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you. And if you humble yourself, He will lift you up in the proper time. Last point. How can God heal the wars within us that creates wars around us? Entrust judgment to the Lord. Look at verse 11 and 12. Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law, but a judge. There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor? James goes back to the problem of the beginning that we saw in the beginning of the chapter, the fights, the quarrels. He says, Do not speak evil to one another. He says, Don't judge one another. One thing we have to make sure we understand is there is a proper and a biblical way to judge and encourage our brothers and sisters in Christ. There are passages that talk about this, that, but they were judging wrongly. They were putting themselves above the law. They were the ones who are taking the judgment seat that belongs to God. That's what James is saying in verse 12. He says there's one lawgiver and one judge, and it's not you. What he's saying is what you've done is you've elevated yourselves. You've taken this seat, this prideful position, the seat above that does not belong to you. And you're judging others, you're criticizing others. That's what you think you're doing is good and righteous, but in reality, in the heart, there is pride and deceit. Humility is entrusting the true judge who is God. That even when we're offended by others, even when we're hurt by others, rather than seeking revenge and retribution, we say that's God's job. That's God's job. And we respond in humility, we respond in grace. So how can God heal the wars within us that creates wars around us, expose inward passions, examine our worldly pursuits, embrace a humble posture and trust and judgment to the Lord. I'll ask the band to come up as as we begin to close. I just go back to that first verse we looked at, John 13, 35. By this all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. We live in a broken world. And we see that. As we think about the sulfur springs community that we serve, there's so much brokenness, there's so much abuse and abandonment and hurt, things that children have seen or have things that have been said to them that should never have been said, homes of conflict and tension. And can you imagine someone who is walking through that, who is facing that in their homes, and they come to the one place expecting hope and peace, but they find the same wars. That's what James is talking about here. And it can't be like that among us. That when they come into this place, they would see love and care of what humility looks like. I think of Philippians. This is it on the screens, Philippians chapter 2. Philippians 2. Listen to this. It says, Verse 4, let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interest of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus. How? How are we to do that? In our flesh, it is so natural to think about me and myself and what I want and what this person's done to me and it's hurt me and what I deserve and what I desire and what I demand. How can I put the interests of others before my own? How can I have the mind of Christ? Look what Paul does in the following verses. He points to Jesus. He says, Who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God as a thing to be grasped. But he emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of man. It's saying, though Jesus had equality with the Father, with God, he emptied himself. And he came down with flesh. Becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. God hung on the cross half naked in shame because of his love. And look what it says. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name. So that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. You see, how can we have humility? We look to Christ. We look to Christ, the perfect example of the one person who did not have to be humble. Was humble. What would this church look like if we all adopted that mindset? Rather saying, This is what I deserve. Saying I deserve nothing. I deserve hell. I can give grace to others. I could serve others. Or it's not about what others need, what my husband or what my children or what my spouse or what my friend or what my first church needs to do for me. No, it's how can I serve? How can I love? How can I put myself in the lowest place as Christ did? Let's pray, dear Jesus. Lord, I just pray, look into our hearts, Lord, where there is wars within us. God, we humble ourselves. Lord, I pray for a true heart of mourning and repentance for our sin, a strong realization of what it means to be an enemy of you. Say, God, I need you. There's been so much conflict around me, so much tension and wars within me. Heal my heart. I humble myself. God, I need you. I've been trying to do it on my own, and I'm done. I need you. God help us. Come, Holy Spirit, have this moment. God, would we not be a church known for division and conflict, but love? God, there will be moments where we will hurt one another. It's just the reality of being a human. But God, I pray we would always extend grace and kindness and forgiveness and mercy, not in our own strength, but because of you, Lord Jesus, within us. That the world would look at this. To their eyes, small and insignificant church, but they would see not conflict, but Christ. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Will we stand in this moment? Again, this is a moment to respond to the word of God. So maybe you're in here and you feel, and maybe you know that you're an enemy of God. You've never truly turned from your sins and trusted in Christ alone, the Savior, who died and rose again and has and confessed them as your Lord. You can come down and do that. We'll have a moment when in worship where you can come and you can respond. You can do that. Or if you just need to come and you're a follower of Christ, but there's been wars in your heart. Wars of pride, ambition, envy, lust, and you want to come and just pray or have someone pray over you, you can do that. Can we respond in worship and humility at the God, the one God who is worthy of it all? And sing in worship.