Humility Part 1: The Battle with the Flesh
James 4:1-3
"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. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you do ask, you do not receive because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures..”
Building your humility is the sixth of our ten faith building tests in the book of James. Humility is often associated with words such as gentleness, meekness and patience but the Greek word translated as humility here (vs. 10) is the same word used in James 1:9 to describe a person living in physical poverty. Just as a person can suffer from physical poverty, they can also suffer from spiritual poverty which is the context of our text here. The heart of the believer needs a strong relationship with the Lord. When that relationship is strained it creates a void, an empty space, in the heart. This is spiritual poverty and the danger in allowing ungodly things to fill the void. James gives us a description of spiritual poverty and the need for humility to restore a healthy relationship with God.
When the believer strays away from God it leaves them in a state of spiritual poverty. Instead of a life filled and directed by the Spirit of God they find themselves seeking fulfillment in the world. Selfish desires seek to become satisfied when this happens. Just as godly faith produces good works in our lives, selfishness and pride produce ungodly works.
James begins with the question: “What causes fights and quarrels among you?” How can there be Fighting and quarreling in the church? How can James suggest believers would do such a thing? People want to believe there is only goodness and peacefulness in the church but think about it for a moment. Who attends church? There are saved and unsaved people coming to church. There are mature believers and immature believers, faithful people and unfaithful people, those who are humble and those seeking selfish desires. All types of people are in the same church at the same time and the results can at times lead to fighting and quarrels.
James tells us there is a battle of desires within us. This is a battle between the redeemed spirit and the sin-poisoned flesh. As long as we live on the earth, we still have the a physical body stained by sin. We still have desires within us that battle against the things of God. The first detail of the battle is we “kill and covet.” You may be thinking, “We don’t have people murdering each other in our church!” but there is more to this phrase than the physical act of murder. The key to understanding the passage is to keep the words “kill and covet” together.
To covet is to desire something you cannot have. These covetous desires begin to create bitterness and anger in your towards another person. The end result is a hatred so intense it resembles the same attitude of murderous thoughts. 1 John 3:15 tells us, “Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer…” Jesus also taught this concept in Matthew 5:21-22 where he compared murder and contempt for a brother in the same way. The sinful flesh fuels the desire to kill and covet because “you cannot have what you want.” The idea here is the appetite of the flesh can never be satisfied and will become more intense when seeking things it cannot have.
How is your humility?
