Battle of Desires
PLCF Sunday Service 5/5/2024
Battle of Desires | James 4:1-4 (NIV)
To Live What We Believe
James 1:22, 27 (NLT), 2:26 (NIV)
22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says… 27 Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you… As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.
• Kindness and Holiness
INTRODUCTION
James 3:13-16 (NLT)
13 If you are wise and understand God’s ways, prove it by living an honorable life, doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom. 14 But if you are bitterly jealous and there is selfish ambition in your heart, don’t cover up the truth with boasting and lying. 15 For jealousy and selfishness are not God’s kind of wisdom. Such things are earthly, unspiritual, and demonic. 16 For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind.
• All members should feel that they belong to a family that genuinely cares for and loves them.
LESSON
James 4:1-2a (NIV)
1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight.
Galatians 5:16-17 (NIV)
16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.
• Our lustful desire is the culprit, but it is not an excuse. We need to be intentional.
James 4:2a (NIV)
2a You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight.
• You desire but do not have, so you kill.
You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight.
“I am jealous/envy others because God seems to bless others more than me.”
James 4:2b-3 (NIV)
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.
James 4:4 (NIV)
4 You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.
• And yet, James says, you claim to be God’s people! That is spiritual adultery. Married to God, but having a long-running affair with ‘the world’. God longs for exclusive friendship with all those who are made in his image. (Wright)
• 1 John 2:15-16 (NIV)
15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. 16 For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world.
APPLICATION
Galatians 5:16-18 (NIV)
16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
Pacific Lighthouse Christian Fellowship
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