Introduction
Are you willing to let the gospel confront the hidden desires beneath your conflicts, and reshape the way you pursue pleasure, peace, and friendship? The central teaching of James 4:1–10 is this: quarrels and fights in the church grow from passions at war within us, and the cure is turning from friendship with the world to humble, grace-filled friendship with God.
James is not shifting topics randomly. He’s continuing the flow from James 3, where we learned that true wisdom from above is “pure…peaceable…open to reason” and produces “a harvest of righteousness…sown in peace by those who make peace” (James 3:17–18). Now James gets painfully practical: Why, then, are we still fighting?
Main Points
Are you willing to let the gospel confront the hidden desires beneath your conflicts, and reshape the way you pursue pleasure, peace, and friendship? The central teaching of James 4:1–10 is this: quarrels and fights in the church grow from passions at war within us, and the cure is turning from friendship with the world to humble, grace-filled friendship with God.
James is not shifting topics randomly. He’s continuing the flow from James 3, where we learned that true wisdom from above is “pure…peaceable…open to reason” and produces “a harvest of righteousness…sown in peace by those who make peace” (James 3:17–18). Now James gets painfully practical: Why, then, are we still fighting?
Conflicts Reveal Heart Wars
James begins with a diagnostic question: “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you?” (James 4:1). He doesn’t answer by blaming personalities, circumstances, or “those people.” He goes straight to the heart: “your passions are at war within you.”
I want you to notice the logic: the conflict between us comes from a conflict within us. What shows up in the relationship is fruit; the root is in disordered desires. Like Proverbs describes, some of us can become like fuel on a fire: “As charcoal to hot embers and wood to fire, so is a quarrelsome man for kindling strife” (Proverbs 26:21). James 3 already warned that the tongue can be a fire; now James 4 shows what lights the match, unsubmitted passions.
So I’m asking you to slow down the next time you feel that surge: What is my heart insisting on having right now? What desire feels non-negotiable? That’s where discipleship begins.
Disordered Desires Escalate Into Sin
James describes a grim progression: “You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel” (James 4:2). He’s showing how unchecked desire metastasizes.
Even if you’ve never committed literal murder, Jesus taught us that anger and contempt are heart-level violence (implied from Matthew 5:21–22). The point is that when I believe, “I must have this,” and someone blocks me, conflict becomes inevitable. Desire becomes demand. Demand becomes entitlement. Entitlement becomes rage or manipulation.
James also exposes why we’re so frustrated: “You do not have, because you do not ask” (James 4:2). And even when we ask, “you ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions” (James 4:3). In other words, prayerlessness and self-centered prayer are both symptoms of the same disease: I’m using God, not loving God.
A discipleship practice I want you to adopt is this: before you argue, pray honestly, and ask God to reveal whether your request is worship or consumption.
Pursue Pleasure With Gratitude, Not Entitlement
This passage can sound like God is against pleasure, but that’s not what James is teaching. Pleasure isn’t the enemy; twisted pleasure is. James uses the word for “passions” that connects to hedonistic cravings, pleasure pursued as ultimate, demanded as necessary, and used selfishly.
God created pleasure. When you enjoy a beautiful day, a meal with friends, or simple daily mercies like hot water in the shower, the right response is not guilt, it’s gratitude. I want you to learn to say, from the heart, “Thank you, God,” because you’re receiving gifts as gifts, not as rights.
But worldliness turns gifts into fuel for self. It says, “I deserve this,” or “I need this to be okay,” or “How dare you get what I wanted.” That’s exactly the soil where quarrels grow.
So here’s a practical discipleship step: practice gratitude before consumption. Train yourself to receive pleasures as pointers to God, not replacements for God.
Worldliness Is Rival Loyalty, Not “Normal Life”
James delivers a hard word: “You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?” (James 4:4). He’s not scolding them for living in the physical world. Jesus explicitly prayed not that we’d be taken out of the world, but sanctified and sent within it (John 17, implied).
So what is “the world” here? It’s not simply material things or everyday activities. If we define worldliness as “ordinary life rather than spiritual life,” we’ll end up arguing endlessly over cultural preferences and man-made rules.
A better biblical definition is this: worldliness is a system of values and desires organized in opposition to God, His revelation and His kingly authority. It’s a rival kingdom.
That’s why James uses relational language: “adulterous.” The shock is intentional. To chase the world’s values while claiming God is like spiritual unfaithfulness, receiving God’s gifts while giving your heart to another master.
Discipleship application: ask, “Whose approval am I chasing? Whose kingdom am I serving with this choice?” That question cuts through the confusion.
God’s Jealous Love Meets Us With More Grace
James doesn’t expose us to crush us. He exposes us to heal us. He asks, “Do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, ‘He yearns jealously over the Spirit that he has made to dwell in us’?” (James 4:5). God’s jealousy is not petty insecurity; it’s covenant love. He will not casually share your worship with idols because He loves you too much to let you be destroyed by them.
Then comes one of the most hope-filled lines in the passage: “But he gives more grace” (James 4:6). The cure isn’t willpower. The cure isn’t winning arguments. The cure isn’t proving you’re right. The cure is grace, received through humility.
That’s why James immediately quotes: “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6). Pride isn’t just arrogance; it’s self-rule. Humility is surrender, agreeing with God about God and agreeing with God about me.
The Path Back: Submit, Resist, Draw Near
James finishes with a clear repentance pathway (James 4:7–10). This is discipleship in verbs:
- “Submit yourselves therefore to God” (v. 7): stop negotiating with Him; come under His authority.
- “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (v. 7): don’t treat temptation like a conversation; treat it like an enemy.
- “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you” (v. 8): you’re not being told to earn God’s nearness; you’re being invited to return to it.
- “Cleanse your hands…purify your hearts” (v. 8): deal with outward behaviors and inward loyalties.
- “Be wretched and mourn and weep” (v. 9): let sin be as serious as it is, don’t laugh off what nailed Christ to the cross.
- “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you” (v. 10): God’s way up is always down.
This is not a call to perform sadness. It’s a call to honest repentance that leads to real joy, because God Himself lifts the humble.
Conclusion
James is giving us the cure for common worldliness: stop treating your desires as demands, stop offering your heart to the world’s rival kingdom, and return to God with humility, because He gives more grace.
If you want peace in your relationships, don’t start by trying to control other people. Start by letting God confront what’s at war within you. When the root changes, the fruit changes. And when we become peacemakers shaped by wisdom from above, a “harvest of righteousness” grows in the community (James 3:18).
Father, thank You for Your living Word. Search us and show us the passions that are at war within us, the desires we’ve turned into demands and the pleasures we’ve pursued without gratitude. Forgive us for spiritual adultery, for giving our loyalty to the world’s values while claiming Your name.
Thank You that You give more grace. Make us humble, not defensive. Teach us to submit to You, to resist the devil, and to draw near to You with clean hands and pure hearts. Replace our quarrels with peace, our entitlement with gratitude, and our pride with repentance.
Exalt Your Son in our lives and in our church, and produce in us a harvest of righteousness sown in peace. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Conclusion
James is giving us the cure for common worldliness: stop treating your desires as demands, stop offering your heart to the world’s rival kingdom, and return to God with humility, because He gives more grace.
If you want peace in your relationships, don’t start by trying to control other people. Start by letting God confront what’s at war within you. When the root changes, the fruit changes. And when we become peacemakers shaped by wisdom from above, a “harvest of righteousness” grows in the community (James 3:18).
Closing Prayer
Father, thank You for Your living Word. Search us and show us the passions that are at war within us, the desires we’ve turned into demands and the pleasures we’ve pursued without gratitude. Forgive us for spiritual adultery, for giving our loyalty to the world’s values while claiming Your name.
Thank You that You give more grace. Make us humble, not defensive. Teach us to submit to You, to resist the devil, and to draw near to You with clean hands and pure hearts. Replace our quarrels with peace, our entitlement with gratitude, and our pride with repentance.
Exalt Your Son in our lives and in our church, and produce in us a harvest of righteousness sown in peace. In Jesus’ name, amen.