Sunday message · James, Unlearning Religion series
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Message Summary
Continuing through the book of James, Pastor Phillip Santillan admits that James 4:1–3 is less about unlearning religion than about the everyday rhythms of life, specifically conflict. James asks what causes the quarrels and fights among us. The question seems to have as many answers as there are people, but James points to one source: the evil desires at war within us. Thinking of his own arguments, Phil confesses he wants to tell James the problem starts with the other person. James insists that conflict always begins inside of us.
You want what you don’t have, James says, so you scheme and kill to get it. Writing to believers, James is using hyperbole, but Phil notes how often people kill relationships to get what they want: parents who drive children away because they won’t be what the parents want, or people who belittle and shame others until they have no confidence left. We hurt those closest to us most because they are the easiest targets, and the whole time we tell ourselves it is them. James would say it is us.
Borrowing from another pastor, Phil offers a phrase for any conflict: “You know what the problem is? I’m not getting what I want.” In years of meeting with couples in conflict, he has never heard one say it. Asked to draw their slice of the conflict pie, most people draw a sliver or none at all, because owning part of the problem means losing the argument, our leverage and our story. Yet the moment someone owns a part, the temperature drops. Even a broken promise comes down to not getting what we want, and as he tells his kids, fairness ended in the Garden of Eden.
Anyone can benefit from that principle, Phil says, but for followers of Christ the next words are non-negotiable: you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it. Before an argument, did it occur to us to kneel and ask God to align our desires with his? Phil admits he has failed at this even in the past month, yet many know that things go better when they pray first, because God’s Spirit gives a right perspective. James also warns that even when we ask, our motives can be wrong, seeking only our own pleasure.
So Phil urges us to ask God what he wants from us, not with a quick prayer in the garage or a carefully planned approach that still ignores God, but by letting him examine our hearts and reveal what we really want from others. Will we be okay if God says no? Can we own our part and stop handing others the pressure to make us happy? He asks who in our lives is suffering because we are not getting what we want, and describes the ideal as “a pause before every storm,” asking God to work in us before we try to squeeze from others what only he can give. He closes by inviting everyone to try the phrase for a week.