WHY ARE YOU FIGHTING AGAINST ONE ANOTHER?

(Message by Tanny Keng)

1. If My Kingdom Were Of This World, My Servants Would Fight...

John 18:36 

36 Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here.”

2. Why Are You Fighting Against One Another?

a) You have selfish desires

James 4:1-10  

1 Do you know where your fights and arguments come from? They come from the selfish desires that war within you. 2 You want things, but you do not have them. So you are ready to kill and are jealous of other people, but you still cannot get what you want. So you argue and fight. You do not get what you want, because you do not ask God. 3 Or when you ask, you do not receive because the reason you ask is wrong. You want things so you can use them for your own pleasures.

4 So, you are not loyal to God! You should know that loving the world is the same as hating God. Anyone who wants to be a friend of the world becomes God’s enemy. 5 Do you think the Scripture means nothing that says, “The Spirit that God made to live in us wants us for himself alone”? 6 But God gives us even more grace, as the Scripture says,

“God is against the proud,

    but he gives grace to the humble.” Proverbs 3:34

7 So give yourselves completely to God. Stand against the devil, and the devil will run from you. 8 Come near to God, and God will come near to you. You sinners, clean sin out of your lives. You who are trying to follow God and the world at the same time, make your thinking pure. 9 Be sad, cry, and weep! Change your laughter into crying and your joy into sadness. 10 Humble yourself in the Lord’s presence, and he will honor you.

b) You are already defeated  

1 Corinthians 6:1-11

1 When you have something against another Christian, how can you bring yourself to go before judges who are not right with God? Why do you not let God’s people decide who is right? 2 Surely you know that God’s people will judge the world. So if you are to judge the world, are you not able to judge small cases as well? 3 You know that in the future we will judge angels, so surely we can judge the ordinary things of this life. 4 If you have ordinary cases that must be judged, are you going to appoint people as judges who mean nothing to the church? 5 I say this to shame you. Surely there is someone among you wise enough to judge a complaint between believers. 6 But now one believer goes to court against another believer—and you do this in front of unbelievers!

7 The fact that you have lawsuits against each other shows that you are already defeated. Why not let yourselves be wronged? Why not let yourselves be cheated? 8 But you yourselves do wrong and cheat, and you do this to other believers!

9 - 10 Surely you know that the people who do wrong will not inherit God’s kingdom. Do not be fooled. Those who sin sexually, worship idols, take part in adultery, those who are male prostitutes, or men who have sexual relations with other men, those who steal, are greedy, get drunk, lie about others, or rob—these people will not inherit God’s kingdom. 11 In the past, some of you were like that, but you were washed clean. You were made holy, and you were made right with God in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

c) You are acting like people of the world

1 Corinthians 3:1-23

1 Brothers and sisters, in the past I could not talk to you as I talk to spiritual people. I had to talk to you as I would to people without the Spirit—babies in Christ. 2 The teaching I gave you was like milk, not solid food, because you were not able to take solid food. And even now you are not ready. 3 You are still not spiritual, because there is jealousy and quarreling among you, and this shows that you are not spiritual. You are acting like people of the world. 4 One of you says, “I belong to Paul,” and another says, “I belong to Apollos.” When you say things like this, you are acting like people of the world.

5 Is Apollos important? No! Is Paul important? No! We are only servants of God who helped you believe. Each one of us did the work God gave us to do. 6 I planted the seed, and Apollos watered it. But God is the One who made it grow. 7 So the one who plants is not important, and the one who waters is not important. Only God, who makes things grow, is important. 8 The one who plants and the one who waters have the same purpose, and each will be rewarded for his own work. 9 We are God’s workers, working together; you are like God’s farm, God’s house.

10 Using the gift God gave me, I laid the foundation of that house like an expert builder. Others are building on that foundation, but all people should be careful how they build on it. 11 The foundation that has already been laid is Jesus Christ, and no one can lay down any other foundation. 12 But if people build on that foundation, using gold, silver, jewels, wood, grass, or straw, 13 their work will be clearly seen, because the Day of Judgment will make it visible. That Day will appear with fire, and the fire will test everyone’s work to show what sort of work it was. 14 If the building that has been put on the foundation still stands, the builder will get a reward. 15 But if the building is burned up, the builder will suffer loss. The builder will be saved, but it will be as one who escaped from a fire.

16 Don’t you know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? 17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person, because God’s temple is holy and you are that temple.

18 Do not fool yourselves. If you think you are wise in this world, you should become a fool so that you can become truly wise, 19 because the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. It is written in the Scriptures, “He catches those who are wise in their own clever traps.” 20 It is also written in the Scriptures, “The Lord knows what wise people think. He knows their thoughts are just a puff of wind.” 21 So you should not brag about human leaders. All things belong to you: 22 Paul, Apollos, and Peter; the world, life, death, the present, and the future—all these belong to you. 23 And you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.

The End ...