28 Jun James #9 – Jesus’ Tongue, Your Tongue (James 3:1-12)
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– So how many you took the bus to school and if you take the bus, did you hate the bus? I hated taking the bus to school. In fact, when I started high school, went to the big high school and I was a freshman and I knew I’m gonna have to take the bus to school. Just absolutely dreaded taking the bus for all of the obvious reasons. As soon as I found some guys who lived near me that would give me a ride. I started bumming a ride to school, but there was one day I was really glad to take the bus to school. It was one of those weird days at my school and I didn’t go to the best school. But early on in the day, there was sort of chatter among the student body and people were talking there might be a fight after school. Okay. And then as the day went on around lunch it was there’s going to be a fight after school, on the front lawn. So it’s all set. And then as we’re approaching the end of the day, it was there’s gonna be a fight after school, on the front lawn. What side are you on? I was like, wow, this has moved from a conflict to a fight to what looks like it’s gonna be a riot. And I had to go home. So I had to get on the bus. So I’m sitting on the bus and you’re high and elevated. So you kind of get to see what’s going on. And as we pull along the side of the school off to the left is the green grass. And there’s a few dozen kids just beating on one another. And then hundreds of kids watching, trying to figure whether or not they’re gonna beat on one another. And then on the right side of the bus is the school parking lot. And there’s there’s cars driving into the parking lot from, I don’t know where and people piling out of the cars and then I see the trunk open and people are grabbing bats and clubs and running to the front lawn of the school. And people are absolutely assaulting one another. And this is the only time I’m really glad to be on the bus. And so I’m on the bus and the bus is driving away and its like, what is, what is happening in my high school? People were hurt. The cops did show up, some were arrested and it was subdued before anyone was killed. But it was one of those very surreal days. I remember as a teenage kid, a conflict becomes a fight, becomes a riot that’s gonna end up with somebody really getting hurt or even killed unless others get involved. And the truth is that this kind of thing it happens all the time. It happens physically where people get in conflict. It happens digitally where they invite others to join in on the riot. And it’s part of being sinners in a sinful and fallen world. Pastor James today, as we study the book of James he’s really talking about conflict. And what he doesn’t say is there’s a way to live your life. So you never have any conflict. He knows that when you’re dealing with sinners in a sinful and fallen world and Satan and demons wanting to empower all kinds of conflict that you’re going to have conflict somebody is gonna get hurt. Somebody is gonna fail. Somebody is gonna misunderstand. Somebody is gonna get bitter. Somebody’s gonna get angry. It’s going to happen. And what pastor James is going to lay out for us is really that there are two options. And we’d been in the book of James for gosh, almost three months, I guess it is. And today we’re in James 4:1-12 and we’re looking at Jesus’ conflicts and your conflicts or I could even say our conflicts and option number one pastor James is gonna tell us is worldly conflict. The second option is gonna give us is godly conflict. He doesn’t give us a third option, no conflict. And some of you, you wish there was a third option that you could live your life in such a way that there was no conflict but there was, and there is, and there will be. The question is what do we do with it? And when James starts talking he’s talking from deep, profound, personal experience. He, as the little brother of Jesus would have seen all the conflict in Jesus’ life. He would have seen the people who opposed him, who mistreated him, who slandered him who ultimately arrested him, who ultimately crucified him. And so he saw worldly conflict launched on his big brother, Jesus. And then he saw Jesus respond in a perfect, gracious, godly, truthful, helpful way. And James himself is aware of conflict. He’s the pastor at a church in Jerusalem. It’s kind of the mothership. It’s a big church, lots of influence. Anytime there’s a doctrinal controversy. People come to Jerusalem and they hammer it out. So they’ve got theological conflict. Anytime they need to deal with a pastor or a leader at one of the churches, the issue gets taken care of in Jerusalem. That’s why Paul and others traveled to Jerusalem to meet with James and also Peter and their ruling from Jerusalem is pastors. So there’s a lot of conflict around Jerusalem. Even if you go to Jerusalem today, anybody been to Jerusalem, there’s still a lot of conflict there. It’s one of the most conflicted places on the earth. And it’s been that way for a very long time. And there’s James pastoring, a church of Christians in the middle of what was still predominantly Jewish city of Jerusalem. And there’s a ton of conflict. And what’s interesting is that James ultimately would die because of conflict that led to a fight that led to a riot. History tells us that he was a pastor and there were some who really rose up against him. And they wanted him to stop preaching and teaching about Jesus and leading the church. And ultimately a riot got together and they took Jesus or James rather as they did Jesus and they seized him and that they took him to the top of the temple and they threw him off and he didn’t die. So then the riot encircled him and beat him and murdered him. So when we read about conflict from pastor James he’s a guy who’s seen it firsthand in his brother and he’s experienced it firsthand in his ministry and he’s lived it firsthand in his life. And what he tells us is there’s really only two options when you have a conflict to handle it in a worldly way or to handle it in a godly way. And so he begins with option number one, a worldly conflict. And here’s what pastor James has to say what causes quarrels and causes fights among you. This is his thesis statement. This is his question. This is the big idea. The remainder of what he’s going to say in these 12 verses really is the answering of this question. How many of you have ever asked this question? Maybe you see a couple and they’re fighting. You say, why are they fighting? Why are the adversaries and enemies? You see a family that’s fractured and conflicted and separated, you ask what happened there? You see people used to be business partners and all of a sudden it gets very contentious and acrimonious. You see people who were friends and all of a sudden their enemies. And we all asked this question in varying ways of various times. What causes that? What causes that? And if you are one side, they’d say, “well they said this and they did that.” And then you ask the other side and they’d say, “no, no, no. “They said this and they did that.” And here’s pastor James pulling back and saying I’ve got a unique perspective. I’m not the one who’s in the middle of some of these conflicts pastor James is saying. So I’m able to see some themes and some threads. So I wanna ask this question, pastor James says, what causes the fights and grow? What’s underlying it. What’s the root, is it not this? He’s sort of inviting us. Come on, consider this that your passions are at war within you. That before there’s a problem out there there’s a problem in here. You desire new to not have so you murder, right? And conflict unresolved. It escalates toward injury or even death. You covet and cannot obtain. So you fight and you do not have, because you do not ask. He continues. You ask and you to not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people. There’s a rebuke there from pastor James. You do not know. Do you not know rather that friendship with the world is enmity with God. Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. When he’s talking about the world here in worldly conflict let me give you a simple definition of what it means to be worldly. Worldly means that things are put together in a way that Satan likes that’s all that it means. It means that things are put together, organized brought together in a way that causes Satan to be glad and causes Jesus to grieve. It’s when anything is put together and Satan’s like that’s the way that I want it. And Jesus is like, that’s not the way that I want it. That bad definition is worldliness. This is our natural desires. Our natural proclivity. I don’t know about you. But one of the first things I learned when I started driving a car is if you’re on an old road that’s been traveled on for a long time and hasn’t been well maintained. You get grooves in the road. My first car was a 1956 Chevy and I had the old bias ply tires. Not even the radios couldn’t afford to get radials on it yet. And man, the bias plies would just slip right into the groove and they would get stuck in the groove. And it was hard to get out of the groove. Worldliness is like that. This is how everybody thinks. This is how everybody acts. This is where everybody travels. These are well-worn ruts in the road and it’s very easy to fall into them. And it’s very hard to get out of them. And James is gonna give us some aspects three in particular of worldly conflict. The first he says, it begins with passions. Your emotions become untethered. You’re hurt. You’re angry, you’re upset, you’re frustrated, you’re scared. Okay, true or false we’ve all been there. We’ve all been there. And we’ll all get there again. What he says is it starts internally with your emotions with your affections, with your passions. And all of a sudden your emotions are untethered and you start reacting. You start responding. I’ve done this, you’ve done this. We’ve all done this, but it starts internally. And it starts with our emotional life becoming unhealthy or untethered or unhelpful. He says, well, it also then is combined with coveting that we see someone or some group of people. And the essence of coveting is this. We want, that’s what he says we want what they have. We want what they have. They have power we want power. We’re single, they’re married. We wish we had a spouse. They’re married and have kids and we don’t have kids. We wish we had kids. They got a job. We lost a job. They got good grades, we got bad grades. They’re healthy, we’re sick. They have something that we want. And so what happens then is we want to take it from them so that we can have it or we want to take it from them so that they can’t have it and we can’t have it because if we can’t have it, they can’t have it either. And he says, you forgot to ask God for it. If you want whatever they have you shouldn’t covet them. You should ask him. And he says, and sometimes you get frustrated. We get frustrated because we did ask God. And he said, what? No. So actually what then looks like a conflict with a person is actually a conflict with God that they ask God for something and he said, yes. And we ask God for something and he said, no. So we want to have conflict with them because we’re coveters of them. We’re not accepting what God had for us. So he says, it starts with our passions. It includes covetousness. All of this is within us. And then it explodes outside of us in something that he calls a fighting and quarreling. In the original Greek that this is written in the Bible uses this word elsewhere to talk about war. Sometimes it’s used of spiritual war where Satan and demons are fighting against Jesus and God’s people and his holy angels. Sometimes it’s actually a physical war where like two armies march out and there’s bloodshed. It’s very strong language fighting and quarreling and warring. And let me submit to you there are some ways that we contribute to fighting and quarreling and warring. One is questioning the motives of another. We could see people’s actions but sometimes their motives are only seen by God. And we know this about ourselves, right? Let’s say someone comes up to you and say I know why you said that. I know why you did that because this was what was in your heart. Our first response is one. Don’t pretend that you knew my motive. You can’t read my heart but we then quickly do that to others. You know why they said this? You know why they did that? Because this is what was in their heart, this was their motive. Sometimes the fighting and the quarreling it’s contributed to by speculation. We know part of the story and we feel free to write the rest of the story. Sometimes the warring is contributed to through exaggeration. Well, that did happen. But actually you added a little to it. You put some things in there that weren’t entirely true. So it took what was true and then caused it to be something that was not entirely accurate. Number four, sometimes we contribute to the warring through half-truths. We tell half the story, not the whole story. And I don’t know about you. I think we’re all prone to this. I certainly am. If it makes me look bad those tend to be the facts that I conveniently overlook her omit in the story. And in addition, what contributes to fighting and quarreling is gossip. This is where we talk about someone rather than to someone or we’re looking for people to join our side of the fight. Not trying to reconcile but to have victory and all of this combines. And I would submit to you that in a digital age, it’s more complicated. It used to be, you lived on a farm miles away from your neighbor and you’d have to really work pretty hard to get a away or a riot. Today it’s not so hard it’s a lot easier. This is what happens when there’s worldly conflict. Nobody wins everybody loses Satan dances and Jesus sweeps. And he has this amazing line. Just give me the next slide. Whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself what an enemy of God. And so what he’s saying is if we decide to have worldly conflict we think we’re fighting our enemy but we’re really fighting God because God doesn’t want us to be fighting. Or if we are fighting, he doesn’t want us to be fighting like that. Tell you a story. There’s a tradition in some tribal societies called spearing. And here’s what happens. One tribe lives over here, one tribe lives over here. And at some point there’s conflict between the tribes and one tribal member harms or kills the member of another tribe, usually in a battle with a spear. And then the tribe that had someone die. They wait and they plan to send one of their members into the other tribe, usually more quietly and secretly and stab one of the members of that tribe eye for an eye tooth for tooth, you killed one of ours. We kill one of yours. And then they go back to their tribe and they’re revered as a hero. And then the other tribe puts together a plan that one of their soldiers is going to when they’re vulnerable, sneak over to the other tribe and spear one of their members. And this goes on and on and on for years for decades for generations and the body count just goes up. And if Jesus were to show up, the first thing that both tribes would wanna do is say, “Here’s who they killed. Okay, go over this, okay. “No, here’s who they killed.” “Okay, okay.” “Here’s who they killed.” “Okay, okay.” “Here’s who,” you could do that forever. Jesus would show up and say, “You don’t kill them and you don’t kill them “all die for both of you stick the spear in me.” And the Lord, Jesus goes to the cross and he dies for the sin. They spear him so that there can be peace and reconciliation. Instead of worldly conflict. Worldly conflict is where people spear one another. And don’t rejoice in the fact that Jesus was spirit for them both. So they keep spearing one another. And the result is they forget that Jesus said it’s finished. That’s worldly conflict. Okay, I’m guilty of it. Anybody else guilty of it in your life? Is there an option? Well, there’s worldly conflict and there’s godly conflict. And before I get into godly conflict, let me submit to you that some of us want a third option and that is no conflict. You are a sinner. I’m a sinner. We’re all sinners. Everybody we meet is a sinner. We’re in a fallen sinful world. There’s gonna be conflict. Amen. Some of you in an effort to not have conflict what you will do is you will you’ll retreat and you’ll isolate and say “if I don’t have relationships that I won’t have conflict.” This is where people grow up in a home and they see so much conflict between the parents that they never wanna get married. Right. This is where people grow up in a home that has so conflict. They don’t even want to have a family. This is where someone feels betrayed by a close friend. So they realize, you know what? Friendship equals conflict equals pain. I’m going to isolate. I’m going to retreat. I will not leave an opportunity to be hurt. Nobody’s gonna spear me because nobody’s gonna be close enough to get the spear in me. The result is we withdraw emotionally. We withdraw relationally. This is where someone was hurt in the church. And all of a sudden they leave and they never go to church again, no church. The only way to avoid conflict is to avoid relationship. If your goal is I’m not gonna have any conflicts then what you’re saying is I’m not gonna have any relationships. Part of the cost of a relationship is conflict. This is true with coworkers. This is true spouse. This is true with friends. This is true with people in your community group, your redemption group. This is inevitable and the more relationships you have the more conflict you will have. So let me submit to you that the goal is not to avoid all conflict, but to have godly conflict. If and when that opportunity is set before you. And so pastor James proceeds from worldly conflict which is the well-worn rather than the road to godly conflict, which is an entirely different path. Worldly conflict is natural. Godly conflict is supernatural. Worldly conflict is easy. Supernatural conflict is hard. Here’s what he says about godly conflict, James 4:5-10 “or do you suppose it is no purpose that the scripture says” and this isn’t a direct quote of any scripture. This is him pulling a theme from all of scripture. “He yearns jealously “over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us “but he gives more grace.” Therefore it says, and he quotes Proverbs. And Peter quotes this verse as well. “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble “submit yourselves therefore to God resist the devil.” A lot of people who are worldly conflict they forget there is a devil. “Resist the devil and he will flee from you draw near to God “and he will draw near to you cleanse your hands you sinners “purify your hearts you double-minded “be wretched and mourn and weep. “Let your laughter be turned to mourning.” Sometimes if people are having worldly conflict they’re joyful, they’re celebrating, they’re gloating they’re laughing and God is weeping. “Let your laughter be turned to mourning “and your joy to gloom humble yourselves before the Lord “and he will exalt you.” But when it came to worldly conflict pastor James said, it’s very simple. You get emotional. You’re frustrated with somebody. They have something that you want. And so you go to war to get it. He’s gonna give us a lot more things to enjoy and appreciate and examine when it comes to godly conflict he’s gonna say, first of all, the holy spirit is in you. He uses this language, the spirit that he has made to dwell in us. What he’s saying is we don’t need to just be governed by our emotions. We can be governed by the indwelling person presence and power of the holy spirit. If you look at the life of Jesus and you ask yourself, how did he do it? And if you’ve not read the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the biographical sketches of Jesus. If you do read them, true or false for those of you that have, you’ll see Jesus has conflict. And we all agree on that. Jesus had a ton of conflict. Some of it was private. Some of it was public. Some of it was with one person. Some of it was with a mob, right? How did Jesus have godly conflict? How did he do it? Jesus never had worldly conflict. He had conflict, but he never had worldly conflict. I’ve sure I’ve had worldly conflict. You’ve had worldly conflict. Jesus, no worldly. How did he do that? By the power of the holy spirit that God became a man that in addition to his divinity he added humanity and he walked humbly on the earth. He walked as we must walk. He didn’t cheat leaning into his divinity. Instead he lived by the power of the holy spirit. So what this means is when our passions are flaming and we’re emotional, whatever the case may be we need to remember that the holy spirit is in us and to invite and to ask the holy spirit to govern our emotions and to govern our reactions. The second thing that he says that God is gracious. It says he gives more grace. Now what happens in worldly conflict? Well, it’s not the holy spirit who’s in charge and grace is not present but it says he gives more grace. So what it’s saying is when there’s a conflict God pours out. He dumps out of his bucket of grace, more grace. Grace for everyone involved, grace for both tribes that are spearing because he loves them both. So when you hear, he gives grace, don’t say, yes there’s grace for me, but no grace for them. Now there’s grace for them too. There’s grace for everyone involved. And God is saying, I love everyone. I wanna help everyone. I wanna serve everyone, right? Maybe everybody else in the high school picked aside and is gonna have their riot. I’m trying to serve and love and help everyone because I’m not on anyone’s side. And no one’s on my side. When people are having a conflict, they want grace but they’re prone not to give grace. And God’s not like that. The third thing he says is choose humility. He quotes Proverbs 3:34. It says, “God opposes the proud “but gives grace to the humble.” Worldly conflict is marked by pride and godly conflict is marked by humility. Four things I would say on pride. Pride says, I am more important. How do I know that? ‘Cause I’ve done that. Pride says I am better. Pride says I am right. And pride says I will win. It’s pride. Okay. What’s consistent there is. It’s about me. It’s not about we it’s about me. It’s not about we. It’s not we need to win. I need to win. It’s not he needs to win. It’s I need to win. Friends this happens again in friendships it happens in marriages. It happens in families. It happens in businesses. And since pastor James is talking about it it happens in churches. Again, pride is a well-worn groove say we’ve even found a way to make it noble. Self-esteem. God opposes the proud he says. And he gives grace to the humble. Worldly conflict is all about pride. Godly conflict requires the pursuit of humility. One author says it. Well, no one can say I’m humble, right? If I came to you today and I started my sermon, hi, my name is pastor Mark. I’ve been your pastor for 17 years. Couple of things I’d like you to know about me. First of all, I’m humble. True or false that would sort of negate my entire thesis. Right? Well a humble person wouldn’t tell us how humble they are. We can never say I’m humble. All we could say is I’m a proud person pursuing humility by the grace of God. It’s like perfection. No one could ever say I’m perfect. All we can say is I’m an imperfect person pursuing perfection by the grace of God. When it comes it’s to humility, he says that God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Here’s what humility allows us to do. Humility in the middle of a conflict allows us not just to see your sin but to see mine too. Because when our emotions and our passions get inflamed we’re so aware of how they’re wrong that we tend to overlook that we might be wrong too. Number two, humility allows us to get quieter not louder. You can tell when it’s going from a conflict to a fight to a riot because it gets louder. I mean, literally, even if it’s just two people you can tell that they’re going to have her serious riot because what happens to the volume goes up. I’m gonna win. No, I’m gonna win. I’m gonna win. I’m gonna win. It’s getting loud. Humility turns the volume down. Humility says, if you’re going to get louder I’m going to get quieter and I’m gonna invite you to get quieter so we can have a conversation that’s a little more private and doesn’t invite the whole riot to get involved. Number three humility allows us to listen more and speak less. What can I learn? What do I need to hear? What’s true in this. What’s helpful in this. It allows us to listen more and speak less. It’s interesting ’cause previously in James three he talked a lot about the tongue and he said that we’re like wild horses, right? And that God needs to get a bit in our mouth to keep us under control, particularly our speech and our tongue and our language and our communication. And what humility allows us to do is to see that as a good thing, not, I need to spit this bed out of my mouth and I need to run out of the pen and I need to be free to run passionately. And now it’s like, I need to be under control. I need to be under authority. I need to be be broken. Number four humility allows us to submit to godly authority. Shouldn’t submit to all authority. But you should submit to godly authority we all should. Humility allows us to submit to godly authority because in certain moments we want to be our own authority or what we want as victories so we ignore other authority. I mean the riot at my high school everybody knew you weren’t supposed to have a riot I mean you needed to read the manual for that. It’s like, you don’t need to hand a student a manual that says, do not call your relatives. Have them drive into the school with baseball bats to club your fellow students. You don’t need a ma, everybody knows that. But what happens when the goal becomes winning then you have to jettison and reject all authority and you may feel, we feel I’ve felt in a moment that’s a good thing, but long-term, it’s a very bad thing. This is where a husband will not listen to the leadership of the church and the way he is treating his wife is just not right. So he’s like, well “the heck with that church, I’m outta here.” Well, now what he wants is his wife to be under his authority but he doesn’t want to be under authority that means she’s in danger. Humility allows us particularly when our emotions are raging to be under authority. To be under the authority of godly people. Number four, pastor James says submit to God. Now here’s what this means. Conflict is never about winning. I wouldn’t have told you this some years ago ’cause I didn’t believe this. Conflict is never about winning it’s about worshiping. Conflict is not about winning it’s about worshiping. It’s not how can I emerge victorious in glory but it’s about what honors the Lord. What glorifies the Lord? What pleases the Lord. When he says submit yourself to God. That’s what he’s saying. Worldly conflict it’s about winning godly conflict it’s about worshiping. Number five he says to submit who or excuse me not submit you definitely don’t wanna do that. Just so you know I’m getting old and things are getting blurred. I went to the eye doctor and I said I’m having trouble reading. He said, men at your age do which was not encouraging, but was clarifying. So sometimes I read things in there blurry and he said, you need glasses. I said, I will pray about that. So pray about me and my glasses. So what I wasn’t going to tell you is submit to the devil. That was not what I was hoping to tell you because that’s not the word, but it was to my old eyes for a moment. It says to what the devil resist. And this is language of combat, okay? So when there’s a conflict, there’s a fight. But here’s the thing to remember Christian you’re not fighting the person you’re fighting the devil. This is where Paul says in Ephesians our war is not against flesh and blood. It’s not against people but against powers, principalities and spirits. When he says resist the devil this is language like a military engagement where he’s telling the soldiers don’t retreat, hold your ground. ‘Cause Satan’s going to launch an assault. This is what happens in a military campaign. The army gets together and they all march forward. And their hope is that you will retreat so that they can have victory. What he’s saying is that really behind the marching army is the enemy. You’ve got to resist them because you’re not fighting those people. Those people are captives in war. And resisting the devil means very practically he’s gonna hand you a script for worldly conflict. And he’s gonna want you to read that script. And resisting the devil says no by the grace of God, through the power of the holy spirit following the example of the Lord Jesus I wanna respond in a way that is godly, not worldly. Some things that Satan is going to do. We’ll call them tactics. He’s going to make us defensive. You don’t understand. Let me explain. Let me stubborn. I’m not going to, I’m not going to, I’m not. Self-righteous I didn’t do anything wrong their way, I let me tell you what they did. And, or again, Satan will want us to come out from godly authority and to be our only authority or to pursue ungodly authority. And every dad who’s got a teenage daughter who’s dating the wrong guy knows exactly how dangerous this is. Sweetheart he’s not the right guy. Oh, but dad I’ve decided I trust him and I’m going to follow him. No, don’t do that. But I what’s the teenage daughter always say I feel dad’s like, that’s why I’m here. Your emotions are leading you to be under authority that is not helpful for you. They’re going to use you. They’re going to harm you. So you got to resist the devil. I would ask you, how does he tend to tempt you? Let me ask you a question. Can the devil use a Christian? Yes or no? Yes. He can’t possess them in terms of owning them. Once you belong to Jesus, you belong to Jesus forever. He says, no one can snatch you out of my hand but you can belong to Jesus. And on occasion, even as a Christian even a mature Christian, even a godly Christian have an ungodly moment where Satan uses you. And this becomes very confusing because you’re like, well they are great person. And they, I know they’re a Christian and maybe they’re right. Well, or maybe in this instance not to malign their whole character not to attack them ’cause we’ve all done this, ever said or done anything you regret I have. We’ve all had these moments. There’s one recorded in Matthew 16:23 Jesus and Peter were going for, let’s say they’re going for a walk or having a conversation. Jesus looks at Peter and says something that the other guys probably had a conversation about later. And it was get behind me Satan. They go, that’s not his name his name’s Peter Are Peter and Satan the same guy. No. Did Peter belong to Jesus or Satan? Jesus. But in that moment, who was he speaking for? Satan. The context is that Peter was saying something that Satan wanted him to say and Jesus got right to the heart of the matter and said that’s not what I told you to say. Satan told you to say that. So get behind me, Satan. So Jesus is resisting Satan speaking through Peter and he’s inviting Peter and the disciples to make this distinction and to do the same. Resist the devil, get behind me, Satan that’s Jesus language. And he makes a promise if you will resist the devil, he will what? Flee. But you got to hang in there a while. Okay? You gotta hang in there a while. It’s like a fight. It’s like, if you don’t run and you don’t quit eventually the other guy might and here it promises that Satan will. Number six he says, draw near to God. In ancient military campaigns this nation would go out and this nation would go out. And as the battle raged, you didn’t know where you were because it’s just overwhelming. It’s exhausting as hand-to-hand combat. You’re like, are we over there? Are we over there? Or where? Like, we’re, where’s my guys. I don’t even know where to go. You completely lose sight of where you’re at and where you’re going. It’s disorienting. So he says, draw near to God. He says in the middle of everything, find the Lord, right. Get to the Lord, stick with the Lord stay close to the Lord. You ever read in the scriptures or sing some of those songs that talk about the Lord and his banners or his banner over me is love. What they would do in a military campaign is some guy. I think he drew the short straw. He didn’t get a weapon. He got a flag. Kind of hard to have a sword and I have a flag. I don’t feel like this is going to go well for me. But the guy with the flag, his job was to get the flag up. You say, well, there’s my flag. So I need to get over to my team. And I know where my team is ’cause I know where our flag is. What he’s saying here is in the middle of the conflict look up and find the Lord and get to him. The only way out of the conflict is to get to the Lord. I don’t know what that looks like for you. Prayer, Bible study, maintaining relationships with godly people, seeking godly counsel spending time in prayer and song to the Lord. Sometimes those are the first things that we get rid of when we need them as our first priority. And he says, number seven, get cleaned up. He uses actually some strong language. All right. Cleanse your hands you sinners and purify your hearts you double-minded. When we were in Ephesians, I told you that almost every time in the Bible that God speaks to believers. He calls us saints and not sinners because our identity is Saint and sometimes our activity is sin. But here James uses strong language. He says you sinners. And what this means is that even saints have moments where they act like sinners. Saint, maybe our identity but sometimes sin is our activity. And what he says is you got to cleanse yourself. You got to get this cleaned up. So start by washing your own hands, looking at your own life, saying, did I do anything wrong? Did I say anything wrong? Is there anything I need to fix? Apologize for. Get right in the future, do different. Okay. Only through humility is it possible to even pursue that? The middle of a conflict, our hands are filled with what? Mud. And it’s just a lot of this. And James says, hey, look at your hand. It’s covered in mud. Time to put the mud down time to wash your hands. What this means is if we’re wrong, we own it. If we think we’re wrong, we own it. If the godly mediator says we’re wrong, we own it. Number eight, be patient. Here’s what he says, humble yourselves before the Lord. And he will exalt you. Some translations will say, and he’ll exalt you when it’s time. I don’t know about you. First time I heard a gunshot ever been around when there’s a gunshot, not like at the range or out duck hunting an unexpected gunshot. First thing I did. First time I heard a gunshot I went down literally, like I figured I’m not smart but I know that less of me is advantageous right about now. The wrong guys like, oh I wonder what that was. You’d get down, right? First thing they tell you combat right you hear bullets fly get down. When there’s conflict and bullets start flying. What he says is this humble yourself. Get down, stay down. Don’t rise up, fall down. What he says is, and he will lift you up when it’s time. Meaning the Lord loves you. And he said, you know what? Just stay down right now the bullets are flying. And when it’s safe, I’ll come and pick you up and help you out and move you forward. And then he ends with a great question. Starts with a great question. What causes fights and quarrels among you? That’s a good question. And then he ends with another really good question. Who are you to judge? Now we say this all the time, right? And what we mean is I’m judging you. Who are you to judge me? He’s saying this to how many people. Everybody. Do not speak evil against one another. Wow. In my worst moments I would say this is true, but is it negative? Is it critical? Is it hurtful? Well then it’s evil. Do not speak evil against who? One another fellow, Christians, brothers, family. How many of you grew up in a family and they had conflict? If you didn’t have conflict, you didn’t have a family. Families are gonna have conflict but nobody should die or be kicked out of the family or quit the family or set the house on fire. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law you are not a doer of the law, but a judge. There’s only how many law givers one. Oh, that job’s taken. I applied for it I was hoping. Well, how about judge is judge still open? And oh wait, really judge was filled too. He was able to save and destroy. Here’s his question. His first question was what causes fights and quarrels among you. His last question is who are you to judge your neighbor? And the big question is why do we think that we have the right to be the judge? Because here’s what happens in worldly conflict. Something happens and somebody decides I’ll be the judge and I’ll convene a jury and all render a verdict. Okay? How many of you have done this? I’ve done it. Sometimes we could be in a jury physically talk to people. Sometimes we convene a jury digitally trying to get everybody on our side, whatever the case may be. And what happens when you go to a court? Where does the judge sit? The judge sits in the high seat. All right. So takes a little pride to get up to the high seat. I’ll be the judge, I’ll sit in the high seat and I’ll convene the jury and I’ll render a verdict and I’ll execute a punishment so that there can be justice. Jesus walks in the courtroom is like, what’s going on? We’re holding court. I didn’t get invited. Who’s on the bench? Well, they are. I didn’t appoint them. In fact, that’s my seat, why are they sitting in my seat? Well, we’ve rendered a verdict. Jesus said, that’s my job. I give the law and I judge. There’s only one. There’s only one. And that’s no one else. That’s how worldly conflict goes. Here’s how godly conflict goes. Jesus walks in, goes up to the bench. You’re dismissed. You’re now former judge. Sits down, looks at both parties and says you’re guilty. And the other side, cheers. Yay. And then he says, and you’re a guilty. I’m like what? You’re all guilty. And the punishment is death and I’m gonna die for you both. So put your spears down. It’s not about winning. It’s about worshiping and I’m going to reconcile with them and I’m gonna reconcile with them. And you’re gonna reconcile with each other. That’s the verdict of the judge. That’s godly conflict. Say where’s the justice? At the cross. Who’s gonna pay? Jesus already did. When I tell you a story, I thought I was done. I often think I’m done and I’m not. This week Grace and I celebrated 26 years together since our first date. If you’re new, Grace is my wife’s name, also my best friend. And when we got married we were between our junior and senior year of college, flat broke, flat broke, college broke. And so we rented a little cabin cottage off the Oregon coast, drove down to get a few days together before we drove off to college to finish our senior year. And I was so excited to get married. So looking forward to it and we went to the Oregon coast and we checked in at this little kind of bed and breakfast cottage off the beach. And didn’t know it but it was run by a Christian woman a very sweet pleasant likable lady. So, filling out paperwork. And she said, so you guys were just married. I said, yeah, we were just married. She said, well, I’ve been married. I don’t know what, 30 years, 40 years whatever it was to me being married 30 minutes, 40 minutes very impressive. Very impressive. So ask her, I said, “you got any advice?” She said, “yes I do.” And it was one of those moments. I felt like the holy spirit gave her wisdom to deposit into our family. She said, “right now you’re a family.” And I knew Grace was gonna be my wife but I hadn’t thought of the fact that we were a family. I thought she is my wife, but we are a family. Yeah, we’re a family. I have a family. We’re a family. And she said, the key to your marriage is to know that when you have conflict that they’re your family, not your enemy. She said, there are times that they’re gonna feel like your enemy 26 years later. Yes. Okay. And if you’re married and say I felt that. We’ve been married 21 been together 26. She said, there’ll be times that they’re going to feel like your enemy. She said, but they’re not your enemy. She actually made us face one another. She said, you’re not enemy you’re family. And she said, but you do have an enemy. You do have an enemy. And the enemy wants to turn the family into a bunch of enemies. She said, that’s Satan’s tactic and trick for the family is to cause you to think that your family is your enemy. She said, family is not enemy. You have family and there’s an enemy. And the enemy will attack your family. And your family needs to resist your enemy. And he’ll flee from you she quoted this verse. I felt what a wise woman. I remember that moment I thought this is a gift. There have been times in our marriage and in our family that quite frankly, Grace and I’ve had conflict. And we felt like enemy. Any married people done that. And I keep going back to the scriptures and the wisdom of the spirit-filled woman saying, I choose to be family. I choose to not see as enemy. And the times I’ve gotten it wrong, I’ve then repented to Grace to get it right. Because if it’s family, even if you made it wrong you can always make it right, ’cause that’s what families do. And James here is speaking. And here’s what he’s saying. Church is a family and the family has an enemy. And if you forget that you’ll act in a way that is worldly and God not godly. The times that I have not believed that or not walked in that I have acted in a way that is worldly and not godly. So what we’re gonna do together now is we’re gonna respond as a family. We’re gonna collect our tithes and offerings. After that, we’re going to take communion. We take communion and we remember Jesus was speared by me not just for me by me. And he was also speared for the one that I would consider my enemy. And together he causes peace. He reconciles and he makes us family. And I would say, if you’re here and there’s someone that you’re with and you’re in conflict with this is a wonderful opportunity for you to begin that process of reconciling and apologizing and loving and being family and not enemy. And then we’re going to sing, okay. This is our way of submitting ourselves to God. This is our way of looking up and seeing the Lord Jesus sitting on the bench high and exalted saying he has condemned us all. He has died for us all. He has risen for us all. He has forgiven us all. He has loved us all. He has embraced us all. We get to rejoice. Thank you, Lord that your timeless word is always timely. Thank you that the scriptures are not just for the people but they’re also for the pastor. And I thank you for pastor James and this wonderful spirit inspired, truthful, helpful insightful letter that he has written. And Lord Jesus I have to believe that he endured a lot of worldly conflict and he responded with godly conflict help me and help us to do the same. And Lord Jesus, thank you that James is with you right now that he gets to hang out with his big brother. And we look forward to the day when we get to meet the entire family and all is made whole and good and well in the presence of Jesus in whose name we pray. Amen.
