Speaking Up & Speaking Down - [James 4:11-12]

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The last year or so, we've had this jet tour through each of the books of the
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Bible. So we've been flying high. And the last two weeks, we've kind of slowed down a little bit to do the
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Tour d 'Axe and taking about three weeks to go through the
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Book of Acts. This week, there's a little break, and we'll continue with the tour next week.
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So for those of you who've been flying very fast, you can almost imagine today's class as being getting close to a stall.
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Instead of looking at a book or a bunch of chapters, we're going to kind of come really down to a couple of verses.
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So the format is going to be very different than some of the previous Sunday School classes, so you'll have to bear with me.
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And I'll explain how this particular class will be laid out. But the text for today's morning is found in the
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Book of James, James Chapter 4. We're going to look at just two verses, verses 11 and 12.
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And my purpose this morning is last Sunday morning, Pastor Mike preached on faith and what genuine faith is and how it has to be borne out by works.
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And as you know, the Book of James talks about various aspects of the Christian life where the
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Christian must be obedient to God. And this morning, we're just going to take one aspect of that obedience or Christian sanctification, and we will flesh that out in more detail.
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So we will see what it means like for a person to work out his salvation in this one particular area.
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And we will look and see what genuine faith will live itself out in.
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And that aspect is with regards to the tongue. We will see through various passages in James how the elder
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James addresses this particular question. So the format, I want to make it clear right up front because we are looking at only two verses.
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I'm going to be asking a lot of questions and answers, and I want you to raise your hands and ask questions.
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I mean, I'm really glad I wasn't teaching last week's Sunday school. For those of you who were here, you would know that was just great.
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I mean, there were so many questions, excellent questions and excellent answers, and it was just lively.
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And I'd like to encourage you to do just the same as we go through, raise questions, and I'll also have time for Q &A at the end.
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And the two main areas that we will look at for these two verses will be first in exegesis to understand this text for what it means and then to apply it in our lives and examine our lives in the context of these verses.
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Before I get into the text, there's one of the commentators. His name is Spiros Zodiatis.
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He had this rather humorous anecdote, if you will, that he has written about this passage.
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It will kind of get you thinking about what we are going to deal with in today's text. Here's what he says that a certain guy said.
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If this guy is poor, he must be a bad manager. And if he is rich, he must have been dishonest to get his gains.
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If he needs credit, he probably shouldn't get it. And if he's prosperous, everybody just wants to do him a favor.
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If he's in politics, this I think everybody knows, it's in for the pie. If he's out of politics, he's no good for his country.
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If he doesn't give to charity, he's probably stingy. And if he does, it's probably for show.
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If he's actively religious, he's a hypocrite. And if he takes no interest in religion, he's a hardened sinner.
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If he shows affection, he's a soft specimen. And if he seems to care for no one, he is cold -blooded.
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If he dies young, he had a great future ahead of him. And if he lives to be an old age, he has missed his calling.
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As you can see, I don't think any one person would have said all of this about everybody they met.
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But this character here very humorously and very frivolously deals with one aspect of a person's life and then passes a very quick judgment on him.
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And in today's text, we are going to look at this aspect of speaking down on people.
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And we will look and see what this really means and how sometimes this sin that is so prevalent in the world can easily creep into the church.
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And even more so that we as believers need to examine our lives and be speaking up in our walk as brothers and sisters in Christ.
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So let's begin by looking at the text in James 4, verses 11 and 12. He who speaks evil of a brother and judges his brother speaks evil of the law and judges the law.
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But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. There is one lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy.
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Who are you to judge another? So the layout of these verses is very, very simple.
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It's very plain. There is one command right in verse 11 where James tells us what we should not do.
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And then he's going to give us three reasons why this particular sin should not be, we shouldn't indulge in this particular sin.
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And again, as we get further into this, you will understand how this faith works itself out even in this one particular aspect of sanctification.
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So the first command that we have here is that Christians must not speak evil of one another.
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So the verse is, do not speak evil of one another, brethren. Let's take this verse apart.
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So the first command here is speaking evil. Or I think if you look at the
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NAS, it says speaking against. What other translations do you have that's different than speaking evil or speaking against?
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Slander. I think slander is a very common translation that is also used.
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And the word that is used here is kata laleate. Laleo is to speak.
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Kata is against or down. So that's why we use the word speak down or speak against as the term that is used here.
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Now, what do you think this word actually means? What does in English, when you talk about speaking down, speaking against or slander, that's number one where we speak something that is false.
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And can you expand that a little bit? When does somebody speak false of somebody else?
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Gossip. And that's normally the most common means by which you start speaking false of somebody else because normally somebody says something, it gets expanded.
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And over time, you know, somebody starts speaking false of someone else. There's a few other meanings of this.
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And I'm just going to kind of lay it out for you here. So it's speaking evil or criticizing someone.
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Normally when that person is not there to defend themselves. So the purpose of slander, at least the definition, is that, you know, we speak something down on somebody, especially when they are not there, in order to look good ourselves.
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And it can be done either when a person is actually not true at all. So either as a gossip or as a false accusation.
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That's the second aspect where, you know, there may be some truth to what we are speaking of, but then, for example, there's a person who is struggling with a sin or, you know, dealing with a certain problem.
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And, you know, this person just comes out and says, hey, look at this person, you know, dealing with all these issues.
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And talking again in the context of trying to put that person down who's dealing with an issue rather than, you know, trying to help that person along in their walk.
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So the motive here, yes, that's excellent.
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So Bruce was saying that, you know, sometimes you do not know the full story. And because on the one hand you have something that's genuinely false, and on the other hand you may have something that is genuinely true.
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And then somewhere in the middle you may know some half information and either propagating it or, you know, trying to come to a quick judgment without knowing the whole detail,
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I think can be just as damaging and can be categorized as slander. Charlie, that's excellent.
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Actually, we will be looking at that in a lot more detail in the third verse. But what Charlie said is absolutely true.
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In the judge, in the early, in the Bible times, it's a very different context of looking down and either passing condemnation or acquitting this person, which is different than the context in which we are to judge one another.
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And we will come to that in a moment. So I think we've got a fairly decent idea of what speaking down, speaking evil, or slander is.
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Now let's go a little bit further into this verse. Now the word that is used here to say do not slander, the negation of the word kata, lale, ete, is the word may.
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And apparently this word, this particular commentator claims, and I would agree with him, that this speaking that we are talking about, the words that come out first begin with a mental or a subjective thought process that then forms itself out into words.
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So if you just put this, do not speak evil, the thrust of what James is saying is you have some thoughts that form in your head before they form themselves into words, and that's what is forbidden.
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It's not just your words, which are just flippantly said, but there is something that goes on inside your mind and in your heart, which forms itself as a pattern before they come out as words.
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And the third word used here is one another. And if you look at this aspect of speaking evil, the specific issue that is dealt with here is, you know, we have a problem of personal attack against one person against another.
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These are not just issues dealing with a particular sin or a particular act that God committed, but here is something that is spoken in a personal attack against another person, and that is the broad context of the slander that is spoken of.
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So why do you think James is writing about slander here? We are in James 4, verses 11 and 12, and if you look through the book of James, you can get a broader context of where James is heading.
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You can feel free to skim through James and throw out a few pointers in terms of why James is talking about speaking down.
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So I think you're looking at Acts 15, the difficulty that the church faced. That's possible.
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That's good. That's exactly right.
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I mean, if you look at James chapter 3 and 1 to 12, James has already talked a lot about this aspect of the tongue and how it is a fire without control and how
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James 3, 8, no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil and full of deadly poison.
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And if you look back at Romans 2, you'll see some of those same language used of the unbelievers.
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And here James spends a lot of time talking about the need for believers to tame the tongue or to use the tongue to glorify
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God rather than tear people down. Anything else? I thought
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I saw another hand. Yes. That's great.
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Pat just mentioned the class differences, and actually chapter 1 begins with that dichotomy that existed in the church where the rich people and the poor people, and then there is this tension that is between there and one local body, and that should not be there.
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And actually, in the earlier part of chapter 4, chapter 4, verse 1, he says, what is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you?
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It's not the source of your pleasures that wage war in your members. And he's talking about the conflict that exists between the church members, and he says that this is because of your divisions that separate you.
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And that comes out of selfish desires, as we see in chapter 4, verse 1, and the pride that is there between the members of trying to distinguish between themselves.
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Anyone else? I thought I saw another hand. Was that your name? All right.
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And the last thing that you see, and I think all this will provide the context as we try to understand how this applies to us, is right before verse 11 in verse 10,
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James is just kind of given a strong exhortation to the believers as to how our lives must be conformed to the truth, and he concludes by saying, humble yourselves in the presence of the
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Lord, and He will exalt you. In chapter 4, verse 1, he talks about the pride that is causing these conflicts, and then in verse 10, he's talking about humility that must characterize the saints.
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So that's the general context. In verse 3, we've seen how the tongue is an important aspect for sanctification.
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In the beginning of chapter 4, we've seen how there is conflicts in this particular church because of pride, and then he has just finished by talking about humility, and then he comes back to the tongue to talk about how this must work itself out in the life of a believer.
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Okay. You know, when we are doing exegesis, when we are, you know, looking at it theoretically, it's all well and good.
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Now let's get a little down to earth here. So can you think of some examples where we run into this problem of speaking down?
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I'm sure 90 % of us here would, the first thing that comes, I mean, I would confess, you know, when I was preparing for this morning's
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Sunday school, I had three or four texts to pick from, and the first one I looked at was this, and I said, no, no, no, no, this is not what
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I'm going to teach. This is hard. You know, you don't want to take it because I come here and look at this, and everybody's asking, you know, did
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I say something to this guy? No, this is not anything personal, but I looked at the various texts, and ultimately the
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Lord just brought me down to this text, and as I was thinking about myself, you know, what are some situations in which
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I have transgressed in this area, and I was thinking, you know, this is maybe not an issue
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I struggle with most, and then as I examined myself, you know, the times that we struggle with this most is when we are in a situation of conflict.
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So if you just look back into your own lives, you know, the times when you've had struggles and problems, those are the times when this particular sin would rear its ugly head, and those are the times when we need to examine our lives and bring it under the authority and the power of the
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Scriptures to be submissive and to let the tongue be in control, be controlled by the
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Spirit rather than be in control over us. So let me begin with a simple example, and hopefully we'll work ourselves way through this in terms of applying this.
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I'm glad to see a few children here because I think you'll empathize with me. So I'm going to go way back in time and look at when
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I struggled with this when I was much younger. I have a brother who is about four years younger than me, and as siblings know very well, it's a lot of fun growing up together with a brother or a sister.
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And especially if you're the older one, you come back home and then all of a sudden your brother's got this twinkle in his eyes and he's got that mischievous smile and then you know something is not right.
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You turn the corner and you see your mom and her face is dark and angry. You say, ah, something is happening here.
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So your mom then asks you the inevitable question, what were you doing at four o 'clock today?
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You say, yes, I know where this is coming from. Or she asks you some other difficult question that you really hope your mom didn't know about and you know where she got the answers from.
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So our younger siblings are known to try to curry favor with their parents by being a little fluid with their tongue.
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They like to be honest and righteous and all that and maybe show one side of the story or spice it up a little bit so that the brother gets a good treatment when he gets back home.
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And that's a very innocent, childish prank and these are things that children do sometimes to try to look good in front of their parents.
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I'm not condoning it. I still think that is sin. But looking back at our younger years, we know that was childish and didn't really cause too much harm.
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But then when we grow up in our years and now many of us, all of us believers here can look at the same thing played itself out in the adult world.
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Whether you look at the job situations or especially in families. And I'm really struck by the number of families which have difficult times when it comes around festivals like Thanksgiving or Christmas.
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And you see that there are tensions and there are tone family members, members who wouldn't even come to some family gatherings or you wouldn't invite or they would come and then you're just walking tenderfoot around them because their tongue is just causing a lot of strife or has caused strife and that's why they're not here anymore.
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And this is a common problem that we see all around us. And speaking evil or speaking down does tear apart relationships.
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And this is a very central issue that I think the Bible brings up for us to examine and to avoid.
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Before we go down to the verses that explain why we must avoid this. I mean it seems pretty obvious why this is a bad thing to have to deal with.
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But the Bible goes on to give us a little more reason as believers why we should be especially cautious of this.
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Are there any other examples or thoughts that come to your mind in terms of what would be a common issue that we as believers struggle with with this particular area?
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Charlie? Roast pasta for Sunday dinner?
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So Charlie just mentioned it's easy when you go back home and have dinner to critique and tear down the pasta rather than be thankful for the blessings.
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And that brings up one aspect which is the more visible a person is the more easy it is to come under attack.
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Because one thing most people enjoy is trying to hide behind the seats because it's the point of least attack.
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But the more visible you are whether it's in the congregation or in the family or at work the more easy it is to draw fire.
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And that's a good point. Anything else? Yes, Pat.
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I wonder if that clock qualifies. Actually that is true.
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I think it would still qualify in some partial way because it does come from the heart that is struggling with an issue.
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But I think we'll probably pass that for now. Yes, that's an excellent point because I've heard that said that prayer times can easily become gossip times because there are certain things that you do need to pray for together as a group and certain other times doing that is just a means of passing things that shouldn't be passed or tearing down a person that shouldn't be, like you said, with half information.
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Okay, so having laid out what the meaning of this one verse is and how it generally applies let's now look at the reasons that James gives us to deal with this particular issue.
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The first reason he gives us is that anyone who speaks evil or speaks falsely judges another person falsely and he speaks evil of the law and judges the law.
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Verse 11 continues, Now, those of you with programming with if -then clauses this is one of those verses that when you first read it you think, oh yes,
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I understand it and then when you say, okay, I've got to teach it and then you look at it and say, oh, how did it get there?
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And then you've got to spend a little time trying to figure out what James is actually talking about here.
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So he's saying, you know, I'm speaking down or speaking evil of one person and then he says, if I do that, what
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I'm really doing is I am judging or speaking against the law. Any thoughts on how
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James makes this jump between speaking evil of a person to speaking evil of the law? Yeah, and that was a great example of trying to chase somebody who is speeding down and, well,
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I think in Massachusetts if you tried to do that you'd be driving all day and all night. But actually,
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Lewis brought up two aspects of this which I think are very essential to understand. The first one is on what basis is this discernment slash judgment is being made.
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Actually, let me talk to discernment first. We will be looking in the end of this passage about the right way to judge or the right way to edify and build one another up.
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Here we are talking about the tearing down piece where we say things that are causing damage rather than edifying.
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And one thing, actually Calvin says this, he looks at this text and he says, very similar to Paul's address to the
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Corinthians about the matters of conscience, where one person looks at certain things and says, here is how
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I would live my life as a Christian and, hey, everybody else ought to live the same way. So let me just go about enforcing
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Pradeep's rule of church business or whatever.
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So you just come up with your own methods of what you think is holy before God and then implement that.
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And then there is also the other aspect of what this law is that is being talked about.
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What is speaking against a person and what law is being spoken against. And I think
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James has already talked about this law so it will help us to understand in what context we are looking at this word law.
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But before we get there, the verse here says, speaks evil of a brother and judges his brother.
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The word judges is from a Greek root, which is a very neutral term.
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It can be used either for positively judging somebody or for negatively judging somebody.
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But the way that James uses this here in conjunction with speaking evil, those two terms are used almost interchangeably.
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So the judgment that is used here is not the positive or the one which is meant to edify, but rather the one that is used negatively.
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And we will look at the connotation of the negative aspects soon. And both these words are used as present participles.
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And for those of you who are earlier from school, you probably will remember this. I just had to refresh this myself.
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Does anybody know what a present participle is? Yes, a continual act.
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That is what a participle is. It's a word that ends with an ing. Speaking evil or judging rather than just one set of time.
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And it's a present meaning it's an ongoing activity. So here is a person that is continually speaking evil of somebody else or continually judging another person.
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So this is not something that is done with the purpose of discerning the right thing and trying to help a person grow.
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But rather it comes with a mindset of, OK, here is this person that I have a grudge with or here is the situation that I don't like.
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And I'm going to constantly keep talking bad or talking down on this issue in an aspect of continual judgment with an intention of tearing it down.
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Now, the transition from speaking evil of a person to speaking evil of the law.
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In James 2 .8, if you just look back, you look at the law that James talks about.
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He says, if, however, you are fulfilling the royal law, according to Scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
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You are doing good. What did Jesus say about the summary of all the law and the prophets?
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What were the two commandments? That's right.
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Love God and love your neighbor. Taken from Deuteronomy and Leviticus. And he combines them and says, here is the central thrust of all the law.
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And here, James takes this one aspect because he's talking about conflict within the church of loving your neighbor and how that ought to be the royal law that is magnified in the hearts of believers.
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Jesus has already talked about this and John saying, I command you, love one another.
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And it's by your love for one another that people will know that you are mine. And if you look at 1
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John 2, he again talks about this new commandment that Jesus has given. And this new commandment is that we love one another.
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It's not new in the sense that it wasn't there in the Old Testament, but rather there's a new aspect, a new dimension to this love that we have for one another, which is exemplified in Jesus Christ.
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He showed us what this kind of love ought to be, which is self -sacrificial to the point of giving our own lives for another.
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So that's the law that ought to be central in the life of believers. So when we look at what governs us, what is it that is going to drive us forward, it ought to be this law of love.
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And here, when a person is speaking down or speaking evil with an intention of tearing down, he is basically speaking evil of this law of God, this precept of God that should be central in the life of all believers.
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Let me kind of expand this out a little bit further. So what happens is, if I am a believer,
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I am told that the law of God is that I love one another. And then I continually disobey this law.
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I say, OK, I know God has told me this, I know the Scriptures talk about this, but this is what I enjoy doing.
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Replace it with another word. But here is what I'm going to be doing. I see a problem, and here is my modest operandi.
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I'm going to go about taking care of this my own way. And the way I'm going to do it is by speaking evil.
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So what happens is, this person claims by his actions, maybe not with his words, that this law of love is false in his own life.
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So by living out what he believes to be true, whether he verbalizes it or not, he is now speaking against this law of God that ought to be operative in his life.
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And thereby he is actually judging the law as not worthy of his obedience.
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So if I want to state it another way, I'm hearing this law of love, I even mentally assent to this law of love, but I consistently live in a way that breaks this law, either intentionally or not giving it too much thought.
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Now let's kind of go back to the roots where James starts from.
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He said, faith without works is dead. So here we have a very simple and essential aspect of every believer's life.
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And he says here, if your life is consistently shown by a pattern of tearing down and of breaking and of not giving heed to the law of God, then the verbal claims of faith that we might have does not really match up with the life that we ought to be demonstrating.
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So for an unbeliever to look at this question would be, if my life is characterized by just peaking down continually,
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I ought to examine myself. Is what I say I believe genuinely a belief that comes from my heart?
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Is that the life of faith that is transformed or is it just sugar -coated?
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And on the other hand for a believer, what a believer should be asking is, do I at least see a difference between when
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I was not a believer to where I am? Now that I know the scriptures, once I came to know Jesus Christ when
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I have his spirit in my heart and I have known that this is the law that ought to operate in me, do
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I sense the power of the spirit enabling me to overcome this area of struggle?
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You know, when I run into a conflict is my first natural response to speak evil and do
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I just follow through on it? Or am I trusting in the spirit of God to be changed? Am I speaking less evil?
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Am I trying more to operate under this law of love in order to edify rather than to tear down?
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And that's the difference that you ought to look at between judging a person and how this is as serious as judging the law of God himself.
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We already saw how this evil speaking can be either false reports coming through gossip, it can be aggravating failings that may be true, but we are just doing that with the wrong intent of trying to break that other person down or speaking with half -truths, picking up some things which we just know superficially and then instead of talking to the brother talking to somebody else about.
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So the first reason James gives us is that when we speak evil and judge another person falsely we are speaking evil not just against the person but against God's law.
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Let me give you this example against taking back to my brother.
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I use this frivolously because firstly I was not a believer then, so I'm off the hook.
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No, not really. Sometimes I wish I could go back to my childhood years and live differently, but I'm so thankful that the
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Lord forgave and my brother was patient with me during those years. But some of these things that are more simple are easier for us to deal with.
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I remember I was the older brother, so when you're in a group of friends it's always the younger brothers who get picked on. You say, you know this guy,
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I don't think he can bat as well. Put him in the last of the line. That guy is the teacher's pet.
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That's why he gets away with everything. And as an elder brother you've got to puff up your chest and look like you know exactly what you're talking about even if you have no idea what you're doing.
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And you do that just so that you look good in comparison to your brother.
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And all my friends say, Ah yes, you're right. Get that guy, he shouldn't even be on the game. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right.
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The problem here is my parents had told me don't speak bad of your brother.
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Don't lie about your brother because you have only yourselves for each other. But here when
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I was in the presence of my friends I was thinking I need to somehow look more important. I need to look good and in control.
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And the only way that I can look good is by putting my brother down. And so I set aside my parents' law which was to love my brother.
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And then I set up my own law which is the law of self -preservation or self -exaltation. And I say,
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OK, here's how I can do this and I'm going to lift myself up by putting my brother down. And again, with time those things changed but then this is a very common problem we would see out in the world.
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I mean, if you go into the business world everybody tries to, I mean, we all know evolution is false.
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And the survival of the fittest whether the world even thinks too much about it or not they act it out.
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They just want to tear down everybody else in order to climb up the corporate ladder.
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I mean, I'm not saying everybody but that's a very common trend where you just want to find ways to look good in front of your boss or just somehow slyly say something against somebody.
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It's very subtle. We are in the 21st century. People don't say things right up front. They'll say, yeah,
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I know about this person. He's great and all that, but you know, la, la, la. And then that goes off and you know the boss is thinking about it.
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Or, you know, like Brother Michael said here you just have a list of accurate problems that you just bring forth and say, here's the truth.
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In what context? Absolutely none other than my own looking myself good in front of you.
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Or somebody else starts talking about somebody and then join the bandwagon. Here's a little more coal in the furnace of evil speaking.
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And that is something that happens and I think most of us are familiar with and that is one thing we as believers ought to guard against because it's very easy for what happens outside to start to influence the way that we start thinking too.
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And the one thing that ought to govern us is the law of love. The law of loving one another and trying to build each other up.
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And we will look to that in a minute. Anything further on this particular aspect of how judging our fellow man can turn into judging against the law?
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Or any questions so far? Yes, six. That's an excellent question.
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Actually, I do intend to spend quite a bit of time on it except that we are running out of time.
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Let me do this. I do want to spend time on that. I don't want to just answer that quickly. We do have two other reasons and we'll quickly go through those reasons and the first thing
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I want to pick up is your question, six. About the aspect of loving in difficult times. The second and third reasons that James gives us is that, continuing in verse 11, he says if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge.
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And this aspect is very simple for us to follow because once you know that by speaking evil against another person we are actually speaking evil of the law obviously we are not following the law.
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In James 1 .22 we are asked to be actually just let's read that verse prove yourselves doer of the word but not merely hearers who delude themselves.
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We ought to be transformed or changed by the law of God and not just listen to it and not act upon it.
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Here, James tells us that when we don't do what God says but rather just hear it and then do something different we are acting as a judge on top of this law.
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And this is where the aspect of judgment as bringing down upon others our own influence comes into picture.
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Actually the Geneva study bible had this to say about this verse I'll just read it out for you. It says the proud and arrogant will have other men live according to their will and their pleasure.
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Therefore they do most arrogantly condemn whatever does not please them which cannot be done without great injury to our only lawmaker because when we do that we are offending
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God. For through this his laws, God's laws are found fault with as not carefully enough written and men challenge that to themselves that which properly belongs to God alone in that they lay a law upon men's consciences.
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So even when it comes to this story that I used with my brother basically what
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I'm saying is I'm the judge of the situation I'm here with my friends and it doesn't matter that my parents my father has authority over me but here
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I'm going to be the judge and I'm going to do what I think is best and that's where I take over the position of judge that only my father had a right in judging between me and my brother.
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Now the third reason that James gives us is in verse 12 he says there is one law giver who is able to save and to destroy who are you to judge one another and this is again the final conclusion of this progression.
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Speaking evil of a person is speaking evil of the law speaking evil of the law makes you the judge over this law and ultimately that will bring us in conflict with God himself because God alone has the prerogative to decide what is right, what ought to be done and when we challenge that position we are setting ourselves in conflict against God he calls him the law giver and judge actually further down we look at Jesus as the judge who is standing at the door, he is coming very soon and that ought to be a caution for all of us to live a life that is under God rather than against God and I think as brother
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Bruce said God alone knows the heart of man and can judge or pass judgment, the judgment that can save or to destroy because he knows everything that goes with this particular situation and God has the authority to execute that judgment, you and I don't and therefore when one looks at this place that we place ourselves in which is in direct conflict against God that ought to give us the seriousness of speaking words that are idle and Jesus said every word that we speak we will have to give an account for and again
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James concludes by saying how do we speak against who am
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I to speak against my neighbor and one thing we need to realize is when you look at your neighbor it's one thing to come to church and say hi to somebody say how are you doing and then walk down the road but when you live with another person close up you are going to see faults, you get to know me a little bit more you are going to see a lot of faults with me and with everybody else and that is where this aspect of love ought to come in and we will get straight to your question 6 here which is when we have a superficial relationship things are fine because most likely we don't know what problems they have and when we start to get engaged with each other when we have fellowship, when we try to live in each other's lives and to bear one another up that's when the grains start to rub against us and that's when we have to make that decision to say maybe
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I didn't want to know all this about you but now that I do, am I going to live a life that is characterized by love or am
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I going to take the easy route the route that my flesh wants me to go down and that is where your faith will live itself out which is to say
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I do truly believe in God I do truly believe in His precept of love that must govern my life and I'm going to do what it takes to love my brother and to show this love in an aspect when
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I'm in conflict like I said, that's the only time when you're going to struggle with this particular issue as a believer so let's take this example of a situation that you have trouble with so what does the scripture tell us about dealing with a person or a situation where you are in conflict actually, yes,
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Steve and that should be the underlying principle when we love our neighbor as ourselves because when we recognize the kind of love that Christ has given for us that should be the motivation in order to love one another because I think very quickly we move to the aspect of dealing with a problem that I think the fundamental essence of what drives us as believers, as brothers in Christ ought not to be forgotten that we would do it even at an expense to ourselves that's very good so when we think of love let's be clear that we're not talking about just an emotional feeling but rather an act of volition that we would actually do this in response absolutely, that's a great point you've gone a little bit further than I wanted to but I think this is very important because what happens is when you put yourself in the other role of being slandered against there's probably some element of truth to it it may not be as big as it's blown out to be and we as believers ought to examine our lives to make sure that we live in conformity to God's law that we would change and submit to God in that process but especially, whether it is believer or unbeliever whoever it comes from the one thing that I know when a person is governed by the spirit of God when your heart is just breaking and you say, why did this person say this thing to me and then you just sit down and pray this has happened innumerable times you just break down and say,
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Lord God gives you a love for this other person that you cannot explain because when that person said that thing you wanted to get that near as bad but when you sit down and pray when you are a believer, the spirit of God changes you and that is the strength that we as believers have and that's the faith that works itself out and that was an excellent point and getting back to you
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Sikstu sometimes you have extended periods of time where somebody is just constantly aggravating you and there's another aspect of love which is, love is not necessarily just saying
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I just ignore everything that comes my way love sometimes has to be expressed in a love for this other person where you seek that person to grow in maturity or overcome this particular sin so if another brother in Christ were to come to me or sin against me what would
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I do? Go to him, yes because that's the opposite of the slander which is speaking evil of a person to somebody else so we go to this person and say brother,
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I don't know why you said this or why you did this but here is what I believe happened and this is a sin, let's deal with this and in love try to help this brother overcome his sin and explain to him what was wrong and Matthew 15 to 18 talks about how we have to deal with this issue it doesn't mean just walking away from the situation all the time sometimes you do need in love to confront the brother because that's the only way the
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Lord has ordained and 90 % of the time if the other person is a genuine believer, you will deal with this issue and it doesn't happen all the time if it is a serious sin that needs to go up the church discipline process, it has to because of purity within the church but if you keep reading
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Matthew 18, 21 to 35 we look at this aspect of forgiveness and it is essential as we as believers in Christ going back to the fundamental of what makes us love one another which is
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Christ's love for us we ought to look at this aspect of how we can forgive a brother who is offending us and love covers a multitude of sins and we ought to look for that heart that is willing to endure patiently through these times actually the rest of James 4 talks about the patience that we as believers need in order to deal with situations of continual conflict but I think in terms of dealing with sin we have a clear way of doing it in love with an intent of building this other person up rather than just defending ourselves or even tearing the other person down back to your question, anything further you want to ask on this?
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Pastor Steve? Thank you
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Pastor Steve I think that summarizes our attitude towards our brother those situations and I think one thing to close when we run into these situations trials, things that push us against the wall things that challenge us to act in a way that we want to but we know that the scripture tells us not to those are the times of sanctification where we can say, this is what
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I want to do but I want to still submit to the love of God I want to rely on the power of God by His spirit and I want to be changed by Him in order to reflect
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Christ rather than myself and the sooner we do that and the more we are in submission to God in order to let
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Him work His work through us that's when we reflect Christ and we reflect the love that we have for one another and I think that should be our object as we grow into maturity in Christ I have a few other passages here but we've run out of time so I'll just give them to you one of them is
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James 3 .17 which talks about the wisdom that comes from above in dealing with a situation like this how it's peaceable
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James 5 .7 -11 talks about the patience that we need in going through these trials one thing
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I really love the most is 1 Corinthians 13 .7 which talks about love and how you're willing to give the benefit of the doubt especially when you have half -truths and then one other passage is
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Galatians 5 .22 -23 you want to look for your own sanctification your maturity, your fruit of the spirit that exhibits in circumstances like this and finally in Galatians 6 .1
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-2 we talk about the restoration and the goal of all these conflicts ought to be that this brother or sister who is sinning against us is restored back to right fellowship with us and in fellowship with God so with that as our intent we would be able to deal with this specific sin of the tongue and be able to bring glory to God in our words rather than tear down another brother or sister no matter how severe the circumstances might be are there any other questions?
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if not we will close let's pray dear
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God our heavenly father we thank you lord for your scripture for your word that teaches us how we ought to live and we thank you for your spirit that enables us to be changed by your power