13-18

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Zac Lloyd; James 3:13-18 13-18

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You are listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. Well, welcome.
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We're going to get started, so come on in, have a seat, grab some coffee, donuts. If you're new here, welcome, but a little bit of detail, you would have received a welcome brochure, a little packet, when you walked in, in that is a connection card.
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So, I'm Zach Lloyd, and I know a lot of you know who I am, and I've been at Recast for a number of years, but we've been away a lot.
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My wife and I and our family are being called to be missionaries to Indonesia, so part of that is inviting churches and individuals to partner with us, so that involves us going to churches, and we've been gone a lot the last couple weeks.
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So, just move this over here a little bit, I feel like I'm not centered in the room. All right, so everybody's a little bit more, the symmetry was off, right?
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Thanks, Sean. So, I was mentioning that because there's a lot of new faces. It's amazing in a span of six weeks how many new faces that I don't recognize.
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So, I thought I'd just give a quick thumbnail sketch of who I am in my family. Again, I'm Zach Lloyd. I am currently a toxicologist.
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I've been at MPI Research here in Matawan as my employer for 17 years, and it was there that I met my wife,
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Lee, who is the drummer today, and we have four kids. We have a daughter that's 11 and three boys, nine, seven, and five are their ages, and we were one of the families that came and planted with Don the recast in 2009.
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So, we've been here a while, and that's just kind of who we are, but it is my honor and privilege to be able to share
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God's Word, and many of you notice that I'm not the lead pastor. Don Filsek is the lead pastor, and so the reason
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I have this opportunity to share this morning is because Don's on the sabbatical, and I don't know how well it's been communicated.
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I thought I would take a moment and just communicate what is a sabbatical, and why is Don taking a sabbatical? Perhaps some of you might be fearful, is
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Don leaving? Is this an opportunity for him to go look at other jobs, and that really is not the case.
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The idea, I think, came about in that last spring. The elder board at recast consisted of myself,
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Rob Knoll, and Don Filsek. That was the extent of the board, and Rob and I noticed perhaps a weariness in Don at that time, and so we sought some counsel of more leaders that are in this room, many of you who are now on the elder board, about ways to encourage
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Don, what we can do to benefit him, and we decided to extend a sabbatical to him. It was our idea.
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It wasn't something that Don came to us and asked about, so for the better part, he decided to do it in the fall.
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He was very grateful, and this is an opportunity for him to rest. The sabbatical is born out of a biblical notion that it's good to rest.
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God created a day of rest each week. He created that, in the Old Testament, we see that the land was given every seventh year, an opportunity to rest.
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We see, even I'm more familiar with it, maybe in the academic world, where researchers are given a sabbatical where they're allowed to go out and do more research.
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We see even like corporate world taking that on. The idea, I know Google will give everybody 20 percent of their time.
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They can just do whatever they want as a way to stay rested and stay productive and creative, so really this notion of sabbatical for Don is for his rest.
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There's an idea that Don is the lead pastor, but there's a plurality of elders, and as elders, we're shepherds.
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I'm no longer an elder, but there's a shepherding, and no matter how much we try to delegate and divide up responsibilities, all of us, including myself, lean on Don to help when things get hard, so he bears a lot of our burdens in that way, and he's delighted.
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He's never complained about it, but it just it takes its toll, so he's getting ready to go on vacation, and somebody dies. He cancels his vacation, and he sits with them and mourns with them.
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That's a privilege to be able to be invited into that situation, bring God's word, so I don't want to sound like Don's taking this off.
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He just can't stand us anymore. It's not that at all. This is for his good and his benefit, and I just to bring up some of the specifics, so he's going to be gone for two more weeks.
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He'll be back here in two weeks, and that's our Thanksgiving service, so at Recast, our Thanksgiving service historically, and again this year, is going to look like an opportunity for all of us to give praise and thanks and glorify
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God for what he's done in our lives this past year, so it'll be a mic, open mic, and we'll be singing praises to God, but intermixed with us, each of you being given an opportunity to share, so I just invite you to be prayerfully considering what
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God has done in your life this past year, because that'll be in two more weeks, so I had breakfast with Don this past week.
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He's doing great, and I was thankful. It doesn't sound like he's trying to get a lot done.
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He actually is resting, and I'll let him share the details when he gets back, but he's doing quite well, but I'll introduce my sermon this morning by asking somewhat of a veiled question, and I don't want you to raise your hand, but when
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I just talked about Don, or maybe the first time you heard Don was taking a sabbatical, what was your initial reaction?
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Was it, praise God, he gets to rest, or was there maybe a little bit of criticism, a little bit of angst, like is his job that hard?
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I've never had a sabbatical. Why does he get a sabbatical? So we're going to be in James chapter 3, so go ahead.
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If you don't have a Bible, we have a stack of them over by the table of the
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Samaritan's Purse boxes. If you don't have one, that's yours. You can take that Bible, but you have an app. Turn to James 3, because I think
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James has something to say regarding our hearts towards one another. James 3 is really, the passage that we're going to be in is verses 13 through 18, and it's a contrast.
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It's a comparison of two types of wisdom, godly wisdom from above and earthly wisdom, and if I was to pick a text, it wouldn't honestly be this one, and I'll explain why
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I picked this text. My preference in terms of overall instruction, whether it's
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Christian or at work, is someone give me the big picture. I want to see where we're going, and then
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I'll take care of the details, and I think a passage, the one that I really like is Isaiah 46, 9 through 10, where God says,
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I am God, there's no other. I am God, there's none like me, declaring the ends from the beginning, from ancient times, things not yet done, saying,
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I'm going to accomplish all my purpose. My counsel will stand, and to me, that's like God just dropping the mic, like, and what?
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I'm God. What? And I'm like, yeah, everything seems to melt when you give me that big picture, so I think that's in contrast to other passages.
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A lot of the scripture, we see commandments, things to do on the ground, like how do I get from point A to Z? How do we get to that vision?
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We see a lot of commands, and those are good too. All scripture is given for instruction, but I like the big picture because it means something different to all of us on Monday morning, and I don't want to be the one telling you, you need to do this, as I preach the word, but what we're going to be seeing this morning from James is not necessarily big picture.
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It's not even on the ground application. It's the root. It's the heart behind why we do what we do, but honestly, why
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I picked this text was because it affected me. It changed me, and my prayer this morning is that it affects all of us, that we are changed, so I'm going to read this passage, verses 13 through 18 in James chapter 3, and like Augustine says, he says, where scripture speaks,
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God speaks, so my prayer, I'll read this, we're going to pray, and when
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I'm praying, I want you guys to pray with me that God would speak, that our hearts would be softened, and then while I'm praying, the band's going to come and lead us in worship, so it's
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James chapter 3, verses 13 through 18. It's page 870, if you're not there yet in the church -issued
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Bible. It's an ESV translation. Here we go. Who is wise and understanding among you?
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By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom, but if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth.
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This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice, but the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere, and a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.
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Let's pray. Father God, we desire to humble ourselves in the presence of your word with your people.
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Pray this morning that we would hear from you and not me. God, soften our hearts.
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Give us ears to hear that we would, as we humble ourselves and humbly worship you, that our words of our mouth would be acceptable in your eyes.
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God, that we would be singing out of gratitude and worship that in our weakness your grace would be perfected.
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It's in Christ's name that we pray. Amen. Thanks, Dave, and thanks all of you for leading us in worship.
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If you're just joining us, we're in James chapter 3 verses 13 through 18, and I thought
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I'd just back up a little bit and give you the broad scheme, the context of what we're coming to this morning, because Don preaches exegetically through books of the
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Bible, and you get the context because you work with him week in and week out. This morning, I'm just dropping in on like a parachute, and I thought first I'd give you just the grand scheme of things.
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From Genesis to Revelation, we have the full canon, the full revelation of God through Scripture in 66 books from Genesis to Revelation, and we see
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God creating in Genesis, and we see him choosing a people from Abraham and Israel through the
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Old Testament, and in the prophets in Psalms and Proverbs, and it comes to the New Testament in the 27 books of the
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New Testament, with this first four being the Gospels, where we see Jesus Christ revealed, the fulfillment of those prophets, and then after that, after Jesus comes the first time, dies, and resurrects, we see the formation of the church in Acts, and after that, there are the epistles before Revelations.
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Revelation book ends the Bible. That is the end of what's going to happen, and in the meantime is the age that we're in.
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Jesus has gone to heaven. He first came. He died, resurrected, and now he's going to come again, and we're in that period as Dale has been talking about the last couple weeks.
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We come to this book between the Gospels and Revelation are a series of letters. These are epistles, letters to the church, and they apply to us almost directly.
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We're in that age, and this is the book of James. It's a letter from James. James is the half -brother of Jesus.
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They have the same mom, James does, and so he has a Jewish heritage, so he's writing a letter largely to Jewish background -believing
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Christians, and what I mean by that is like, so my wife and I, our desire is to go to Indonesia and plant a church of Muslim background -believing
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Christians, so these are Christians that used to be Muslims, so that looks different than a church here in the
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West, so Christians in a Muslim heritage, they might not immediately start wearing shorts and tank tops.
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They might take their shoes off at the door, a lot of little custom things, and God is glorified in all these different expressions of culture, things that are not necessarily, you know, we get too legalistic on that, but I bring that up because James is writing to Jewish background -believing.
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These are Christians, people that trust in Christ, but they have a Jewish background, and a lot of that is rules, a lot of legalism, so James is a letter, and it's been given chapters and verses, but it's 109 verses, and in those 109 verses are 59 commands, so he's given these 59 commands because,
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I think, because that's their background, and it's helpful because James also connects us, not just do something, he gives a connection to why they are to do that, but if you get anything out of this morning's message,
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I want you to hear that God has, there is a wisdom that comes from God, and it is a life to us as disciples and to his church.
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There is a wisdom from the world that destroys our Christianity and destroys the church.
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That's our goal, so let's talk about the first, these two types of wisdom that we saw in our text, and again, it's
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James 3, verses 13 through 18, this contrast, and we're going to start with the the not
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Christian, or the not wisdom that comes from above in verse 14. It says, but if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth.
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So there we see immediately, God, or James is highlighting for us characteristics of a wisdom that doesn't come from God, and just to put a little context, this chapter three started, what
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James was just talking about in his letter was the tongue. It's this really small thing, but it's super powerful.
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He likens it to a rudder on a ship or a bridle in the mouth of a horse. It is super powerful, but it can be used to incredible destruction.
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It's a little fire that can set the world ablaze. So he's talking about the actions, what we can do with our mouth and our tongue, and then just right after that, before our text, he gives us a metaphor about how we can be double -minded, how we can use this tongue to bless
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God and curse man. He talks about how can we be a fountain of living waters and salt water comes out of us?
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How can we be an olive tree and have figs come from us? So there's this contrast of we need to be having the godly wisdom in us, but what this does is it highlights for us what's behind that.
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That's where I want to spend a lot of our morning talking about. It says, do not boast and be false to the truth.
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So it's okay to boast in one specific example, and that's we should boast in our weakness, boast in who
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Jesus is and what he did on the cross. Do that all the more. Boast away at that, but we are not to boast about ourselves and what that might look like.
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I think of examples in my own life where you're a great dad or you're doing a great job, whatever it is, and I take that.
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Yeah, I am, but that's false to the truth. Philippians 2 12 says, God is at work in us both to will and to do good works.
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So the second I take on that compliment as something that I've done, I'm boasting in myself or I'm just outright boasting in myself.
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I'm being false to the truth. The truth being that it's God at work in me.
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And James is highlighting us again for the there's a root behind this. It's one thing to get these on the ground actions right like you you might see him talking about the tongue.
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Well, I'll just bridle my tongue. I'll get that. I won't boast. I'll get that handled. Even though in this passage right above that James says no man, no man can tame the tongue.
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But the problem really isn't our words. And they are a problem, but that's not a real problem. Our problem is our hearts.
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So I want to spend a fair amount of time here on this because it's about jealousy, about selfish ambition.
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And I'm going to share a lot this morning that's I'll characterize the sin of jealousy from my eyes.
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And some of you might feel offended like you told this to me at some point, but honestly these are things
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I've identified in my own heart. So I hope nobody is offended like I thought about you and now I'm going to present it to everybody. That's I don't have anybody specifically in mind, but I found that jealousy kind of gets a pass.
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Like it's just one of those sins you just it's hanging around and I tolerate and I glass over it.
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And I try to think about why does that happen? Why do I allow it? Is it because I'm so callous to jealousy?
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It just always happens. Or another option would be that it just cuts too close to the who
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I am, to the bone of who I am. If somebody says and criticizes me, well you're just being jealous,
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I kind of want to punch him in the face. Like I don't, I get really defensive immediately. You know it's not, I don't enjoy that criticism.
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Or the third option is we don't even know what's going on. So I think there's a couple different options of why we've become callous.
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And I look around in this church and I think I know most of you and I know your backgrounds.
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And most of us did not come, we did not come to Christ here at Recast. We have a background in church.
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We are a church people. So that means that we know jealousy is not a virtue. We know if you're not even a
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Christian what it's like. You don't want to be jealous. We know how to put that on. Specifically at Recast, we have an acronym for our name,
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Recast, replicating community. I want to highlight three of them. Community, authenticity, there's a simplicity in there, and truth.
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Community, authenticity, and truth. And so if we're concealing, if we're not confessing, that's what
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I want to say. We're not confessing jealousy, which I honestly don't remember someone confessing jealousy to me. If we're not confessing it, my argument is that we're concealing it.
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We're probably hiding it. And that's about the exact opposite of authenticity, right?
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So we see jealousy attacking community because if we're not, if we're being jealous for something, how can we have that authentic community, a community in Christ where I am forgiven, you're forgiving me.
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But then this text just said if we're boasting in ourselves out of jealousy or selfish ambition, we're being false to the truth.
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So there, community, authenticity, and truth both are attacked by jealousy. I think we take it too lightly.
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Jealousy is a destroyer. We don't often acknowledge it. So just to give you a little definition of what
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I'm thinking about when I'm talking about jealousy, this concept of envy, and I gave the example of Don.
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That might not be diagnostic for you. That might not be jealousy, or even if you did think that, there could be something else in you, or maybe you were just ecstatic for Don.
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So I don't want to feel like I'm pointing that out specifically for you, but jealousy is sort of a species of sin, and it's in that same camp of envy.
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So the idea is you have something, and I would, I want it. That's jealousy.
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So we look to obtain our value. I think that's the fundamental flaw of jealousy is that we're looking to obtain value or identify a value in ourselves that we compare ourselves to someone else.
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The flaw is we are comparing ourselves to other people rather than comparing ourselves to God.
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If we compare ourselves to God, things come into really crisp focus right away, but what we want to do,
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I find in my own heart, I say we, is compare myself to someone else because then I'm not doing so bad all of a sudden, and that's the fundamental flaw there.
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But what I wanted to highlight for us is I look at jealousy. I think we're most often jealous of people in our same demographic, people that are most similar to us, going through life at the same stage.
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Like, I thought of Dr. Ben Carson, you know, this Republican nominee or candidate, whatever he is.
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I mean, he's all, he has all kinds of credentials and accomplishments. I mean, I'm not that jealous of him.
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I really could care less. I don't even know what his accomplishments are because I'm not, I just, it isn't a problem for me, and you know,
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I saw the picture of him and Jesus on his wall. He has a picture. I don't know if you saw that.
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I mean, apart from that, I'll say I would love to have, no, I'm kidding. So what
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I want to say is even in ministry, I found that jealousy to be more true.
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Like, I'm prone to be jealous of the elders. When I was an elder here, I would look at them, and rather than be comparing myself to what
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God has asked me to do and how he's equipped me, I would look to see how the other elders were doing, and that's how
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I would find my value. Am I doing a good job? Well, let's see. Yeah, we're about the same. I'm probably doing a good job. So I think it's,
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I think I've identified that in my life before, but I've always just tolerated. Like, that's, yeah, I do that. I think it's more serious than that.
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So I'll share a more personal example, and it might shock you. So I'll share a lot personally this morning, and hopefully you see me as a sinner, because I am, and hopefully a pretty bad one.
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But, so we've been called to be missionaries to Indonesia, and part of that calling is there's a family in Grand Rapids, Jake and Sarah Tibby.
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They were first called to Indonesia, and they sat down. We didn't know them for dinner with us a summer ago, and they, part of their calling was that a family would go with them, and over the course of six months, we evaluated that call.
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We thought, we're that family too. God's calling us with you to Indonesia. So last spring, we went to Indonesia with this family, and we went through training with them on how to raise support and some other things, but because it's been, we wanted, we thought
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God was calling both families, because it's hard to go into another culture, another language, and be ministering to others, and to have community already as a team going.
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Praise God if that's what He's going to do, and we're going to pray that God would do that. Not only would He equip and send us, and I am so grateful for this church, and how we are supported and loved, and so many of you have come along and are supporting us financially.
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We're praying that we would get there as quickly as possible, but we're also praying that not only would He raise up our funds, but He would raise up the funds for Jake and Sarah at the same time, so that we could go there together.
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That's sort of a ridiculous ask, right? It's going to take a while. It doesn't seem like they would come together, but by God's grace, we're at 76 percent, and they're at 87 percent.
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God is doing it, and we give Him thanks and praise. But what I noticed earlier in the summer, and why
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I'm preaching this text, is the conversation. We were at like, say, 35 percent, and the
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Tibbys were at about 28 percent support. And over about a course of a week, they went to like 42 percent, and we were still at 35.
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And I was having a conversation with Jake. We've been praying the same thing, and I noticed my smile was fake.
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I was hiding something from him. I wasn't that excited that he was now at 42 percent. And I know you might, that sounds really lousy, right?
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Like, why would, that's what I've been praying. What is it about me that I don't, isn't, I'm not just ecstatic.
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That's what I was exactly praying for. I think we need to be mindful of that jealousy, and how it can get its fingers in our hearts.
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So jealousy occurs primarily, in my opinion, between people of the same class. So a lot of the examples
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I'm giving you might not apply to to women, because I'm just, you're not that, you know, our interests are different.
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So you might not be in the same situation that I am. But I thought I'd give like two, jealousy manifests itself in two ways.
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And I got this from an anthropologist, and it may or not be exactly true. I think it's just helpful to put a label on it. There's the jealousy that's competitive.
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Like, I wish we were at 42 percent. I want what you have. There's that competitive jealousy, and I think that makes sense.
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But there's also a jealousy that is malevolent. And that's the idea that not only do
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I wish I had what you have, but I wish you didn't have what you have. And that sounds perhaps even worse, but I saw it in my own heart.
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I saw it a lot of different ways, but I'll share one that's maybe not as hurtful to me. And I was looking at my phone at sports scores, and sports,
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I mean, seriously, who cares about sports? It doesn't matter. And I know there's a friend from high school that he really likes a sports team.
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My team's not in the playoffs. I don't care. His team loses.
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That's about right. I feel kind of good about that. Why would I feel good about that?
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Because it's malevolent jealousy. I don't want you to have it either. I would wish you didn't have it. What in the world?
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How can I be so evil? Maybe you can relate, maybe not. Get back on the,
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I think, this is a hypothetical one, but I think there's just a nature of humanity. We don't like it when everything goes well for somebody.
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I think of, like, a homecoming king. He's the quarterback, the all -star athlete.
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He's killing the grades. He's got a great family, the prettiest girl in school. He's just killing it. Like, that kind of rubs me the wrong way.
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And 15 years later, I look on Facebook, and he's divorced, and he's unemployed, and he's overweight. And I kind of like it when life kicks people around a little bit, right?
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I guess I'm sharing too much. So the idea here is maybe you can identify with some things.
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I think what I want to impress on us, I think we tolerate this jealousy. It goes unchecked.
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So I've come up with four sort of diagnostic questions or symptoms that might highlight for you jealousy in your own lives.
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And that these don't, might not, if you have these, doesn't necessarily mean it's jealousy. But I think if it's about a person, it could.
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Like, criticizing and questioning. If you hear something from, and you seem like it's associated, I'm always critical of that person.
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Doesn't matter what they say. I'm immediately critical of them. They're moving again.
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Didn't they just move? Rather than just rejoicing for goodness, God is being good to them.
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But I find I justify in my own heart, yeah, they're probably just not being wise. Gossip.
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And I know we all know gossip's wrong, but it kind of gets played out differently in our lives in ways that we think it's acceptable.
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We, I see it where I just can't wait to share this as a prayer request. See how bad it's gone for them?
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That's a leveling mechanism. That's a way to make them look bad, and make yourself look better in contrast.
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And along the same line, a third symptom is backbiting, and that's kind of a more severe case. I think backbiting is expressed a little bit more like creating something.
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And I notice, jealously in my own heart, a way in parenting. Like, in the way my kids behave. Because they make, if they're, my kids are behaving well, it makes me look good.
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And if somebody else's kids are not behaving good, then I feel better. You know, that kind of thing. But saying something about their kid is, they are praying for their kid to be, to not be in rebellion.
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For things to go better for them. And in my mind, I'll backbite, and I'll say, and I will express it with words to somebody.
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It's probably because they work too much. It's probably because they're too hard on them. Probably because they're too lenient on them. I don't know any of that.
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I've made that up. That's my own, that's backbiting. That's creating something. It's just evil. This unapproved behavior, in my mind, is the cause of why their kids are rebelling.
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And even getting angry. And again, these are not symptoms of jealousy across the board. But I think jealousy could be behind them, if it's about a person.
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You get angry with someone frequently. It doesn't matter what they're doing. And I think of like at work.
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Like if I have to do more work than they're doing. It's born out of jealousy. I want, I want to do less.
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I want what they have. I don't want to have to work as hard. And there's lots about, I just want to highlight again that these, jealousy is often manifested by words.
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So we see these symptoms of our words, but oftentimes they're indicative of what's going on in our heart. We love to justify our motives.
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We think that we're doing okay. We have the best intentions in mind, right? Like I said,
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I think they're just being unwise. They need prayer. And maybe we really do think those things. Maybe we really are praying.
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We have a sincere love for our neighbor. Or maybe you've just deceived yourself.
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And prayer is the socially, socially acceptable way to be jealous. I tolerate jealousy in my own heart.
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And I pretend that there's no consequence. Again, consequence. And prayer, I mean, and jealousy is born out of a misunderstanding of who
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God is. That he loves us and he's going to do what's right for us. And I've had this sermon in my mind for a while.
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Like, I don't know, June, April, somewhere in that time frame is when I first came across this. And I've, I just want to confess that I was listening to a podcast yesterday and I saw a new, a new observation that really articulates this well.
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So if you hear on some other podcast, it's not original to me. I'm just being forthright.
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Turn with me to John chapter 21. It's the end of John. Because I want to highlight, I think this highlights for us exactly why jealousy happens when we're not seeing
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God correctly. That he loves us and he's going to do good for us. And he's not going to treat us all exactly the same. So if you're using the church -issued
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Bible, it's on page 777, I think. Yeah, John chapter 21. And we'll pick it up in verse 18.
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So what's just happened before this is Jesus has already died. He's resurrected. The disciples have gone out fishing.
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Peter sees Jesus. He's gone. He's ascended to heaven. Now he's reappearing to the disciples.
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John and Peter, they're out fishing. And they see a man on the shore, and it's Jesus. And when it's revealed to Peter that it's
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Jesus, he takes off his robe and swims 100 yards up to go see Jesus immediately. He can't wait till they row in.
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And he has a conversation with Jesus. And Jesus asked him three times, do you love me? And Peter says, I do. He says, then feed my sheep.
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So that's where we pick it up in verse 18. In John chapter 21, it says, truly, this is Jesus talking, truly, truly,
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I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted.
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He's talking to Peter again. But when you're old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.
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And then in parentheses, this is Jesus saying he said this to show by what kind of death Peter was going to glorify
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God. So he just revealed to Peter, you're going to die a martyr's death. You're going to die a way you don't want to die.
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But Jesus then says, and after this saying, he said to Peter, follow me.
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So then we look at me, Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them.
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And the one who had been reclining at the table close to him and said, Lord, who is this is going to betray you. So Peter's identified.
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There's another disciple. His name, it's John. That's who he's talking about. When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, Lord, what about this man?
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So Peter just found out he's going to be a martyr. And now he's asking Jesus, well, what about him? How are you going to treat him? In chapter, verse 22,
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Jesus said to him, if it's my will that he remain until I come again, what is that to you?
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You follow me. So the saying spread among the disciples, the brothers, that the disciple was not to die.
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Yet Jesus did not say to him that he was not to die. But if it's my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?
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So this addresses that idea of jealousy. Peter wanted to know what's going to happen to him because we all want to be treated the same.
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We're jealous of what God's doing in somebody else's life. We think that we know what's best for ourselves. And that's the misunderstanding.
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Our problem is our heart. There's terrible things going on in ISIS and Paris, and I'm sympathetic, but that's not the problem.
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The problem's in here. That's the real war. And it's, I think it's manifested a lot of times in our church as jealousy because it affects our relationships.
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The people that we have relationships and the people that we're jealous of are the people that we're closest to, the people that we should be loving.
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So here's where it gets the best. John chapter 3, or James chapter 3, back on page 870, verse 16 or 15, says, this is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic.
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It's demonic. We should not tolerate something that's demonic in our hearts.
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If I told you, if you were having a relationships problem with somebody, you weren't getting along, well go pray to Satan and that he would send some demons into your life to help you with that relationship.
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I would hope that you would shudder and abhor that notion. That's how we should treat jealousy because jealousy is demonic.
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We need to see it correctly. Jealousy is going to steal, kill, and destroy our relationships.
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And verse 16 gives the final destiny of what jealousy does. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder in every vile practice.
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Every vile practice in the church. Conceive it and it's happening in the church.
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And we don't have to look at a lot of church history to see that that is in fact true, but watch with me. So we're kind of looking at all of James.
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It's a one letter. James 4, right after this, the next paragraph says, verse 1 of 4, what causes quarrels and fights among you, talking to Christians in the church, is it not this, that your passions are at war within you, these desires that are in you?
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You desire and you don't have, so you murder. And I don't think James is addressing a streak of homicides in the church.
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He's talking the way Jesus talked in the Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount that, you know, when you lust after a woman, you've already committed adultery.
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When you have anger towards your brother, you've already essentially committed murder towards them. So that's what he's talking about in chapter 4.
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He says, you covet, you cannot obtain, so you fight and you quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask.
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And you ask, do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on you, your own passions, you adulterous people.
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This is that double -minded, we don't have fidelity with our true and living God that loves us, and he's doing good for us. No matter how we see it through our own eyes, he's being good to us.
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So this wisdom of jealousy and selfish ambition is an evidence of someone lacking wisdom from above.
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So we're going to spend the remainder of our time talking about the wisdom that's from above. So there's a lot of characteristics given to it here.
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We'll start in verse 17, that's where it picks up. But the wisdom from above is first pure.
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I'm just going to kind of go through these quickly, giving different synonyms to kind of give you a picture of what wisdom from above actually is.
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It's pure. Pure. There is no other motive behind the action. It's not contaminated.
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It's not defiled. It's the same each day. Godly wisdom looks like that. It's peaceable.
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God's wisdom is peaceable. Wisdom creates peace among our relationships, not strife, not discord.
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It creates community. The sea in recast comes from God's wisdom. It's a safe harbor where we can share our flaws and failures with one another without judgment.
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It's peaceable. It also says it's gentle. It's not harsh or abrasive.
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Some of us like to share the truth really in a caustic manner. That's not what the godly wisdom would do.
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It's fair. God's wisdom is reasonable. I think sometimes we get too caught up, forgive me for saying this, in some of what we think is doctrinal.
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This is a core issue, and I don't know if it always is. We need to be reasonable. In the
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Greek lexicon, this was synonymous with easily obeying or compliant, not stubborn, not insubordinate or obstinate.
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Reasonable. I think we can see the wisdom in that. God's wisdom is full of mercy and good fruits, it says.
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It says full of mercy, that is doing good to those that are afflicted, taking care of one another.
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It's full of that, and it's full of good fruits. The fruits that we see in Galatians 5, 22 and 23, that's a great mirror passage of this because it highlights how jealousy hurts those things.
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These ideas of how we can bring forth fruit in our mind. We see in the text that it's impartial.
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It can be translated unintelligible or without ambiguity. It's impartial.
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It brings to mind James 1, 17, which says that every good gift and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the
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Father of whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. God's giving us good gifts that are the same regardless of the light.
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They don't change. They're impartial. It's perfect, and it's sincere.
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That's without hypocrisy. Godly wisdom is sincere. Romans 12, 9 uses that same adjective as it describes love.
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Let love be sincere and genuine. So individuals have received this wisdom from above.
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They sow with peace. That's what it says in this text.
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They have peace sown. I'll read it exactly as it says it. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.
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So we have godly wisdom expressed in our life. It brings forth a peace that is a harvest of righteousness, and righteousness is acceptable to God.
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That only can happen when Christ is working at us, we are in Christ. So having heard this list of characteristics, who in here would want to hang out with somebody that has godly wisdom?
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Maybe you have somebody in mind that you think embodies godly wisdom. Do you like being around them?
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Are you nourished by them? What? I'll say it this way.
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I forgot what I was going to say. It's a good rule of thumb that those are being used and blessed by God, that the people around them are being nourished.
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I was going to ask this if who is going to be benefiting by you praying for wisdom?
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You or somebody else? Because it's, I think oftentimes I hear we just need wisdom, and I think that's a different kind of wisdom.
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We're asking that God would help us make a decision. We see here as godly wisdom from above, it benefits those around us.
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So if we ask God to give us that wisdom, of course he's going to bless that. Of course he's going to ask that, not asking according to our own passions and our own desires, that he would give us godly wisdom from above that we might be blessing those around us.
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Can you conceive of how godly wisdom would be in direct contrast and at war with jealousy in our own hearts?
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So my goal this morning is not to make us all feel horrible about the jealousy in our own hearts.
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To go out and not be jealous, I got to go out and be peaceable, I got to go be gentle, I got to go do these things, these godly characteristics.
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The goal of this text is a diagnostic. It exposes where are you producing this fruit.
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Is godly wisdom at work in your life or is jealousy? Do you see you have a lot of relationship problems?
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It's probably born or likely born out of jealousy. We need to be letting the living water of Jesus Christ be flowing out of us that we would be fresh water and nourishing to those around us.
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And James does a remarkable job of highlighting our works. He even goes as far as to say in James 2 .14
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where you see that a person is justified by works and not by faith. And that might cause a lot of us to recoil like what?
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Ephesians 2 .8 -9 says the exact opposite. For by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not your own doing.
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It is a gift of God not of works so that no one can boast. How can it be? Because I like what some commentators quote
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Luther, Martin Luther, saying when he read James he said he wanted to throw Jimmy in the fire. Calling James Jimmy is remarkable to start but he says that because we don't understand true faith, if we have godly wisdom and faith it's going to work.
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So our solution in the solution that James gives is not to work harder do better but to first recognize that we don't have the godly wisdom by this diagnostic and then to ask.
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James 1 .5 the beginning of the text he says if any of you lacks wisdom there's the answer if any of you lacks wisdom what you do you should ask
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God who gives generously without finding fault. He doesn't give you just enough wisdom to get you started.
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He doesn't give you half wisdom and then you can make up the other half. He gives you generously this godly wisdom that is from above that blesses those around you that brings community to our church.
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He gives generously without finding fault. There is one true wisdom from above and it is life to us
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Christians and to those around us and the wisdom from this earth if you don't know there is no wisdom that's on this earth that is just evil and demonic and it will destroy.
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The point is this how can we display the fruit that comes from trusting in Christ from godly wisdom if we haven't experienced it if we haven't received it from above we first recognize our own failures flaws how we've broken things how we mess things up how we bring disorder this text says there's disorder where that happens we recognize our failures and we ask the father of lights whom gives all good gifts he gives grace to us he gives wisdom to us without finding fault the gospel of James is a hundred percent congruent with the the teachings of Paul in Ephesians 2 8 and 9 because faith without works is dead if you're not producing good works through from your faith you probably don't have faith that faith is dead it's not real so let us ask god for faith by grace that works and we're going to end this message with chapter 4 in James this message of grace and mercy so right after that part in verses 6 through 10 is we're going to be