Root of Church Conflicts

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Well, I invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to the 4th chapter of the book of James.
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James chapter 4.
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We're going to be looking tonight at verses 1 through 12.
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So if you'll just open your Bibles there and hold your place, we'll read it together in just a moment.
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According to Scripture, the church is not a building.
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This was one of the great differentiations which happened under the New Covenant.
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In the Old Covenant, there was a place that people went to called the Temple.
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And it was in the Temple that the Spirit of God dwelt.
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And it was in that Temple that people would go and they would draw close to God, and they would make pilgrimages to that Temple, and that was where they went.
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And the Temple had a special place of significance among the people of God.
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But when Christ came, He said, Now God is not going to dwell in temples made with human hands, but He's going to dwell within us.
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And He will dwell in the hearts of the believer.
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And this is what we call the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
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The Pentecostals have sort of grabbed that term and run with it and used it, and I would say misused it in many ways.
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But there is a baptism of the Holy Spirit.
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We've been baptized with the Spirit, meaning we've been immersed in the Spirit of God, and He now resides within the believer, and thus the church is the body of Christ, not the building.
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You know, we call this Sovereign Grace Family Church, and we think of the building, but really, in all reality, the church is you and me and everyone else who makes up the membership here, who have proclaimed Christ, and who have come here to worship together, have covenanted together to live together as the body of Christ.
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That's what the church is.
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We all know that.
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And the church exists universally and locally.
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This is something that there is somewhat of a debate about in some circles.
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Some people see the church as only universal.
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Some people see the church as only local.
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But the Bible describes both.
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It's universal in the sense that every person in the world who is in the body of Christ, every believer in Jesus Christ, is part of the church universal.
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In fact, that's where the word Catholic comes from.
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The word Catholic means universal.
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According to the whole is where that word Catholic comes from.
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And so the idea of being universal, and again, Roman Catholic is an oxymoron.
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Because Rome is a place, it's not universal.
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Catholic means universal, so to say that a single place is universal, it's not.
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So the church is universal.
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Every believer, whether they're in Pakistan, whether they're in China, whether they're in Uli, or whether they're in Jacksonville, or whether they're in the great metropolis of Callaghan.
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That's right.
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They are part of the universal church.
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But there's also the local church.
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When Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus, he was writing to a local body, the local church.
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Sovereign Grace Family Church is a local church.
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We have elders in this church that exercise ecclesiastical authority.
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Meaning that within the church they have authority to teach the Scripture and to govern by the Scripture.
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But they don't have ecclesiastical authority at First Baptist Church of Ocean Way.
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If we walked down there and said, okay, everybody in First Baptist Church of Ocean Way needs to have elders, and you need to have your deacons not be a deacon board, but they need to be servants, they'd look at us and laugh.
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We don't have any ecclesiastical authority down at the First Baptist Church of Ocean Way.
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So we understand that within the universal body of Christ, there's the local body of Christ.
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Now, why am I talking about the church tonight and all this stuff? Well, every regenerate member of the local church, meaning every person who is born again and who has joined the local church by coming, being baptized, and joining the church by profession of faith and a desire to come under the covenant of that church and believe and serve together, every one of those people who is genuinely born again is a spirit-filled, blood-bought Christian.
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They are all led by the same Holy Spirit, and because of that, you would think that the church would be without conflict.
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You might think that all these people who are going through the process of sanctification, remember what sanctification is? Sanctification is the process by which we are made like Christ.
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And the Bible says that.
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That's what we've been predestined to do.
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We've been predestined to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.
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So we know that.
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That's what's happening in the life of the believer.
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And you would think that if everybody who's a Christian joined a church, and everybody who's in that church is being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, that that church would have no conflict.
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And you'd be wrong.
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Because the church, since its birth, has been a community of conflict.
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We are a community of conflict, even in the most mature congregations.
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There are inevitably times of strife.
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Most ministries don't really last a long time.
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Most churches close very quickly after being planted.
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They don't last.
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Studies differ, but they show generally that most pastorates don't last very long.
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One study said most ministers last about three and a half years.
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Another study that was a little bit more broad said, no, the actual number is a little higher, sometimes five years, even up to seven years on average.
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But the reality is, we all know this.
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A ministry of long term is really foreign to a lot of churches.
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Some churches, we've talked about this, some churches chew them up and spit them out.
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They blow in, blow up, blow out.
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That's kind of the attitude, and that's the way the ministers work.
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They come in, they get excited, and then they're gone.
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Yes.
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In fact, all of the places, and I want to make sure I say this, at the time of the Crusades, all of the places where the churches are mentioned in the book of Revelations were under Islamic occupation.
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Yeah, yeah.
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It reminds me of a story.
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A pastor came to a new church, and he was all excited about his new church.
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He came into his office on the first day, and he realized that his predecessor, the pastor that preceded him, left him some envelopes on the desk.
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Some of you have heard me tell this story.
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He found three envelopes sitting on the desk.
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They were numbered one, two, and three.
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And so he picks up the envelope, and a little note attached to the first one.
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It says, When you have your first real conflict, open this first envelope.
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So about six months went by, and the honeymoon period began to wear off, and he began to see conflict arise within the church.
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And so he remembers the three envelopes, and he goes into his desk, he pulls out the first one, he opens it up, and he reads in big, bold letters, it says, Blame the elders, put your head down, and weather the storm.
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So he did what he thought, he did what the letter said, and everything went fine.
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And for about another year, everything was okay, and then another conflict arose and reared its ugly head.
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And so he went back to his envelope, second envelope, and it said, Blame the deacons.
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Admit nothing.
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Keep your head down.
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And when you have your next conflict, open the next envelope.
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So this time it lasts a little longer.
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It went a whole year, no big conflicts.
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Finally, the conflict occurred.
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He went to that third envelope, he picked it up, knowing there was going to be wisdom inside, he opens it up, and it says, Prepare three envelopes.
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You're on the way out.
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Yeah.
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Now, in our church over the years, I have seen conflicts, great and small.
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I've seen them in other churches as well.
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I've watched as good men have been defrocked unfairly.
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I've seen good men fall, and they were released justly.
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I've seen men leave their churches, and I've seen churches chase them away.
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Conflict is powerful, and it is dangerous.
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And tonight, we're going to look at James chapter 4, which deals with conflict in the church.
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And this passage is actually a continuation of James chapter 3.
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So I want to remind you, I know most of you are here, I want to just remind you, chapter 3, beginning at verse 13, so if you just look there with me, this takes us up to where we are.
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Chapter 3, verse 13 says, Who is wise in understanding among you? By His good conduct let Him show His works in the meekness of wisdom.
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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, and demonic.
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For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder in every vile practice.
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But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.
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And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.
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That last sentence is important, because James tells us that godly wisdom brings forth the fruit of peace.
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Its opposite is worldly wisdom, which is earthly, unspiritual, and demonic.
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And that type of wisdom gives rise to bitter jealousy and selfish ambition.
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Rather than leading to peace, it leads to discord.
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It leads to conflict.
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So he ends chapter 3 with a commendation for those who make it their business to make peace.
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And on the heels of this commendation, James exposes the opposite condition.
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There are those who sow peace, and there are those who sow discord.
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And James is going to tell us in chapter 4 why there is discord in the body of Christ.
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So let's read chapter 4, verses 1-12, and then we'll pray.
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James 4, verse 1.
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What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder.
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You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel.
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You do not have because you do not ask, and you ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions.
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You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
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Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says he yearns jealousy over the Spirit that He has made to dwell in us, but He gives more grace? Therefore it says God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
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Submit yourself therefore to God.
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Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
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Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.
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Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your heart, you double-minded.
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Be wretched and mourn and weep.
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Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.
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Humble yourselves before the Lord and He will exalt you.
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Do not speak evil against one another, brothers.
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The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother speaks evil against 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.
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There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, He who is able to save and destroy you, and to destroy.
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But who are you to judge your neighbor? Father, I thank You for Your Word.
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I pray even now that You would keep me from error as I teach it.
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Father, help us to be agents of peace and not ones who seek discord, as this passage calls us to in Jesus' name.
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Amen.
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So we begin tonight in chapter 4, verse 1.
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And it's important for us to recognize that James is here talking to the church.
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And he's talking about the church.
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It would be very easy for us to simply relate this in a general sense, in a general way, to the general world.
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Read it again, verse 1.
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What causes quarrels and fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? Wasn't that true of everything? Isn't that true of everyone? In fact, it was Thomas Hobbes, in his book of Man, being the first part of the Leviathan, who said this.
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He said, If any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies.
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Hear that again.
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He said, If any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies.
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That's the heart, says Hobbes, of what makes for war.
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Whether it's land, whether it's property, whether it's gold, or finances, or anything.
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When there's two things, or there's one thing that two men can't both have, they become enemies.
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If one is not willing to concede.
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So if you look back at James 4.1, he says, What causes quarrels and fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? And you say, Well, that can relate to everyone.
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That simple statement can relate to everyone.
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But James isn't talking to everyone.
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James isn't talking to the world.
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James is talking to the church.
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And that's why I started tonight by talking about the church.
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That's why I started talking about, this should not be true of us.
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But it is.
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It should not be true.
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I mean, we know this is true of the world.
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But James isn't talking to the world.
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We know this indictment can be laid at the feet of sinful, unregenerate humanity.
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But James isn't talking to sinful and unregenerate humanity.
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He's talking to us.
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And this is important.
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Because it reminds us of something.
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It reminds us that the church is not sin free.
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You know, Wesley believed that the believer could reach a point of sanctification where he would no longer sin willfully.
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He believed that the believer could reach a point where he would no longer sin.
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I don't know that he believed that he couldn't, but that he wouldn't.
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Not that you couldn't fall, but you wouldn't step.
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No intentional sin in thought or word, or even deed.
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But the reality is that the Bible teaches us something very simple.
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The Bible teaches us that even true blood-bought Christians still live in a body of flesh.
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Amen.
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I don't ask for them, but that's true.
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We all live in flesh.
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Every one of us is a believer, or who is a believer rather, still lives in this flesh.
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And I want to show you a passage, if you don't mind turning in your Bibles.
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Hold your place in James 4.
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But turn back to Galatians.
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Galatians chapter 5, verse 17.
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Galatians 5, 17.
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It says this, For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh.
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For these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do.
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Isn't that amazing? That the Apostle Paul, speaking to believers, he's talking to the church at Galatia, he's talking to blood-bought, Spirit-filled Christians.
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And he says to them, look, you've got a spirit, but you also have a body.
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And your body and that spirit war with one another.
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And the desire of the flesh is to keep you from doing what you want to do.
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Because you want to serve God.
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And you want to follow after Him.
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And there's this battle raging.
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And the battle's with the flesh.
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So James, back in James 4, he asks the question, What causes fights among you? What causes these quarrels? It's interesting, because in the original language, it reads slightly differently, but it means the same.
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In the original language, this short sentence doesn't have a verb in it.
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It literally says, From where wars and from where fighting? From where wars and from where fighting? It doesn't say what causes wars and what causes fighting, but that's the meaning.
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That's the idea behind it.
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Where does it come from? And James tells us, From where wars, from where fighting? I'll tell you.
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It comes from your hedonim.
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Hedonim in the Greek.
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Hedonim.
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And it's where we get the word hedonism.
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You ever heard that word hedonism? You know what hedonism is? Hedonism is a person who desires nothing but physical pleasure.
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Right? You know what a hedonist is.
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You've heard that word.
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You've heard that people call that.
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You've heard people who call themselves that.
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I'm a hedonist, man.
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I just do what makes me feel good.
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Some people don't know the word, but they know what it means.
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I don't have to say, I just do whatever makes me feel good.
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I get drunk as I can go.
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I go throw it up and then get drunk some more.
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I have all the interrelationships I can.
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I do everything that makes me feel happy until I can't do it no more.
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Then I sleep.
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And then I go right back at it when I wake up.
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That's what hedonism is.
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And that's where this Greek word, well that comes out from this Greek word.
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Passions.
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The pursuit of pleasure.
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Sensual self-indulgence.
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And don't think that it means only sexual, because it doesn't.
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It can.
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Certainly hedonism has an element of that.
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But it actually speaks more of just the desires for the pleasure.
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You know there were people in the past history who would eat and eat and eat until they threw up.
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Or I'm sorry, they would eat until they were full.
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They would make themselves throw up just so they could eat more.
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That was part of their lavishness.
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It was part of their behavior.
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They would just gorge themselves.
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Because food is good.
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And they liked it.
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And they would just, and then they'd throw it up and eat more.
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That's where this word comes out.
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It says this is what causes fights.
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This is what causes it.
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Because we are governed, not by the spirit, but by our pursuit of pleasure.
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Says James.
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In a sense, all men are born hedonists.
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Women too, I wasn't letting you off the hook.
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All people.
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In a sense, all people are born hedonists.
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We all begin life demanding and seeking comfort and pleasure.
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What makes a baby cry? He wants something.
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He's not comfortable.
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He's not receiving pleasure.
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And that desire doesn't go away as he grows.
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It only intensifies.
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We demand comfort and pleasure as we get older.
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The problem is we're often willing to rob others of those things in the pursuit of our own.
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I don't care how you feel.
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I want to feel good for me.
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So I'll step on you or step over you to make myself feel good.
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That's the heart of this.
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And he says this is what the fight's about.
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This is why in a blood-bought, spirit-filled congregation, there's still conflict.
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Because some of you have not made it past your own sinful desires.
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And when the conflict arises, you can bet your bile duct that somebody is exercising in the flesh.
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I'm paraphrasing James at that point.
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That's what he's saying.
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The bile duct was not James, but you understand.
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He's saying the reality, guys, is this.
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Why do fights come? Why do wars rage among you within the body of Christ? If there's one place in the world where there should be peace and tranquility and unification and moving forward, it should be the church, but it's not.
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Why? Because the flesh and not the spirit is governing one or both parties.
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It's convicting.
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Just verse 1, we could stop there and just say, you know what, that's enough.
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That's convicting.
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To say, why is it happening? Well, because of our pursuit of our own want.
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I guess if we didn't get enough on Resurrection Sunday, we'd just get no more.
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Maybe one day we'll get something nice and soft, but not tonight.
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It's heavy.
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Verse 2, he continues.
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He says in verse 2, let me find it here.
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You desire and do not have, so you murder.
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You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel.
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And then he says something that seems kind of out of place.
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He says, you do not have because you do not ask.
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And let me tell you something.
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That particular phrase has been used to death.
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People say, well, you have not because you ask not.
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That's why it's King James, right? You'll hear people say that.
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You just need to pray.
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You have not because you ask not.
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You have not because you ask not.
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That's true.
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And in a sense, that's what James is saying here.
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Part of the reason why we don't receive is because we're not bold and we're not going before God and we're not asking God.
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But the reality is the issue here is what comes after that.
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The issue is not that he's commanding us or encouraging us to pray, but he's saying you have not because you ask not and you don't get what you ask for because you ask for the wrong thing.
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All of this in context is going back to the issue of the hedonism.
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It's going back to the issue of the pursuit of pleasure.
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What's wrong with your prayer life? You're caught up in yourself.
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You have not because you ask not and you don't get what you ask for because you're only asking for yourself.
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You're asking for your pleasures, huh? Yes, and it's all about me.
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And the interesting thing here, he says to spend it on your passions, right there, that passion.
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Hey, don't ask.
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It's the same thing.
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To spend it on your hedonism.
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It's all in there.
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So again, looking at verse 1 and verse 2, he says what causes fights among you? Your passions.
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And you desire and don't have.
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So what do you do? You murder.
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Now I do think, and I could be corrected on this, I'm never above correction, even though some may think that.
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I don't believe I'm above correction.
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But I do think that there is a bit of hyperbole here.
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Because I think when he says you desire and you don't have, so you murder, he's talking to the church.
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And I think that what he's referring to here is hatred.
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Because Jesus tells us in Matthew chapter 5 that if you hate your brother, you've murdered him.
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And there's a big connection between James and the Sermon on the Mount.
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You can actually make line for line connections between what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount and what James says in the book of James.
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Both of them very practical messages.
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And there's actually very strong comparisons.
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Richard has a list of comparisons actually that we've talked about of how you can compare the book of James to the Sermon on the Mount.
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So I don't think that I'm out of bounds by saying when he says you have not, or rather you desire and you don't have, so you murder, that I think that the murder here is not physical murder, but it's hatred.
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Now if you want to argue with me later and say that Christians in the first century were going around killing each other, okay, but I think that would have led to some serious issues with local government.
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And I do think that if that were the case, that Christians were...
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Again, this is in the church.
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Contextually, this is in the church.
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I think if there were murders going on in the church, they would have a lot going on.
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It would be a lot more than just this said about it.
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I think what he's saying is you desire your own way.
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You desire your passions filled and that doesn't happen, so you hate the person who keeps it from happening.
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You hate the person who keeps you from getting what you want.
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You desire you don't get what you want, so you commit murder in your heart.
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And you say, what's he talking about? You all know what I'm talking about.
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You all have at least been in part of a situation where somebody got in someone else's way and it led to absolute vitriol, absolute hatred.
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I mean, brother, haven't we seen things, ridiculous things? You know what I'm talking about, things.
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All of us here have seen something where it just came out as just absolute gross hatred.
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And that's spiritual murder.
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We don't think of it that way.
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We don't think it's hatred, it's spiritual murder, but that's what Jesus said.
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He said, you have heard it said, do not commit murder, but I tell you if you hate your brother without cause, you've already committed murder in your heart.
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So I do think that that's what James is referring to here again.
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I cannot prove that from the text, but I think based on its connection to the Sermon on the Mount and based on the tenor of who James is talking to here, I don't think the Christians were walking around literally cutting each other's throats, but I think spiritually there were people cutting each other's throat.
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Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely.
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No, we can't say it didn't happen ever throughout the history.
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Yeah, I think that...
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Yeah, and also in this passage there's a parallelism because he says, you desire and don't have, so you murder.
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You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel.
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So I think that the murder is the hatred, the fight and quarrel is the expression of the hatred.
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And I think it's a parallel in that one, just like when you're reading the Proverbs, how it'll say the same thing in two different ways or it'll say one thing that compounds another thing.
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But again, yeah, people murdered each other over hatred, for sure.
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And it's happened in the church, for sure.
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But, go ahead.
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Exactly.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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And that's why I say I think it's hatred.
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I think that that's really the focus here.
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And again, you desire, you covet, you can't have what you want.
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What do you do? You fight and you hate and you grit your teeth at one another.
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You gnash your teeth at one another.
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And then you don't have because you don't ask.
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Why? Because when you're in that situation, you're not asking for anything right.
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Oh, God, smite my enemies.
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That's the attitude.
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You're not asking for anything loving.
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I've been in several situations where there's been conflict involved and I've faced some really difficult challenges.
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One thing I heard years ago, and it is helpful, but it's hard.
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It said, you know, if you pray for somebody who hates you, you have a hard time hating them back.
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If you really do pray for the person who's hating you, you have a hard time hating someone you're praying for.
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Unless you're praying, God, you know, kill them, which is, again, you're praying for the wrong thing.
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But, you know, that's not often what we do.
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When somebody hates us, we don't stop and pray for them.
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We hate them back.
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Or we at least express some type of response in the negative.
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What was it? I think it was Spurgeon who said, and I could be wrong on this quote, but one of the teachers of the faith said, he said, if a man thinks ill of you or speaks ill of you, don't be angry with him because he doesn't know how bad you really are.
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Anything he says, you're worse than what he said.
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That's amazing.
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How do we treat people who do us wrong? How do we treat, do we automatically fight back? No, or yes, rather than praying for that person.
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So again, hatred, quarreling and greed happen within the body of Christ.
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And that leads to the next statement.
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Verse 4 is really the crescendo moment.
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Because verse 1, why is there fighting among you? It's because of your passions.
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Verse 2, you desire, you don't get what you want, so you murder.
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You fight, you quarrel.
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You don't have because you don't ask.
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And the things you do ask for are the wrong things.
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You adulterous people.
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James isn't messing around.
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Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
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In the Bible, God's people are referred to as His bride.
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In the New Testament, we're called the bride of Christ.
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But even in the Old Testament, there's a sense in which there's this bride-groom, bride relationship between God and His people.
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And we remember the prophet who had the wife who was adulterous.
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And that was the picture of Israel.
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That was the picture of God's people who were abandoning Him to go after other gods.
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So when God sees His people turning from Him, sees His people turning from His commands, He calls them adulterers.
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Like a woman who turns from her husband to the arms of another man, the believer who turns from the arms of God to the arms of the world is an adulterer.
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And again, in 1 John, you mentioned earlier, but another passage in 1 John 2 says, Do not love the world or the things in the world.
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If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
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For all that is within the world, the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, the pride of life is not from the Father but is from the world.
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That's all of this.
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It's all that James is talking about here.
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It's all about the sinful fleshly passion within us.
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And it's worldly.
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It's a word we don't hear often anymore because we've been so afraid to use it.
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But there is a worldliness that has snuck into the church.
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And it's made its way into the church.
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Why do we name our churches like nightclubs now? Elevation, extension, this and that.
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It's like a nightclub.
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Exactly.
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It's because it's all about sensuous.
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It's all about trying to fill the passions.
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Titillating, tantalizing.
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The music is meant to be hypnotic so as to affect the senses.
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And it's worldly.
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It really is worldly in a way.
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And in a lot of senses it is.
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And the person who loves the world is the enemy of God.
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What does that mean when John says that? It means he loves the world system.
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He loves what the world has to offer.
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He loves the pleasures that the world gives him.
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And that is the problem.
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Now verse 5, and we've got a lot more scripture to get to and a lot less time to get to it in.
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Verse 5 says this, he says, Or do you suppose it is no purpose that the scripture says he yearns jealousy of the spirit that he has made to dwell in us? Now that singular passage may be the most difficult passage in all of James only because of this.
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He says this is scripture but there is no place in the Old Testament that he's directly quoting here.
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So that's one issue with this text right away.
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It really seems like a combination of several verses.
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But it's no one text.
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So I can't say, you see James is quoting scripture and this is where he's quoting from.
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It could be a combination of Exodus 20, Exodus 34, and Zechariah 8.
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These are places that it could be drawing from.
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But it really is more of a paraphrase at best.
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But again, the Holy Spirit speaking through him, I'm not challenging James.
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What I'm saying is that that makes it an issue.
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But what's more of a concern, not so much that it's not a direct quote of the Old Testament even though he calls it scripture.
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What's more of a concern is the meaning.
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Because if you read it in the NASB, it says this.
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It says that God is jealous for his spirit which he places within the believer.
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But if you read it in the King James Bible, which I don't know how many of you have one, but there's one in front of you because I gave you the notes.
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The King James Version says, Do you think that the scripture saith in vain the spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy? See, that's not the Holy Spirit.
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In the ESV and NASB version, it seems like it's talking about the Holy Spirit, the spirit within us that he yearns for, that he is jealous over.
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But in the King James Version, it seems like he's talking about our spirit, not the Holy Spirit.
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So it can be somewhat confusing.
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Is it the Spirit of God, as it seems to be implied in the ESV, or the NASB, or is it the spirit of a man, which is seen to be implied by the KJV, and it's not really absolutely clear, even the original.
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But based on the context, the point seems to be that God is displeased when he is replaced.
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So whether he is jealous for his own Holy Spirit within us, or the natural spirit which we have at creation, that we all have, is somewhat inconsequential.
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Because ultimately, the meaning stays the same.
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God does not like to be replaced.
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And that's ultimately what James is pointing out here.
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From verse 4, when a believer seeks the world, he's committing adultery against God.
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And God is jealous over being replaced by anything, especially the world.
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So again, looking at this text, reading it in various translations, reading the original language, it does have a little bit of a difficulty here.
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But the reality is, whether you read it as the spirit which he places within us, as the Holy Spirit, or the spirit he places within us at creation as our spirit, either way, whether you take the ESV reading or the KJV reading, both say the same, in that God does not wish to be replaced.
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And he is angry when that happens.
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Verse 6, though, tells the story.
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And I'm not letting you leave, because verse 6 is the beautiful part.
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All this has been all down.
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It's been a down.
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It's been a very negative introduction.
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I've got to get you to verse 6, though.
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That's what it's all about.
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If I don't get you to verse 6, I'm going to feel like I cheated you.
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Because I've only told you the bad.
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Because verse 6 tells the story.
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Verse 6 says this, but...
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That word but is a word of contrast.
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And let me tell you something, the Bible, when it uses the word but, it is often in the most beautiful way.
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Like in Ephesians 2, when it says we're dead in our trespasses and sins, in which we once walked, and we were by nature children of wrath, but God, according to the kind of...
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But God.
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God.
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That changes everything, right? Well, this is the same situation.
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We're in a situation where we're fighting with the flesh.
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We're in a situation where we're quarreling.
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We're in a situation where we have this body of flesh that we deal with, but God gives more grace.
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Therefore it says, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
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See, God hates to be replaced, as we've said.
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But His grace is sufficient, even in our disobedience.
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That's not a license for disobedience.
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But this is a call to humble repentance, which is why He makes the statement, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
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Here's the situation, folks.
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If you remain in your adulterous disobedience, which is based on your pride, and your love of the world, then God will remain opposed to you.
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But if you will humble yourself and seek God, His grace is sufficient for you.
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That's the point.
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If you remain disobedient, God will remain opposed.
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But if you will humble yourself and repent and seek after Him, His grace is sufficient.
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No matter how far you've gone, His grace can go even further.
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Okay? That's why I said I wanted to get here.
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Up until this point, it's been pointing out error, pointing out error, pointing out error.
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The quarrels that we have are because of the flesh, because of our passions, because of our desires.
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But there is a remedy.
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The grace of God is the remedy.
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So verse 7-12 tells us how to receive that and how to deal with it.
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So first we submit ourselves to God.
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This is one long section, but it all is one unit.
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He said, submit yourselves to God, and resist the devil, and he'll flee from you.
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Draw near to God.
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He will draw near to you.
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Cleanse your hands, you sinners.
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Purify your hearts, you double-minded.
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Be wretched and weep and mourn.
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Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.
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Humble yourselves before the Lord and He will exalt you.
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Do not speak evil against one another, brothers.
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The one who speaks evil against a brother or judges his brother speaks evil against 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.
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There is only one lawgiver and judge, He who is able to save and destroy.
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But who are you to judge your neighbor? That's a long section, but again, it's one unit.
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This is the response that we should have to this problem.
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Humble, obedient submission.
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Our biggest problem is this.
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We want things our way, in our time, and according to our pleasure and our desire.
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Yet we are called to submit to God's way, to God's time, and to His desires.
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We're also called to brokenness over our disobedience.
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He said we should recognize our sin and mourn over it.
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Our laughter should be turned to mourning.
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Our joy should be turned to gloom.
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He says in this text.
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Have you ever mourned over your sin? I mean, really been broken over your sin? Sure, we've all been angry at other people's sins.
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Sure, we've all been broken over somebody else's errors, but have we over our own? I want to give you the application for this.
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It's on your sheet.
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I want to give you the fill-in.
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First and number one.
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The root of church conflict is the demand to have our own prideful desires fulfilled.
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And I can tell you, one of the most difficult calls we have as a believer is to put aside our desires.
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Yet it is the call to Christian life, and I can tell you this, in all the conflicts I've been a part of, in all the conflicts I've witnessed, in my years of ministry here, and in other churches that I have seen, all that I have seen, there is always at the root of it some prideful desire that is unwilling to acquiesce and submit to the Word of God, or to submit to the people of God.
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Prideful desires is the root of church conflict.
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Number two.
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Conflict often leads to gossip.
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If you look back at verse 11, it says, "...do not speak evil against one another's brothers.
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The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother speaks evil against the law and judges the law." See, conflict often leads to gossip, which is a form of judgmentalism, the text tells us, which often compounds our pride and furthers the conflict.
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We make all kinds of excuses for gossip.
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Well, I just need somebody to talk to.
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I just need to vent.
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Right? I just needed somebody to hear my side.
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But often all we're doing is expressing our own judgment over the actions of another, all the while not recognizing our own guilt.
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Yeah, let's pray for them after we get done destroying them.
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Last but not least, and I want to spend a minute on this one, if you'll indulge me just a moment.
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The opposite of joy is not sadness.
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The opposite of joy is sin.
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What does that mean? Pastor, what are you talking about? The opposite of joy is sadness, it's not sin.
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No, the opposite of joy is not sadness.
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Why? Because James tells us in the beginning, take joy in your trials, knowing that those trials are used to bring you to maturity, right? The Bible tells us we can have joy even in distress.
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We can have joy even in brokenness.
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We can have joy even when the world falls out from underneath us.
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Job said, Though He slay me, yet I will hope in Him.
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Right? But the Bible never says we can have joy in sin.
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Turn with me to Psalm 51.
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I want to finish with Psalm 51, verse 12.
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If you remember King David, King David saw a woman, founded her to be attractive, and he chose to take her and have an illicit relationship with her, and as a result, impregnated her, and thus he had to murder her husband to hide his guilt.
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And when he was broken over that sin, Psalm 51 is his prayer of contrition.
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It's his prayer, God, cleanse me of this sin.
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And in verse 12, he says, Restore to me the joy of your salvation.
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Beloved, what we abandon in sin, what we abandon in our pursuit of the flesh, is true, abiding joy.
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The flesh will satisfy for a moment, but it will leave you devoid of joy.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank You for Your Word, I thank You for the truth, and I do pray, oh God, that this message will be used to call us all to repentance.
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To repent of our struggle with the flesh, and to say, God, have mercy on us, and strengthen us, and Lord God, as Your Word says, You give grace to the humble, so humble us, that we might desperately seek You.
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That we might see the devil working in our lives, and resist him, and see him flee.
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That we would not abandon You for the world, knowing that we are never a fool to give up what we cannot keep, to attain what we cannot lose.
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So God, help us to seek Your presence, and to seek Your Kingdom first.
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And know that, Lord, when that is first, the struggles with the flesh, the struggles with the pride, the struggles with our passions, will become secondary to our pursuit of You.
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In Jesus' name, Amen.