Today, my, my horny title is Pride Comes before Stupidity,
and it really fits. But Lord, I just lift up this
time. I lift up everybody here.
Lord that you would fill this room in order that I would
disappear. Lord that you'd not only be
speaking to everybody, but Lord, you'd be speaking to me.
And Lord, just that we would grow, grow in our relationship
with you more and more every day, every hour, every minute,
more that you would just fill us, fill us to overflowing, that
we would flow out into this community at our workplaces and
that when we're shopping or just that we would be in the midst of
this community and more that you would make a difference through
US. And I pray this in Jesus name,
Amen. So James 4 starting in verse
one, 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 and you covet and you
cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel.
You do not have because you do not ask.
You ask and do not receive, because you asked wrongly to
spend it on your own passions. 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. Or do you suppose it is to no
purpose that the Scriptures say He yearns jealously over the
Spirit that He has made to dwell in us, but He gives more grace.
Therefore he says, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to
the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to
God. Resist the devil, and he will
flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will
draw near to you. Cleanse your hand, you sinners,
and purify your hearts. You double minded.
Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned a
mourning, and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the
Lord, and he will exalt you. Do not speak evil against one
another, brothers that one. The one who speaks against a
brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and
judges the law. But if you judge the law, you
are not a doer of the law, but a judge.
There is only one lawgiver and judge he who is able to save and
to destroy. But who are you to judge your
neighbor? Come now you, come now, you who
say today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and
spend a year there, and trade and make a profit.
Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring.
What is your life? For you are a are a mist that
appears for a little time and then vanishes.
Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and
do this or that. As it is you boast in your
arrogance. All such boasting is evil.
So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it for
him, it is sin. Now that chapter we could beat
each other up for hours, right? It is it.
I mean when you look at what James some of the some of the
big words James uses his quarrels, fights, passions,
desires, murders, covets, fights, squirrels, passions,
wars, adulterous enemies of God, a proud sinners, double minded,
wretched mourn. And what James is trying to do
here is make a point and and I think he does a pretty good job.
Right starts off with verses one and two.
What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you?
Is it not this that your passions are at war within you?
You desire, you desire, and you do not have.
So you murder and you covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and
quarrel. You do not have because you do
not ask so like James does. James is asking the reader a
question again, and there and then he's making, you know,
blunt points about it. You know, why are you being
nasty to each other? He then tells them why.
It's because they are focused on themselves, their own passions,
the things they get excited about with pride and judgement.
They think you don't think like me.
You were wrong and an idiot. This, this should never be
because because when I look at others, I always go back to me.
Me before I was a believer, but especially me after I became a
believer, right? I became a believer and I had
some, some crooked thinking. You know, I got, I got saved
when I got saved, I believed in evolution.
I believed abortion was a political issue that the church
should stay away from. Now, today, I obviously think
completely differently. And that's because God came in
and showed me truth, right? Sometimes knocked me upside the
back of the head with it. But God meets us where we're at
and all of our stupidity, right? And that that goes for each and
every one of us. Last, I think last Saturday we
were having a conversation at the men's group that was, you
know, God Forgives me for all my sin, including my bad theology.
Right now there is there is things that we believe as
Christians that make us Christians who Jesus is how we
get to heaven. You know, grace is the only way.
It isn't grace plus anything. It's grace and Jesus was the Son
of God. He died, died and rose again on
the third day. These are things we believe as
believers. But then there's stuff that we
can, you know, we can, we can start talking about and, and
there are there and denominationalism would be a
great example of how we can get off the rails and start pointing
at each other. And and really, that's the kind
of conversations James is having here with people.
But if you look at Galatians 516 through 18, it says, but I say
walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the
flesh, for the desires of the flesh are against the spirit and
the desires of the spirit are against the flesh.
For these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the
things you want to do. But if you are led by the
Spirit, you are not under the law.
So that's that conversation that I have with people very often
and even myself is my job is, is to listen to the Lord in my
life. You know, mission work is a good
example of what that looks like for me is over the years, you
know, the I have, I have taught a lot of studies on missions
because I'm the guy that goes to Uganda and spins and is in the
mission field. And I was a missionary for
years. So people call me and ask me to
come teach on missions. So I come, but I do not teach
and say you need to go to a third world country and be a
missionary because that is not for me to say that is, that is
for God to speak to you about, right?
And when we look at when we look around us and say this person or
that person should do something different, they should act more
like me, then we're, we're in sin, right?
We, we start to think that I have something to offer.
That's that pride comes before stupidity, right?
When I think I'm doing it right and they're doing it wrong, I'm
really focused on myself and not Jesus.
A a story. And it's really kind of a fun
story of how this is supposed to work.
If you guys ever read the hiding place with Corey Tim Boom.
And so she she and her family hid, hid Jews in their in their
home during during World War 2. And in order to do that, there
were obvious moments that she was lying her first lie and it
she brings it out. Her first lie was she had they
had two radios. They had a big fancy radio and a
little tiny radio. And they went to the Nazis
wanted their wanted everybody to turn in their radios.
So they she turned in a radio and when asked if she had
another radio, she said no. And when she was coming home and
she goes and the, and the, the sky didn't open up and lightning
didn't splash. You know, I mean, it was serious
to her that she was lying. So she did recognize it.
Now she had a she had a cousin that refused to lie and her
cousin when I, when I say refused to lie, did things like
there were the Nazis broke in looking for her brothers and
they were eating, they were eating dinner at the table.
And she said they, they said, where are your brothers?
And she said under the table and they, they looked underneath the
table and her brothers weren't there.
And they, they thought she was just being obnoxious.
And they leave. Well, her family is beyond angry
with her because her brothers were under the table, under a
hatch, under the floor. And then years later there,
she's in a room with, with a, a Colonel, a German Colonel or
something. And the, and, and another lady
that did not look Jewish at all, but was Jewish.
And so she was living out, she had some fake papers and she was
living out in public. And the German said, well, is
she Jewish? And she said, yeah, So I
literally, I mean, didn't, didn't lie, just yes, she is.
And so everybody's mad at her because she's telling the truth,
because that's, that's God leading her to do that.
Now the, the, the good news on the so the, her brothers weren't
found underneath the table and that the, the fun with that
particular story of that Lady and it doesn't happen this way
all the time. But that particular story is she
got arrested and thrown in, thrown in a holding area.
I think it was at a theater. Well, in the next few days that
theater was liberated. They the resistance broke in and
got them out. So because because her cousin
just stood and told the truth on everything, this lady ended up
in jail and everybody's mad at her.
Well, because she was in jail, she got set free right Now that
whole time Corey is, is doing things like making up food
vouchers, lying about where the Jews are now, I will never stand
up here and tell you that she was required to lie, right?
Because you don't know. It's it's, it's like a brother,
brother Andrew snuck Bibles into behind the Iron Curtain and he
used to pray that that the guards would be blind, you know,
so he had he do, he wouldn't lie about what he had in his trunk.
He wouldn't hide it. He just, they just let him
through like they didn't hear what he said or they didn't see
what was in it. So God can do it, however God
wants to do it. But my point is that what your
job as a believer is, is to truly be doing what the Lord is
telling you to do, not not looking at somebody else and
deciding they're not doing it right, right?
Be be in your own business in that right and, and not be
focused on what others should or shouldn't do.
Now there is obvious sin in people's lives that we do get to
talk about, and I'll get into that.
Verse 3 and 4 says you ask and do not receive because you asked
wrongly to spend it on your own passions.
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. So when we're praying, what's
our motive? Are we praying to make our lives
easier? And guys, I, I will tell you and
I, and I can imagine that we've all been there.
You know, I, I joked about the, when I was going through my
divorce and somebody, I just wish Jesus had come back.
Well, the reason I wanted Jesus to come back was because my life
sucked and I wanted out of it, right?
That's not the right reason, right?
The reason, the reason that I want Jesus to come back is
because no more can be saved and, and we can all get out of
here and the next step because there are more they get saved
after that, right, That turn to him, but they require a lot more
pain, right? This is the, this is, this is
the time we're in and, and we don't, we don't want Jesus to
come back early, right? I don't want Jesus to come back
until everybody that can be saved has been saved and I
definitely don't want him to come back early so that I get to
be comfortable and some other people get to burn in hell
eternity because he came back early.
That doesn't right that that is definitely not.
I mean when you when you put it in that that level, it shows you
really how self focused it is to say Lord, our country's falling
apart. Come back now.
Well, and, and I do want him to come back if it's time, I want
to, I want to be waiting for him.
But when we're praying, so God wants, wants to take care of his
children. He loves us and wants to give us
nice things. But when we're praying, do we
pray like spoiled brats? Give me more, give me more, give
me more. And, and you guys all know what
that's like when you, you, you have, you have young children
and you give them one thing and then they want something else.
They want to add to it. You gave them an inch.
They want a mile kind of thing, right?
Is our prayer life like that right?
When when I look at my life and the blessings that are in my
life, you know, one of the blessings that I I talk about a
lot is my wife. But when I look at my life and I
look at all the blessings in my life, I don't got anything to
ask for. That is, you can't I mean God,
you, you blessed me beyond what I ever could have asked or
imagined. And The funny thing is, is very
few of those things that I look at in my life as blessings are
the things that I prayed about like I need this or I need that,
right. He knew the things that I needed
before I need before I before I did.
And so trusting him in that we need to be when our prayer life
should be others focused. We we we need to be praying with
the heart of Lord. What?
What do you have for me? What?
Yeah. And not what do you have for me
to get? What do you have for me to do?
What what burdens do you want to put on my heart that I get to
pray for people about? Right.
What do I, how do I get to pour into this world until the day
you come back or I go to you Galatians one verses 3 and four.
And this is just the God we serve grace to you and peace
from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ who gave himself
for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age according
to his will of our God and Father.
Does he owe us anything else? If that's all I got, that's
enough. And he gives us so much more
than that. But he also didn't just say he
gave us directions. I guess we'll be the when we
look at praying and and what does praying look like?
And how are we not just like, how do we not act like James
says we're acting and we're praying for ourselves and
looking at ourselves. We look at Matthew chapter 6,
verses 8, one through 15, and this is Jesus taught teaching us
how to pray, right? He was talking to the disciples,
but he says do not be like them. And he's talking about the
hypocrites. And that's people that act one
way in public in a different way in private.
He says don't act like the hypocrites for your father knows
what you need before you ask him.
Do you trust that that that when I'm looking at something that I
need, he already knew that I needed it, so it's coming or is
it just something I want? Very often it's what I want and
there's there's no guarantee for that.
Verse 9, it says pray like this, our Father in heaven, hallowed
be your name, your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it
is in heaven. And that's a prayer for others.
We're going to start off with that your Kingdom come, Lord,
your will be done on earth that is in heaven, right?
Care for this country, care for this world.
Use use your body as you need to.
And then verse 11, give us this day, Our Daily Bread.
Do we trust him? Do we trust that he has my needs
in order before I do, before he knows more about what I need
than I ever will? Verse 12 and forgive us our
debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And that's also once again others, right?
Looking at others and saying, Lord, change my heart, change my
heart how I look at the rest of the world, right, verse 13 and
lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
And that's that's just Lord, help me to trust you and follow
you. Help me to rely on you.
And if you go through that in that order, right, that you're,
you're praying for others, you're praying for you to just
be trusting that he has it in control.
And then remembering that that he also has has will in your
life to be in others lives. So, so praying for others and
your ability to pour into them and then just ending that with
trusting and following him saying, Lord, I don't know what
the plan is, but I'm willing to do what you want me to do Teach
me, show me your way. Jesus adds.
Add some commentary at the end, verses 14 and 15.
For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father
will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others
their trespassers, neither will your your Father forgive your
trespasses. And that is when you come to the
Lord with, with bitterness in your heart, with this, this
quarrels and fightings and desires for yourself.
He's he's working on you, right, that, that the conversation
stops because he's he's needed to change your heart.
What you're what you're doing here is saying, Lord, do I have
anything against anyone or change my heart on that?
Show me your heart for them. Do you understand what Jesus did
on the cross, right? We talked about it last week.
We'll we'll talk about it a lot. But what he did on the cross,
there was no deserve in it, right?
So when you look and say I don't deserve this, well, there's no
deserve in it, right? That there's a Facebook thing we
posted years back that then, you know, had a whole list of the
things that God that you deserve from God.
You know, it's money, wealth, power, family.
Now there's one at the very bottom.
It's death. That's what you deserve, right?
The day you were born, that is what was deserved.
Everything else is a gift. Everything so.
And that's, that's his grace when we, when we look at our
lives and we think at any moment I have, I'm this guy and I'm,
I'm here. And then there's these other
people over here, they need Jesus.
I'm, I'm in that awful place that Satan wants me, right?
He wants me in that in that space of thinking that I have
something to bring to the table and when I'm there, I'm in God's
not impressed right at verse 5 it says or do you suppose it is.
It is to no purpose that the scriptures say he earns
jealously over the spirit that he has made dwell in us.
So I want to give my life to the Lord.
He fills me with his spirit and when I when I decide things like
I have something to offer, then I am I am lost, right?
I'm literally Genesis 65 says the Lord saw the wickedness of
man was great in the earth and that every intention of thoughts
of his heart were only evil continually outside of Christ.
That's who I am, right? I don't care if you got saved
when you were five years old or you got saved last week outside
of Christ. That's who we are.
Our hearts are dreadfully wicked.
Who can know them right there is it isn't it isn't.
Hey, I've been a believer for 30 years and I've learned a bunch
of stuff and now I'm now, now I am.
And now I can look down my nose at these other people that don't
know as much as me. We're never those people because
when we, when we actually understand what the Lord did, we
understand that I got nothing to offer and all I have to offer is
that submission to him and his will in my life.
And when we do anything in our own strength as a believer,
Jesus will not allow us to move deeper with him in that right.
If I'm in my own strength, it's it's that pride comes before
stupidity, right? I'm just heading for a ditch
the, the day that I think that I, I, I say it like this.
Stand back, Lord, I got this one is the day that I, I fall into a
ditch, right? And and it's not a ditch because
so I, I have two choices at that point.
When I fall in that ditch, it's either a God stuck his foot out
and tripped me so I can see my mistake and turn or the devil's
beat me up like the middle school bully that he is.
We've talked about him, right. So the outside of Christ, I got
nothing. I got, I got no strength.
I, I don't even, I don't even compare in the in the strength
game. It's not like, well, we're,
we're I'm, I'm wrestling Satan and no, there's, there's nothing
that I got no ability to win that battle.
Now Jesus does. My dad does right?
He's got the complete power to to ignore that.
And I mean, you can look at that, like I said, you can look
at God's grace literally like the dad walking up to the middle
school bully, right? I got a buddy here this week and
he is probably 6 foot five couple £100.
And when he walks in the room, the middle school bully doesn't
go. I got that.
You know, he runs away the other direction, right?
He's a he's a Superintendent at the school that he's in and and
he doesn't middle school bullies don't don't mess with him.
They don't. I mean, it's not even like he
shows up and says, well, I'm here now.
No, they don't even they don't even think about it.
That's the God we serve. Now when the elementary kid
wants to wrestle the middle school bully, you don't stand a
chance. But when God shows up, it's not
even a conversation, right? And that's what we need to
understand is that we don't have at any point anything within us.
All we have is the grace of God. And that's verse 6.
But he gives more grace. Therefore, he says God opposes
the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
And the reason he is able to give grace to the humble is that
we recognize our position in him.
We recognize all I've got is dwelling and and abiding in his,
his plan and his guidance, submitting yourself therefore to
God. Resist the devil and he will
flee for you from you. And that's the my, my picture
for that one today is think of jumping in an airplane and you
know, I 747 it's a, it's a big plane.
I have no idea how they work. You know, they're, they got big
engines and they go fast. And I, I kind of understand
lift, but that's a big plane to get off the ground.
But somehow, some way, it flies me over the North Pole and lands
in Dubai and then we jump on a 777 and fly to Uganda.
And I, I don't, I don't do calculations in the seat.
I get in and put the, I get in and put the seat belt on and
watch TVI submit to the plane. I submit to the pilot, right.
I submit to the law of aerodynamics now at any moment.
I don't think the planes are built like this, so I couldn't
actually do it. But if I if I could, I could
walk over to the door, open the door and jump out.
How quickly, how quickly when I jump out of the plane does the
law of gravity take over? It's it's instant.
I mean, I don't think there we don't, we don't live in a
cartoon world, right? Gravity takes if I fall off the
roof Outback gravity takes over instantly.
It isn't a there isn't a pause moment where I go, Oh no, I'm
going to fall, right? There's just falling.
Well, that's there is there is the law of sin and death and
it's real and everybody outside of Christ is under that law.
And then there's the law of grace.
And if you're in Christ, you're you have grace when you step
outside of Christ, you're not under sin and death, but you are
able to be beat up, stomped on, kicked that played with,
manipulated by the enemy. And that's why it's so important
that we we drop our pride and we understand.
Lord, I can't, you have to in everything.
When I wake up in the morning, before I put my feet on the
floor, Lord, fill me with your spirit guide and direct me
through my day because Lord, I can't.
If you don't do this. And that, that is in all that we
do. I mean, at no point on the
airplane do I knock on the pilot's door and say, I got
this. I read a book.
I know the things I don't. I don't ever go to the airport
and decide I'm going to climb on the outside of the plane.
I figured it out. I'm just going to hold on really
tight out here. None of that works.
There's only one place that that gives us that right.
And that's being completely submitted.
And and we have to be completely submitted to the Lord.
And first Peter 58, says be sober minded, be watchful.
Your adversary, the devil prowls around like a roaring lion
seeking someone to devour. And if you think of, if you
think of the enemy like gravity, gravity is, is seeking people to
fall. And all it takes is for you to
step out, right? Gravity's always there.
The enemy is, is willing, ready and unable to mess with each and
every one of us. And if and if we're not, if
we're not in our word, if we're not spending time with the Lord
and, and, and telling him, Lord, you got to change me because I
am, I'm wretched. My, my heart is wicked.
Then then I'm losing, right? I'm, I'm not moving forward.
Verses 8 through 11 say draw near to God and he will draw
near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners,
and purify your hearts. You double minded, say James
agrees with me that, that I'm pretty wretched, right?
Verse 9 be, be wretched and mourn and weep.
Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.
Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you.
Do not speak evil against one another, brothers.
The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother,
speaks evil against the law and judges the law.
But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law, but a
judge. So I've talked about it.
Whenever we think we can do it, our own strength, we should cry
and weep because we're going to fail and we're going to fail
because God isn't willing. Just just like you look back at
Gideon, He wasn't willing to for Gideon to show up in any way
that made it look like Gideon was going to win the battle,
right? Gideon showed up with an army
that was too small to win. But if they won, they could have
claimed they were the reason they won.
So God cut it in half and then looked at it when it's still too
big. And then he cut it down to 300
men. He said, OK, So I believe that
at this point, you guys might get the idea that you didn't win
the battle. Now, when that battle was over,
does anybody remember what happened?
They all wanted to crown Gideon King because he had won the
battle. He's like, are you guys smoking
something? Did you do drugs at the battle?
Because there was 300 of us. I was not the guy that did this.
He's bigger than that. And he wants us in that position
all the time to recognize that he does the work right, that it
isn't about, it isn't about us. It isn't about what we can do
and, and how, how well I can apply scripture, how well I can
apply my wisdom to a situation, but to be in his word, asking
him continually throughout. That's why when it says pray
continually, it's, it's not those out loud prayers.
It's that inner talk that we all have, right?
Those those conversations in our in our heads that be talking to
the Lord about about the person in front of you in line the the
the stuff. I mean guys, I I on on Thursday,
I will tell you that that is a time to pray Thursday I knew the
end of the bat. I knew I knew how the council
meeting turned out. So I had that.
I felt bad for everybody that watched it on Wednesday because
you guys didn't know how it turned out and you had to watch
the same thing. But it's just a time to pray.
There are lost people, right? There are lost people.
And am I, am I angry with them? I'm angry with their sin, right?
And that and that is that that is what we're supposed to be
angry with the sin, not the Sinner, right?
They're lost and dying and so to be but but watching 4 hours of
it or listening to four hours of it, it is it is definitely a
time that that lots of prayer the whole time.
And that's because if not, I get I get arguing with the last guy
that spoke or wishing somebody had said it different or
whatever. And so I'm just praying.
So Lord, you use this, you use this is a lot of a lot of
information was given at that meeting and and I can hope that
that people went away and maybe somebody heard something they
hadn't heard before. Right in the middle of it.
There was a lady that she was I don't I don't know anything
about her, can't remember her name or any of that, but she
shared she just went, she went, she had a pass.
She said, you know what, I got rescued out of that past and and
guys, Jesus loves you. God wants to do great things.
He will meet you in your, in your, in your depths, in your
gross and he will take you out of it.
That's what we need to be sharing with people, right?
I mean, that was, I mean, she right in the middle, right?
I mean, like probably right at the 2 hour mark, like she, she
was like the, the brush of fresh air right in the middle of it's
like, Hey, by the way, we serve a living God who can, can, can
love you, can take care of you, can fill you with his spirit
and, and do amazing things in your suck, right.
And so just be in prayer about all of that stuff.
And then remember at all times, CS Lewis, obviously way smarter
than me, had the perfect line about what the the opposite of
pride is humility. But humility is not thinking
less of yourself. A lot of times we think that
humility means that I need to say I suck and I'm horrible and
I'm awful. No, because that's like reverse
pride of of like now I'm just going to beat myself up.
No, it's thinking less of yourself or thinking of yourself
less, right is I? I do not in every situation the
Lord puts me in when I grasp that I don't matter.
Like Lord, you need to do what you need to do.
You know, it's when I went through my divorce, something
that people I had lots of loving people around me and and there
there's a whole story there. But the thing I learned, and
this always takes people off guard is no one cared.
Doesn't mean they didn't love me.
Doesn't mean that they didn't take care of stuff and feed me,
dude. But when, when I, when I wasn't
in their sight, they weren't, they weren't in the, they
weren't in the ache I was in, right.
And that isn't because they didn't.
It's that guys, we're, we're generally selfish people.
We we think about ourselves a lot, you know, and God and only
through his work can we be others focused.
It isn't something that I well up inside me and go Lord court.
I'm going to work really hard at this today.
It's it's something that he has to put inside of us right
Hebrews says for the law made nothing perfect, but on the
other hand, a better hope is introduced through which we draw
near to God. Better hope is Jesus.
So Hebrews pretty pretty bluntly says something that we hate to
hear for the law made nothing perfect.
I memorize that I can memorize the Bible from Genesis to
Revelation and there are there are scholars out there that know
it back to front, but they are lost because they they are not,
they are not giving themselves to Christ and his work in their
lives. And that's what our job is,
right? Our job is continually to go,
Lord, I can't, you have to. And I will say that probably
every Sunday or every other Sunday for the rest of time
because I can't. He has to.
That's why we serve a living God.
We don't, we don't have a religion, right?
I mean, if you look at if you look at Buddhists, they have a
they have a religion and they have a set of things they're
going for that are moral. They're even holy.
I mean, they are, they are going for enlightenment.
And guys, they ain't going to get there because outside of
Christ, it's impossible. And if we come to others like
James says in in chapter 3, we went over last week, we come to
others with pure motives, peaceable, gentle, open to
reason, full of Mark mercy, impartial and sincere.
And the only way we do that is in him.
We were able to use God's wisdom to desert discern a matter.
So this this judging topic and James, James gets into it.
But Jesus, Jesus says in Matthew 7, and I'm sure we have either
quoted this verse, had this first quoted to us, or had a had
a long lengthy conversation about it.
Chapter 7 verses one through 5. Judge not that you be not judged
for the judgement which you pronounce.
You will be judged and with the measure that you use, it will be
measured to you. Why do you see see the speck in
your brother's eye but do not notice the log in your own eye?
Or how can you say to your brother, let me take that speck
out of your eye. And when there is a log in your
own eye, you hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye
and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your
brother's eye. Anybody heard that one judge?
Not that you'd be not judged, right?
But in context, if you look at the whole SEC, the speck was
still removed from the eye, right?
It was the he removed the speck, but after he removed the law,
right? So the log is when I look, when
when I see somebody in sin and I think that they're in sin and
I'm better than them because they're in sin and I can, I can
judge them because I'm not sinning, then then I have a log
in my eye and I'm missing the point.
My job is to with truth and love, pull them out of that sin
to Jesus right to shine, to shine Jesus's life light into
their life. And the only way I do that is by
reflecting Jesus into their life right and because Jesus just to
be clear on the judging thing on our our ability.
So in in Matthew 7 after he said judge not that you be not
judged. So that we get that in context,
we still get to judge sin as sin.
Verse 15, it says beware of false prophets, prophets who
come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly A ravenous world.
Wolves, you will recognize them by their fruits, grapes gathered
from thorn or grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from
thistles. So this is literally Jesus
saying judge not be not that you be not Judge goes through the
whole thing and then says now judge, teachers, are they?
Are they actually? Are they actually teaching God's
word or not? Are they, are they actually out
doing what they're supposed to be doing?
And that's for you as believers to be able to see and judge and
discern. And that's the point of that is
the judging that he's talking about, that we shouldn't judge
is to ever think that I'm above somebody else.
We are all in the same playing field.
The middle school bully, the middle school bully and the
elementary kid are in the same school, right?
If it's if it's that kind of school, we're not any better.
We're just different. And in that we need to recognize
sin and we are completely allowed to judge sin, not the
Sinner, which it sounds Christian speak.
The goal is at all times that we're the rescuers, right?
That we're the first aid station, that we're, that we're
there to care for the sick and dying.
And that is hard. It's messy, right?
I mean, I'm, and it's, it's not a pretty thing, but the only way
we do it is if we're prayed up and we're focused on what the
Lord has for us. Verse 12, it says there is only
one law giver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy.
But who are you to judge your neighbor?
And that's simple guys. God's in charge, right?
He has given us a mission and our mission is to go out and
save the lost and dying by sharing with sharing with them
what He gives us. The key is for us to remember
our role and the day you gave your life to Jesus, you accepted
that he's in charge of your life.
You submitted to that. And when we finish this up with
verses 13 through 17, and this is this is that full submission.
And I just it's James cut seemed like it would be off topic from
what he's talking about. But if you put it in this full
submission context, it says in verse 13, come now you who say
today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and
spend a year there and trade and make a profit.
Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring.
What is your life for? You are a mist that appears for
a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, if the
Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.
As it is, you boast in your arrogance.
All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing
to do and fails to do it, for him, it is sin.
So once again, pride comes before stupidity, right?
When we look at our lives in this context and we say Christ
came 2000 years ago, walked around, walked around the
streets of, of Jerusalem and, and in Israel, he was crucified
and three days later rose again on the third day.
And in that time he told, he told Nicodemus in John 316, it
said, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son.
Whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal
life. And this is a free gift, right?
And we, we talk about it's free gift.
It's free gift. In Uganda, free gifts are
actually almost despised because of a welfare society that that
the Western world has helped helped make.
So when you say a free gift, it sounds like that means it's a
cheap gift and the free gift of grace that God gives us it.
It not only cost the Son of Man or the Son of God, the cross and
crucifixion, but the day you received it, it cost you
everything you are. If you haven't received it, it
will cost you everything you are.
It is complete submission to the God of this universe.
It isn't, it isn't. I'll give you a little bit.
It isn't Lord, I, I would like you in my story is complete
submission to his authorship of your story.
I was talking to somebody the other day and Can you imagine
one of Stephen King's characters halfway through the book jumping
off the pages and saying, no, I don't want to do that.
Can you imagine that? They gave your life to the Lord.
That's what you signed up for. He wrote your story.
He, he has a plan to use you. Are you willing to be used by
him in any way that he wants to use you?
I mean, up and up, up to and including a story like Job's
right? And, and they're all through.
I mean, Uriah the Hittite, not a happy ending, guys.
You're right. Uriah the Hittite stood exactly
where you're supposed to stand, did exactly what he's supposed
to do. And you know what it did?
It got him killed and he didn't know why.
That's what we're signing up. And The thing is, I wouldn't
have it any other way. It's an amazing, it's an amazing
adventure to be in this with the Lord.
But it takes full submission, all right?
You can't you can't climb on the outside of the plane. 3 verses
to close with on that Luke 923 to 20 or three places to close
39 Luke 923 to 24 And he said to all, if anyone would come after
me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and
follow me for whoever would save his life will lose it.
But whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.
I don't think Jesus is being poetic.
Paul goes on with in Galatians 220.
I've been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but
Christ who lives in me in this life.
I now live in the flesh. I live by faith in the Son of
God who loved me and gave himself for me.
Crucifixion's pretty dead. Jesus goes on and Luke and says
so therefore if anyone of you who does not renounce all that
he has cannot be my disciple. So is it all his or is it just
what you want to give him? It is completely giving up my
right to self, submitting to His rule and reign in my life,
repenting from all myself and following him.
That's giving your life to the Lord.
That's relying on Him. We need to be listening to Him
being in our word. We need to be speaking to him,
praying. We need to be in his community,
his body, being in fellowship with each other.
And then we need to be out sharing and witnessing for him.
But this isn't this isn't. Those are none of those are
boxes to check. Those are conversations to have
with him. So spend time with your Lord,
spend time with each other. Have a great week.
Dear Lord, I just thank you for everybody here.
Lord, I thank you that you did come.
Lord, I thank you that you did the work you did on the cross.
Lord, I thank you that you rose again on 3rd day and that Lord
that you've washed us clean. Lord that you've given us, given
us the seat to belt ourselves into.
Lord and Lord, that we would just submit to your rule in our
lives. Lord, that we would rely on You
and your plan, that you would guide and direct us.
Thank you for all that you've done, all that you're going to
do. Lord, be with everybody here.
Help us to grow more and more in you every day.
I pray this in Jesus name, Amen.