Transcript

Let’s go back to James this evening, James 4, and we’ll continue on the theme of humility. A little simple instructive message tonight but sometimes we need simple instructive messages and tonight that’s what you’re going to get. James 4, we’re going to look at verses 11 and 12.

James has already dealt with the fighting and quarreling, the conflicts they were having in their fellowship due to the fact that they were not humble. They were all concerned about their own stuff and getting what they want. As someone said: the spirit of this age is to get all you can, can all you get, sit on the lid and poison the rest. Well, that spirit had kind of come into the church and so they’re having a lot of problems. There was another area they needed some humility in and that was in the area of judging.

I had not been a Christian very long, as you know, I wasn’t raised in church and so a lot of church stuff is new to me. I joined a Southern Baptist Church because I heard the Bible preached. I didn’t know anything about Baptists, didn’t know anything about Southern Baptists, I just happened to visit, I heard the Bible and thought it looks good to me. I joined and I wasn’t there very long until I heard one of the key phrases of Baptists, at least the Baptists I was around and that phrase was: judge not lest you be judged. They’d say it like that: judgenotlestyoubejudged, real quick. I thought, “What does that mean?” and I wrestled with that for years. It’s really interesting to be converted at age 19 and really have almost no church background and the things are just so new to you and things that you have to grasp and learn and say, “Well, where does that come from?” I learned that there were some good brothers and sisters who were helping me but there was also some that weren’t acting so good and were not helping me when they said that.

Look at verses 11 and 12,

“ 11 Do not speak against one another, brethren. He who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks against the law and judges the law; but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge of it. 12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and to destroy; but who are you who judge your neighbor?” The word “judge” is used a lot of different ways. A guy could say, “I’m judging whether or not it’d be good to go to this restaurant or that restaurant.” They’re basically saying, “I’m trying to make an evaluation,” and sometimes we use the word “judge” or “judging” that way. But really the word here has the idea of judging with authority to condemn. It’s saying, “I have authority and I pronounce you as one who is judged guilty or to be condemned.” So, looking at this, let me talk first of all about what I call perverted judging. We’re going to talk about proper judging in a moment but first let’s talk about perverted judging and the first point under that would be: A. That’s judging that exalts self instead of the word of God and that’s what James is getting at here. When you don’t pay attention to the law, the truth of God, you’re paying a casual glance at the word of God and you begin to announce authoritative conclusions on other people’s lives based on yourself, based on your subjective viewpoint.

One of the things as a pastor, it’s like there’s an ever-flowing deluge of error that comes down the pike in the culture and in the church culture and it’s like you see one thing and you say, “Boy, we need to address that. That needs to be corrected.” Somebody is putting a spin or a twist on a certain doctrine and perverting it and you think, “We ought to fix that.” And about the time you start addressing that, another one comes along. One of the ones that’s been along for a while but it’s going to get greater and greater is this thing of love. Love. Because who wants to ever question somebody who’s talking about being loving? But I’m telling you, there is more wickedness, more ungodliness and more perversion of truth coming down the pike under the banner of love than about anything you’ll ever hear. You can commit the most atrocious, vile perversions and say, “Well, we just love and so it’s okay. We’re just loving. You ought to be able to love who you want to,” they would tell us. And in the church today, there are so many things that are biblically unsound and contrary to sound doctrine and contrary to the health of the church and it’s under the banner of love. “Well, I won’t do that because I love them.” Often it’s in the context of church discipline or something like that, “Well, since I love them, why, I would never be able to do that.” It’s a real Satanic twist.

Did you ever watch the Fox channel and watch Bill O’Reilly? You ought to watch Bill O’Reilly. I disagree with him on a bunch of stuff but at least he has a decent Christian orientation to his worldview. Not all the time, I’m not saying he’s infallible, it’s just nice to get some kind of national news that’s a little bit conservative. That’s where I come from. But his motto is: The spin stops here. That’s what a pastor’s job is; we’re constantly having to unravel the spinning stuff that’s coming at us and so much of it looks good. So much of what today is condemned under the banner of love is actually good Christian ministry of reproving, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness but other people hear that reproving and they say, “Ah, that’s not loving,” when really they don’t know what they’re talking about and they don’t know what love is.

James here in verse 11 says, “Do not speak against one another.” James has the idea here, what he’s obviously referring to is one brother running down another brother out of a fleshly envy or jealousy. In other words, they’re wanting to put someone else down that they might bring themselves up. Again, that was the great trait of the Jewish Pharisees of the day, to put everyone else down so they themselves could feel exalted.

Then he talks about the phrase “he who judges his brother,” in verse 11. That, again, is the idea of you setting yourself up as the standard of absolute truth and therefore you pronounce a verdict on the behavior of others. He continues and says, “When you do that, you speak against the law and you judge the law.” His point is this: when you are neglectful to just act on what the word says and you act on your subjective premonitions. We had a church division here years ago and I came to you at the church and I said, “This group has problems with the way the elders are leading the church but they have told us there’s no biblical problems, there’s no sin problems.” So we assumed it was subjective opinion. By the way, we all have subjective opinions. You don’t divide over subjective opinions, those are endless. We stand on the word of God, work on the word of God, serve on the word of God, develop our purpose and strategies on the word of God, not on subjective opinions. Now, we have to have some subjective opinions like what color are we going to paint the walls or what color carpet are we going to buy so we’ve got one lady in the church, I like her taste, so she does that. Amen? My subjective opinion is to pick her and let her pick that out and she gets other ladies to help her and we don’t normally use committees, I’m not against committees, well, we won’t go into all of that. Anyway, he’s saying here, “When you set yourself up, you’re attacking, you’re working against the word of God.” Look: our opinion just doesn’t matter, the word of God matters. He says, “Don’t set yourself up in that position of authority to pronounce a verdict on others.” He says, “When you do that, you’ve judged that you, not God’s law, is the final standard of truth.”

This thing can go two ways. It’s interesting, if Satan isn’t getting you on one pendulum, he’ll try to get you on the other one. He’ll get you into unbiblical legalisms or he’ll get you into unbiblical liberalism. He’ll get you on one extreme or the other. Some of you come out of backgrounds where there’s just lots and lots and lots of rules that there’s about a half a thimble of Scripture supporting them. Not that they’re all that bad, it’s just they’re rules that you don’t need to be enforcing on others. Now, when I was young in the ministry, the independent Baptists were really exploding and were quite influential and there were some good brothers and sisters, by the way, in the independent Baptist movement and some good preachers, but there were many in that movement that were very staunch about how long a guy’s hair could be, real staunch about just exactly the way a women should wear her clothes or if she could wear make-up or how much she could wear. You start chasing those rabbits and you get in some real trouble and pretty soon you get a few powerful personalities who begin subjectively deciding, “Well, this is acceptable and this is not.” Look: a lot of these people were very good intentioned, their hearts were right but it flowed into legalism.

I’ll never forget being in Gatlinburg with my wife and there was a Pentecostal-type conference, Brother Tom, your kind of folks, where you come from. I noticed that the ladies could not have any make-up and they couldn’t cut their hair. I’m not saying that’s your kind of folks but that’s what they were like. What was amazing was the girls, the young single girls 13-25 whatever and there’s a lot of them around there, what they could do, they did the most with it. Are you with me? Their hair was curled up and stacked up and swirled up. I mean, it was really interesting to see. It was like, “We can’t wear make- up but look at what we can do with our hair.” They could wear high heels as long as their dresses were down here and they had heels on, I mean, you’re talking heels, buddy. You give the flesh some rules and it’ll just get fleshly where it can. Are you with me? They would have been better off to let them wear a little make-up and cut their hair a little big, Brother Tom, and have a heart that’s modest and lowly. Are you with me? Not the external. That’s what happens when you set yourself up and decide and here’s what happens to a lot of groups on legalism: they’re really not acting on what the word says, they’re reacting against error they saw somewhere. Don’t ever react against error, only act on truth. If Satan can get you reacting against excesses, he’ll get you excessive in another way.

We could just go down the list. You know that we support home-schooling here. We have home-schooling but there’s always a few that come along who believe that everybody ought to home-school just like I home-school or you’re not spiritual like I’m spiritual. We could go down the line. Well, these are good things but we don’t want them to flow into legalism. We don’t want to set ourselves up where the Bible is very quiet and have a bunch of rules that we’re imposing on one another. That’s what James is saying.

On the other end, you’ve got the liberal pastors and the liberal theologians. Folks, it’s here, it’s not coming, it’s here but the militant gay and lesbian and bisexual and transgendered and I understand there’s another category now that they call queer or pan- sexual. I don’t know how we’re going to learn to react to all these different kinds of things but they will tell you they’re Christians, they will tell they know Christ and here we go. What have they done? They’ve neglected the word of God and set themselves up and said, “This is the authoritative position that’s right.” That’s an extreme illustration but there are those two extremes: legalism and liberalism and all points in between.

Here’s what we want to be at Grace Life Church. Let’s say, here’s the biblical balance, here’s the way we want to be. Here’s what we don’t want to be, there’s the biblical balance. Do you know why? I’ve done that. I’ve been there. And as God matures you, you learn to catch yourself and repent quicker. Amen? And get back into what you hear me say often, a biblical balance, perspective on these kinds of things.

James says, “You become not a doer of the law but you actually become a judge of it. You set yourself up above God’s law.” Verse 12, he continues with this exhortation, “There is only one Lawgiver and Judge so why don’t you just yield to what he says,” is what James is implying, “the One who is able to save and to destroy; but who are you who judge your neighbor?” God’s law emanates from God himself. He is the only one who can rightly judge. He has all power and all authority. Now, we are nothing in comparison so who are we, the Scripture says, to judge another. In other words, we’re not to set up ourselves as some absolute authority having the divine standard for conduct whereby we pronounce others maybe saved or unsaved or pleasing to God or displeasing to God, not based on the word of God but based on our subjective viewpoint.

Please be balanced and know that in any age, in any generation, churches have to have some rules but they don’t come across as legalistic dictates, we just have to have some standards to live by. For example, we ask if you’re going to lead a small group that there’s certain things you be committed to and certain things you be faithful to. They’re biblically based and they don’t have to be exactly the same in every church but that’s not a sense of judging, that’s a sense of biblical principles and standards so that we can be the leaders God has called us to be. So, there are numerous things like that that don’t come under the unbiblical judging.

First of all, perverted judging is when we exalt ourselves as that authority instead of what the word of God says. Another part and we’ve hit on this already so I won’t spend much time here but B. is when we excuse sin condemned by the word. Again, this is the perverted view of judging whereby we in any and every case, the moment a person is reproved or corrected or rebuked, there’s that immediate, “You’re not supposed to judge me,” and that is totally a perversion of the doctrine. We are supposed to judge one another in the church. Not as an authority who condemns one another but as brothers and sisters who want to help one another because sin ruins and sin destroys. They use this kind of judge not lest you be judged, it’s a perversion of the doctrine of not judging, as a shield against proper reproofs and proper corrections within the church. What they do is they end up using it to excuse sin. As a matter of fact, Jude talks about those who sneak into our church families, it actually says they creep into our fellowships and he calls them hidden reefs in our love feasts. They look good and they sound good and these folks come in and they’re just under the surface of the water and when you plow on through there with your boat, they’ll tear the bottom out of your boat. They ruin everything. He says these are folks, now listen, who turn the grace of God into lasciviousness. They turn God’s grace that we’re saved by grace and not by works and we’re not under any law as far as to obtain righteousness, as an excuse to indulge in sin. We’ve got that prominently in our culture and prominently in professing Christianity but what they’re actually doing is they’re perverting the doctrine of grace and they’re perverting the doctrine of proper biblical judging one of another.

This is the kind of thing you always hear when a church talks about having a biblically healthy membership policy where you don’t just keep folks on the roll who never show up and never attend. This is the kind of argument you hear when churches begin to teach or try to implement biblical church accountability or biblical church disciple, “judge not lest you be judged,” we’re supposed to be loving and here we go down that road of being unbalanced and out of whack again.

Look real quick to 1 Corinthians 5, would you do that? You begin to get this – let me just move on to proper judging. We’ve been talking about perverse or perverted judging and that’s I and II now, talking about proper judging. 1 Corinthians 5, the Apostle Paul writes starting in verse 11, “But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler – not even to eat with such a one.” This is a brother. He says, “For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church? But those who are outside, God judges. Remove the wicked man from among yourselves.” Paul, using the same Greek word, actually commands us to be in the process of judging each other.

Here’s what he’s talking about: he’s talking about those biblically described means of sanctification God’s given the body to exercise one to another. What are those biblically defined means of sanctification that the body is given to help one another in sanctification? It’s reproof, rebuke, correction, admonition. Those are words that you could put under the title of proper judging in the church. I judge to evaluate where a brother or sister is. By the way, can I say this? Most of the time, if a brother or sister is struggling or lacking somewhere, you need to just put that on the shelf for a while. Most of the time, you don’t need to make a quick reaction. You just put it on the shelf and pray about it because if they’re walking with the Lord, if they’re sitting under the preaching of the word, if they’re married to somebody who also loves the Lord, if they’re in a small group, it’s very likely the Holy Spirit is going to deal with that and you can just stay out of the picture. But if a season of time goes along and you’re convinced that it needs to be addressed we’re going to talk about when you address it in just a second, then of course you bring those judgments, the kind of proper judgment which is a loving correction, a loving reproof, and always, always, always in confidentiality. Keep it as private as absolutely possible. You do not go discussing it with others. You lovingly bring it to their attention and in humility, helping them get that right in their lives.

A real quick definition of these words. Reproof just literally means to bring light, to shine the light on something. Sometimes a brother or sister just needs a little light. You say, “Do you see what this is in your life? Do you see how this is dishonoring the Lord or it’s hurting your witness?” That’s a reproof. Proverbs says, “A wise man,” what’s the next word? “Loves reproof.” Did you hear that? “A wise man loves reproof.” He’s so thankful, do you know why? In his wisdom he knows the truth of the wages of sin is death. He knows, “If I’m let alone in my sin, if I’m allowed by my self to go on in sin and, Pastor, I’ve got a blind spot here and somebody didn’t help me, I can ruin my life. I may ruin my marriage. I may ruin my home. I may ruin my business.” Sin brings death. All kinds of deaths. So, if I’m wise, I am thankful. If I attend a body of church where there are loving brothers and sisters who would come privately without talking to anybody else, in reproof and shine a little light on a situation, help me to see it.

Do you know what to do if somebody says something like that to you? First of all, absolutely, absolutely, absolutely, never, ever, ever think about the quality of that person. That doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that they may have a boatload of their own issues. It doesn’t matter. If you’ve got an issue that’s going to hurt you and dishonor the Lord, deal with it and don’t worry about them. Can I get an Amen right here? It doesn’t matter how much they fail. It just doesn’t matter. Do you know how I know that? Ask Balaam. A donkey rebuked him. Amen. You say, “Well, that was a donkey that rebuked me.” Well, good. God can do a lot through a donkey. Amen? So let a brother or sister shine a light, it’s helping you.

Exhortation, it literally means to draw them alongside. Exhortation means you put your arm around them, you humble yourself to say, “Brother, I’m a struggler too. I blow it too. I hold you accountable. You hold me accountable. Let’s work at this together. We’re equal brothers here. I’m not over you. I’m not better than you. Let’s go along together and see if we can work on this together.” Do you know what this is? This is ABC every day small group ministry. This is what brothers in your small group do for one another. I’ll say this: several years ago, I think it was our next to oldest men’s small group, there was a man who was deeply burdened and the brothers in there asking what the deal was and he said, “You know, I’m convicted I ought to be tithing to the Lord’s church.” He said, “but my wife just won’t let me. She’s just not on board.” He said, “I just want you all to pray with me.” That’s what they did, they surrounded him in a sense of admonition and exhortation and prayed for him and assured him of their love and encouragement as he walked through this. That’s just every day, average, normal Christianity. Brothers and sisters there for each other in a sense of reproving, exhorting, encouraging and admonishing each other. That all comes under the heading of proper judging where Paul says there is a time to make a proper judgment.

There’s also a harsh edge to this. In the context of 1 Corinthians 5 where Paul said we ought to judge one another, there was a young man in graphic, blatant, open sexual immorality and he needed a firm and sharp rebuke in judgment called against him, again, for his own good and for the glory of God. That is biblical and that’s where the word “rebuke” comes in. The word rebukes has the idea of applying a sharpness with a severe penalty. Rebuke means you bring a charge on them that is painful and that they feel the weight of the penalty that’s coming. Now, thankfully in a more mature church, that doesn’t have to happen a lot but sometimes that has to happen. That’s a part of our ministry.

Let me give you a couple of subpoints under proper judging and we’ll be through. First of all, of course, we judge or evaluate one another to the end of the reputation of our Savior. Listen to me: the good of the saint is important but the honor of the Savior is most important if there is some sort of scandalous or public evil in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. It deeply grieves me to see the leaders of the church first of all, concerned for the people involved. That’s important. The biggest grievance should be our heart is broken that the honor of our Lord is scandalized in the community. So, we want to reprove each other; we want to exhort each other; we want to correct each other; we want to even bring rebuke if that’s necessary. It should be often but if that’s necessary to the end that our Lord’s reputation is honored in the community.

Let me talk about some motives here under this. Not only the reputation of the Savior, the first motive, but let me give you the second motive and that’s the maturation of the saints. In Christianity it’s more true than anywhere else: no man is an island. God has ordained that you must have a local church family, the preaching of the word of God, iron sharpening iron interaction with brothers and sisters to be the Christian God called you to be. You are not Superman Christian or Superwoman Christian. You cannot make it on your own. You can get the best discipleship group on Thursday night, you can meet with the Gideons, I thank God for the Gideons, we give them money but that cannot replace God’s local church. Amen? College groups have Christian organizations and high schools have Christian organizations, I thank God for those, those cannot replace the local church where you need that kind of reproving, rebuking, exhorting and correcting.

Why do I say it that way? Here’s why: those other things may be good but there’s only one body God’s ordained that he will bless to carry out that role and that’s the local church. Now, I know the argument that you’re going to get, I know the argument that I get and I have to sympathize with the argument. Here’s the argument, “Well, but the churches are so weak and the churches are so carnal and the churches are so backslidden and the churches never practice discipline. Why, children growing up in most churches get as much influence to do evil as they would to do good.” There’s a lot of truth to that, then you’ve got to find a healthy church but you don’t throw away the church. God’s church is still God’s means. God has no Plan B. Those other things are good but they cannot replace. The maturation of the saints depends on us having this selfless, righteous judging, if you will, of one another.

Church leaders, for example, are strongly commanded in these areas: reproving, rebuking, exhorting, admonishing. 2 Timothy 4:2, he tells Timothy, “preach the word; be ready in season and out of season,” listen, “reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction.” Titus 1:9, he says, “Holding fast the faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching.” He’s talking to Titus, his pastor there in that area. “That he may be able to both exhort,” there’s that word, “in sound doctrine and to refute,” the same idea of rebuking here, maybe not quite as strong but, “refute those who might contradict.” Titus 2:15, “These things speak and exhort and reprove,” listen, “with all authority and let no one disregard you.” Why is the Scripture so strong here? 1 Timothy 5:20, if an elder continues in sin, the Bible says to “rebuke him in the presence of all that the rest may be fearful of sinning.” Here are strong commands that leadership must be involved in these ministries because they’re so vital one for another.

The early church practiced these things so regularly. We see it throughout the early church, it’s the consistent practice of all mature believers and we must conclude in our hearts that, “If I’m not in a body of believers where there are enough mature people that would be ready and willing to admonish me, to exhort me, to correct me and if necessary to rebuke me, then I need to find a new church. I need to find a place.” Do you know why? Listen: because we can’t trust ourselves. Our hearts are desperately wicked and you are being bombarded every week with error. The strongest Christian needs to come at least once a week and have it preached back straight in their minds. I know I need it. I’m the most blessed man on earth that I get to spend my week studying and meditating because I find so many things that helps me. The monster I would be without the word of God and we all need it.

So let’s get a good perspective on what perverse judging is, putting ourselves in authority, that we might in a condemning tone put others down, that’s perverse judging. Perverse judging is when we throw away the whole concept of evaluating and correcting each other because we just want to say, “Well, everything’s okay.” Just put a love title on it or a love banner over it and we’ll justify anything. That’s perverse, that view of judging but a biblical judging is that selfless for the reputation of the Lord and for the good of the believer: admonishing, exhorting, reproving, correcting and rebuking if necessary.

Let’s pray together.