Doing Right Because It's Right...

This week James is going to be putting a bookend on the discussion that we began in chapter 3 regarding the tongue. 

Now I’m just going to put this out there this morning – James has some very difficult words for us to obey today. His words as we read them will sound very familiar alongside the other teachings we have heard over the past six weeks, they echo the teachings of Christ in the New Testament, of Paul in his letters and the lessons we have taught throughout our lives. I mean I know I can’t be the only one who was ever told if you can’t say something nice don’t say anything all?

Yet each day we are faced with this choice our words like a tiny spark that sets a raging fire if we fail to engage our filters we will fail. If we fail to engage in our actions we fail…

Check out what James says – (4:11-17)

“Don’t criticize one another, brothers. He who criticizes a brother or judges his brother criticizes 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 one lawgiver and judge who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will travel to such and such a city and spend a year there and do business and make a profit.”

You don’t even know what tomorrow will bring—what your life will be! For you are like smoke that appears for a little while, then vanishes.

Instead, you should say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” But as it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.

So it is a sin for the person who knows to do what is good and doesn’t do it.”

This passage is so full of meat we could spend months digging out the but there are a couple that I want to share with you this morning and you can join us Sunday morning at church or via Facebook to go deeper!

James is discussing with his flock about an issue that has erupted in the church… 

The problem? People inside the church who were seeking to perpetuate their own standing in the church…

Unfortunately, today’s church we are no less immune from this sort of thing than was the church that James was writing to so long ago.

It’s all too common to hear the news of churches that have split over secret meetings and false accusations…

When this passage begins in verse 11 this idea of speaking against one another we see is a very major offense. What James IS talking about slander, backbiting, backstabbing and evil criticism in the attempt to place undue, undeserved, unfounded, unfair judgement on a fellow Christian. 

What James IS NOT talking about is the biblical model we have from Matthew 18 of going to that person one on one to discuss a problem… This was a negative, sinful approach… This is the behind the back, secretive power plays that judges peoples motives…

James is saying (and saying it rather strongly) that this behavior is wrong…

James doesn’t just stop there by saying our words and use of can be deadly but finishes this passage by saying our lack of doing the right thing, whether by word or deed, is in fact sin…

And friends, it isn’t doing the right thing based on your opinion it is the right thing based on God’s Word! Just because you feel something should be a certain way, just because you believe with all your heart something is right (or wrong) if you are not in agreement with God’s Word then you are sinning!

Let’s be on the same page as God! Let’s engage our filters on our words, and engage our lives to do what’s right according to his word!

Hope to see you Sunday!!!