The Peace-Stealers - Part A

So the church is not a society of perfect people. We the church are a society of forgiven people, redeemed people.

But yes, when it comes to getting along, even among ourselves, this is an area where we need to grow up in. Today on Connect with Skip Heitig, Pastor Skip shares a message about the things and people that act as thieves of our peace. But first, here's a resource that will help the children in your life know and love God's Word and cling to His timeless truth. Attention moms, dads, and anyone who's looking to help children understand the message of the Bible. This month, we're offering the book Soaring Through the Bible for Kids.

God's Word can be a challenge to read and understand, even for adults. And this kid-friendly version of Pastor Skip Heitig's popular book, The Bible from 30,000 Feet, gives young children and tweens a panoramic overview of all 66 books of the Bible, helping them see the context and significance of each. Soaring Through the Bible is a travel guide from Genesis through Revelation for kids. Each chapter provides a flight plan for exploring a portion of the Bible, along with a brief synopsis that shows what the chapters are about and language kids can understand. Creatively designed with kids in mind, Soaring Through the Bible also features fun illustrations and fascinating facts to keep young minds and hearts engaged and interested. Soaring Through the Bible for Kids will prepare a child for takeoff on a lifelong journey of learning and loving God's Word. We will send you a copy of this unique book along with a booklet for you by Skip titled Why Truth Matters. Simply make a donation to support and expand this radio program with a gift of $50 or more.

Call 1-800-922-1888 or order online at connectwithskip.com. Now we're in James 4 as we go to Skip for today's message. We all know that war is a fact of life. As long as there have been humans on the earth, there have been wars on the earth. Simon Jenkins, who's a British author, even noted every generation has its war. So my dad's generation was a World War II generation. Mine was the Vietnam War.

That was really up where my brothers were, my older brothers. In more modern times, the Gulf War, the Afghanistan War, every generation has its wars. According to the Wall Street Journal, they said war has shaped the world we live in and is still shaping many parts of the globe.

Now that's a sad truth to contemplate, that people and generations and nations get defined by the wars that they fight. In the 20th century, it's estimated that 108 million people have been killed in wars. But that throughout history, both soldiers on the battlefield and people who are not on the battlefield but get killed as a result of war is 3 billion 500 million people.

I know that's just a number for a lot of us, but that is the sad reality that we throughout our history have managed to kill 3 billion 500 million human lives. Now some wars are more famous than others. All of us could rattle off a list of ones that we know about, but I bet there are some wars you've never heard of. For example, there is a war that's called the Pig War. The Pig War was a war in 1859. It was really an argument over a slaughtered pig that nearly led to a full-scale war between the United States and England.

So here's how it worked. There's an island off the coast of Washington called the San Juan Island, and at that time it was the home to settlers both from Britain and from America. One day a pig, a British pig, not that it had like an English accent or anything, but it was owned by the Brits, it was a black boar, went rampaging through an American farmer's potato field. And the response was the Americans called the Army in. A general was dispatched to assess the situation. He and his troops declared San Juan Island to be U.S. property, all of it. So here you have partly settled by the Brits, partly settled by the Americans. General comes in and says, nope, it's all ours. Well that didn't bode well with the Brits.

They sent a fleet of naval ships to surround the island. I mean that's how close it got. There was a standoff for weeks until they finally settled it. So I just want to say right now that I would hate to be the guy who says, yeah, I fought in the pig war. It's not like the big war, the pig war. Here's another one called the War of the Stray Dog.

I just like the titles. The War of the Stray Dog, there was a long hostility between two nations, Greece and Bulgaria. It came to a head in October of 1925. And what happened is a Greek soldier was shot as he was crossing into Bulgaria chasing his runaway dog. So they killed him because he had crossed over into their country. Okay, that's bad, but what's worse is how Greece responded to that. Greece invaded the country of Bulgaria over that. In fact, it got so bad that the League of Nations had to intervene to stop that invasion and that potential war.

They'll throw one more up on the screen just because I like the title of it. It's called the War of Jenkins Ear. In 1738, a man by the name of Jenkins, Robert Jenkins, he was a British sailor, a mariner, stands in front of the British Parliament in London with a severed ear. He claimed it was his ear, a decomposing severed ear.

Now, you know, sometimes these politicians, that's just so off the chart. Take your ear and have a meeting with it. So he pulls his ear out and he's like, so he pulls his ear out. He claims that his ear had been severed by Spain, by a Spanish soldier, seven years prior.

So let me just say, if you're holding on to your ear for seven years, you have bigger problems. And he's holding it up and he says that this was done by a Spanish soldier. Spain and England for decades had not gotten along, but they used the incident of Jenkins Ear to go to war with Spain. And war was formally declared by the Brits on Spain. War of Jenkins Ear.

Crazy, right? Now, sometimes there are wars that are fought that are not even against nations. They're not against people. They're a war of things or activities or ideologies. We talk about a war of ideas. We talk about the war on drugs or the Cold War or here's one war I wish we would bring back is called the gas wars from the 1960s when gas, incidentally, was 28 cents a gallon. Come on, bring that war back.

So it was basically gas stations, you know, lowering the price a quarter of a cent, a half a cent, a cent, you know, to compete with other ones so that people would buy gas from them. Then there's the war on terror. All sorts of wars that are fought for all sorts of reasons. In James chapter 4, we have three wars that steal a person's peace. Three wars that are going on right now all over the world. All three of them are peace stealers. All three of them will make your life miserable.

And all three of them need to be ended and when they are ended, the result will be a lasting peace if they can be ended. Okay, so this is the book of James and James was written by, guess who? Come on. James. See, you guys are Bible students. So James. But the question becomes which James? Because the New Testament has a bunch of people named James. So to just kind of cut to the chase, probably it was written by James, the brother of our Lord Jesus Christ. Or better put, the half brother of the Lord Jesus Christ. You probably know that after Jesus was born, he was virgin born.

After that, Joseph and Mary had normal relations and had several children that the New Testament names, one of them by the names of James. So James is writing this letter. He's writing to Christians, Jewish Christians, people who have come to faith in the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. And he is writing because evidently, church people have all sorts of personal problems as well as relational problems, which is true of any church in any generation. But the theme, therefore, of the book of James is maturity. He's saying to them, grow up. You need to grow up in certain areas of your life. Warren Wiersbe said, spiritual maturity is one of the greatest needs in the church today.

Too many churches are play pens for babies instead of workshops for adults. So I remember my three older brothers would tell me to grow up all the time. It was their favorite mantra for me, especially my oldest brother, Jim. He would see me act in a certain way and he'd say, grow up. And my retort was, this is me growing up.

This is what kids my age do, growing up. So I'm on my way there. James is telling this church, it's time for you to be growing in certain areas. So in chapter four, we're going to look at the first seven verses, but three wars. The war among you, the war inside you, and the war above you.

And you're going to discover something. All three wars are related to each other. So first of all is the war among us.

Look at how verse one begins. It's the simple question, where do wars and fights come from among you? Now that's a good question generally. Where do these wars come from? How do you get a war over a pig? How can you declare a war over a dude who holds an ear up in parliament? Where do these wars come from? There's an author who decided to try to answer that question.

His name is Mike Martin. He's a former British soldier, and he wrote a book called Why We Fight. It's a whole book devoted to the reasons people go to war. Here's one sentence out of his book. He said, humans fight to achieve status and belonging. Now he takes an approach from an evolutionary model, one I don't subscribe to. He talks about biological underpinnings, where people go to war to ensure their own possibility of reproduction. In other words, I want my tribe to keep going, so I'll eliminate other people who would be a threat to that for that to happen. The Guardian magazine, on the other hand, says this, warfare provides people with a semblance of psychological positivity in oppressed societies where other outlets are lacking. Now that almost sounds noble.

It's like, well, I get it. I see why people will fight for that. But the article goes on to say, in most cases, wars are initiated by governments, not by populations. In other words, people don't want to go to war.

Their governments get them into this. And most of the time are the result of disputes over resources and land or of a government's desire to increase its influence and power. So it's a good question, where do wars come from? But that really is not the question of James. The question of James, he's not dealing with a war in general or warfare in the world. Notice how he puts his question, where do wars and fights come from among you? Now the you in James' mind are the believers. Where do wars come from among you Christians? So scholars or commentators will make note of this fact. They kind of give the nuance. You'll notice in verse one, the difference between wars and fights. See those two words? So what they'll say is wars describes the underlying conflict that you might have with another person, whereas fights are the expressions, you know, the outward expressions, the flare-ups that come.

Where do those things come from? Either way, they describe a combative relationship between church members, church people. One of my favorite psalms, Psalm 133, there's only three verses in that psalm. That's not why it's my favorite psalm. But it begins this way. See if you remember this. Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.

It's a good, good, good psalm. The opposite is also true. Behold, how bad and how unpleasant it is when brethren don't dwell together in unity.

Where instead of extending the right hand to fellowship, they want to extend the right fist to fellowship. Not good. Unpleasant.

Not helpful. But here's what you need to know. Conflict among God's people is not new.

It's been going on a long time. I could take you all the way back to Genesis chapter 13 where Abraham and Lot are at odds with each other, the patriarchs, because their herdsmen had strife between them and they were in them. And they were at odds with each other over land rights and water rights.

I could take you to the New Testament. In the New Testament, the disciples of the Lord Jesus argued. Remember what they argued over?

Anybody remember? What did they argue over? Who would be the what? Who would be the greatest in the kingdom? They're arguing over who's going to have the top dog seat in the kingdom.

I'm sure that it started out sort of a jocular conversation, like they're making fun of Peter. Peter snores, he's not going to be on top in the kingdom. I will be. I lean my head on Jesus' chest. That's John. You can throw Thomas out. He doubts everything.

He won't be the greatest. But it eventually got into a heated argument so much so that Jesus himself had to intervene. So those are the cream of the crop. These are the disciples. Peter and Paul argued among themselves. According to the book of Galatians, Paul said concerning Peter, I withstood him to his face. So there's Paul getting in Peter's grill. Thank God you're all Jewish over here with that group, but you're all Gentile over with that group.

You're kind of playing the hypocrite. They had a disagreement. They had an argument, as did Paul and Barnabas. In fact, the Galatian church itself had problems. Paul wrote to the Galatians and noticed that there is biting and devouring among these people, you know, just nitpicking. At each short-tempered. The Corinthians competed in spiritual gifts publicly.

They were taking each other to court. Now the reason I'm bringing all this up, and there are many more examples of God's people not getting along in history, many, many more. The reason I'm bringing it up is because some of us have this romanticized idea of what the early church was like. I hear this all the time. We need to get back to the purity and the simplicity of the early church.

Ever heard that? Anybody who says that needs to bone up on church history a little bit, because when you do, you go, oh, they're kind of like us, like Church of Corinth, Church in Galatia. That's New Testament. That goes way back. So when people romanticize the early church, it was so pure, it was so awesome.

You know, that's the good old days mentality, and I've discovered that the good old days is just a combination of a bad memory and a good imagination. So the church is not a society of perfect people. We the church are a society of forgiven people, redeemed people.

But yes, this is an area where we need to grow up in, because when it comes to getting along, even among ourselves, we can act very immature. Let's look at the immaturity of this church. Go down now to verse 11, and we're going to get back, but go down to verse 11, because it fills in some of the color, lets us know what's happening. So look at verse 11. Do not speak evil of one another.

Okay, so that was going on. Do not speak evil of one another, brethren. He who speaks evil of a brother and judges his brother speaks evil of the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you're not a doer of the law, but a judge. There is one lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy.

Who are you to judge another? So now we know what is going on. There's some bad mouthing going on. There's some backbiting going on. There's some backstabbing going on among these dear saints of God. James brings this out.

He's indicting them because of it. It's pretty straightforward language, but I want you to notice that in his indictment, he also gives the solution to the war that is among us. So let me offer you some advice. If you're struggling with getting along with people in your life, let me give you a few steps to end wars among us.

First of all, this is very practical. Always make it a family matter. If it's with a brother or sister, it's a family matter. In fact, you'll notice that he says, do not speak evil of one another, brethren. That's the plural for brothers and sisters. He who speaks evil of a brother and judges a brother. So brother and brother, brother.

What is he doing? He's saying, I just want to remind you that we're part of the same family. So keep that in mind if you're arguing with another believer. That's a brother. That's a sister.

It's more than just a client, more than just a customer, more than just a neighbor, more than just a mother-in-law, more than just a son-in-law, more than just a weirdo-in-law. That's a brother in Christ, a sister in Christ. We're part of the same family.

We have the same Savior, the same Holy Spirit that lives in me, lives in you. And because of that, because of that, I refuse to fight you. I won't fight you. I won't fight you. I'll fight for you. I'll fight with you, given the right battle.

But I will not fight you. Because as long as you make it a family matter, how can you? So that's the first step, make it a family matter. Second, get off the judge's seat. That's sort of James' point here, isn't it? You make yourself a judge. Now follow James' impeccable logic. He says, don't speak evil of one another, brother. And he who speaks evil of a brother and judges his brother speaks evil of the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you're not a doer of the law, but a judge.

And then look at this. There's one lawgiver. There's one judge, and it ain't you. There's one judge, and that's God, and He's not giving His position away to you.

There's only one. Now what does James mean when he says all this? Here's what he means. The essence of the law is summed up in one word.

What is it? Love. Jesus said, if you love your neighbor as yourself, if you love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, that's the summary of the law. So when you slander someone, you violate love.

And when you violate love, you are violating the very core essence of the law. And when you act like a judge, you are usurping God's authority as the lawgiver. See, that's his logic.

It's just brilliant logic. So James is not telling them to stop evaluating people because we must. He's not saying don't use discernment in situations because we must.

He's just saying stop condemning people. So make it a family matter. Get off the judge's seat. Third tip, use your mouth to heal and not to hurt. You know, that's a decision we can make before we leave this room today.

From now on, I'm going to use these lips. More to heal than to hurt. Look at the context of verse 12. It says there's one lawgiver, one judge, it's capital L, so it's referring to God, who is able to save and to destroy. Think for a moment of the power a judge has in a courtroom. A judge by his or her words can save or can destroy.

You can say as the gavel goes down, innocent or guilty, acquitted or condemned. That's a lot of power. You can save or you can destroy. So just like the words of a lawgiver or a judge can do that, so our words have great power. We can save. We can destroy. We can save. Great power. We can save.

We can destroy. Come back tomorrow for the conclusion of Skip's message, The Peace Stealers. Find the full message as well as books, booklets and full teaching series at connectwithskip.com. Right now, listen as Skip shares how you can share life-changing teaching from God's unchanging Word with more people around the world.

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