Rookie Mistakes Series: #3 Purity Before Peace (Part A)

Well, one thing that will kill a friendship faster than anything is insincerity, is being a fraud, is pretending to be friendly when you're not. Sincerity matters. Once you are known to be someone that is a fake-o, you've got a problem. But it is an honor for people to say there's a straight shooter.

It's yes, it's yes, it's no, it's no. It doesn't mean that he always gets it right, but at least they're trustworthy. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher, Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through a series called Rookie Mistakes.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in the book of James chapter 3, as he begins his message, Peace Before Purity. James chapter 3, we'll stand and read verses 13 through 18, but our text will be verse 17.

Please stand. Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by good conduct that his works are done in meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic.

For where envy and self-seeking exist confusion, and every evil thing are there. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. James writing to believers what he said about demonic and sensual behavior. He's saying to believers, don't go that way. Well, this is our third session in a series entitled Rookie Mistakes, and this message is entitled Peace Before Purity.

Now text is verse 17, but the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. Now again, for those of you who may not have been following the study, this came about by my looking in my notes on great principles of the Christian faith and realizing that many of these basic principles that are great principles are violated by Christians. Even though it's written down in scriptures there for us, we are exposed to them early on. Some have drastically reduced the rookie mistakes as a Christian because they adhere to these things. They recognize that the basics are essentials.

The basics aren't for babies. They are for all of us to develop in our faith and be effective in our faith, and if you abandon the basics, you undermine your own foundation. Others, however, have not been so quick to learn these lessons. They leave home and they live at home making rookie mistakes, and hopefully as we go through some of these, we'll become better doers of the word. For those of us who are aware of these mistakes, perhaps we'll just be refreshed and made that much stronger.

But I don't want to make mistakes, especially the amateur ones. My goal as a Christian is to be an expert in the same sense that the Levite priests, they knew what they were doing when they offered the sacrifices. They were very careful to not offer that which was impure or unholy or violated. Their faith meant something to them. There's a lot of people who play Christianity, pretend that it means something to them, and it does not. It doesn't fly with God. You may pull it over on people, but you're not going to pull it over on the Lord. It was the Lincoln quote.

At least he gets credit. You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all the people all of the time. Something like that. There is beauty in God's word versus the corruption of God's way. Purity defined.

What do we mean by it? Well, of course, free from the mixture, admixture, pollutants, free from corruption or those things that are prohibited. Those prohibited elements aren't to be in something that is designed to be without them. It's clean, innocent. Even we can go so far as to say perfect, pure, righteous. There are levels of purity, of course. The purity of God is beyond us, but we are commanded.

It is not suggested. It is commanded of us that we be holy. Holiness is actually a little bit more than just purity because holy involves so much more than just keeping out the additives.

It includes power and the attributes first that belong to God and that are available to us. Matthew chapter 5, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Well, we were just singing about seeing God.

I want to see you. Not with our physical eyes. It's secondary. With our soul, that is primary. That is eternal. Purity enables us to see Him. Impurity obscures the vision, the sight of the Lord, His will and His work. And we are, speaking of work, going to have to labor to keep these things intact in our own life. And so James says, but the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable.

He's not downsizing the value of peace. He's emphasizing the vitality, the essential nature of purity. 1 Peter chapter 1, because none of us are inherently pure, but we are purified in Christ if He is our Lord. And we look to disown that which is impure. Peter writes, since you have purified your souls, and that is, of course, in coming to Christ, in obeying the truth through the Spirit.

Because it's written down in the Scriptures, and that's what we look to follow. Well, purity is more of a quest for us than a full-blown achievement. We don't arrive to the top of the hill of purity and plant our flag there and say, I have arrived, and there's nothing further for me to do.

In fact, the person that has arrived is not going any further. It is a quest, but not without God's blessings, not without rewards. We do achieve something in the pursuit of righteousness. Just try not pursuing righteousness.

If you've come out of sin, you know what that is about. But pursuing purity is not legalism. It is not self-righteousness. It does not make us holier than thou.

It may make us more humble than what we used to be, and hopefully we won't notice it. But we will look to be obedient because that's what it is about. Obedience. It's not legalism. It's obedience. It's compliance. You know if you are non-compliant with something, those in control will come and slap you with a summons to force you to comply.

We understand in everyday life how important it is to comply with the Lord as best we can. Too many Christians have posted on their Facebook pages. The whole Facebook thing is bizarre to me.

It's a Barney world. I like you. I mean, what is that? But anyway, I digress, and I like to digress. Anyway, coming back to what I'm talking about on Facebook pages, you can go on some Christian pages and you cringe. You cringe at the blatant impurities that they have put on their pages. You want to say they should know better.

That's a rookie mistake. That's something very basic to our faith, not advanced. Laying out for someone, you know, God's dispensation over the ages, you know, that's a little bit more advanced. But the basics of purity, sub-scriptural alliances, we've got to be careful about those things.

They're very serious. So our text, which is our teaching, which I believe, the Lord says, I want you to speak on this. And here we are. As Paul said, that which I first received, I deliver to you. That's the process we are submitted and committed to.

Otherwise, we're calling the shots. It is pure because it comes from God and it leads to God. And so our text again, the wisdom that is from above, that comes from God, is first pure. It's not first peaceful. It is first pure, then peaceful.

That is a byproduct, you could even say. Gentle, I'll get to that in a little bit, because many of us, especially me in my thinking, and need that emphasis, willing to yield full of mercy and good fruits without partiality, without hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is acting.

It's okay to act in its proper environment. But one thing that will kill a friendship faster than anything is insincerity, is being a fraud, is pretending to be friendly when you're not. Sincerity matters. Once you are known to be someone that is a faco, you've got a problem. But it is an honor for people to say, there's a straight shooter. His yes is yes, his no is no.

Doesn't mean that he always gets it right, but at least they're trustworthy. It would be great, some Christians would say, if we could just pray with anyone. I don't mean that that is a goal, I mean that is a desire. Well, let me clean that up a little bit. There are those Christians that find no problem with accepting false views if it will keep the peace. One time I was making a hospital call. Oh, a story, everybody wakes up. It was a family member of someone who attended the church. And I did not know them, but they asked if I would go see them.

I was already in the hospital on another call, and so I went there. And I'm talking with the person, and of course as we do, we begin to say, this person is really not into the Lord. I'm not saying that they weren't Christian, but claiming to be Christian. There wasn't that love of the Lord just radiating. And as I was there, a few people, other people in the room, their clergyman came in the room with the collar on and all that.

I'm not knocking that or promoting it one way or the other, but it was clear who this person was. And he sort of kind of took over, which I let him because I'm humble. And the alternative was to hit him in the head with something, and I sensed that the Spirit wasn't leading me to do that. So he says, let's all pray.

And I wanted to say, excuse me, who are you? What makes you think I want to pray with you? I don't know what you believe in.

You could believe in fairies or something. So I wasn't going to make a scene. And he prayed, and when everyone said amen, I did not. Because I don't know who he was.

And the way he was dressed was a clue that he wasn't who I would be comfortable with. Some of you say, oh, that's a little harsh. Well, let me read from 1 John chapter 4. Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits whether they are of God, because many false prophets have gone into the world. If his prayers were solid, then God would have no problem receiving them.

If his prayers were not solid, then he'd have a problem with me saying amen, in agreement with them. So I let it pass. I bring the whole story up to illustrate that we're not trying to be abrasive or harsh towards others, but we have to understand that what we believe is special.

There's nothing like it on the planet, on Mars, or anywhere else. It is given to us by the Lord, and we have been entrusted with it as stewards. Another example, but not for me. Peter in Barnabas. These powerhouses of the faith, what Barnabas went through, what Peter went through in the preaching of the kingdom, and they go up to Antioch in Syria, where the church was just exploding with new attendees.

Gentiles were flooding into the church. Paul and Barnabas were ministering there. Peter came up to see it, and then James, the author of our letter, who struggled with legalism a bit, because, you know, the Sermon on the Mount, James' letter is the Sermon on the Mount Light. Well, anyway, he sends up these other Jewish believers, and this is not a slight on our Jewish brothers and sisters, this is a slight on those who try to mingle Christianity with anything else.

Well, not a slight, but an address of. Anyway, they wanted to keep the peace. Peter in Barnabas, they wanted to keep the peace, and they made a rookie mistake.

They should have known better, they probably kicked themselves. Christianity was in jeopardy right there in Antioch. If no one stood up, Judaism would have swallowed up the work of the Holy Spirit. God was ahead of them, and Paul, Paul had the painful assignment of putting his two beloved friends in their place, in front of everybody. Paul called them out, because to Paul, purity was more important than peace. He wanted peace, but not at the cost of purity.

And they were wrong. Galatians chapter 2 verse 11, now when Peter had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face because he was to be blamed. Why does Paul write that? Because he wants others to get it, he wants them to understand. As painful as it might be to Peter to have this repeated, in fact, Luke in the Gospels is so painful to him, he doesn't deal with it.

He doesn't give us more information. Paul gives us what we have. He says, for before certain men came from James, he would eat with the Gentiles. And when they came, he withdrew and separated himself fearing those who were of the circumcision. And the rest of the Jews also played the hypocrite with him, so that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy.

Purity, the words of James. Now James' understanding of the purity was very Jewish, and he was not yet this new wineskin, which was going to be the second part, maybe we'll get it next session because that's another rookie mistake is inflexibility. But anyway, James was not expanding, he wasn't becoming a new wineskin to see what the Lord was doing at a fast rate.

Well, I didn't say that right. He was not expanding at the same rate that Paul was expanding. Paul was pulling those guys up with him and they didn't even know it. He forced them to rethink everything. That's what the preacher does. You come to church, he brings out the word of God and he forces by sharing truth, because truth demands a decision. Truth confronts us. And Paul, of course, mastered doing that simply because he kept purity ahead of peace, all of his ministry.

And so hypocrisy for the sake of peace, amateur, amateur, rookie mistake, don't do it. And yet I know in this church, there have been many over the years that have made this very mistake. Well, how are we going to reach them, pastor, if we don't compromise?

Hopefully I'll get to some of that in a moment. Our Lord, our Christ, and you know, just incidentally, I'm never really comfortable with referring to him as just Jesus. He is the Lord Jesus. He is the Christ. I mean, I'm not laying that on you and say, you have to do it my way, but I just noticed that over the years, he's more than just Jesus.

Well, anyway, when he dined with a tax collector, an outcast even, he did not compromise with him, nor did he slam him. He just remained pure in his presence, so much so that over dinner, Zacchaeus converted, submitted to the Christ, repented and conformed to the Lord, reshaping his own life. He kept, our Lord did, purity in the forefront. The entire life of our Lord is characterized by purity.

That's why we love him so. You read them in the Gospels, you just say, yes! This is the one person that has it together. You know, we find heroes as people go in our lives, people we look up to and admire, and that's good.

We need them. You younger Christians, you should have such people in your life that you can look up to and say, I want to be like that man, or I want to be like that woman. A righteous man, a virtuous woman, there's no substitute for it. And we older saints, we should be working, and it ain't easy, because we still have a carnal nature.

We're working so that others can just say that very thing. I don't want to be a cranky old man, unless it serves my purpose. Holiness, purity is very attractive. It is attractive to all of us. Not a single born again believer, I believe, does not treat holiness as something that's unimportant.

We love it. We have, outside the sanctuary, holiness to the Lord. It's in the scripture, it is scripture.

Moses and Joshua and those moments in their life when they're told by the Lord, take the sandals off your feet, the ground you stand upon is holy. We are attracted to that. We're drawn to that.

We want some of that. Peter and Paul and John, when John falls down before the Lord in Revelation as though he had died, and the Lord puts his hands on him and encourages him and strengthens him. We are attracted to this. All of those men and women in scripture who loved forward, loved holiness, went forward to serve gallantly. And that's why their stories are retold to us and preserved in writing in God's Word. To keep purity before peace, we have to accept holiness.

We have to understand it, enough of it. Its value, how essential it is, even though we are not. Now, again, you see Joshua and Moses standing before the Lord, taking their sandals off their feet in his presence. Our feet must remain shod in the presence of unholiness.

We do not take our sandals off. We bear the armor of Christ, as Paul talked about in Ephesians 6. We have to guard against lovelessness. The scripture says that because lovelessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. Make sure that's not you and me. We have no excuse to be loveless.

That is a natural reaction. The scripture is saying lovelessness is coming on such a level, it's going to be almost impossible to love anybody. How can you love someone who is so evil? Evil is not only human. There is a contributor, an unseen sponsor of evil.

It is the underworld. Human beings are sinful, yes, and they can do evil things. But that evil and the capacity for humans to hold evil is supersized by hell, demonic activity. This is one of the lessons with the pigs running off the cliff.

One man could hold more demons than 2,000 pigs. We have the capacity for evil, but we have the capacity for righteousness and truth and endurance. I don't like the word endurance.

I liked it more before I became a Christian. Before I became a Christian, the word endurance belonged on a marathon or something, you know, a force march. But as a Christian, it's to be everywhere in our lives, to endure, to take the pain and continue to be obedient in the process as best we can. So we keep our feet shod with the gospel of Jesus Christ and the helmet of salvation and the breastplate of faith and the shield of faith, the breastplate of righteousness, sword.

We retain these things. And if we don't, we begin reading the wrong materials, listening to the wrong sermons, posting the wrong things, and we begin to put chumminess with each other ahead of purity. Holiness is active. It reminds us that God, if not we, has it together all the time, that God is not fumbling through anything, that He is self-existent, self-glorious, and worthy of it.

And we are attracted to that. So, anything less, when we begin to compromise and turn our back on the value of holiness, we introduce leaven. Or, here's a better word that might strike a little bit closer to the damage that leaven will cause on a spiritual plane, rot. It's okay in bread. It's not okay in theology. It's not okay in the Christian walk.

Give you an example of corruption over that which is good. You're at a party celebrating one of my sermons. It happens. I just find that the stupidest thing in the world. That's why I keep doing it. I can't help it.

Anyway. And over the punch bowl, someone sneezes. I'm having a real big sneeze.

It could be a little sneeze. I'm not drinking any of that punch. I'll go to the water fountain. I'll just be parched. But I'm not going to have any of that punch.

Because something has been added to it I'm really not fond of. That's the kind of sensory perception we need. Spiritual sensors need to go off. Alarms need to blow.

This is an impurity that cannot be sidestepped. We're glad you joined us today to learn how to avoid some rookie mistakes in the faith. Pastor Rick will have more to share next time on Cross Reference Radio, a ministry of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia. If you'd like to listen to more teachings from Pastor Rick or if you'd like more information about this program, we invite you to visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. We also encourage you to subscribe to our podcast so you'll never have to miss a program. Just search for Cross Reference Radio in iTunes, Google Play Music, or your favorite podcast app. What a great way to keep God's word with you wherever you go. We hope you'll tune in again next time as Pastor Rick continues studying through the scriptures right here on Cross Reference Radio.