Divine Intervention

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Cheers start flying. People are throwing chairs at each other and Geraldo's nose is all busted up and he's bleeding and then that made me think of Maury Povich back in the day with Maury Povich. And then more recently of course Dr. Phil and you get on Dr. Phil and you're waiting for, you know, here's the pregnant girl or the pregnant guy and then here's the girl that comes out and she thinks she's the mom but it's actually the other girl and then conflict and anger and fussing and fighting and so you've got that out there and then that's the basis of a lot of reality television, right? It's like going to a NASCAR race, you're just waiting for the wreck and so you go out there and that's what you look for and then reality TV feeds us that.

And then social media, wow, talk about an accelerant. So when we talk about fighting and quarrels and we're going to be back in the book of James today, it just gets ugly and then when I'm teaching young people and when I've taught my own kids, I'm like, hey, do you guys realize, do you fuss and fight and argue and it gets kind of nasty every once in a while? Yeah, yeah, yeah, everybody, okay. Do you know why that is?

Because I think essentially in our flesh, we never in this instance, we never age beyond about four or five, perhaps six. And when somebody takes your stuff or you don't get what you want, you melt down. And so James in chapter four is going to bring a little bit of shock and awe as he confronts us. And so instead of having somebody as obnoxious and as uncompassionate as I can be on these particular subjects, I'm glad that here on Theology Thursday with our friends at BJU Seminary, Dr. Sam Horn is back in the house who's been preaching to the book of James.

So this one, a divine intervention more than a reality show. And once again, Sam, happy new year. It's great to see you. Thanks for being here. Once again, my friends at BJU Seminary are meddling with my personal life, but that's fine.

I'm willing to go through this. It's great to see you. How are you? I'm great, Steve. I got a little cold today, but I think that's everybody.

But man, it's a great start to the new year. Sounds like you've had that too. And I can actually relate to what you just said about James meddling in our lives. He meddles in our church. He meddles in our lives. He meddles in our hearts, but there's always good at the end. And you know, you were talking about these reality shows.

I think I'm old enough to remember all of them. And I actually remember, I don't know if I actually saw the actual episode, but certainly saw the replay, you know, the stuff that happened after with Geraldo. But you know, obviously there are these shows that we sometimes watch where they're actually people who are caught up in horrific life addictive behavior. That's creating an immense amount of chaos, immense amount of damage in their life and in their relationships. And on the show, somebody comes along and they do a life intervention.

And I've watched a few of those and I've always been fascinated to see what kind of courage that took to see what kind of directness was involved and how that all played out. And as I was kind of working my way through this chapter, chapter four, I thought to myself, this feels a lot like what James is doing. He's coming into these people's lives and he loves these people.

He cares about these people, but what's going on in their church and what's going on in their families and what's going on in their personal lives is utter chaos. You know, when, when James is writing to them, he talks to them as beloved, beloved Christians, beloved lambs, you know, beloved sheep. And he talks to them about wisdom and having a wholehearted single focus, fully trusting faith, all the stuff we've been talking about. And he gets to chapter three and he talks about these two kinds of wisdoms. And it's almost like, you know, the people reading James, the church is going, James, this is awesome.

This is great. And James is going, I don't think you get it because what's coming out of your life is the wrong kind of wisdom. Right. And so you get into chapter four and he's doing this massive intervention. Yeah. And I think that's something we all in an honest moment know that we need that.

And when you think of that intervention was alcoholism, it's generally OK. We all know there's a problem, but the person caught up in it is is too wrapped up in it, too far gone, so to speak, that they can't even see it. And again, I think what James is going to do here and we're going to unpack this for the rest of the Theology Thursday today with Dr. Sam Horn is is really get into because we all have gone down this road. We've probably gone down this road, perhaps even today or certainly within the last 24 hours where we're you know, we have fights and we have quarrels to use the English translation.

We're going to get into the original language and look at the Greek because it gets a little more challenging when you look at some of this stuff. And ultimately, and I think Sam most of the time and social media certainly portrays this, we feel completely justified in our fighting and in our quarreling because our assumption is we're right. Right.

No. And I think that's a bit of what's going on here, because James comes in and he starts off with this question. And the question is actually a confrontation. He says, what causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? And he's not asking, so are you guys fighting?

Are you guys having problems? I mean, the way he asked the question, it's like he comes in and he sits everybody down and he says, I want to have a straight up talk with you guys. I want to know what is causing all of this chaos, all of this quarreling, all of these fights. And the terms he uses there, quarrels and fights are super strong terms. One of the words quarrels is the word that we would use for a prolonged war. I mean, he's looking at him going, you guys are at war with each other. It's like you guys are lobbying, we're launching these verbal missiles, the idea there of fights.

The word for that is a verbal assault. I've been watching a little bit of the news, Beth and I think I told you this, we have a beautiful couple living with us who are refugees from Ukraine. And I'm not trying to get into the politics of that, but I'm just giving you a reality for them. They came down the other night and they were in tears because an apartment complex that was right where they lived had been blown into by this missile that had been launched. And that's the idea here.

That's what James is saying. You guys are launching verbal missiles at each other and you're destroying Shalom, you're destroying your lives, you're destroying the church. There's a ton, there's a ton of chaos. Yeah, so we're gonna go through that and all of us have experienced that, quarrels and fights and prolonged things. And we'll get into all of that and we're gonna pull the curtain back and look at what's causing it, but it's not gonna be so much the other side, it'll be us.

We'll be right back. Welcome back, it's Steve Noble, The Steve Noble Show, Theology Thursday, as it is every week with our friends at BJ Youth Seminary. I shared today's blog post, which goes along with the show topic, a divine intervention more than a reality show as we talk back in James chapter four with our good friend Dr. Sam Horn. I linked to this and put that up so you can read the full Seminary Viewpoint blog post today.

These aren't super long, but they are very pointed. And so it's easy to get through it, but to consider it yourself if you're driving or you just don't have your computer or whatever in front of you. I would suggest you check this out on your own, okay, and go read it for yourself. And by the way, just about every Thursday, our friends at BJ Youth Seminary and sometimes the university write blog posts to go along with the subject matter so that you can kind of revisit it. We're always talking about things of utmost importance for us to grow as Christians. And so that's why it's been such a great resource every week with our friends and to go through as we've spent time and time again with Dr. Sam Horn going through the book of James, which is definitely my favorite book in the Bible because I generally need to have my lessons delivered at the end of a two by four.

And James is really good at that. I think Sam's got a little that in himself as well, but you can always go to seminary.bju.edu backslash radio. Okay, that'll always land you and you can look at all these things, but I put the link up just for today's so you can check that out for yourself.

But to see all of them, just go to seminary.bju.edu backslash radio and you'll land on a page and see all of these. But we're working our way through James chapter four when he's talking about, you know, why do you guys fight and fuss and quarrel and we want to talk about the circumstances, but James is eventually going to do an intervention on the human heart. And that's exactly what the problem is here.

It's not so much the circumstances it is. Well, my heart. Is that right, Sam?

Yeah, no, that's exactly right. You know, we have this war going on and whether it's between Christians in a church or between Christians at home in a marriage or wherever it is between Christians in any context, James says, let me explain to you why you are at war. And in verse two or verse one, rather, he says, Is it not that your passions are at war with you?

The reason you're at war with each other is there's a war going on in your heart. And what's going on in your heart is you have these desires. The word for passion there. We have an English word that I think every one of us will resonate with. It's the word hedonism.

Yikes. And hedonism is basically this strong passion passion, this this desire for something. And James says, when that desire is unrestrained, it leads you to a path where you're willing to murder. It's the same word that this word for strong desire is the same word that he talked about in James Chapter one when he talks about temptation. How are we tempted? We're tempted when we're dragged away somewhere by our desires. Well, those strong desires are showing up here in Chapter four, and they're dragging believers into war with each other.

And the war is so bad that they are actually murdering each other. He says, You desire you have these unrestrained desires that are dragging you into these conflicts and you're murdering each other. Now, he's not talking about physical murder here. He's talking about the use of their mouth. So all through James, the first three chapters, he's laying these little ideas about your mouth and what you say.

And don't say this and don't speak against the word and don't use your mouth inappropriately. And in this huge section in Chapter three on the tongue. And now we figure out why he's doing that. I mean, he's coming into the war zone and he's gone. Let me tell you what your weapon is. Your weapon is your mouth and you're killing each other with your mouth. You're assassinating your character. You're killing the spirit of joy here. How many of our marriages have been murdered by our mouth?

Yeah, man. You know, how many how many relationships have been killed because somebody used their mouth? Yeah, I think a lot a lot of people in our audience, Sam, myself included, would relate to this in terms of how much damage has been done with the relationship, not only just between a husband and a wife, between but between parents and their kids.

That's another one. And the challenge there is you feel when you get into fights and quarrels, and this is me, where most of the time I feel completely justified because I'm trying to pursue justice or what's right or what have you. But I think James is going to challenge that assertion that perhaps I'm not as honest about my passions as I should be. And I think that's true for all of us.

I mean, James makes a really strong point here. He says you do not have because you do not because you do not ask. And he's going back to that statement that Jesus, his older half-brother said, ask and it will be given to you.

Remember that? Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be open to you for everyone who asks receives and the one who seeks finds and to the one who knocks will be open. So James is going back to that statement that Jesus made. And he's saying, now, listen, you guys are at war because you want something that you don't have. And the reason you don't have it is because you're not asking for it.

And then he says something really interesting. He says, now, the reason that you are not asking is that when you do ask, God doesn't give it to you because you're asking a miss. And he's not talking about the fact that you're not you're not doing the mechanics of prayer, right? Like God says, oh, I heard you, but you didn't ask the right way. Go back and ask again.

You know, sometimes we'll tell our kids that. Sure. Well, you didn't ask the right way.

So you need to go, go back outside, knock on the door and come back in and ask the right way. Say please. That's not what James is talking about.

Right. He's saying you are asking for something that your heavenly father would never give to somebody he loves. He will never give a serpent or a stone. Even, you know, remember how Jesus said, if you're hungry and you come to your dad and you ask for bread, even an earthly, carnal, broken dad won't hand you a stone or a serpent. Well, your heavenly father is not going to give you something you ask for if it's a serpent or a stone. And what you're asking for is actually going to kill you. And because God won't give it to you, you're going to get it yourself and you're killing each other.

Yeah, I am. And I'm looking at verse three right now. You ask and do not receive, which is what you're talking about, Sam.

We're talking to Dr. Sam Horn on Theology Thursday. You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly, comma, to spend it on your passions. Exactly. I've got these unrestrained desires. Right.

I'm asking for something that I just want to use to double down on my passions. And I can hear Jeremiah out there somewhere going, yeah, yeah, because just remember, the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. I'm like, oh, yeah, thanks for the reminder.

But think of how many arenas in the Christian world are fed by this idea. Oh, I want more money. And so somebody comes along and says, I'll tell you how to get more money.

Yeah. You send me five of your dollars. And so I see you pray a prayer of faith and God is going to give you 50 back.

Amen. And then you send your five in because I'm not sending my five in because I want to help a ministry. I'm sending my five in because I want to get 50 back.

And when the 50 doesn't come back, the guy on the other end goes, well, you didn't have enough time, send 50 in. And the whole thing is fed on these hedonistic, broken desires. And it's all done in the name of Christ.

And the world is watching all of this and going, you guys are no different than us. You're just after what you want. And you just figured out a religious way to get it. Yeah, that's exactly right. God's not in that. No, he's not in that.

And that's why when we come back, we're going to break here in just a minute. I want to revisit you use the word adulterous. And we're going to put that into context because he goes on to say that James does in verse four, you adulterous people, exclamation point. I'm like, there's no sugar coating that.

So I want to get into that. What does he mean by that? And he goes on to say, do you 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. And then we'll get off the difficult side of this train track and we'll get to the remedy, which is going to go to, well, humility, because God opposes the proud.

And I've always struggled with that one because I have a tendency to be proud. And then we'll talk about our response. So there's a lot there, a lot of upside. So don't don't worry. We're going to turn the door. They're going to turn the corner when we come back. We'll be right back. Welcome back at Steve Noble, The Steve Noble Show Theology Thursday, as it is each week with our friends at BJU Seminary, Dr. Sam Horn back in the house as we're continuing to work our way through the Book of James.

We're in Chapter four today. When you get into that little uncomfortable intervention, 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, you covet and cannot obtain. So you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask.

You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions, you adulterous people. And it goes on from there. So this is if you're anything like me, I have fights and quarrels, disagreements, heated.

I go there quickly, Sam. I was raised in an environment. My parents, sometimes I tell my people that there are a lot of great things about my parents. And then one of the things that wasn't so great is they just had a tendency to argue. I'm like, I don't know. Maybe their love language is argument.

I know they did all the time. So I was raised in that. So I'm quick to go to argument. And if I'm not getting my point across with my kids, especially, well, the trick is, Sam, I just got to be louder. I can be the loudest guy in the room. I can be the loudest guy in the room.

I can be the loudest guy in the room. And being as self-righteous as I am, always assuming I'm taking the right position because I can back it up in the Bible and the whole time, God is always going to question my heart, which I think is what James is doing here, is pulling back away from the actual what's the circumstances and what's driving that. And so you mentioned something earlier, and then this is right there in verse four. When you get into it is he's talking to these people that he's writing a letter to and he calls them an adulterous people and that they're friends with the world. So let's unpack that and then let's turn the corner.

We'll get off the confrontation side and get to the corrections. This is the most uncomfortable statement in the whole letter. I mean, you know, this is a guy who loves his sheep.

He's a pastor who loves his people. He sits everybody down at the beginning of chapter four and he goes at it. He's like, you guys are at war with each other. And the reason you're at war with each other is your passions are at war inside you.

And here's the bottom line, your cavity. And then he stops everything. He says, this is the moment of intervention.

You know, those shows where we have these interventions and somebody says, you are an alcoholic. Oh, there it is. Or you are a drug addict or you are a workaholic.

You're a hoarder or whatever. James sits everybody down. He says, I'm going to be straight up with you. You are adulterous and you are adulterous. He actually calls everybody adulterous. He uses the feminine form of that. And he's intentionally doing that to try to get you to think about another group of people in the Old Testament who were unfaithful to God. And that's why in the Old Testament, you have Israel so often being charged with being an adulterous, a spiritual pilot.

I don't know personally, Steve, and I think we talked about this during the break. I don't know how I would react if somebody that I knew sat down to me and said, I got to talk to you straight up. You are an adulterer. And I got real clear that they weren't kidding. This wasn't just a shock thing that I, you have a real problem and your problem is adultery.

I think I would just like throw my hands up and go, whoa. I've been faithful to my wife. I've been faithful to my family. I have been to the best of my ability, faithful in the things that God has given me. And this person goes, yeah, yeah, yeah, but you're still an adulterer.

And that's what he does here to this whole group of people. You are adulterers. And the reason you're an adulterer is because of a friendship that you have formed with an alliance that you've made, that you should never make. You have gone to the world, to the system that is opposed to God, and you have aligned yourself there. You have done exactly the opposite thing that Rahab did. When Rahab back in chapter two was in Jericho, she was fully aligned with that whole city until she met God and those two messengers. And then she aligned with the Israelites against her whole city. And here are, here are Christians in James's church who have been scattered in all the little kingdoms of the world, and they've run and made alliances with the Jericho's of their day. And God says, if you try to be a friend of the world, then you're an enemy of God.

There's no middle ground. And he's not talking about the fact that we shouldn't be involved in the world and we shouldn't care about our lost neighbor. That's not what he's talking about.

You know, most of your listeners, including myself, we get up in the morning, we go to work and we work with lost people or we work around lost people and we should feel tender to them. And we should care about that's what he's talking about. He's talking about a system of values that drives us.

And they are there. And when you are aligned with God's enemy, God isn't going to let you stay there. And that's why he says, God opposes the proud.

When you when you are so arrogant that you're going to do whatever you want to get whatever you want, you're going to go to the other side. God is God is jealous over you. There is a life that he birthed into you when you got saved. Remember Chapter one, the word of truth brought us forth to life, right? That life, that new life that he gave you, that new spiritual life. God is jealous for that.

All right. Let me ask you a question real quick, because when we talk about that verse six, but he gives more grace. Therefore, it says God opposes the proud, gives grace to the humble, opposes the proud. Is that God is like, you made me mad, so I'm angry with you. Or is it God like getting on the other side of the line so you're on defense and he's on offense, like he's actively opposing you?

That's exactly right. This is not like God is mad at you. And God is saying, look, I'm on this side, and I've got an agenda.

And just because you're on that side, don't think I'm not moving my agenda forward. And it's so let's say, you know, you're on one team, and you get ticked off, and you go line up on the other side. And for some reason, nobody sees and the ball gets snapped, your team is going to crush you.

Because that team is the, you know, the offense isn't going to go, oh, well, you know, and God is saying, I'm playing offense here. And if you're in the way, you are going to feel the full brunt of my opposition. And it's not because I don't like you, or I don't care about you.

It's because you're lined up on the wrong side. Yeah. And, and I care, I yearn, there's this godly jealousy. I mean, think about what happens when a husband starts watching somebody start to hit on his wife. There is a righteous anger in the heart of a Christian, a righteous anger.

This is no, wait a minute. That's my wife. And it's more than just I love my wife. I don't want her damaged by that.

And or a wife to a husband when wife sees somebody starting to get, you know, too friendly with her husband. She's got a godly jealousy. And that's not, that's not a bad jealousy. That's actually a godly jealousy. Yeah, I mean, that's a separate study.

You can get into Elkanah and look at that one, which is fascinating. But I love this one. But he gives more grace. Therefore, it says God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. So and again, we're talking about what God's doing, then we're going to talk about our response in the last segment. The grace God gives is stunning.

He, you know, there's this life that he gave you when you became a Christian, and he's jealous over that. And he gives this super abundant grace. And the idea there is what is that grace?

Well, it's two things. It's the Word of God that was implanted in you, chapter one, and the Spirit of God that dwells in you. And so God says, I'm going after you with my spirit. Yeah. And my word. That's why when I sin, I'm so miserable.

Right? That's when I when I just end up deciding I'm going to go after this thing I want and I'm going to disobey God. I don't care.

I want it. God's spirit won't leave me alone. God's word won't leave me alone.

And God frustrates my path. Yeah, that's the hound of heaven. Exactly. He's like a dog with a bone. And God's and we're the bone.

That's right. He's not going to let you go. And the scriptures make that perfectly clear. And that's a beautiful reality to come back to is that, you know, God confronts us just like James is confronting. And I'll throw First Corinthians 13 in there.

And when you do it, you better make sure that your motivation is correct. And James's motivation is love for God and love for his fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. Oh, yeah.

James is actually going after these people because of what's at the other end of where they're headed. You know, spiritual adultery leads to spiritual death. Repentance leads to life. And there is this awesome grace that God wants you to know about. You know, that's available to you. I put my spirit in you.

That's right. I put my word in you. And if you will humble yourself, I will give you grace. And when we get back after the break, there's this process that is awesome. You know, it's actually a grace enabled process. You don't have to come crawling back to God hat in hand. It's not like God makes you crawl over a bed of cold, broken, go flog yourself for a while.

Yeah. I mean, God is like, I'm giving you the grace that you need to repent. So repent. I'm giving you everything you need to repent. So repent. Yeah.

The one thing I will leave it at this time, we're going to hit the break and then we come back. But when you're talking about it, he gives you more grace. I mean, I hear that. I'm like, uh, I've received a lot of grace already. The fact that I have the Holy Spirit within me, the fact that I've been forgiven, that God has taken away all my sin, past, present and future. That's a lot of grace. But when you humble yourself, then you're, you get more grace.

I'm sitting there going, goodness gracious. I mean, isn't the gas tank, the grace gas tank empty, but with God, it never is. Yeah. And the idea there is not so much that that we didn't get enough grace to start. Right. It's that this grace just keeps bubbling out. It's just this astonishing, jaw-dropping grace.

You can't get enough of. That's right. When we come back, we'll talk about just hold that thought, Sam. When we come back, we'll talk about our response, the believer's response, humble submission and bold resistance, returning to God, true repentance, confident waiting.

That's the way to get around the problem that we started with. We'll be right back. There we go.

It's all right. I got to jump in there. Welcome back. It's Steve Noble, The Steve Noble Show, back in the Book of James today on Theology Thursday with our good friend, Dr. Sam Horne, who's been preaching through this at his church. And then we've been talking about it here on the air every time Sam's on for the last, well, goodness gracious, Sam, it's been coming up on a year and a half.

I think of going through once a month. We're talking about James and working through this book, which we both love. And today in Chapter four, where he starts our dealing with our other the fact that we some of us as a lifestyle, quarrels and fights among us and our passions are at war within you. And we desire and do not have. So you murder, you covet and cannot obtain. So you fight and quarrel.

You don't have because when you do, you don't ask and when you do ask, you don't receive because you ask wrongly. And you're just going to turn around and give what you take what God gives you and spend it on your passions, which is why when we go to other things to get satisfied, that's why it's appropriate to use that word adulterous, you adulterous people. So then we talked about God, who's so gracious. He opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

And then now we will finish salmon in this first segment. And again, thank you for all your time today in your preparation on this, the believers response. So we're talking about God. But now we got to deal with us. What do we do?

So I could say it this way. God never walks away from us. Amen.

He's going to come after us. And so when the grace of God comes after us, God says this, submit yourself to God. So beginning in verse seven of Chapter four, submit yourself to God, resist the devil, drawn near to God, cleanse your hands, purify your hearts, be wretched and mourn and mourn and weep. These are all things.

And so I kind of figured out in my head how to understand this in five ways. So the first way is I got to submit humbly to God, right? At some point, the grace of God is so overwhelming. It crushes my pride. And I bow down to God. And then I resist boldly.

It's not just that I give up. I resist in the right thing. I take all this resistance. I was pointing to God, and I redirect it to the right team, right?

In other words, I joined the team again. And now I'm pointing my resistance to the devil. And I resist the devil the way Jesus did, right?

Jesus taught me how to resist the devil in his own temptation. And so I use the word of God. I believe the word of God. I trust the word of God. And I follow the word of God. So I submit, hold humbly, and I resist boldly. And then I repent truly.

That's the part that's hard. Here's what James says, draw near to God. That's a reference to worship. That's a reference to prayer. I'm coming to God. God, we're going to have a conversation about the thing that's awkward.

You're right. I'm an adulterous. We got to talk about this. So I'm going to draw near to God. And God is going to say, come on and let's talk. I want to talk.

I already know all about it. And as I come in to talk, I'm cleansing my hands, and I'm purifying my heart. So there's the idea that I am removing the filthiness, like James said, put away all moral filthiness and any rampant wickedness in chapter one, verse 21. So that's the cleansing of my hands. And then I'm coming back and I'm unifying my heart. I'm taking out all of the adulterated wisdom that's crept in. And I'm unifying my heart around the truth of God.

I'm stopping the double mindedness. So I repent truly. And then I mourn appropriately. I don't look at the good times that I had, you know, that was a good life.

Or man, I should, I mourn over that. I can't believe I did this to my life. I can't believe I did this to my wife.

I can't believe I did this to my kids. And I don't make light of it. I don't act like it wasn't a big deal. Now I don't make too much of it.

Right. I don't act like it's the end of the world. But I want to validate in their eyes what I did to them. Honey, what I did to you was really hurtful. And I can't believe I did that. I am so sorry. Oh, no, no, don't worry about it.

It's great. No, no, honey, honestly, I want you to know that I mourn over this. Isn't that what James is referring to when he says be wretched and mourn and weep laughter be turned to mourning in your joy to gloom. That's right.

That's why that's why you call. It's interesting. I'm just reading from the blog post marked by joyful mourning. And then rather than mocking center, sweeping it under the rug, intervention should lead to genuine sorrow.

And I love this part. Mixed with spirit engendered joy over God's gracious forgiveness that once again, your sin and rebellion can't outpace God's love and grace and forgiveness. We have these two ditches we run to. One is we make, you know, hey, I'm sorry, you should forgive me. We're good. And off we go. And there's been no relational repair.

Yeah. And the reason we mourn is not just not it's not that we're trying to prove something to God. Part of this is is coming to the person we've offended or hurt with our mouth and realizing I did damage to you and I can't believe I did. I am so horrifically sorry. I mean, can you imagine pulling your car out of your driveway and you're you're backing up and you're not paying attention and your neighbor is walking along and you run right into your neighbor and you break his leg and you get out of your car and you are appalled.

You can't say enough times how sorry you are and how bad you feel and how terrible this was. You're acknowledging that what you did even unintentionally. Well, James is saying this is how you need to this is how you repair relationships. You don't make light of it. Then you can make too much of it.

Like like the rest of your life, you're in this abject loop. That's not what he's talking about. Well, that's where Satan's going to sneak in, because God, in this instance, God's language is conviction, whereas Satan's language is condemnation.

Right. You call yourself a Christian. You're probably not even Christian. What kind of Christian are you?

You're such a worthless piece of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that then you got to really understand the difference between that, because when it when it's when it's condemnation like that, that is not of the Lord. Well, and the last thing, when all of this happens, you know, after I've mourned appropriately, I wait confidently for God to do something.

And this is one of the most awesome things here. Your sin has broken you. Your your conduct has ruined you. You are in this place where you are. You are bent down before the Lord in repentance. You're bent down before your neighbor in sorrow, and you humble yourself before the Lord.

And here is the here is the promise. He will exalt you in due time. God knows exactly how to restore whatever it is you wrote.

That's right. He knows how to return whatever it is you lost. He knows how to lift you up. And that is the hope for a Christian. You know, when I repent, it's not like I blew it and I can never have it back. Sometimes, you know, we do things and we think to ourselves, I'll never get this back with my wife.

Right. I'll never get this back with my kids. Well, we'll never get it back if if that's how we think. We've got to start by humbling ourself before God and then mourning before them and then waiting for God to do it. And it may take years.

It may actually take years. I talked to a guy after I preached a sermon and he said, Pastor, you have no idea what what I've done. And I don't I don't know what he's done.

I don't know what he's done. Yeah. Yeah. But he said, I don't know if I'll ever get it back. And I said, if you do, if you humble yourself before God and you humble yourself before others, you let God do that.

He will lift you up in his time. And that's the hard part. Right. Yeah.

Because while waiting, I covet I start coveting it again and I go right back to my old behaviors. And that's that's, I think, part of this process that James is talking about. The grace that that forgave us is also the grace that sustains us. That's right. And I think that's so that's so beautiful. I was listening the other day to Phil Wickham.

Yeah. And he has a beautiful hymn called The Hymn of Heaven. And so I I was listening to it and got curious. And so I went and I watched the music video of this and there's several versions of it. But there's one particular version where he's got a whole bunch of people and they're all gathered around this organ and there's a guy with a drum playing away and and it starts off really quiet. And by the end of that song, everybody in that song is celebrating what God has done. And it's celebrated with their whole body.

Their hands are up. Their faces are just rejoined. This is what I think James has in mind. God is going to turn all of that gloom and all of that mourning into that. And as I was listening to this, you know, I had it on I watched it a couple of times.

Yeah. And I just wanted to come out of my chair because that's what I'm hungry for. That's what I need in my life. I need God to take all this brokenness and this mess that I've made in my life and turn it into something I can jump for joy about.

And that's what he means when he says God will exalt you. And think about this. You have listeners out there who who've lost things. They've broken things. They've had things taken away from them. Maybe their marriage has been taken away from them by by somebody. Maybe their family's been broken. Maybe. I mean, just think about the pain most of us live in.

Most son or daughter, little bit gone. Yeah. And God says, Listen, if you will come to me and keep faith with me and stay on my side, I will take all of that sorrow.

And there is a day coming when you are going to jump for joy. It's one of the most powerful images. Yeah. That I can think of.

Yeah. I was telling you, we were talking on the break about the series The Chosen. And when I was sharing this this this interaction, Jesus had what he called him Little James, one of his apostles who had a in the story in this telling. He's got a problem with his leg and he's seen Jesus heal all these different people. And Jesus hasn't healed him.

So he asks him very humbly, very, very gently. He's like, you know, I see you healing all these people. I haven't healed me. And Jesus has this explanation about, well, I trust you. I trust you with the fact that you're going to walk through the rest of your life with this infirmity. You're going to heal others. You're going to keep pointing to me, despite the fact that you didn't get exactly what you wanted, but you have faith and your faith eventually. And then when it was just a beautiful, powerful, I was just weeping. And then at the end of it, Sam, when Little James is about to walk away, Jesus reminds him, but don't don't don't worry. Don't worry, James. Soon. You'll be healed soon.

That's right. And you're like, yes, I remember that in the end when we're off of this rock and eventually heaven comes down. But before that, you're out of here and you're going to get the ultimate.

I hate to use the phrase payback, but that's that's what we're talking about here. That ultimate reestablishing and real reward is just remarkable. God's grace and more and more of it forever and ever and ever. Amen. Great. Sam, thank you so much. Such a great message. You're welcome. Always a pleasure to have you on. And we'll continue it. There's another chapter to go through and some more in Chapter four. So we'll work on that next time with Dr. Sam Horn on Theology Thursday. This is Steve Noble on The Steve Noble Show. God willing, I'll talk to you again real soon. And like my dad always used to say, ever for another program powered by the Truth Network.