A Humble Heart - All Up In Your Business (Week 5)

How do we deal with conflicts with people when they arise? What about conflicts with God? Listen as Pastor Obed Borrero unpacks James 4 and shares how we can resolve these conflicts and experience restoration in relationships!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

James chapter 4. 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 you do not receive, because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people. Do you not know that fun friendship with the world is enemy with God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to not purpose that the scripture says he yearns jealousy over the spirit that he is made to dwell in us? But he gives more grace. Therefore, it says, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against the brother or judges his brother speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if ye judge the law, you are not a doer of the law, but a judge. There is only one lawgiver and judge, he 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 go into such and such a town and spend a year there, and trade and make profit. Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that. As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it for him, it is in sin. This is the word of the Lord.

SPEAKER_02 2:25

Amen. Good morning, church. Good morning. My name is Obed, I'm one of our pastors here, and I'm excited to be with you and to dive in to James 4, which is where we're gonna be today. So if you have your Bibles, you can open that up and follow along as we keep diving in to the scripture we just heard. Um try and read for us, and we're gonna be in James 4. But before we start, I want to ask you a question. And you don't have to raise your hand. But have you ever been in a big argument or fight before? Yes. The odds are you might have had been in an argument with a person in this very room right now. Don't look at them right now. Um we've all been in fights and arguments, right? And now there's lots of different things that determine what you know what arguments and fights look like in your life. There's you know, personalities, cultural differences, different backgrounds that determine whether it's like, you know, you tend to disengage from arguments or you tend to engage arguments, right? Whether you're passive aggressive or just plain old aggressive. And I had the privilege and honor of growing up in a Latino household, um, born in Puerto Rico with Puerto Rican parents. And uh, my experience, and I think in general, um, Latino arguments and fights are so loud. Just so incredibly loud. It's like, why do the neighbors have to know what we're going through? And why does everybody and on this family vacation, which was supposed to be fun, and now we're arguing, and now everybody knows, and this is a lot. And uh, but everybody's different, right? We all argue and fight in different ways. And I don't know about you, but for me, I like to think, especially when I first get in an argument, and if I that that uh argument is not my fault. This they're their fault. Uh there's something that they've done, uh, there's something going on with them, like they're the ones who are wrong, and I'm right. And so that I need to argue with them because how else are they gonna be right if they're wrong? Um more often than not, that's not the case. More often than not, uh conflicts between people, and so often, right, our we don't have conflicts with you know the you know attendant at the gas station. We don't have conflicts with them. We tend to have conflicts with the people that we are really close to, the people that we should love and do love, and we tend to have conflicts with those people. And the problem with conflict is that it creates distance between us and the people that we love and should be close to, right? Or it creates distance between us and our spouse, it creates distance between us and our kids, it creates distance between us and our coworkers, it creates distance and not just distance between us and people, but also we can have conflict uh with God. It's not just horizontal distance, but there can also be conflict that creates vertical uh distance. And what we see James talking about here, and he he's he's saying that all this conflict that's around you, it's not it's actually revealing that there's a conflict happening inside of you. If there's a war, this is the word he uses, if there's a war raging around you in relationships with people or even with God, then it's because there's a war already raging inside of you. And James, he's an early leader in the church. He's this is probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 to 20 years after Jesus has um lived, died, uh, buried, rose again, and ascended into heaven as Lord of all, Lord of the universe. And this is not very much longer after that. And these are, and James is the leader over all the churches that are in ancient Judea and Palestine, and he has lots of churches that he's overseeing, and we believe that he was actually maybe uh Jesus' like half-brother or cousin, related to Jesus in some way, and so he knew Jesus well. And uh there's people in these churches who probably knew Jesus or knew the apostles, and not 15, 20 years after Jesus has ascended in glory, they are having a lot of issues. They're having conflicts and fights with each other within the church, and so James uses this word war, and and he talks about and he asks the question what causes quarrels and 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. And now, passions, for us, we think passions like, oh, that's what you're passionate about. But the word here actually talks about something a little different. It talks about disordered desires. You want and you don't have, so you kill. You covet and so you fight and quarrel because you don't have what you covet. So what's what's James talking about? He's basically saying that there's a disorder happening on the inside of us that's causing this war to rage and this conflict. And what he's saying is that our these desires, they're actually disordered. Because what happens is that, yes, we know we should want what's best for people, but then they have the job that we want. Yeah, we know we want should want what's best for our spouse, but they're not doing what I think what I want them to do. I know we should love my kids, but my kids just are not falling in line. Why do they keep doing whatever they want to do? We want the thing that the other person has, the thing that they're not giving us. And so, what are we willing to do? We're willing to do whatever it takes to get what we want, and so we're willing to engage because there's a conflict inside of us, we're willing to have conflicts with those around us. There's these disordered desires of play, and James talks about them, and he uses the word war. Why is he using the word war? Because James really wants us to get the severity of what's going on inside of us. It's not just like you're like, oh, I'm not sure. Like, no, there's real conflict happening inside of us. And when that spills out and becomes conflicts, especially conflicts with other followers of Jesus, with other brothers and sisters in Christ, there's a horror to that. It's horrible. Because what is the what is the what does the gospel do? The gospel brings and unites people, it levels the playing field. Paul says we've all sinned, but then we can all become part of the family of God and be saved through faith by grace. And so we should all be brothers and sisters in Christ and be f and have be the family of God, but now we're in conflict with each other. And that's there's a horror to that. And you even see this throughout our history in America. In our history, the the most the war that had the most casualties was not World War I, was not World War II, it was actually the Civil War. The Civil War over had over 600,000 casualties. Why? Because the wars that we fight with ourselves have the most consequences. The conflicts between us and our brothers and sisters in Christ have real costs. You can even go way back in history, the 1600s, 30 years' war, right after the Reformation, um, when all of when there was everybody was Catholic in Europe, and then uh uh the Reformation happened, and then some countries stayed Catholic, some countries became Protestant, and then they fought a war over it. So brothers in Christ fighting a war over it, and over four and a half million people died. Conflicts have consequences, and you might be thinking, I get that, but you don't know what I need. There's it's not just that I want that thing, it's that I need it. I need that promotion. If I get that promotion, then I'll be able to make this much more money, and with that much more money, I'll be able to uh you know get rid of all my worries and be able to do all the things that we've been needing to do. You don't get it, if I had that thing, then it life would be great. If I had that progress in my marriage, if I had that progress in my parenting, if I had that progress at work, if I had that progress in my friendships, if I was if I was just had that thing. Why don't we have that thing? James says it's you do not have because you do not ask, or you ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on those disordered desires. Because the implication is that, you know, yes, maybe other people have the thing that we want. Ultimately, though, we know God's the one who could give it to us. So we maybe you don't have because you haven't asked, maybe that is a good thing. You just you need to ask the Lord for it, maybe. The other option is you don't have it, you have asked and you don't have it. Now maybe you have you have uh and you're not asking, and you used to ask, but you're not asking now because God didn't come through in the past. Because you you asked for for him to come through and he didn't come through, it's not the way that you wanted him to come, and so you're kind of done asking, or maybe you're asking, you still want him to come through, but if you're really honest with yourself today, and you really look deep, deep, deep down, and you ask yourself, what's the reason why I'm asking for this thing? Why do I want this desire? Is it really because I want to help people? I'm being selfless, is it really because I just want to honor God with this, or is it because you want to have that thing to spend it on your disordered desires and you want that thing at the expense of other people, or you want that thing, and you might be wasteful with it. And so God's just trying to be merciful with you because he knows if he gave it to you, it would actually do a lot more harm than good. You don't have, you don't ask, you don't ask, you don't have, but you do ask, and maybe you ask to spend it on those disordered desires. Conflict with others reveals a conflict with God, and fulfilling those disordered desires, it's not neutral. It's not a neutral thing, it's not like, oh, no one got hurt or no one, no harm, no foul. Like fulfilling disordered desires is not like that because James 4, he says, you adulterous people. James is kind of being mean. Why is he calling us adulterous? That's not cool. James hasn't gone through PR training. That's not fun. You adulterous people. 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. When we're in conflict with God, it's not like regular conflict, it's like covenant conflict. It's like a marriage. And I've uh sadly been in this position uh more than once where me and Camila, it's like right before I leave for work, we have a little conflict and a little disagreement, and she's not doing what I want her to do, I'm not doing what she wants me to do, usually. And we have this conflict. And I have to get to work, I get, you know, gotta try to be on time. And so the conflict doesn't resolve, it stays. And when I have conflict in my marriage, everything else in my life could be awesome, but I feel bad. But I still have this war raging inside of me. And I can work hard to, you know, get everything that I need done, but the whole time there's this conflict because I have this conflict with my spouse that's unresolved. And James goes another step further. He says, it's not just that you're in conflict with God, it's that you're rejecting God and that you're saying, okay, God, if you're not gonna give me what I want, then I'm gonna go over here and get in with the world and do what the world says I need to do, and then actually get the thing that I want, and then great, and then I'll come back. Why does that not work? Well, the whole Bible says that that sin and that that sin is like idolatry, and idolatry is basically like spiritual infidelity. And that spiritual infidelity is when we choose to not love God, to go love something else. Or we say we still love God, but we really need that thing, so God, you're gonna have to be over here. I'm gonna have to go love the world for a little bit to go get what I want. And James is saying that that's not even it's not even just the like you know, friendship with the world, it's actually opposing God. It's becoming an enemy of God. And you would think that God would treat us and act in kind. If that's what you're gonna do, then fine. See you later. But God doesn't act in kind, he actually responds with kindness. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the scriptures say he yearns jealously over the spirit he has made to dwell in us? And this is incredible that even though we have opposed God and become his enemy, and we have turned our back on our covenant, Lord, and we've gotten in the world to get the things that we want, even though we've done that, God still yearns jealously for us, and he wants us back. I was uh at a party uh yesterday, a quinceen yeda, um, which is a sweet 15 um in Latino culture. And when you I personally um I really enjoy parties and I like music and I like to dance. And when you're a pastor in West Texas, there's not a lot of opportunities for that kind of stuff. And so quinces and weddings are awesome. You please invite me to your kinsen wedding, um, I'll serve whatever. And it was awesome. And they had it was just a great party, really special, meaningful. And then the music came and it was like, it's time to dance. I'm gonna go dance because I'm gonna dance with my wife. I don't get to dance with my wife super often. And uh, helm is cool, but it's not the same. And so I'm really excited. And so first the whole family goes and we're all dancing, you know, with the little kids, and they're staring at other people, and uh, you know, then they start jumping up and down, and okay. Then Samuel, my son, he's two, and he uh gets tired, so it's like all right, I'm gonna put you in this chair right here, not too far, no, not too far, not leaving him, abandoning him. And I'm gonna go dance with my wife. This is my time to shine, you know, it's time to dance. Country music came on. That's like it's it's time to two step. And then we had like one and a half songs, and it was awesome. And then my son, he starts crying, and he's he's tired because it's seven o'clock and he's not in bed, you know, and he's two, and so he's tired, and he runs to my wife and is like, you know, mommy, hold me. And my wife can't see him without just you know, grabbing him, holding him, and it makes me upset because I was dancing with my wife, and he just took my wife away from me. This little kid, you know, instrument. I was instrumental in his birth, you know. I was had a big part to play, and it's like pacing back. And I was really upset, and then so I so I grabbed him and I was like, I'll hold him. You dance with Eden, because Eden was by herself now, she was like not engaged. You danced with Eden, and so I went and sat down, and she was like, Give me, give me the baby, he's tired. I'm like, no, just go dance. It became a whole thing, whole argument. And then at the end, we left shortly thereafter, um, and then at the end, she was like, Were you jealous of Samuel? It's like, no, I wasn't. He's just being rude. Little two-year-old. I thought about it a little bit, and I thought, you know what? I was jealous. I call me crazy. I'm the only one who wants to dance, who gets to dance with my wife. There'll be some scenario, I'm sure, in the future where that won't count. But by and large, I want to be the one who's dancing with my wife, not at someone else. God adjourns jealously for us. He doesn't want you to have another dance partner. He wants to be your dance partner, he wants to be your partner in life.

SPEAKER_01 19:57

But we've we've but we've sinned, but we've turned from him. What does he do? But he gives more grace. He gives more grace.

SPEAKER_02 20:05

And so, what do we need to do in response to that grace? We just need to repent and turn away from that way we were doing it and that friendship with the world and and our disordered desires. And when you repent and return to God, God responds and he restores. How does that work? Verse 7, it says, Submit yourselves therefore to God. How do wars end? When someone surrenders, you got it. When someone surrenders, when the conflict will end when someone gives up. When someone says, you know what? I I thought I had it all right, but the truth is I don't. I thought I was doing the right thing, but the truth is I have these disordered desires. I thought I was loving you by trying to do this thing, but the truth is I wasn't loving you, and I wasn't loving or honoring God. And the truth is that that's all that's all sin, and I regret that, and I'm I give up. I pull out the white flag. I'm I'm in the wrong. I've responded poorly. I've not done the thing I should have done. And you surrender, you submit yourselves therefore to God, and you reject the lie. That's why it says resist resist the devil and he will flee from you, is you reject the lie of the enemy, and then all that, when that lie gets exposed by the truth, all of that influence of the enemy, he has to go away. He has to flee. So then we we and then we come and we draw near to God, and then he will draw near to us, and that's amazing. And part of me just wants to skip verse nine and go to verse 10, you know, and then exalt exaltation, he'll exalt you. But verse nine is really the key. Because this repentance, repenting and returning to God, so often we just want it to be a moment. So often we just want it to be a moment. At the altar during worship. So often we just want it to be a moment in an equipped group or a life group. Or so often we just want it to be a moment where we pray to God and then everything is great and nothing's nothing's the same and nothing's everything's good. But what does James say? He says, be wretched. Be wretched and mourn and weep. No laughing for a season. Yeah, the joy of the Lord is my strength. That's true, and you're gonna need that strength for this. It's not gonna look like your joys. Because the way of the world, the path is wide. But the narrow path to Jesus is a low way. And so that surrender doesn't just look like pulling out the white flag, it looks like getting on your knees before Him. And we've all had these moments, they're special moments and they matter, but God's saying this moment might need to be more than a moment, and you may need to get comfortable down here. You may need to get comfortable down here for a season. It might be a week, it might be a month. Because what God doesn't want to happen is that you come to him in repentance, but then nothing changes. He wants you to get to that place where your heart is fully surrendered to him and where it's broken. It's broken over not just, oh, I did stuff wrong, and so I have these bad consequences, but no, what I did was sin, and what I did was not love God, and what I did was not love people, and what I did was actually hurting God and harming God and breaking his heart, and it was hurting people. I gotta wait until down here until my heart is broken. And then the great thing is that a broken and contrite heart God will not despise. That even down here will draw near to you and he'll be with you. But you have to mourn. There has to be godly sorrow. There has to be this. And as that, as you're down here, at the feet of Jesus, at the cross, the lowest place, at the place of death, that's when a transformative work happens in your heart.

SPEAKER_01 24:33

And the good news is that he's not gonna leave you there. This might be longer than you thought, but he's not gonna leave you there. Because he has per a lot of purpose for you.

SPEAKER_02 24:46

Because there's lots of other people that you've been called to love and to impact. So what's he gonna do? As you're humbling yourself, at some point, he's gonna be like, it's time to get up, and his hand will come, and you'll be able to grab his hand, and he'll slowly but surely lift you up. Because when we repent in return, God responds and he restores, he restores that relationship with him, which is the most important thing. But then he also restores our relationships with other people, and that's what James 11 through 13 talks about. Don't speak evil against your brothers because now because that's not who you're called to be. That's not who you're supposed to be. And now from this place, after going through that repentance and returning to the Lord and his restoration work begins in you, now you can come and bear these things and share these things with other people. And you can go back to those people that you used to be in conflict with, and you can come and say, you know what? I'm sorry. And I'm really sorry because I did this thing or I didn't do this thing because you had something I wanted that I didn't trust God to give it to me, uh, or not give it to me because it's not what I actually needed, and I wasn't trusting him, and I hurt you, and I'm sorry, and I ask that you're forgiven because I want reconciliation with you. He restores not just our relationship with him, but he restores our relationship with people, and he restores our purpose. And verses uh 13 through 16, and it it's all about talking about a person who goes and because of their disordered desires, they disregard God and they go and like we're gonna do this and this and this, this is gonna be the plan, and we're gonna make a bunch of profit. We know it's gonna happen, so let's go do it. And it's this disordered desires that lead them to disregard God's place and God's part and partnership in our purpose. So, what does he do? He restores that partnership with his purpose, and he and what now, what's our attitude now? If the Lord wills, we'll do this or that. If the Lord wills, where what else do we want except the will of God in our lives? God restores us with our purpose, with his will for our lives. When we repent in return, God responds and restores. So what do we need to repent of today? Verse 17, James 4, 17. It says, So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. I uh this is an area that wasn't a habit for me. This this repenting, and and so I got this uh book. It's actually like uh a daily devotional, um, because I was like, I need some help. Um, because I would kind of get back to, you know, at the end of the day, and I would think, man, I didn't do a whole lot of bad stuff. Like, okay, what am I supposed to be repenting of? And then I read this part because in this uh devotional, there's a part every day, every single day, where you confess your sin to God. And on this day, which is actually today, God is awesome, it says, We have left undone those things which we ought to have done.

SPEAKER_01 28:10

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:12

Because you may be here and you may be thinking, I know I've done a lot of bad stuff, and maybe you're new here, maybe you know you're not following Jesus yet, and the good news is for you today that God desires a relationship with you, and that it's through that process of surrendering to him as Lord that we get to have a relationship with our creator, with the source of life, and follow him on his mission to love God, love people, and make disciples. It's awesome. Maybe you're here though and you've been following Jesus a while, and you've stopped doing some bad stuff, which is awesome. But you know there's some things that you've left undone. There's been some opportunities missed. There's been some moments where you didn't respond the way you should have, even though you weren't bad, but you didn't love. Left undone these things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done. Was this and James was saying is that there's sins of commission and there's sins of omission, and we have to repent of both. So today is an opportunity and a moment for us corporately to repent before our creator and before our Lord and before our king. The one who wants to be the sole partner, the sole dance partner in your heart. Your covenant God. The good news, when we repent and return, he responds and restores. So when we take that first step in humility, he responds. And a restoration work might have already started in worship. There's a restoration work that God wants to do right now. It may last for a while, it may not last for a week, it may last for a full day, it may last for a month, it may last a while. This this this mo this way of repentance. And truth is, I should probably do it every day and build a lifestyle of this. But it all starts with one step. And so today, what I want us to do and invite you to do right now is to close your eyes and bow your heads before the Lord. And in prayer, in this moment, God's probably already revealed to it, if not, ask him to reveal it. What is that sin maybe of commission? The thing you did that you weren't supposed to do because of those disordered desires, or maybe it was not doing the thing you were supposed to do, or you knew God was calling you to do, or you knew it was just the good thing to do. You didn't do it. Right now, in the deepest part of your heart, say, God, I repent of that sin. I repent of this. I'm sorry. I see the truth, I see the error and the lies. I repent. I regret my sin. Let me read this over you as we confess together. Almighty and most merciful Father, we have erred and strayed from your ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts, we have offended against your holy laws, we have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done. And there is no health in us. But you, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders, spare those, O God, who confess their faults. Restore those who are repentant according to your promises declared to mankind in Christ Jesus our Lord, and grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake, that we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, sober life to the glory of your holy name. And in our in our morning, in this moment, we receive words of comfort from the Lord. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness and those disordered desires and the ways we haven't loved people or loved you, oh God. You are the truth of our Jesus. So, Lord, we thank you for the work you're doing today. Lord, we thank you that we get to be your people, that we are your children, and that you receive us like a perfect, loving Heavenly Father. We thank you for the cross, the way we could take of repentance. And God, we thank you for your spirit that is helping us. Lord, would this be this moment, Lord, not become just a moment, but would it lead, Lord, to a lifestyle of living humbly before you? God, we're so grateful. And in all these things, we simply ask that you would be honored, glorified, and praised all in the name of the Lord Jesus, and everyone said. Amen. Church, would you stand with me?