James 4:11-12: Reason frankly with your neighbor

Welcome

Happy Father’s Day

Fatherhood is a very difficult idea in our culture

39% of all kids K-12 do not have a father at home

Fatherlessness has been linked to every social problem among young Americans - school drop out, depression and anxiety, suicide, teenage pregnancy, substance abuse, domestic violence, criminal activity, incarceration, gang membership, divorce

Two thoughts here for Father’s Day:

God is our perfect heavenly Father - Christians are not people who begin with our earthly fathers and then evaluate God as Father on that basis; we start with the reality of our perfect heavenly Father and then measure earthly fathers against him

The church for 2,000 has been conceived of as the family of God for good reason - the church is where the family-less find family, where the fatherless find not only their heavenly Father but a host of all family members - fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters

Let us be that family in a world that desperately needs it

English Standard Version Chapter 19

29 And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life.

Introduction

James 4:11–12 ESV

11 Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. 12 There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?

I. Definition of speaking evil and judgment

Slander covers a variety of harmful speech - basic meaning of the word includes:

Questioning legitimate authority (Numbers 21:5) - rebellion against Moses

Slandering a person in secret (Psalm 101:5)

Leveling an incorrect or inaccurate accusation (1 Peter 2:12, 3:16)

Judging is a touchy subject in the modern world

Some like to say that we can never judge one another at all, and by this they tend to mean any reflection on, assessment of or critique of a person’s behavior, ideas, or really anything

This often comes from Matthew 7:1 (judge not ,that you be not judged) or James 4:12 - “who are you to judge your neighbor)

What then happens is a broad definition of “judge” is assumed and not actually evaluated, so that a person walks away with the notion that any and all judgment is prohibited

But this flies in the face of the overwhelming testimony of all the scriptures and numerous particular texts

James’ entire letter is essentially a critique, very harsh at times, or this community’s behavior, actions, patterns, and ways of thinking

Contextually, Jesus is not telling people not to judge in Matthew, but rather telling them to judge with right judgment, with justice, with humility

Matthew 18:15-20 lays out the means by which we go and tell each other our faults, and if that doesn’t resolve a situation, bring them to the church for discipline

Paul condemns the Corinthian church for their failure to judge the behavior of an incestuous man in 1 Corinthians 5, saying “Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge?…purge the evil person from among you?”

So we need to differentiate between moral discernments and ultimate judgments

Nowhere does the Bible instruct us not to have discernment between right and wrong, good and evil, wise and foolish

But it does prohibit us for making ultimate judgments of a person’s identity, value, eternal destiny, and standing before God

As much as we think ourselves innocent of this, it happens all the time in surprising ways

Identity judgments lead to treating people wrongly

They are a ______ so I don’t need to hear them out

Judging = deciding you know who another person is and can decide their identity, value, and destiny

Throughout this whole paragraph, and indeed all of James, he has in the back of his mind Leviticus 19:15-18

Leviticus 19:15–18 ESV

15 “You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor. 16 You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand up against the life of your neighbor: I am the Lord. 17 “You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. 18 You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

How do we know this?

James 2:8 directly quotes Leviticus 19:18 - the royal law of love for neighbor

The issue of partiality came up in James 2:1-7

The language of “neighbor” in James 4:12 goes back to Leviticus 19:18

The raising of the issue of slander here

How does this help us define slander and judgment?

What we are not supposed to do

You shall not go around as a slanderer

You shall not stand up against the life of your neighbor

You shall not hate your brother in your heart

You shall not take vengeance

You shall not bear a grudge

What we are supposed to do

Reason frankly with your neighbor

Love your neighbor as yourself

Application:

What is actually happening in slander and judgment?

A heated issue comes up, one that people care deeply about

Instead of fair and honest dialogue, people just pre-judge another person’s identity, value, etc

Out of that judgment of identity, value, or eternal destiny, all kinds of evil speech and disregard for them is justified

A breakdown of honest communication and frank reasoning occurs

Listening, dialogue, and honest conversation are substituted out for self righteous anger, writing each other off, and character attack

We speak evil of people because we have judged them to be not worth our kindness

The current cultural proclivity for this

Dialogue is being increasingly shut down in favor of grand pronouncements of a person’s value and identity before they are even heard

Example: This last week I was torn apart on social media

I posted a short message about the very real suffering of Christians throughout 139 countries in the world

Violence, oppression, persecution

The western world is very much unaware of this suffering across the board, Christian and non Christian, conservatives and liberals

I was called out as a racist for posting about something other than racial injustice in our country

To be clear, I condemn racism in the strongest possible terms, and any reality of institutionalized racial injustice should be rooted out and eradicated

But that’s also not the only injustice happening in our world

Sex trafficking

Terrorism

Religious persecution

A whole host of human rights violations all over the world

Dialogue in this instance was instantly shut down in favor of throwing around labels and value judgments

The reality is that we do this in the church too

Instead of really engaging with a person who thinks differently than we do, we:

Give them a label and decide from the start that they have nothing valuable to say

Rather than listen carefully when they speak, we instead turn inward and come up with our rebuttal that will demolish them

We have essentially made a judgment call on their identity and value that prevents any actual discussion or dialogue

This happens all over the place

We do this with those outside of the church

We do this with those inside the church with whom we have theological disagreements

II. Why slander and judgment constitutes a grave sin

James 4:11 ESV

11 Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge.

To slander and judge another is to slander and judge the law

Principle: Our obedience (or lack of obedience) to the law reflects what we truly believe about it

The law = God’s will and way - the OT, but the OT as interpreted and taught by Jesus, and applied to every believer

Anytime we do not obey the law, the statement we make is that we do not think it is authoritative

To speak evil against another person is to speak evil against the law, because to disobey the law is to deny that it really has any authority at all

To judge another person is to judge the law

What does this look like?

We rarely see a Christian who just believes that God’s law doesn’t matter

But we often justify ourselves nonetheless

Illustration: Speeding

Everyone believes safe driving laws are good and important

If you speed and get caught, you aren’t likely to argue against the very principle of laws against speeding - you will not argue that speeding is generally good and safe driving laws are dumb

You will argue that despite the goodness of the law, you are nonetheless justified in this certain scenario because of some mitigating factor

Illustration: Lying

No one will argue that dishonesty is a virtue, that lying isn’t an immoral act

When you tell a lie, you will not defend that on the basis of saying lying is actually good and everyone that thinks dishonesty is bad is mistaken

You will argue that you are justified in THIS scenario because of some mitigating factor

James’ teaching: Speaking evil and judging

No one in his community will argue that speaking evil against other people and making judgments about their value and identity is a good thing

But they will nonetheless justify the evil speech they allow to come out of their mouth

Current application: You might say it’s wrong to stereotype and label people

And yet labels constantly fly around to the neglect of actual conversation

What then follows is an immediate justification on why in this moment its fair and right to label and stereotype someone

To speak evil and judge is to take the place of God James 4:12

James 4:12 ESV

12 There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?

Not only does judgment and slander of others put us in a place of standing in judgment over the law, more importantly even than that they put us in the place of God

James says that for us to judge another person’s value, identity, or ultimate destiny and then to, on that basis, speak evil against people is to presume upon ourselves the task of God

There is one God, he who is able to save and to destroy

This certainly carries the idea of the power to save and to destroy - God is the sovereign ruler of all creation, who holds life and death in his hands, heaven and

But it also carries the idea of authority or right - Because God is the sole lawgiver, he is the only one qualified to judge, the only one with the right to pronounce statements of value, identity, and eternal destiny

God has the right to save, and he has the right to condemn

He has the right to tell you that you are wrong about every single thing you think

He has the right to tell you how to live

He has the right to define good and evil

He has the right to judge people according to whether or not they conform to his definition of good and evil

There is only one God, and there is only one judge

You are not him

Who are you, then, to judge your neighbor?

We need to see the truth here - ultimately, judging and speaking evil against another person actually amounts to the sin of blasphemy against God, because we presume to act in his place

Conclusion

The tragic irony of all of our judgments and then evil speech against each other is that while doing, we presume ourselves safe from judgment

God has the right to save, and he has the right to condemn, and the truth is that on our own steam, all of us are worthy of the judgment and condemnation of God

Every human being has participated in the vast injustice, evil, and sin of our world

We are born into this reality - no one has had to teach Gwen how to be selfish and not want to share

God has provided a means by which sinners who ought to rightly and justly be condemned can instead be redeemed

The substitution of Jesus’ perfect life on behalf of our sin

To be received by faith

Christians ought to be the least likely people in the world to judge and speak evil against others

Because we have received grace, because God has had mercy

Therefore, we are people, in response to God’s goodness to us in Jesus, can “reason frankly with our neighbors” instead of hating them in our hearts.