Untitled Sermon (2)

SERIES INTRO

Over the past number of weeks we have been looking at what the New Testament has to say about God’s design for the Church. We looked at the three main metaphors for the Church –the building, body and bride of Christ. If we, as a local church here in Crescent and as part of the wider global Church are to be Christ’s temple, body and bride – how does that shape how we treat each other, how we think about each other? So the series then turned to the “one another” passages in the New Testament. These are commands, instruction and teaching on how we are to treat one another as members of Christ’s Church. On previous evenings we have looked at bearing with one another, caring for one another and loving one another.

Today we are thinking about how we speak to one another. Jesus and his apostles had a lot to say about this. The majority of the negatively framed “one another” passages in the New Testament instruct us how not to speak to one another in Christ’s Church. And it’s one of these passages I want us to focus on today; James chapter 4:11-12. This passage is helpful because although it deals with one specific aspect of how we are to speak to one another, it does so by getting to the heart of speech in the church. It can build for us foundations which will serve to shape all our speech with one another in the church.

JAMES 4 INTRO

So, let’s read James chapter 4:11-12: “Brothers and sisters, do not speak evil against one another. The one who speaks against a brother or sister or judges a brother or sister, 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. There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbour?”

I want to focus on two aspects of what James does here as he instructs us how to speak to one another as a church. So here’s the outline of where we’ll be going.

1) First, James shows us what is really happening when we speak evil against a brother or sister, he reads between the lines of what we say and shows us what we are really doing. There’s two parts to this: When we speak evil against a brother or sister we are judging them. And then, when we judge a brother or sister in this way we are judging the law of Christ.

2) After showing us the problem, James takes us its heart. When we speak to one another like this have forgotten who we are, who we are meant to be. Again this has two halves: Who are we? – We are brothers and sisters. And who are we? – We are doers not judges.

If we listen to James and realise what we are actually doing when we speak evil against a brother or sister and if realise who we really are, then our speech gets sorted out. If these foundations are in place, then how we speak with one another will be on solid ground.

JUDGING OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS

Brothers and sisters, do not speak evil against one another. So what’s really happening when we do this? The term “speaking evil” covers a wide range of how we may talk to or about another Christian. It can be translated as slander, gossip, to defame, to denigrate. Speaking evil here is when we speak to or about a brother or sister in a way which makes them our inferior, putting them below us. This can be done with lies, but speaking evil can also be the truth, it can be done behind someone’s back or to their face, it can be done by a tone of voice even with seemingly innocent words. Speaking evil is any time we speak down to a brother or sister in Christ. James shows this by linking speaking evil with judging.

Of course, there are valid situations in which Christian leaders have to talk about and to others in the family in a negative way. Our leaders are called to shepherd, teach, advise and even discipline us. James cannot mean that all speaking ill of another Christian is wrong, because even in his own letter he has criticisms for fellow believers. There is a place for Christian leaders to speak to and about other believers negatively, but it is a hard line to walk and one most of us should be glad we’re not called to. There are times to be critical, we are to be shrewd and wise. But, then how are we to know when our speech strays into sin? Sometimes we are bold and brazen in our judgmental speech, but with brothers and sisters in the church we are probably more subtle.

Have you ever had one of those moments where you lie in bed at night and a memory of something you did or said comes into your mind and you can’t help but hold your head and groan out loud? The memory is so awkwardly painful it has to manifest itself physically? You’ve just been such an idiot? I once had a job interview that can still provoke that reaction in me. It was trully horrendous; I came in vaguely prepared for a discussion about one thing and it turned out to be a mini-practical exam on things I had no clue about. I left the room wanting to apologise to the panel for being born. I still have not told Judith, my wife, the specifics of that interview and I’m a sharer. I’m burying it.

But then as I walked down the corridor I saw the next guy going in. He was wearing a grey skin tight track and was literally swaggering through the door. Instantly I began to feel a little bit better. I couldn’t go home because it was too soon to face another human being. So I got a take away coffee and sat in the car in an empty carpark. I then remembered another person I knew who else was interviewing for the job – this was someone I had worked with before. So I took a wee while running through all the mistakes I knew they had made in that job, replaying it in my mind. I felt a bit better again. For a short time I managed to distract myself from my own painfully awkward incompetence by looking down at others. Then, the next week I discovered that we all got the job, and I don’t know what that says about me, or the job, but I’ll move on.

A clear nudge that what you’ve just said to or about a brother or sister is speaking evil is when it makes you a bit better about yourself. Because whether consciously or in the back of your mind, you have elevated yourself above them. Because often, not all the time, but often, when we speak evil of others it comes from a place of insecurity. It’s like we’ve just walked out of that interview and we’re desperate to feel better about ourselves. When we want to pull ourselves up, sometimes the lazy option is to look down on someone else.

JUDGING THE LAW

So when we speak evil against a brother or sister we judge them and put ourselves over them. James then takes his argument further and says that when we do that, when we speak against and judge a brother or sister, we speak against and judge the law. What does he mean? How does speaking against a brother or sister lead to judging the law? For this we need to take a bit of a step back.

If you’ve been following our morning teaching series in Crescent you may have noticed even from the short passage we read today, that James sounds a lot like Jesus. Scholars point to dozens of striking similarities between James and the sayings of Jesus in the gospel accounts, especially as found in Matthew, and especially the Sermon on the Mount. We don’t have time to explore this properly but here are three examples so you can see what they mean:

Jesus said: “You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?” James: “Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs?.”

Jesus: “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal.” James: “Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have corroded... You have laid up treasure in the last days.”

Jesus: “I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, ... Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.” James: “do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath, but let your ‘yes’ be yes and your ‘no’ be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation.”

If you can, sometime this week I would encourage you to read the Sermon on the Mount and then straight after read James., James may not directly repeat the words Jesus, but to quote Douglas Moo’s commentary “he weaves Jesus’ teaching into the very fabric of his own instruction. Again and again, the closest parallels to James’s wording will be found in the teaching of Jesus… And the topics he addresses as well as the particular slant that he takes on these topics mimics Jesus’ own emphasis. The author of the letter seems to have been so soaked in the atmosphere and specifics of Jesus’ teaching that he can reflect them almost unconsciously.” Nowhere outside of the 4 gospel accounts do we hear the voice of Jesus us clearly and directly. This has led to some scholars even calling James’ epistle a sermon on the Sermon on the Mount, a practical outworking of Jesus’ Sermon for James’ audience. To borrow a phrase from a Christian author in another context, when we hold James up to the light it is the Sermon on the Mount that we can see sparkling all the way through.

So, as we should expect, James’ view of the law is also shaped by Jesus. When asked about the greatest commandment Jesus replied in Matthew 22: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” Now James 2:8, “If you fulfil the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself,” you are doing well.” James follows his brother and Lord in centring the law on love of God and neighbour.

Law for James is law seen through the lens of Jesus’ teaching, mission and person. James calls it the perfect law of liberty in chapter 1 and royal law in chapter 2. It is the royal law of the King of the Kingdom, the law and will of Christ, which leads to life and freedom.

This brings us back to chapter 4. “The one who speaks against a brother or sister or judges them, speaks evil against the law and judges the law.” What is judging the law?

In primary school in Pakistan we had a dorm parent one year, a Mrs Sun, who decided that the best thing for 10 year old boys to do on Saturday mornings was to clean their rooms. I’m not bitter. My closest friends were all in other dorms and didn’t have to do this, which meant I felt entitled to disobey. My response was to get up as early as possible, sneak out and hide in the forest messing around until I knew cleaning time was over. I didn’t care that Mrs Sun knew I was hiding from her. My breaking of her rule was not just disobedience, it was judgement. I wanted her to know I thought her rule was stupid. It didn’t go down well, and my upcoming birthday party was restricted to children from our dorm only. So I didn’t go to that either.

If I know the law of Christ and choose to disobey then I’m not only breaking the law, I’m judging it. I’m saying that my way is better. James here gets right into the roots of sin, our rebellious usurping of God’s place. It is like taking the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Deciding we will be the judges of what is good and what is evil rather than giving God his rightful place as Lord and Judge. This is true of all sin and especially true for this passage. If the very heart of the law of Christ is to love my brother and sister and I choose instead to speak evil, to judge them, then I’m not only breaking the law, I’m judging it. When we talk down to someone else in this church, or in the wider church we have decided that our brother or sister deserves judgement, not love and therefore we say that Jesus was wrong, his law is wrong.

WHO ARE YOU? – BROTHERS AND SISTERS

We’ve seen the seriousness of what we’re really doing when we speak to our brothers and sisters like this. James has read in-between the lines of what happens when we speak evil of one another and shown us that when we speak evil against a brother or sister we are judging them. And when we judge a brother or sister in this way we are judging the law of Christ, the royal law of freedom.

Now he shows us that underneath this, when we speak this way we have forgotten who we are, who we are meant to be. Lets remind ourselves of this section of the passage: “But if you 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 you—who are you to judge your neighbour?”

So if we are to speak with one another in a way pleasing to God, then we have to know who we are. We’ve seen we are not to be judges, now James takes us right to the heart of the matter, and if we get this right, if we truly know and remember who we are, then our speech will sort itself out. Who are we? The first obvious answer from this passage is that we are brothers and sisters. James stresses this in the repetition of verse 11 – “Brothers and sisters, do not speak evil against one another. The one who speaks against a brother or sister or judges a brother or sister.” Some translations take out the last brother or sister and replaces it with a “them”. But in Greek it’s a 3 time repetition stressing our family bond.

And that’s all of us, those in church you gravitate to and can’t wait to sit with in the café again and those you struggle to talk to – we are brothers and sisters. We don’t get to make the choice who is in or out, we’re not the judge. When you read the New Testament letters you see this is what they were always dealing with – we are a group of very different people, that is what Church is. Sometimes we can forget how radical and counter cultural this is meant to be. In the early years of the church the culture had firm boundary markers between ethnicities, religious background, class, rich and poor, slave and free, male and female. But when Christ builds his church those barriers are torn down, we are all brothers and sisters and our speech to and about each other must reflect that or we set ourselves up in a position only God can hold.

Verse 12: “There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, he who is able to save and to destroy.” This verse is stern a warning that the only Judge will judge those who try to take his place. But commentators point out that James is saying more than that. The lawgiver and judge here is Jesus Christ. His law is the law of love, it reflects who he is. In our speech we may look down at a brother or sister and condemn them, but when Christ looks at them he has chosen to save. And even us in all our judgemental foolishness, thank the Lord, there is only one lawgiver and judge and he has chosen to forgive and to save.

This is a double cure – we see other Christians properly and ourselves properly. That insecurity that we can have which leads to the tendency to talk down to others in order to feel better about ourselves is cured by the security that comes from knowing we are brothers and sisters with each other and of the King whose law is love. He is judge, and he has chosen to save.

Who are we? The first half of the answer is that we are a family of the redeemed.

WHO ARE YOU? – DOERS

In verse 11 James has said that our relationship to the royal law of freedom we have in Christ is not to be as judges, but doers. James has a lot to say in his letter, often again echoing the Sermon on the Mount, about being doers of the word rather than just hearers. If you’ve not had the chance to listen to the first season of the Equip Project Podcast that Jim and Ollie have made for us then I’d really encourage you to do so, especially for you in rooted and other young adults. In the last episode of this season Jim and Ollie seek to instil a quiet assured confidence in Christian young adults by reminding them of the greater story they are part of. This was important to James as well and it’s key to understanding how we are to be doers of the word and keepers of the law of Christ.

One of my earliest memories (I have a pretty poor memory so I was probably 6 or something) was after my Dad told me some story from the Bible, I asked him if we would one day be in it, if one day you could read the story of our lives in the Bible. I don’t think I was being profound or anything, it was more about fame, because my next question was how to get into the newspaper. But the real answer to my first question is important. We are already in the Bible, we are taking part in this story.

Commentators point out that this is what sets James’ moral teaching apart from similar Jewish writings of the time. There are other letters and books written by Jews around James’ time full of moral teachings and instructions of how to live similar to what James wrote. But what sets James apart in that his admonitions are always set in an eschatological context. What that means is that James’ moral instruction is all written with the return and final victory of Jesus in mind. James’ moral teaching was set within the context of the great story of God and he always kept the climax of that story in mind.

If we come to God’s word as an old book containing a list of facts we should know and rules we should keep then it’s easy to become a judge over others. We slip into seeing where they don’t know what they should know, or when they don’t do what they should do. But God’s word is not an old book of lists, God’s word is a story of God’s love for us in which he came in the person of his son, Jesus of Nazareth, to rescue us and make us family. That story is not over and it won’t be until he returns in glory. This leaves no room for armchair amateur judges who enjoy talking down to and about other Christians, we are doers.

There is one lawgiver and Judge and he will save his people, he will restore all things, he will Judge his enemies and right all wrongs. He has invited his people to take part in that story, to be his church, to be his body, his hands and feet in the world. The Bible is not a list of things you need to fit into your life, but a great story that you need to fit your life into. See your life like that. See yourself like that. The royal law of Jesus is not a tick-box, it is his rule, his reign over you. You have a King whose law is love, you have a story to participate in.

CONCLUSION

Ok, let’s bring it all together to close. When we as brothers and sisters in Christ, in Crescent and the wider Church, when we speak evil of each other, when we judge each other in our speech James shows us what we’re really doing. We are setting ourselves up in the place of Jesus Christ, we are saying we know better, our will is better, our law would be better. James shows us how serious it is to speak this way to each other! We are placing ourselves above our Lord.

Then James shows us where this ultimately comes from. We have a wrong view of ourselves and our place. Who are you to judge your brother or sister? You are not the judge, you are a brother a sister, part of the family of Jesus. Only he can save or destroy and when you look at your brother or sister, he has chosen to save, he has chosen love. And when you look at yourself, he has chosen to save, he has chosen to love. There is no need to speak out of insecurity or unloving judgement.

Who are you? You are not a judge, you are not an armchair warrior, you are not on the bench. You are a doer. The story is not yet over and you have a role to play. We are not judges over the law but doers, we are citizens of the Kingdom and our King’s perfect, freeing law is love. When we see yourselves as we truly are, as brothers, sisters, loved, saved, secure with a freeing part to play doing the will of our Lord, then we will speak to each other well.

As we speak to one another, know what you’re really doing and know who you really are and your speech will reflect it, your speech will please your Lord and your Father. That’s how we talk to one another in the Church.