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James 3:13-18 James 4:11-12
13 Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. 14 But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. 15 This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. 16 For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. 17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. 18 And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.
(ESV)
11 Do not speak evil against one another, brothers.1 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?
(ESV)
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
We're gonna be reading from 2 different places for our scripture tonight, and the first thing we're gonna do is read from Matthew 5. If you'll turn to the 3rd page in the worship guide, we're gonna read responsibly, and I'll read the normal font if you will read the bold in response. This comes from Matthew 52 through 9. And he opened his mouth and taught them saying, blessed are the poor in spirit. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Speaker 1:Blessed are those who mourn.
Speaker 2:They shall be conquered.
Speaker 1:Blessed are the meek.
Speaker 2:They shall bear their
Speaker 1:Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
Speaker 2:They shall be satisfied.
Speaker 1:Blessed are the merciful.
Speaker 2:They shall receive mercy.
Speaker 1:Blessed are the pure in heart.
Speaker 2:They shall see God.
Speaker 1:Blessed are the peacemakers.
Speaker 2:They shall be called sons of God.
Speaker 1:And the second passage comes from James 3 verses 17 through 18. It says, but the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere, and a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. This is the word of the Lord.
Speaker 2:Thanks be to God.
Joel Brooks:If you would pray with me. Our father, I ask that you would bless the very reading of your word. Those are the most important words that we will hear tonight. Through your spirit, write them on our hearts. Lord, I'm convinced that you want to do a work in our midst, And there are a lot of obstacles to you.
Joel Brooks:We bring them in this place. We bring hardened hearts and minds. And so we ask that through your spirit, you would open up our hearts and minds. You would make them soft to receive your truth. Lord, I pray in this moment that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore.
Joel Brooks:But lord, may your words remain, and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. If you've noticed, we were going backwards just a little bit in our study of James In the past, I have the prerogative to do that if I want to. I just realized that we left a number of things unsaid, a lot of things on the table that I wanted us to to go back and to revisit, especially concerning the last verse of chapter 3 when he says a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.
Joel Brooks:And so I want us to to look at peacemaking tonight. Now peacemaking is countercultural. No one here naturally wants to make peace. No one wants to confess their wrongs. No one that I know of ever wants to submit.
Joel Brooks:No one wants to forgive and forget. No one naturally wants to obey Jesus' command to love your enemies. I mean, shoot, we, we husbands. I know we have a hard enough time loving our wives who we've made a covenant relationship with at times. And we're asked to now love our enemies.
Joel Brooks:These things don't come naturally to us. For instance, HomeGroup, you know, is about to start at our house, and I'm upstairs, cleaning up, maybe putting away some of the toys, some of the messes there. And Lauren calls up the steps To which I respond, I can't do 10 things at once. Okay? I'm I I can only do one thing at a time.
Joel Brooks:Or I come home from an exhausting day of meeting with emotionally draining people. And I'm just wore out, and I I come in the door. And when I open the door, my 4 year old Georgia is screaming and crying. And Lauren says, You deal with this. And she walks out.
Joel Brooks:To which I respond, Hey, honey. I'm home. How was your day? Oh, it was great. It's so great to be home in such a peaceful place.
Joel Brooks:A person sends me an email listing some of the things that frustrate them about our church. In the email, I count 8 heresies. And so I respond by pointing out all of these heresies, but but using the language that has humility and grace in it. But I'm carefully crafting it in such a way that they will know who's in charge and that they will be shamed. I want to put them in their place.
Joel Brooks:So I just want to confess right here that peacemaking does not come naturally to me. It doesn't come naturally to to any person, which is perhaps why the New Testament takes so much time, talking about peacemaking. Did you know that every epistle in the new Testament talks about our calling to make peace? Every epistle about our calling to to maintain or to make peace or to maintain unity. Let me get it give you just a sampling.
Joel Brooks:I'm not gonna go through all the epistles, but Romans 15 says, May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, and in accord with Christ Jesus, That together, you may with one voice, glorify the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 1st Corinthians 1, appeal to you brothers by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that you all agree that there not be divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind, in the same judgment. For it has been reported to me by closed people that there is quarreling among the brothers. And 1st Thessalonians 5, be at peace among yourselves. See that no one repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone.
Joel Brooks:Ephesians 4. I, therefore, a prisoner of the for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling for which you've been called with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. And I love that one in Ephesians because the first three chapters of Ephesians really are nothing more than an unpacking of the gospel. This is the gospel. And then he gets to chapter 4, says, you want to know the implications of the gospel, how we practice the gospel is this, we make peace.
Joel Brooks:That's what chapter 4 is about. But peacemaking is not easy. We just read from Jesus's words on the Sermon on the Mount. He said, blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God. And to be called sons of god can mean a number of things, but one thing it certainly means is that we, in some way, are going to resemble god.
Joel Brooks:And when just as a son resembles his father, that we are somehow going to resemble Jesus Christ is who we're going to resemble. Now how exactly did the world treat Jesus when he came in his peacemaking role? Well, they mocked him. They spat on him. They they nailed him to a tree.
Joel Brooks:And as his sons, we should expect no less. Our call to point peacemaking will often lead us to a cross. It'll often be hard. But you know what? When it leads us to a cross, it actually points people to the gospel.
Joel Brooks:It points them to Jesus. Now conflict is everywhere. Our call to peace assumes that. When you're called to be a peacemaker, it assumes that there is conflict and that there is war everywhere.
Speaker 2:But I
Joel Brooks:want you to see that every conflict provides with it the opportunity to glorify god and to share the gospel. Every conflict gives you that opportunity. Don't see conflict as something that you need to avoid at all cost. Instead, see it as an opportunity that's to be embraced. One that you can enter into conflict because, you know, you could give God glory in the midst of that conflict, and you can communicate the gospel in a unique way.
Joel Brooks:Ken Sand, he wrote a book called The Peacemaker, which is excellent. The very first sentence in that book says this, Peacemakers are people who breathe grace. That is a fantastic description of peacemaking. People who breathe grace, breathe it into every conflict, breathe the gospel, breathe grace, give the aroma of Christ. Now, there are 3 ways in which we can, deal with conflict.
Joel Brooks:We can escape, we can attack, or we can be a peacekeeper. Fight or flight or peacekeeping. Let's look first at escape. For many of us, when conflict arises or even the potential even the the remote potential for conflict arises, we just want to get out of there. There are some some people here who I know just hate conflict with every fiber of their being, And so their first instinct is to flee, to run away.
Joel Brooks:You know, the the phone rings, you pick it up, and on caller ID, it's that person who you know wants to talk to you about something uncomfortable. So you screen it. You just ignore it. That's fleeing from conflict. Or or when you avoid going to a party because you know that certain person is there, and they're gonna ask you some certain questions that you feel uncomfortable by answering, or you have That's what it is.
Joel Brooks:It's cowardice, and it's keeping you from your call to peacemaking. If this is your response, then you are always going to have unresolved issues. Always. And the gospel is never going to get to shine through into that situation if you avoid it. Another form of escape is denial.
Joel Brooks:You just refuse to acknowledge that there's any conflict at all. What conflict? I don't I don't feel anything. I don't see anything. I once was caught in the middle of a family feud in which the father and the son were just going at each other.
Joel Brooks:And and I actually I had my elbow in the chest of both of them separating them. The, the daughter was on the phone with the police screaming for them to get there. And I'm wondering how did I get caught up in the middle of this this family feud? And then the police come, and everything's dissolved and, and goes away. And I will always remember the mom's response who was in there at that moment.
Joel Brooks:Without missing a beat, she looked at me right as the police left and she said, I can't remember, did you want cream with your coffee, or do you just take it black? Total denial. That that that that anything had actually happened. It's it's a coping mechanism, you know, protecting your hearts. The problem is denial is peace faking.
Joel Brooks:It's not peacemaking. You're just kinda pretending that everything's okay, but nothing's okay at all. And and remember that every conflict gives you the opportunity to bring in the gospel, to give glory to god. Some of you have been avoiding conflict for years. And let me ask you, has that conflict gone away?
Joel Brooks:Has God ever received glory from that conflict? Has the gospel ever been communicated? Has relationships ever been restored? To live in denial that there's a conflict is also to live in denial of the gospel's power to change it. Many times, we need to enter in and shed light on the gospel.
Joel Brooks:A second way to respond to conflict is it's not denial, but it's to attack. So this is when conflict arises, you verbally assault the other person or you you try to bow up and intimidate them. The way that I do this, I'll just confess, the way I do this is I use facts as weapons. I like throw stones of truth at people and try to hurt them. Like the person who, you know, had 8 heresies in their email and the way that I would respond to them.
Joel Brooks:I will use facts to slay that person. I can do that. That's my natural tendency to do that. I can pull out the Greek. I could pull out the Hebrew and it's a form of intimidation.
Joel Brooks:You don't, you don't know who you're talking to. You know, I I can I can exegete this passage really well? And the reality is I can be right yet totally wrong in how I respond to people. I can read words of peace and grace and yet communicate none of it. And I think we all are in danger of doing that at times.
Joel Brooks:A verse that's been helpful to me in this regard is Micah 6:8, a familiar passage, probably to a number of you. He has told you, oh man, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God. To do justice, to love kindness, or to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. This is a familiar context or a familiar verse, but most people don't think of it in light of peacemaking, in the context of peacemaking. And that's what I want to do here because it's a very relevant verse in our call to be a peacemaker.
Joel Brooks:Micah says that we are to do justice, but we are to love mercy. Alright? Do justice and to love mercy. He doesn't flip it around and says say that we are to love justice and that we are to do mercy. Actually, nowhere in scripture do you ever find a command for you to love justice, only to do it.
Joel Brooks:Also, nowhere in scripture do you ever hear the command to do mercy, but to love it. So those words do and those words love are are are very important, and the Bible is consistent all throughout the usage of that. But why? What what what's what's the purpose of this? Well, there are going to be times in a conflict that you are going to need to administer justice.
Joel Brooks:And that's going to mean judgment. It's gonna happen at times. This could be for instance, when, Alagasco, the gas company, sends you a $551 bill. Even though you have switched to electric heat. Justice needs to happen there.
Joel Brooks:This can be when your child blatantly disobeys you and you have to punish. This could be when you catch a coworker stealing something from work. Justice needs to happen there. There needs to be a judgment. Now justice needs to come in.
Joel Brooks:There needs to be a punishment, But in the way that Micah is saying this and all scripture is saying, you do not need to delight in that. You don't ever take the joy and the judgment or the punishment And so we should never have joy in doing that. God himself says in Ezekiel that he takes no delight in the destruction of the wicked. However, we should always delight in mercy because we are saved by mercy. We have no hope apart from mercy.
Joel Brooks:Mercy is beautiful to us, and so we delight when it comes to us and when we can give it. So there are times where we are to do justice, but not with joy, but with joy we do or we love mercy. Alright. I want you to notice as as we've looked at the two responses to conflict. I want you to notice what's the focus of those.
Joel Brooks:If I respond to a conflict by escaping, the focus is on me. It's on me. How can I avoid being in this uncomfortable situation? How can I not get drawn in this? How can I protect my emotions?
Joel Brooks:And when I respond to a conflict the opposite way, in anger, and by attacking, the focus is on you. How can I hurt you? You hurt me. I'm going to hurt you. But our calling to peacemaking, the focus is on us.
Joel Brooks:It is on both you and me and how we can be restored, how we can bring unity. And this is the appropriate way for us to respond to conflict. Now there's a lot of ways that we can be a peacemaker and we're just going to look at a few of them and then, and then we're gonna have a Q and A time. I'll be sure to save time for that. One way to be a peacemaker is to simply overlook an offense.
Joel Brooks:Thomas Ritchie, he preached about this a few months back when he preached on Paul's question in 1st Corinthians, why not rather be wrong? Outstanding message. This is in many ways kind of a part 2 of that. Look it up online if you haven't already. Why not rather be wrong?
Joel Brooks:Proverbs 1911 says, Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense. So sometimes we best demonstrate the gospel when we simply overlook a wrong that has happened to us. Now, I once had a neighbor who came over and asked me, how did you sand and stain, and fix up your porch? And so I showed him everything I had done and took time to do that. And, and this lady said, okay.
Joel Brooks:I I just wanted to make sure I didn't make the same mistakes because your Porsche looks terrible. I I wanted and this has this has happened numerous times. I wanted to just light into this woman. I really did. I wanted to just light into her, but then I would destroyed years of my witness in a second.
Joel Brooks:And so, I chose to overlook. I held my tongue. Now, hear me, overlooking is in no way a passive response. Not let letting people just beat you up. It's not passive.
Joel Brooks:It's not that you don't care. I don't care what you say. That's not it. Overlooking an offense is me silently forgiving that person and then forgetting that it happened. I'm silently forgiving that person and forgetting it ever happened.
Joel Brooks:And let me tell you that hurts. It hurts because when that person has done something against you, it deserves punishment. My neighbor deserved me to lash out. But when I didn't, you know what happened? I absorbed the punishment.
Joel Brooks:I absorbed the punishment that was due her. I wanted to lash out, but I didn't, And it hurt because I wanted to do it, and I forgave. And so when you are absorbing the punishment that should have gone to another, you know what that is? That's the gospel. That is exactly what Christ did for us, And that's where we get our power to do that.
Joel Brooks:And when we do that, when we overlook that offense, when we silently forgive, we are demonstrating to the people the gospel and how the gospel has changed our lives. We're taking the hit for them. Overlooking an offense without forgiving the person is not peacemaking. All you're doing is, stocking up arms for a later conflict. You're keeping an account of all the wrongs suffered.
Joel Brooks:So later, you can unleash it on this person. There needs to be that silent forgiveness when he simply decide not to respond to that offense. A second way that we are to be a peacemaker is through reconciliation. Jesus says in Matthew 5 this, so if you're offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, Leave your gift there before the altar and go. 1st, be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift.
Joel Brooks:This is truly a remarkable verse because Jesus is showing the importance he places God places on peacekeeping. He says, keeping peace, keeping the unity is more important than any act of worship you can do in here. And so, if before you ever sing a song, before you ever do a responsive reading, before you do anything, if you have something against another brother or sister in Christ, you need to go and deal with it. Because that is more important than any act of worship that you could do in this place. You need to keep or to promote peace.
Joel Brooks:It needs to be urgent. A third way for us to be a peacemaker is to remove the log from our own eye. Jesus says this in Matthew chapter 7, Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your eye when there's a log in your own eye? The hypocrite.
Joel Brooks:1st, take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. Now, another word for taking the log out of your own eye is this, repentance. It's what taking the log out of your own eye is. Repentance. A peacemaker needs to humbly, humbly receive the gospel in the midst of a conflict, Realize their need for the gospel and to demonstrate this need by repenting.
Joel Brooks:That's removing the log from your own eye. I have found that when I respond in anger to somebody, I get anger back. If I lash out at somebody, I'm going to get a lashing back. But if I respond with humility and repentance, often I find the person says, you know what? Gosh, I, yeah, I'm sorry.
Joel Brooks:It was, it was really, I shouldn't have said that. I'm sorry. It was my fault that we got all this confusion and stuff. What I found is both anger and repentance are contagious. They're contagious.
Joel Brooks:And so if you lead with anger, you're gonna get anger. If you lead with repentance, often it softens the heart and you receive repentance as well. Anger and repentance are contagious. If you were married or even, even if you're single and you have a roommate, let me tell you that there is no better way to soften your spouse or your roommate to a certain sin that is in their life. Then for you to first come and to repent, There is no better way to make them aware of their own sin, not by pointing it out, but by you confessing yours.
Joel Brooks:My wife is amazing at this with our kids. Lauren might, might sin by responding in anger, maybe through through shouting at the kids. More often than not, it's usually like a cumulative punishment for a small crime. Parents do this all the time. It's been building and building and building all day, and the kid does one small thing.
Joel Brooks:It's like, oh, you're in time out for 30 minutes. You know? The the crime didn't merit that punishment. And Lauren does this. I got permission to share that, just so you know.
Joel Brooks:You don't have to feel uncomfortable for her at this moment. What amazes me about my wife is how she is so quick to repent of that. And I have over and over again, seen her get with the kids and just say, I am so sorry. I sinned against you. I should not have done that.
Joel Brooks:Would you please pray with me that God would change my heart? Because I need my heart changed. Let me tell you, nothing teaches our children the gospel like that kind of repentance. And when you can repent like that in front of others that you're in conflict with, man, you just showed the gospel and what's important in your life. The very first thing that we taught our children about God, It's a heavy task when you're a parent, like your, your children don't know anything about God unless you tell them.
Joel Brooks:And so what we put a lot of thought about what's going to be the first thing we tell our kids about God, who is God? And so the very first things that we told our children about who is God, we said, well, God is your creator, and he is the one who changes hearts. That's the very first thing we taught our children about God. He is your creator, and he changes hearts. Because we wanted them to know at the earliest age that something's wrong with their heart and it needs changing.
Joel Brooks:And there's one person who could change it, and that's their creator, God. And I want them to always in the midst of conflict, when they see anger and they see sin in their own life for their first response to be, I need God to change my heart. Hopefully, we're laying a foundation for repentance. Let me give a final way that we can be a peacemaker. We'll go ahead and read this text.
Joel Brooks:Turn to Philippians 4, flip back a few books to Philippians chapter 4. This is a great passage. It really provides a good paradigm for peacemaking. In this text, Paul's going to address a certain conflict between 2 Christian women who love the Lord. They love the church.
Joel Brooks:They've served alongside Paul in ministry. And yet for some reason, they absolutely cannot get along. And Philippians 4 verse 2, I entreat Udea and I entreat Syntheche, to agree in the Lord. Yes, I ask you also, true companion, help these women, who have labored side by side with me and the gospel together, with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers whose names are in the book of life. Rejoice in the Lord always.
Joel Brooks:And again, I say rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Joel Brooks:Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. We'll stop there. We could glean a whole lot from this text about how we are supposed to deal with conflict. We're to remind ourselves that we are to be joyful, not bitter. We're to be reasonable, not get carried away with our emotions.
Joel Brooks:We're to pray about everything. We're to not worry about this the situation, but just pray about it. And finally, he says that we were to think about things that are pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, praiseworthy. Now most people when they're reading through Philippians 4, they don't think of verses 4 or verses 8 in the context of this conflict or in peacemaking, but it but it is. We usually don't read rejoice in the Lord always.
Joel Brooks:And again, I say rejoice or verse 8 about thinking about praiseworthy things in light of Utica and Syntyche, but that is the context. And Paul is saying that when you're in the middle of a conflict, there is the temptation to demonize another person. We take what was just the material issue and we make it personal. So maybe the the person did a stupid thing to you. So there's the material thing that's happening, the stupid thing.
Joel Brooks:But now it's just he's a stupid person. We've made it personal. And and we can't see anything good in that person. You always do stupid things because you're just a stupid evil individual. We we we personalize it.
Joel Brooks:We're we're demonizing a person. And Paul says, stop it. So this is gonna make you a bitter person, not a joyful person. You you need to think of the good qualities of this other person. Okay?
Joel Brooks:It's like, y'all labored side by side with me. Okay? You're Christians. Think of the good things. Think of things that are praiseworthy, things that are commendable.
Joel Brooks:Then the peace of God will be with you. The peace of God is gonna reign in that situation. And this is how it plays out. The other night, Lauren asked me to do something small. It was a non urgent task, but I was in the midst of doing something that needed immediate attention.
Joel Brooks:And I just about said in anger, I can't do 10 things at once. But I didn't. I held off because I thought I'm a pastor. I'm not allowed to do this. I I have got to preach on peacemaking later.
Joel Brooks:So I certainly, I can't do this. And so I thought I I need to Okay. Let's practice these things. I need to overlook the offense. So I began to to overlook the offense.
Joel Brooks:And and then, I began to think of Philippians 4. It's like, okay. Let let me think of the commendable, praiseworthy things about my wife. And then I thought, you know what? I was just about to say, I can't do 10 things at once, yet I ask her all the time to do 10 things at once.
Joel Brooks:And she always is doing 10 things at once, And she is doing such an amazing job at it. I mean, she is, she's making lunches for the kids. She's taking them to school. She's being a good mom. She is forever doing the laundry.
Joel Brooks:She is, she is cooking our meals. And all the while, you can also expect her to be a sexy wife, you know, in the midst of cleaning up, you know, after our kids. You gotta you gotta be both somehow. And she does it. In addition, she's always meeting with women from the church, either in person or always taking phone calls.
Joel Brooks:She's leading Bible studies. She's forever having people over to our house. She is showing them hospitality, yet somehow in the midst of that, she still finds time to make meals and to take them to people or to have people drop their kids off at her house so she can also babysit. In the midst of all that, she still does freelancing work to give us extra income. She leaves tomorrow to go to Haiti, so she can serve there.
Joel Brooks:And in in the midst of doing all of these amazing things, she still finds time to love me and to make me feel special. I thought of all those things in a minute when I was about to lash out at her. And my heart melted. It absolutely melted. There was not a hint of anger after that.
Joel Brooks:And from about 1 minute, I went from how dare she asked me to do that to my wife is an amazing woman who's just worthy of my praise. And I went down and I told her those things. I I just I I told her all the amazing things that she does. Hear me. Conflict led me to have my own heart changed.
Joel Brooks:If I didn't feel the conflict there, my heart wouldn't have been changed. Conflict provided an opportunity for the gospel to change me, for me to communicate the gospel to my wife. Conflict provided an opportunity to give God glory, and he received glory in that. Conflict led me to be a peacemaker. And let me tell you, all of us can do this.
Joel Brooks:All of us could be peacemakers because god himself has made peace with us. Christ laid down every one of his rights. Christ was punished unfairly for us, took on our offense from far from lashing out at us, he said, father, forgive them for they don't know what they're doing. And if his spirit is inside of us and that gospel has changed us, we can be peacemakers to the world. I wanna stop here and I wanna just, we we've got, you know, 5, 10 minutes or so to let you ask, some questions about peacemaking.
Joel Brooks:We do this from time to time at Redeemer. Yeah, praise team, if you want to go ahead and come on up here, because I realized a lot of times I'm preaching and you have a question there and you really listen to nothing else I have to say because you have this question. So do you all have any questions about our call to be a peacemaker? I just, I just tried to take off my glasses and I didn't have them on. Okay, go ahead.
Connor Coskery:I didn't understand the part of not doing mercy and loving mercy. Yes.
Joel Brooks:Okay. Yeah. Or, a call to do justice and to love mercy, and not to do mercy and to love justice. Well, ultimate justice and judgment is in the hands of God. It's not our role.
Joel Brooks:And there are times that we temporarily have to execute judgment, justice, but it's a role reserved for god. And so this isn't something that we, we should take pride in or we should take delight in. It's something that at times we have to do. If a person steals from the office, we need to turn that person in. That's the just right thing to do it.
Joel Brooks:But we don't be like, yes. I caught this person, you know, and, ah, man, I can't wait to see this person get what's coming to them. We don't love it. We love mercy because that's what we've been shown. We should never delight in the judgment of others because, man, we deserve judgment.
Joel Brooks:And so that's instead, we always delight and we love mercy. Our heart sings when it sees mercy. Does that make some sense there? Okay. Anybody else?
Joel Brooks:Go ahead, Joseph.
Speaker 5:Well, at some point
Speaker 2:in the gospels, Jesus says,
Speaker 6:I didn't come bring peace, but a sword.
Joel Brooks:Yeah.
Speaker 5:I come to pit, like, family members against each other. What's he talking about there?
Speaker 2:Like, what kind of pieces that or
Joel Brooks:Yeah. And certainly, I mean, you have at times where Jesus said, you know, he came to bring peace, and then there's times he says, I came to bring a sword. Jesus, as we know, is not an idiot, and he's he's not just saying 2 blatantly contradictory things right there. So he's talking about 2 different types of peace or 2 different types of judgment there. And, yes, Christ coming just by the fact that he came, people feel judged or they're cut to the quick.
Joel Brooks:They really are. It's, he was so perfect and so righteous that the people who thought they were perfect and thought they were righteous and thought they were doing really good, all of a sudden, they stood next to Jesus and they're like, oh my goodness. So that's what it means to be perfect, and they instantly felt the sword, and they felt condemned. And also, at the same time, those who did place, you know, obviously, their trust in Jesus and did follow him, that allegiance is total, and it can absolutely lead to a, a divide in the family. Romans 12, Paul says that we are to, well, we'll go ahead and turn that.
Joel Brooks:It's it's Romans 12 18. I wanna make sure I quote it right. It says, if possible, so far as it depends, live peaceably with all, Meaning at times it's not possible to live at peace with everyone. And so, you know, Paul's a realist there. So we we try to be a peacemaker, but there are times it is not possible to live at peace.
Joel Brooks:Anybody else? Go ahead, Melissa.
Speaker 2:Yes. Along those same ones, you talked about, you know, if you remember that your brother has something against you before you come and worship them and make
Joel Brooks:peace. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Does he use it as a brother as in another believer? Because sometimes there are ongoing conflicts in my life that arise over the gospel. Yeah. You have family members that think that believing in Christ and falling
Speaker 1:resolveable.
Joel Brooks:I think I believe yes, and I think there's a good contextual argument for that. Can I say it concretely? No. It could be saying brother just like we would say neighbor. But I do think, yes, there's a special call to peacemaking or the unity of peace among believers or brothers and sisters.
Joel Brooks:And, and so that is how I would interpret that passage, yes, is if you have anything against your brother or your sister in Christ. At that moment, you need to be reconciled because, I mean, you you share the same spirit. You know, how can you worship through the spirit when there's a divide between 2 people with the spirit? Good question. Anybody else?
Joel Brooks:Go ahead, Kristen. Yeah. Oh, yeah. No. That's, that's a great question.
Joel Brooks:It's like, what about people you can't think about positive? Use the other three things about peace making, instead of thinking about you know, Paul, in that context, to the Philippians, these were people who knew the Lord, who loved the Lord. They were striving side by side with the Lord. And so there's that. Yeah.
Joel Brooks:There there are some people it's really hard to find anything commendable. And so you can't go there. You can't think about whether it's pure and lovely and commendable and praiseworthy in their life if there isn't anything. Good question. Anybody else?
Joel Brooks:Okay. We're done now. No. I'll mention this real quick. A question just popped up is what about theological differences?
Joel Brooks:Someone I deal with a lot. How do you be a peacemaker in that? Because we're not asked. Unity doesn't mean that theology doesn't matter. That's that's a peace faking.
Joel Brooks:In in James let me go back there. You know, at the verse 18, actually, we'll we'll start in verse 17, but the wisdom from above is first pure then peaceable. So there's a pure wisdom before it's a peaceable wisdom and if you notice in Matthew, you know, you look at the beatitudes there, You have for, blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see god, then it's blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of god. And James is deliberately keeping the same order of Jesus. There is a a purity in your heart, a purity in wisdom before there is the peacemaking.
Joel Brooks:And so when it comes to, you know, the word of God, there's not a compromising on the gospel, you know, and what the word of God says. We can still breathe grace into that. We can still make the issue material, not personal against somebody, but we don't we don't flex there about what the word of god says and what is true. Does that does that make sense? That's something as a as a pastor that, I deal with a whole lot.
Joel Brooks:There's a temptation, like I said, you know, for me to just respond like, you know, you idiot. I can think of 20 different places in scripture that speak against that. I don't wanna compromise in the theology, but I wanna respond in grace. Final any any final question? Okay.
Joel Brooks:Let let me just ask a couple of questions before we, we close in prayer and worship. Ask yourself this. How is the way that you handle conflict any different than how a good atheist would handle it? How is the way that you handle conflict any different than how a good atheist would handle it? Basically, do you handle conflict in a way that shows the gospel and gives God glory?
Joel Brooks:2nd, do you see conflict as an opportunity to glorify God? And is he being glorified in the conflicts that you are around? Pray with me. Lord Jesus, we love you. We need you.
Joel Brooks:We need our hearts to be changed by you. Christ, on your last night before you were betrayed and killed, you called your disciples together and your urgent request was be 1. May there be peace in y'all's relationship. And he says, when when you are 1, then people will know that I came from my father. Our call to peace points people to you, Jesus.
Joel Brooks:And so I pray we would feel the heaviness of that, and we would take our calling seriously. And we pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.