We're going through the book of James, and I've entitled chapter 4, A Community of Counter-Cultural Grace. The background for each message has been on the importance of community, and James emphasizes that in each chapter, but now he brings it right into the center in chapter 4. So I'll read from chapter 3, verse 18, to chapter 4, verse 12, reading from the words of our compassionate Heavenly Father. Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness. What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something, but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be the friend of the world becomes an enemy of God, or do you think, Scripture says without reason, that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely, but he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Submit yourselves then to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up. Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. There is only one lawgiver and judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you, who are you to judge your neighbor? Now, as we look at the book of James, We've seen that James, who is the younger brother of the Lord Jesus Christ, he lived with the King of kings and Lord of lords for at least 30 years. He saw Jesus miracles in his earthly ministry, or at least some of them. He heard Jesus teaching. And in observing and seeing Jesus' teaching, what He's bringing out in chapter 4 is the absolute importance of community. And He would have seen that in Jesus, because what did Jesus do in His public ministry? He called 12 disciples and He invested His life in them for three years. They ate with Him. They slept near Him. They traveled with Him. They drank with him, they saw his miracles, they received his mercy. They were a community committed to Christ. Learn from the parable of charcoal. Whenever I prepare a nice barbecue and I put the charcoal in, what is my intention? Is it to have black charcoal? I don't like rare meat. I want the charcoal to be what? Gray and burning with fire. And you know the secret of good charcoal? It's not just lighter fluid and it's not just matches. It's the fact that the charcoal are packed together. They give heat to each other, light and warmth. But if I take one of those charcoals that was hot and throw it onto the driveway, do you think it's going to glow with fire? It's going to die. And James point in this passage is the importance of brothers and sisters in Christ being committed together to the Lordship of Christ. The barriers to community in the Christian community. And how do you get community? You know, you might have heard the story of Mrs. Smith, fifth grade teacher who was ill. She was ill and it was time for her to return back to school. And she got a note from her class that said, Dear Mrs. Smith, your class wants you to return and wishes you a speedy recovery by the vote of 15 to 14. Not a very sterling response from a community. And we want to be sterling in our community of love for each other. So here's the first point, the importance of community. The importance of community begins right at the beginning of the passage. Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness. It may not be the first thing that strikes you, but just look at verse 18. Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness. Now, the word righteousness means to be put right. It means that you were wrong and you were put right. And when James uses the word, it means to be put right with God and it means to be put right with others. In other words, there are some times in the New Testament and the Old where the word righteousness means What are we? We are born an enemy of God. We are born deserving eternal death and eternal ruin and eternal hell. And what did God do? Before the creation of the world He chose us, He then sent Jesus Christ into the world to live the perfect life of righteousness we could never live, to die the perfect death for sin on the cross, to raise Him perfectly from the dead, so that eternal forgiveness an eternal fellowship, and being made right with God only happens through Jesus Christ's perfect righteousness and His death. Righteousness means justification. That God makes a declaration as a judge. You are hauled into the judge. You are guilty. And the judge is about to pronounce sentence. And the judge pronounces sentence, but the sentence is, his son will take the penalty for you, and you will receive the life that his son deserved. Eternal righteousness, eternal forgiveness, eternal approval. That's righteousness. But when God does that, He does something else, and that is, It means a right relationship with others. It means to live in integrity. It means to live in love. And the whole book of James answers this question. What should your Christian life look on the ground? In your home, in your marketplace, in your relationships, in your IRS statements. What should it look like? What does it look like on the ground? So righteousness has to do with how you relate to others. And when you're made right with God, you're also to be made right with others. A life of honesty and integrity and love. Therefore, when he says righteousness in verse 18, it means all that the Holy Spirit has done, all that the Holy Spirit is doing, all that the Holy Spirit will do, to put you right with God and to put you right with others. And what James is saying is this, look, he likens the supernatural work of God putting you right with himself and right with others to a crop. It's right there in verse 18, to a crop. And what does a crop need? It needs seed. No crop grows without seed. And what is the seed for the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit in putting you right with God and others? The seed in this passage is peacemaking. It's being part of a harmonious community of oneness and love. In other words, what James is emphasizing is that the supernatural work of God in putting you right with himself, putting you right with others, and increasing your commitment to him and commitment to one another, does not happen apart from community. It doesn't happen apart from deep relationships in community. That's what he's emphasizing. And so God, the Holy Spirit works changes into our lives through deep involvement in a community of peace and harmony and oneness. Now, here's the problem. We live in the most individualistic culture in the world. I create my own future. I'm a self-made man. Who are you to tell me I need a community? Well, I'm not telling God's telling you you need a community, first of all. But besides that, American culture emphasizes we develop into who we want to be. I control my destiny. I seek what I want to be. And therefore, I get some of the credit. That is sin. Not all of individualism is sin, but individualism that says I do it on my own. I dictate my own future. I make myself who I am. is sin. Because you know what the Bible says? You know what the Bible says? You are the product of your relationships. Your relationships with God and others. In fact, social scientists will tell you, and they support the Bible in this, is that your beliefs are much more a matter of your relationships than your rationality. Your beliefs become more plausible to you if you receive them from someone who likes you and you like them, right? Who you admire and you admire them. Why is it in the Bible that there are times when somebody commits a terrible sin and the whole community and family is punished? We Americans say, that's an awful thing. How could God do that? You know how God can do it? Because a person cannot grow up doing X, Y, and Z at times unless the community or the family, either by positively showing them how to do it or negatively not withholding from them the things that would have kept them from doing it, are in some way guilty because we are the products of our primary community. Americans don't like that. But that's what the Bible teaches. That's what the Bible teaches. Here's another way to think of it, you know, when you're growing up and you're in your 40s and 50s. This may dawn on you when you're in your teens, you think I am never going to be like my parents. And when you're in your 20s, you may still live under that illusion. But when you get in your 30s and 40s and 50s, you realize how profoundly, how profoundly your primary community of your family had an influence on it, either positively or negatively. And some of you know that because you're working through those things. So when James says here, What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? Here's the point he's emphasizing. By the way, that word wants means hedonism. It's living for yourself and your own pleasure. But what he's saying is this. James is emphasizing this. What does it mean in verse 1 when he says it causes fights and quarrels? He explains what it means in verse 4 when he says, you adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred to God? What is he saying? He's saying, if you're in a community, You can trample on demonstrating who Jesus Christ is by one of two ways. You can trample on it, number one, by being too busy and saying, well, I don't need community, I'm too busy anyway, and I don't really want it. Or you get in a community and you start fighting. Either way, either way, you are short-circuiting Your relationship with God and your relationship in the body, because there is no deep spiritual growth apart from involvement in a community. You become like the people you eat with, you play with, you talk with, you converse with, you open your heart with. Over a hundred commands in the New Testament, love one another, bear one another's burden, support one another, pray for one another. Don't be fake with one another. Romans 12 9. Admonish one another. Correct one another. That's why a lot of people will feel inspired at a worship service. But they don't get better spiritually. Why? Because if your only involvement with other people is a worship service, God works powerfully through his word. But if your only involvement is that, you're not part of a community, you're part of an aggregation. You need relationships to grow in the body of Christ as well. That's why God says, love one another, support one another, encourage one another, pray for one another, bear one another's burdens. And that happens in community because our growth in Christ is a product of God working by His Word and God working through the ministry of His Word in one-anothering relationships. One-anothering relationships. Do you know why? Let me read you what Jesus said in John 17. This is the last night before He will be arrested and put to death. This is His high priestly prayer for us. And here we read in John 17, 20, what Jesus says. Praise. My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message. Listen, that all of them may be one. Father, just as you are in me and I in you, may they also be in us, that the world may believe that you have sent me. What is Jesus saying? One of the primary Demonstrations. One of the primary tools by which the world will know who I am is the depth and beauty of your love for one another. And that happens in community. Community. The depth and love of one another God uses to show the world who Jesus Christ is. That's what he's saying. And so, therefore, you see the importance of community? The importance of community is that when God chose you, he chose you for salvation. And that salvation involves being part of the whole body of believers to whom you have relationships. and that you have gifts and experiences and abilities that God is able to use to build up one another so that we sharpen and strengthen one another. And in that way, we show the world who Christ is. Number two, and this is where we'll get to the barriers to community. Look at verses one through five of James. When he says, what causes fights and quarrels among you? And he uses the word want. Don't they come from your desires? That word desires is hedonism. You want something, but don't get it. You kill and covet, but cannot have what you want. There are two barriers. The number one barrier is what I would call the cause. And the other barrier is the cause of the cause. Number one, what is the cause for breakdown in community among believers? It's that we want to live for our own pleasure. Now I'm going to throw out something, and some of you may say, why don't you tell me something I don't know? The reason for the breakdown in community is that in a hundred little ways, We put our conveniences, our comforts, our needs out of the needs of other people, and that leads to the breakdown of community. We live for self-pleasure, rather than for God's pleasure. We live to please ourselves, rather than to accept one another, support one another, encourage one another, reach out to one another, bear one another's burdens. We need to catch this in ordinary life. James says that to have friendship with the world is to break down community. He says that. It's to fight and quarrel with one another. What is friendship with the world? What does it mean to be an adulteress or adulterer before God? It is to break down community by living for our own pleasure and being indifferent to the needs of others. And so when he says here, It's an ordinary life, but that we have to catch this you can only live one of two ways either you live Exchanging your life for someone else's or you live for yourself Do you know what George McDonald said a writer in the early part of 20th century? Christian writer he said this the only principle of hell is I live for myself No community No bond. Cosmic loneliness. Forever separated from God. That's hell. Every day we have hundreds of opportunities in what we say and what we do to live one of two ways. I exchange my life for yours. I put your needs ahead of mine. Or we live saying, well, I'm going to put my needs ahead of yours. We have a hundred opportunities every day. And if you embrace exchanging my life for yours, you bring life. If you reject it, you bring death. Hey, death lurks in your living room. Death lurks in your car. Death lurks in your kitchen. Death lurks in this room. Because every time you put your needs out of your spouse's or children's, your comforts or conveniences, out of your brother and sister, it brings death. And it spreads death. And ultimately, if you live that way your whole life and reject Christ, you'll have yourself in hell. Me, mine, and all I want is me. So he says here, don't live that way. Only two ways to live. Only two ways to live. Now, I want you to think about this. When you forgive, when you volunteer your time, when you design your words to construct rather than tear down, when you don't insist on your own way, you die a little death. But in dying that death, you bring forgiveness and life and hope and joy to others. What did Jesus do in John 13? The night he was betrayed, his disciples are fighting, saying, well, I'm the greatest. I'm going to be big shot in the kingdom. And Jesus takes a towel before supper. He takes out his outer garments, which is a sign of taking off his glory to take the place of a Gentile slave. Jews did not wash people's feet. Don't forget that Gentiles do. And he gets down and he washes their feet and he says, this is a sign I'm going to the cross. If you don't take a gospel bath every day, you have no part in me. If you don't see, I humbled myself to cleanse you from your sin. I'm exchanging my life for yours. That's the heart of Christianity, the heart of it all. When somebody dies to their 10 minutes of time and does something for you, and you come back and thank them, the moment you thank them, you establish community. Why? Because Thanksgiving means I owe you, I need you, and I gratefully acknowledge you. You know, in hell there's no indebtedness, because there's no bonds, and there's no community, and there's no thankfulness. But with community comes what? Obligations. And when somebody does something for you and you're thankful, you want to help them. And that establishes community. Slowly, surely, community is established when you die to yourself, do something for someone else in the name of Christ. They're thankful. And there's a dependency. Hell is filled with independence. It's a dependency. I need you. Why? Well, because God has called us together. And you give to me, and I give to you. And it establishes relationship. So three, the solution to community breakdown is humility. He says that in verse 10. Therefore, the cause of community breakdown is pride. Notice what he says in verse 10. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up. Jonathan Edwards, the great preacher of the 18th century, experienced three revivals and he wrote a book, Reflections on Revivals. Three revivals. Revival is a time when God, by his sovereign grace, transforms people, brings them from spiritual death to spiritual life, strengthens the community of faith. Relationships of love are wonderful. Three times he experienced the end of those revivals, and every time he said, the sign that the revival had ended was pride and fighting. Spiritual vitality is destroyed by pride, and that's the cause of the cause. And so Edwards examined scripture for the marks of pride and the marks of humility, and I've listed them for you. What are the marks? Humble yourself. Okay, let's humble ourselves. Number one, spiritual pride makes you more aware of the faults of others than of your own faults. Whereas humility makes you more aware of your own faults than you are of the faults of others. Because Jesus said that blessed are those who are poor in spirit. You know, when we see ourselves in the light of God's perfect holiness, and we see our sin, like Isaiah, we cry, I'm dead! And God sends the altar of Christ's blood to cleanse us. A mark of pride is focusing on the faults of others, and Satan uses that to blind you to your own Humility is seeing your own faults before you see the faults of others. Number two, the second mark of pride. It leads you when you speak of others faults to be really excited about doing it in the first place. And then besides that, to speak not respectfully, not gently, but with disdain. Somebody who's humble when they speak of the faults of others, they do it with grief, And they do it with mercy because they feel compassion that they're trapped in sin. Number three, pride leads you to separate from those who you criticize or who have criticized you. It makes you give up on difficult relationships because you're cold or you avoid people who you've criticized, who have criticized you. Number four, a proud person is dogmatic about every point of belief. For a proud person, there are no minor points of belief, and everything's a major point of belief, and they can't distinguish the two. Number five, a proud person loves to confront because he likes winning, or refuses to confront because they don't like conflict or controversy, even when it would mean helping the other person. A proud person is often unhappy and sorry for himself. You know why? Because in our pride, we think this way. I know what should happen in my life. And I deserve only good in my life. Whereas a humble person says, but for the sovereign grace of God, I should be cast off. And anything I have is from the hand of God. In mercy. See, a proud person feels sorry for themself. I should be getting better, God. And you're wrong. A humble person says, you know what? God knows what's best for me. And though it's difficult, I accept his sovereign, perfect plan. Now, test yourself. Are you proud? Do you focus more on the faults of others than on your own? Do you love pointing out others' faults because it's all about winning? You know, a humble person points out the others' faults when it's necessary, and they're very persuasive because their purpose is to heal, not to hurt. Are you flexible in minor areas, or is every single thing a major area? Number four, do you say, All that I have comes from you. And rather than grumbling, I'm going to submit to you. Now. Here's how I want to conclude this, because next week I want to talk about how, how to overcome these barriers. But this is how I want to conclude it. Do you see? Do you see now? What we call low self-esteem is a community killer. It is. It is. Low self-esteem. If we struggle with that, we're constantly focused on ourselves. We're constantly either shy or self-conscious or ashamed or guilty. And it's still all about me, not exchanging my life for the other. It's all about me. I focus on myself. I think about myself. I'm constantly worried about myself. See, it's not just the arrogant with superiority who kill community. It's the inferior who kill community as well. Why? Why? Let me tell you why. This is humility. It's not thinking less of yourself. It's thinking of yourself less. It's not thinking less of yourself. It's thinking of yourself less. Why? Because a person who is humble recognizes that they have infinite worth internally because of what Christ has done, and they can entrust their circumstances to God because God is sovereign. Moses goes to Pharaoh, the most powerful ruler of the day, and he says, You're to let go of your whole free labor force that is the heart of your economic and military superiority. And then it says he was the most humble man in the earth. Remember, he wasn't bold and courageous in spite of being humble. He was bold and courageous because because he was humble. Because he was humble. And that is why when a humble person is attacked, They do not attack back because they know who their God is. And they have magnificent inward worth because of what Christ has done. And they know that God will take care of their circumstances. And forgiveness, gentleness, humility, patience is all the result of thinking less of yourself and thinking more of Christ and what He has done. Whereas a proud person never feels that they get enough in life, are always being snubbed. Nothing's ever right for them because they don't know their God. And they're not focusing on what He has done for them. So this week, my challenge to us all would be to read James 4 and John 13 and sit there and meditate On the magnificent fact, Jesus took your cosmic loneliness and hell. And you receive his eternal forgiveness. Stare at that, his rich generosity, until you want to give yourself the way he did for you. I'm going to do that. I need to do that. We all need to do it. You have magnificent worth. And you have a great God who will take care of your every circumstance. So humble yourself before Him. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I praise You for every person here, every person, God, who You have brought to saving faith, and those who have not yet trusted You. God, we pray for every believer here that we will humble ourselves, that we would see, God, that our worth is based on Jesus Christ and what He has done for us, and that, God, when we're tempted to live only for ourselves, that we would... Remember, we have the Holy Spirit in us to enable us to live for You. God, we pray for those who aren't believers, that by Your grace, You would bring them out of their loneliness into the fellowship, into fellowship with yourself. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.