Pride comes before Stupidity | 11-23-25

Today, my, my horny title is Pride Comes before Stupidity,

and it really fits. But Lord, I just lift up this

time. I lift up everybody here.

Lord that you would fill this room in order that I would

disappear. Lord that you'd not only be

speaking to everybody, but Lord, you'd be speaking to me.

And Lord, just that we would grow, grow in our relationship

with you more and more every day, every hour, every minute,

more that you would just fill us, fill us to overflowing, that

we would flow out into this community at our workplaces and

that when we're shopping or just that we would be in the midst of

this community and more that you would make a difference through

US. And I pray this in Jesus name,

Amen. So James 4 starting in verse

one, what causes quarrels and what causes fights among you?

Is it not this that your passions are at war within you?

You desire and do not have, So you murder and you covet and you

cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel.

You do not have because you do not ask.

You ask and do not receive, because you asked wrongly to

spend it on your own passions. You adulterous people, do you

not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?

Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes

himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no

purpose that the Scriptures say He yearns jealously over the

Spirit that He has made to dwell in us, but He gives more grace.

Therefore he says, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to

the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to

God. Resist the devil, and he will

flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will

draw near to you. Cleanse your hand, you sinners,

and purify your hearts. You double minded.

Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned a

mourning, and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the

Lord, and he will exalt you. Do not speak evil against one

another, brothers that one. 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.

There is only one lawgiver and judge he who is able to save and

to destroy. But who are you to judge your

neighbor? Come now you, come now, you who

say today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and

spend a year there, and trade and make a profit.

Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring.

What is your life? For you are a are a mist that

appears for a little time and then vanishes.

Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and

do this or that. As it is you boast in your

arrogance. All such boasting is evil.

So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it for

him, it is sin. Now that chapter we could beat

each other up for hours, right? It is it.

I mean when you look at what James some of the some of the

big words James uses his quarrels, fights, passions,

desires, murders, covets, fights, squirrels, passions,

wars, adulterous enemies of God, a proud sinners, double minded,

wretched mourn. And what James is trying to do

here is make a point and and I think he does a pretty good job.

Right starts off with verses one and two.

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you?

Is it not this that your passions are at war within you?

You desire, you desire, and you do not have.

So you murder and you covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and

quarrel. You do not have because you do

not ask so like James does. James is asking the reader a

question again, and there and then he's making, you know,

blunt points about it. You know, why are you being

nasty to each other? He then tells them why.

It's because they are focused on themselves, their own passions,

the things they get excited about with pride and judgement.

They think you don't think like me.

You were wrong and an idiot. This, this should never be

because because when I look at others, I always go back to me.

Me before I was a believer, but especially me after I became a

believer, right? I became a believer and I had

some, some crooked thinking. You know, I got, I got saved

when I got saved, I believed in evolution.

I believed abortion was a political issue that the church

should stay away from. Now, today, I obviously think

completely differently. And that's because God came in

and showed me truth, right? Sometimes knocked me upside the

back of the head with it. But God meets us where we're at

and all of our stupidity, right? And that that goes for each and

every one of us. Last, I think last Saturday we

were having a conversation at the men's group that was, you

know, God Forgives me for all my sin, including my bad theology.

Right now there is there is things that we believe as

Christians that make us Christians who Jesus is how we

get to heaven. You know, grace is the only way.

It isn't grace plus anything. It's grace and Jesus was the Son

of God. He died, died and rose again on

the third day. These are things we believe as

believers. But then there's stuff that we

can, you know, we can, we can start talking about and, and

there are there and denominationalism would be a

great example of how we can get off the rails and start pointing

at each other. And and really, that's the kind

of conversations James is having here with people.

But if you look at Galatians 516 through 18, it says, but I say

walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the

flesh, for the desires of the flesh are against the spirit and

the desires of the spirit are against the flesh.

For these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the

things you want to do. But if you are led by the

Spirit, you are not under the law.

So that's that conversation that I have with people very often

and even myself is my job is, is to listen to the Lord in my

life. You know, mission work is a good

example of what that looks like for me is over the years, you

know, the I have, I have taught a lot of studies on missions

because I'm the guy that goes to Uganda and spins and is in the

mission field. And I was a missionary for

years. So people call me and ask me to

come teach on missions. So I come, but I do not teach

and say you need to go to a third world country and be a

missionary because that is not for me to say that is, that is

for God to speak to you about, right?

And when we look at when we look around us and say this person or

that person should do something different, they should act more

like me, then we're, we're in sin, right?

We, we start to think that I have something to offer.

That's that pride comes before stupidity, right?

When I think I'm doing it right and they're doing it wrong, I'm

really focused on myself and not Jesus.

A a story. And it's really kind of a fun

story of how this is supposed to work.

If you guys ever read the hiding place with Corey Tim Boom.

And so she she and her family hid, hid Jews in their in their

home during during World War 2. And in order to do that, there

were obvious moments that she was lying her first lie and it

she brings it out. Her first lie was she had they

had two radios. They had a big fancy radio and a

little tiny radio. And they went to the Nazis

wanted their wanted everybody to turn in their radios.

So they she turned in a radio and when asked if she had

another radio, she said no. And when she was coming home and

she goes and the, and the, the sky didn't open up and lightning

didn't splash. You know, I mean, it was serious

to her that she was lying. So she did recognize it.

Now she had a she had a cousin that refused to lie and her

cousin when I, when I say refused to lie, did things like

there were the Nazis broke in looking for her brothers and

they were eating, they were eating dinner at the table.

And she said they, they said, where are your brothers?

And she said under the table and they, they looked underneath the

table and her brothers weren't there.

And they, they thought she was just being obnoxious.

And they leave. Well, her family is beyond angry

with her because her brothers were under the table, under a

hatch, under the floor. And then years later there,

she's in a room with, with a, a Colonel, a German Colonel or

something. And the, and, and another lady

that did not look Jewish at all, but was Jewish.

And so she was living out, she had some fake papers and she was

living out in public. And the German said, well, is

she Jewish? And she said, yeah, So I

literally, I mean, didn't, didn't lie, just yes, she is.

And so everybody's mad at her because she's telling the truth,

because that's, that's God leading her to do that.

Now the, the, the good news on the so the, her brothers weren't

found underneath the table and that the, the fun with that

particular story of that Lady and it doesn't happen this way

all the time. But that particular story is she

got arrested and thrown in, thrown in a holding area.

I think it was at a theater. Well, in the next few days that

theater was liberated. They the resistance broke in and

got them out. So because because her cousin

just stood and told the truth on everything, this lady ended up

in jail and everybody's mad at her.

Well, because she was in jail, she got set free right Now that

whole time Corey is, is doing things like making up food

vouchers, lying about where the Jews are now, I will never stand

up here and tell you that she was required to lie, right?

Because you don't know. It's it's, it's like a brother,

brother Andrew snuck Bibles into behind the Iron Curtain and he

used to pray that that the guards would be blind, you know,

so he had he do, he wouldn't lie about what he had in his trunk.

He wouldn't hide it. He just, they just let him

through like they didn't hear what he said or they didn't see

what was in it. So God can do it, however God

wants to do it. But my point is that what your

job as a believer is, is to truly be doing what the Lord is

telling you to do, not not looking at somebody else and

deciding they're not doing it right, right?

Be be in your own business in that right and, and not be

focused on what others should or shouldn't do.

Now there is obvious sin in people's lives that we do get to

talk about, and I'll get into that.

Verse 3 and 4 says you ask and do not receive because you asked

wrongly to spend it on your own passions.

You adulterous people. Do you not know that friendship

with the world is enmity with God?

Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes

himself an enemy of God. So when we're praying, what's

our motive? Are we praying to make our lives

easier? And guys, I, I will tell you and

I, and I can imagine that we've all been there.

You know, I, I joked about the, when I was going through my

divorce and somebody, I just wish Jesus had come back.

Well, the reason I wanted Jesus to come back was because my life

sucked and I wanted out of it, right?

That's not the right reason, right?

The reason, the reason that I want Jesus to come back is

because no more can be saved and, and we can all get out of

here and the next step because there are more they get saved

after that, right, That turn to him, but they require a lot more

pain, right? This is the, this is, this is

the time we're in and, and we don't, we don't want Jesus to

come back early, right? I don't want Jesus to come back

until everybody that can be saved has been saved and I

definitely don't want him to come back early so that I get to

be comfortable and some other people get to burn in hell

eternity because he came back early.

That doesn't right that that is definitely not.

I mean when you when you put it in that that level, it shows you

really how self focused it is to say Lord, our country's falling

apart. Come back now.

Well, and, and I do want him to come back if it's time, I want

to, I want to be waiting for him.

But when we're praying, so God wants, wants to take care of his

children. He loves us and wants to give us

nice things. But when we're praying, do we

pray like spoiled brats? Give me more, give me more, give

me more. And, and you guys all know what

that's like when you, you, you have, you have young children

and you give them one thing and then they want something else.

They want to add to it. You gave them an inch.

They want a mile kind of thing, right?

Is our prayer life like that right?

When when I look at my life and the blessings that are in my

life, you know, one of the blessings that I I talk about a

lot is my wife. But when I look at my life and I

look at all the blessings in my life, I don't got anything to

ask for. That is, you can't I mean God,

you, you blessed me beyond what I ever could have asked or

imagined. And The funny thing is, is very

few of those things that I look at in my life as blessings are

the things that I prayed about like I need this or I need that,

right. He knew the things that I needed

before I need before I before I did.

And so trusting him in that we need to be when our prayer life

should be others focused. We we we need to be praying with

the heart of Lord. What?

What do you have for me? What?

Yeah. And not what do you have for me

to get? What do you have for me to do?

What what burdens do you want to put on my heart that I get to

pray for people about? Right.

What do I, how do I get to pour into this world until the day

you come back or I go to you Galatians one verses 3 and four.

And this is just the God we serve grace to you and peace

from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ who gave himself

for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age according

to his will of our God and Father.

Does he owe us anything else? If that's all I got, that's

enough. And he gives us so much more

than that. But he also didn't just say he

gave us directions. I guess we'll be the when we

look at praying and and what does praying look like?

And how are we not just like, how do we not act like James

says we're acting and we're praying for ourselves and

looking at ourselves. We look at Matthew chapter 6,

Matthew 6:8

verses 8, one through 15, and this is Jesus taught teaching us

how to pray, right? He was talking to the disciples,

but he says do not be like them. And he's talking about the

hypocrites. And that's people that act one

way in public in a different way in private.

He says don't act like the hypocrites for your father knows

what you need before you ask him.

Do you trust that that that when I'm looking at something that I

need, he already knew that I needed it, so it's coming or is

it just something I want? Very often it's what I want and

there's there's no guarantee for that.

Verse 9, it says pray like this, our Father in heaven, hallowed

be your name, your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it

is in heaven. And that's a prayer for others.

We're going to start off with that your Kingdom come, Lord,

your will be done on earth that is in heaven, right?

Care for this country, care for this world.

Use use your body as you need to.

And then verse 11, give us this day, Our Daily Bread.

Do we trust him? Do we trust that he has my needs

in order before I do, before he knows more about what I need

than I ever will? Verse 12 and forgive us our

debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And that's also once again others, right?

Looking at others and saying, Lord, change my heart, change my

heart how I look at the rest of the world, right, verse 13 and

lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

And that's that's just Lord, help me to trust you and follow

you. Help me to rely on you.

And if you go through that in that order, right, that you're,

you're praying for others, you're praying for you to just

be trusting that he has it in control.

And then remembering that that he also has has will in your

life to be in others lives. So, so praying for others and

your ability to pour into them and then just ending that with

trusting and following him saying, Lord, I don't know what

the plan is, but I'm willing to do what you want me to do Teach

me, show me your way. Jesus adds.

Add some commentary at the end, verses 14 and 15.

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father

will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others

their trespassers, neither will your your Father forgive your

trespasses. And that is when you come to the

Lord with, with bitterness in your heart, with this, this

quarrels and fightings and desires for yourself.

He's he's working on you, right, that, that the conversation

stops because he's he's needed to change your heart.

What you're what you're doing here is saying, Lord, do I have

anything against anyone or change my heart on that?

Show me your heart for them. Do you understand what Jesus did

on the cross, right? We talked about it last week.

We'll we'll talk about it a lot. But what he did on the cross,

there was no deserve in it, right?

So when you look and say I don't deserve this, well, there's no

deserve in it, right? That there's a Facebook thing we

posted years back that then, you know, had a whole list of the

things that God that you deserve from God.

You know, it's money, wealth, power, family.

Now there's one at the very bottom.

It's death. That's what you deserve, right?

The day you were born, that is what was deserved.

Everything else is a gift. Everything so.

And that's, that's his grace when we, when we look at our

lives and we think at any moment I have, I'm this guy and I'm,

I'm here. And then there's these other

people over here, they need Jesus.

I'm, I'm in that awful place that Satan wants me, right?

He wants me in that in that space of thinking that I have

something to bring to the table and when I'm there, I'm in God's

not impressed right at verse 5 it says or do you suppose it is.

It is to no purpose that the scriptures say he earns

jealously over the spirit that he has made dwell in us.

So I want to give my life to the Lord.

He fills me with his spirit and when I when I decide things like

I have something to offer, then I am I am lost, right?

I'm literally Genesis 65 says the Lord saw the wickedness of

man was great in the earth and that every intention of thoughts

of his heart were only evil continually outside of Christ.

That's who I am, right? I don't care if you got saved

when you were five years old or you got saved last week outside

of Christ. That's who we are.

Our hearts are dreadfully wicked.

Who can know them right there is it isn't it isn't.

Hey, I've been a believer for 30 years and I've learned a bunch

of stuff and now I'm now, now I am.

And now I can look down my nose at these other people that don't

know as much as me. We're never those people because

when we, when we actually understand what the Lord did, we

understand that I got nothing to offer and all I have to offer is

that submission to him and his will in my life.

And when we do anything in our own strength as a believer,

Jesus will not allow us to move deeper with him in that right.

If I'm in my own strength, it's it's that pride comes before

stupidity, right? I'm just heading for a ditch

the, the day that I think that I, I, I say it like this.

Stand back, Lord, I got this one is the day that I, I fall into a

ditch, right? And and it's not a ditch because

so I, I have two choices at that point.

When I fall in that ditch, it's either a God stuck his foot out

and tripped me so I can see my mistake and turn or the devil's

beat me up like the middle school bully that he is.

We've talked about him, right. So the outside of Christ, I got

nothing. I got, I got no strength.

I, I don't even, I don't even compare in the in the strength

game. It's not like, well, we're,

we're I'm, I'm wrestling Satan and no, there's, there's nothing

that I got no ability to win that battle.

Now Jesus does. My dad does right?

He's got the complete power to to ignore that.

And I mean, you can look at that, like I said, you can look

at God's grace literally like the dad walking up to the middle

school bully, right? I got a buddy here this week and

he is probably 6 foot five couple £100.

And when he walks in the room, the middle school bully doesn't

go. I got that.

You know, he runs away the other direction, right?

He's a he's a Superintendent at the school that he's in and and

he doesn't middle school bullies don't don't mess with him.

They don't. I mean, it's not even like he

shows up and says, well, I'm here now.

No, they don't even they don't even think about it.

That's the God we serve. Now when the elementary kid

wants to wrestle the middle school bully, you don't stand a

chance. But when God shows up, it's not

even a conversation, right? And that's what we need to

understand is that we don't have at any point anything within us.

All we have is the grace of God. And that's verse 6.

But he gives more grace. Therefore, he says God opposes

the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

And the reason he is able to give grace to the humble is that

we recognize our position in him.

We recognize all I've got is dwelling and and abiding in his,

his plan and his guidance, submitting yourself therefore to

God. Resist the devil and he will

flee for you from you. And that's the my, my picture

for that one today is think of jumping in an airplane and you

know, I 747 it's a, it's a big plane.

I have no idea how they work. You know, they're, they got big

engines and they go fast. And I, I kind of understand

lift, but that's a big plane to get off the ground.

But somehow, some way, it flies me over the North Pole and lands

in Dubai and then we jump on a 777 and fly to Uganda.

And I, I don't, I don't do calculations in the seat.

I get in and put the, I get in and put the seat belt on and

watch TVI submit to the plane. I submit to the pilot, right.

I submit to the law of aerodynamics now at any moment.

I don't think the planes are built like this, so I couldn't

actually do it. But if I if I could, I could

walk over to the door, open the door and jump out.

How quickly, how quickly when I jump out of the plane does the

law of gravity take over? It's it's instant.

I mean, I don't think there we don't, we don't live in a

cartoon world, right? Gravity takes if I fall off the

roof Outback gravity takes over instantly.

It isn't a there isn't a pause moment where I go, Oh no, I'm

going to fall, right? There's just falling.

Well, that's there is there is the law of sin and death and

it's real and everybody outside of Christ is under that law.

And then there's the law of grace.

And if you're in Christ, you're you have grace when you step

outside of Christ, you're not under sin and death, but you are

able to be beat up, stomped on, kicked that played with,

manipulated by the enemy. And that's why it's so important

that we we drop our pride and we understand.

Lord, I can't, you have to in everything.

When I wake up in the morning, before I put my feet on the

floor, Lord, fill me with your spirit guide and direct me

through my day because Lord, I can't.

If you don't do this. And that, that is in all that we

do. I mean, at no point on the

airplane do I knock on the pilot's door and say, I got

this. I read a book.

I know the things I don't. I don't ever go to the airport

and decide I'm going to climb on the outside of the plane.

I figured it out. I'm just going to hold on really

tight out here. None of that works.

There's only one place that that gives us that right.

And that's being completely submitted.

And and we have to be completely submitted to the Lord.

And first Peter 58, says be sober minded, be watchful.

Your adversary, the devil prowls around like a roaring lion

seeking someone to devour. And if you think of, if you

think of the enemy like gravity, gravity is, is seeking people to

fall. And all it takes is for you to

step out, right? Gravity's always there.

The enemy is, is willing, ready and unable to mess with each and

every one of us. And if and if we're not, if

we're not in our word, if we're not spending time with the Lord

and, and, and telling him, Lord, you got to change me because I

am, I'm wretched. My, my heart is wicked.

Then then I'm losing, right? I'm, I'm not moving forward.

Verses 8 through 11 say draw near to God and he will draw

near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners,

and purify your hearts. You double minded, say James

agrees with me that, that I'm pretty wretched, right?

Verse 9 be, be wretched and mourn and weep.

Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.

Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you.

Do not speak evil against one another, brothers.

The one who speaks against 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. So I've talked about it.

Whenever we think we can do it, our own strength, we should cry

and weep because we're going to fail and we're going to fail

because God isn't willing. Just just like you look back at

Gideon, He wasn't willing to for Gideon to show up in any way

that made it look like Gideon was going to win the battle,

right? Gideon showed up with an army

that was too small to win. But if they won, they could have

claimed they were the reason they won.

So God cut it in half and then looked at it when it's still too

big. And then he cut it down to 300

men. He said, OK, So I believe that

at this point, you guys might get the idea that you didn't win

the battle. Now, when that battle was over,

does anybody remember what happened?

They all wanted to crown Gideon King because he had won the

battle. He's like, are you guys smoking

something? Did you do drugs at the battle?

Because there was 300 of us. I was not the guy that did this.

He's bigger than that. And he wants us in that position

all the time to recognize that he does the work right, that it

isn't about, it isn't about us. It isn't about what we can do

and, and how, how well I can apply scripture, how well I can

apply my wisdom to a situation, but to be in his word, asking

him continually throughout. That's why when it says pray

continually, it's, it's not those out loud prayers.

It's that inner talk that we all have, right?

Those those conversations in our in our heads that be talking to

the Lord about about the person in front of you in line the the

the stuff. I mean guys, I I on on Thursday,

I will tell you that that is a time to pray Thursday I knew the

end of the bat. I knew I knew how the council

meeting turned out. So I had that.

I felt bad for everybody that watched it on Wednesday because

you guys didn't know how it turned out and you had to watch

the same thing. But it's just a time to pray.

There are lost people, right? There are lost people.

And am I, am I angry with them? I'm angry with their sin, right?

And that and that is that that is what we're supposed to be

angry with the sin, not the Sinner, right?

They're lost and dying and so to be but but watching 4 hours of

it or listening to four hours of it, it is it is definitely a

time that that lots of prayer the whole time.

And that's because if not, I get I get arguing with the last guy

that spoke or wishing somebody had said it different or

whatever. And so I'm just praying.

So Lord, you use this, you use this is a lot of a lot of

information was given at that meeting and and I can hope that

that people went away and maybe somebody heard something they

hadn't heard before. Right in the middle of it.

There was a lady that she was I don't I don't know anything

about her, can't remember her name or any of that, but she

shared she just went, she went, she had a pass.

She said, you know what, I got rescued out of that past and and

guys, Jesus loves you. God wants to do great things.

He will meet you in your, in your, in your depths, in your

gross and he will take you out of it.

That's what we need to be sharing with people, right?

I mean, that was, I mean, she right in the middle, right?

I mean, like probably right at the 2 hour mark, like she, she

was like the, the brush of fresh air right in the middle of it's

like, Hey, by the way, we serve a living God who can, can, can

love you, can take care of you, can fill you with his spirit

and, and do amazing things in your suck, right.

And so just be in prayer about all of that stuff.

And then remember at all times, CS Lewis, obviously way smarter

than me, had the perfect line about what the the opposite of

pride is humility. But humility is not thinking

less of yourself. A lot of times we think that

humility means that I need to say I suck and I'm horrible and

I'm awful. No, because that's like reverse

pride of of like now I'm just going to beat myself up.

No, it's thinking less of yourself or thinking of yourself

less, right is I? I do not in every situation the

Lord puts me in when I grasp that I don't matter.

Like Lord, you need to do what you need to do.

You know, it's when I went through my divorce, something

that people I had lots of loving people around me and and there

there's a whole story there. But the thing I learned, and

this always takes people off guard is no one cared.

Doesn't mean they didn't love me.

Doesn't mean that they didn't take care of stuff and feed me,

dude. But when, when I, when I wasn't

in their sight, they weren't, they weren't in the, they

weren't in the ache I was in, right.

And that isn't because they didn't.

It's that guys, we're, we're generally selfish people.

We we think about ourselves a lot, you know, and God and only

through his work can we be others focused.

It isn't something that I well up inside me and go Lord court.

I'm going to work really hard at this today.

It's it's something that he has to put inside of us right

Hebrews says for the law made nothing perfect, but on the

other hand, a better hope is introduced through which we draw

near to God. Better hope is Jesus.

So Hebrews pretty pretty bluntly says something that we hate to

hear for the law made nothing perfect.

I memorize that I can memorize the Bible from Genesis to

Revelation and there are there are scholars out there that know

it back to front, but they are lost because they they are not,

they are not giving themselves to Christ and his work in their

lives. And that's what our job is,

right? Our job is continually to go,

Lord, I can't, you have to. And I will say that probably

every Sunday or every other Sunday for the rest of time

because I can't. He has to.

That's why we serve a living God.

We don't, we don't have a religion, right?

I mean, if you look at if you look at Buddhists, they have a

they have a religion and they have a set of things they're

going for that are moral. They're even holy.

I mean, they are, they are going for enlightenment.

And guys, they ain't going to get there because outside of

Christ, it's impossible. And if we come to others like

James says in in chapter 3, we went over last week, we come to

others with pure motives, peaceable, gentle, open to

reason, full of Mark mercy, impartial and sincere.

And the only way we do that is in him.

We were able to use God's wisdom to desert discern a matter.

So this this judging topic and James, James gets into it.

But Jesus, Jesus says in Matthew 7, and I'm sure we have either

quoted this verse, had this first quoted to us, or had a had

a long lengthy conversation about it.

Chapter 7 verses one through 5. Judge not that you be not judged

for the judgement which you pronounce.

You will be judged and with the measure that you use, it will be

measured to you. Why do you see see the speck in

your brother's eye but do not notice the log in your own eye?

Or how can you say to your brother, let me take that speck

out of your eye. And when there is a log in your

own eye, you hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye

and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your

brother's eye. Anybody heard that one judge?

Not that you'd be not judged, right?

But in context, if you look at the whole SEC, the speck was

still removed from the eye, right?

It was the he removed the speck, but after he removed the law,

right? So the log is when I look, when

when I see somebody in sin and I think that they're in sin and

I'm better than them because they're in sin and I can, I can

judge them because I'm not sinning, then then I have a log

in my eye and I'm missing the point.

My job is to with truth and love, pull them out of that sin

to Jesus right to shine, to shine Jesus's life light into

their life. And the only way I do that is by

reflecting Jesus into their life right and because Jesus just to

be clear on the judging thing on our our ability.

So in in Matthew 7 after he said judge not that you be not

judged. So that we get that in context,

we still get to judge sin as sin.

Verse 15, it says beware of false prophets, prophets who

come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly A ravenous world.

Wolves, you will recognize them by their fruits, grapes gathered

from thorn or grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from

thistles. So this is literally Jesus

saying judge not be not that you be not Judge goes through the

whole thing and then says now judge, teachers, are they?

Are they actually? Are they actually teaching God's

word or not? Are they, are they actually out

doing what they're supposed to be doing?

And that's for you as believers to be able to see and judge and

discern. And that's the point of that is

the judging that he's talking about, that we shouldn't judge

is to ever think that I'm above somebody else.

We are all in the same playing field.

The middle school bully, the middle school bully and the

elementary kid are in the same school, right?

If it's if it's that kind of school, we're not any better.

We're just different. And in that we need to recognize

sin and we are completely allowed to judge sin, not the

Sinner, which it sounds Christian speak.

The goal is at all times that we're the rescuers, right?

That we're the first aid station, that we're, that we're

there to care for the sick and dying.

And that is hard. It's messy, right?

I mean, I'm, and it's, it's not a pretty thing, but the only way

we do it is if we're prayed up and we're focused on what the

Lord has for us. Verse 12, it says there is only

one law giver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy.

But who are you to judge your neighbor?

And that's simple guys. God's in charge, right?

He has given us a mission and our mission is to go out and

save the lost and dying by sharing with sharing with them

what He gives us. The key is for us to remember

our role and the day you gave your life to Jesus, you accepted

that he's in charge of your life.

You submitted to that. And when we finish this up with

verses 13 through 17, and this is this is that full submission.

And I just it's James cut seemed like it would be off topic from

what he's talking about. But if you put it in this full

submission context, it says in verse 13, come now you who say

today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and

spend a year there and trade and make a profit.

Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring.

What is your life for? You are a mist that appears for

a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, if the

Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.

As it is, you boast in your arrogance.

All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing

to do and fails to do it, for him, it is sin.

So once again, pride comes before stupidity, right?

When we look at our lives in this context and we say Christ

came 2000 years ago, walked around, walked around the

streets of, of Jerusalem and, and in Israel, he was crucified

and three days later rose again on the third day.

And in that time he told, he told Nicodemus in John 316, it

said, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son.

Whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal

life. And this is a free gift, right?

And we, we talk about it's free gift.

It's free gift. In Uganda, free gifts are

actually almost despised because of a welfare society that that

the Western world has helped helped make.

So when you say a free gift, it sounds like that means it's a

cheap gift and the free gift of grace that God gives us it.

It not only cost the Son of Man or the Son of God, the cross and

crucifixion, but the day you received it, it cost you

everything you are. If you haven't received it, it

will cost you everything you are.

It is complete submission to the God of this universe.

It isn't, it isn't. I'll give you a little bit.

It isn't Lord, I, I would like you in my story is complete

submission to his authorship of your story.

I was talking to somebody the other day and Can you imagine

one of Stephen King's characters halfway through the book jumping

off the pages and saying, no, I don't want to do that.

Can you imagine that? They gave your life to the Lord.

That's what you signed up for. He wrote your story.

He, he has a plan to use you. Are you willing to be used by

him in any way that he wants to use you?

I mean, up and up, up to and including a story like Job's

right? And, and they're all through.

I mean, Uriah the Hittite, not a happy ending, guys.

You're right. Uriah the Hittite stood exactly

where you're supposed to stand, did exactly what he's supposed

to do. And you know what it did?

It got him killed and he didn't know why.

That's what we're signing up. And The thing is, I wouldn't

have it any other way. It's an amazing, it's an amazing

adventure to be in this with the Lord.

But it takes full submission, all right?

You can't you can't climb on the outside of the plane. 3 verses

to close with on that Luke 923 to 20 or three places to close

39 Luke 923 to 24 And he said to all, if anyone would come after

me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and

follow me for whoever would save his life will lose it.

But whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.

I don't think Jesus is being poetic.

Paul goes on with in Galatians 220.

I've been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but

Christ who lives in me in this life.

I now live in the flesh. I live by faith in the Son of

God who loved me and gave himself for me.

Crucifixion's pretty dead. Jesus goes on and Luke and says

so therefore if anyone of you who does not renounce all that

he has cannot be my disciple. So is it all his or is it just

what you want to give him? It is completely giving up my

right to self, submitting to His rule and reign in my life,

repenting from all myself and following him.

That's giving your life to the Lord.

That's relying on Him. We need to be listening to Him

being in our word. We need to be speaking to him,

praying. We need to be in his community,

his body, being in fellowship with each other.

And then we need to be out sharing and witnessing for him.

But this isn't this isn't. Those are none of those are

boxes to check. Those are conversations to have

with him. So spend time with your Lord,

spend time with each other. Have a great week.

Dear Lord, I just thank you for everybody here.

Lord, I thank you that you did come.

Lord, I thank you that you did the work you did on the cross.

Lord, I thank you that you rose again on 3rd day and that Lord

that you've washed us clean. Lord that you've given us, given

us the seat to belt ourselves into.

Lord and Lord, that we would just submit to your rule in our

lives. Lord, that we would rely on You

and your plan, that you would guide and direct us.

Thank you for all that you've done, all that you're going to

do. Lord, be with everybody here.

Help us to grow more and more in you every day.

I pray this in Jesus name, Amen.