In particular, verse 11, do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or who judges his brother speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you're not a doer of the law, but a judge. There's only one lawgiver and judge. He is able to save and to destroy. But who are you? Who are you to judge your neighbor? In Article 133 of the U.S. Uniform Code of Military Justice, it speaks concerning conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. And it goes on to list a number of offenses. And the point is that if you do these things, you're liable for court-martial. All these things are court-martialable offenses. And there's quite a list. of things that are covered. Now we realize it's really for those who would be officers, for those who would be officers of trading, the midshipmen at the naval academy, or the cadets at the army academy. And some of the things we might expect are the things that would be against the civil law. It really wouldn't matter whether you're an army officer or not if you go out and rob a bank you're liable for court-martial. If you engage in espionage, it really doesn't matter if you're in the military or not. But there are a number of things that aren't against the civil law that we might think are fairly trivial, but they're against the military standards. They're against the conduct that A soldier, and especially one that is an officer, is to give. And so, listed among that would be any insulting or defamatory language toward a superior. And it works itself out. What can an officer say about the President of the United States? Well, he can be court-martialed for saying anything that would be construed as insulting are defamatory. They are cowardice in the face of the enemy. And there would be a number of other things that you would see. And the point, as they have established it, and it's very long in terms of what it is, is that these things don't properly belong with an officer. If you're an officer, you're to rise above these things. The standard is set high for you. And you don't have to be engaged in these things. And you can be punished if you are. The fact that you are an officer and a gentleman brings with it a certain responsibility for certain high standards in your conduct. Well, the same thing is true for Christians. As Christians, you and I are to attain to a higher standard of conduct. The way in which we live is to be different, is to be better than the world around us. And even the way in which we live before becoming Christians, there's an expectation of a higher standard. And that is especially true as we look at these verses that talk about how do we relate to one another, how do we think about each other, how do we talk to one another. Really it's saying the highest standards are to be in operation. It's easier. And James, in his writings, knows it's easy for our attitudes, for the things that we say, the way in which we judge others, for our conduct to become unbecoming. Instead of commending the Gospel of Christ to the world, to say, wow, look at the way in which those Christians love each other. Instead, they're looking and saying, look at the way those Christians tear apart one another. Our conduct is unsuitable, is unbecoming to that name that we have of being one of Christ's followers. And so, the first point as we look at these two verses is to see there's two specific things, two specific conducts that are prohibited, which are really inconsistent with being a Christian. And we'll notice that. But first, we maybe should notice in verse 11, that as James writes, he returns back to that address of brothers or brethren in verse 11. You know, I mentioned last week, as he gives a shock rebuke, he talks about them, you adulteresses, you sinners, you dumble-minded. He hadn't been very tactful to them. And in essence he was saying, you still have this problem of indwelling sin, and it's showing itself. You're not living according to the standard, God's standard. And it could be that his readers at this point would be questioning. If he's calling us adulterous against God, sinners and double-minded, are we really Christians? And maybe you look at your life and you look and you see the indwelling sin in your life and you say, you know, would a Christian do that? Am I really a Christian? And how comforting then is that we're brothers. That it can be, despite the sin in our lives, we're still brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ. My sin, your sin, doesn't cut that fundamental relationship. It puts a strain on it, but we're still brothers and sisters of Christ. And it's because we have that relationship, and this relationship comes first. It's not in order to gain a relationship we do these things, but because we have that relationship, how we live, our conduct, then becomes important. And a conduct needs to be such that it's becoming to Christ. It's putting Christ in a good light. And not conduct that would be unbecoming to brothers and sisters of Christ. Well, what are the two specifics? Well, the first is in verse 11. Speaking evil against one another. And literally that word is to speak against. That's really a pretty broad word, speak and against put together. And it describes any sort of speech that really in some way attacks another person. That's harmful, that's what we would call verbal abuse. And if you go back to the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament that was translated before Christ, You can see that word being used. It was used in Numbers 21, when the people speak against the legitimate leaders. The people speak against God and against Moses. They didn't like what Moses was doing at the direction of God. They're bringing him out in the desert and they speak against that leadership. It's used in Psalm 101, of slandering someone in secret. You know, that gossiping and tearing down in private. It's used of bringing inaccurate accusations against a person in the name of Christ in 1 Peter 2, 12. And so it has a whole range of meanings of speaking in such a way that you defame or ruin someone, hurt their reputation, slander them, do character assassination, and all the rest. And please understand, as we talk about this speaking, evil, it includes lie, but it isn't restricted to that. Something that I say can be very truthful, can be completely truthful, but it can be evil, because my motives are evil. Let me give you an example. Say someone were to walk in here and we quickly would notice he's got huge feet. He's got size 17, size 18 shoes. Now, there would be legitimate questions we could ask, but you know, it isn't hard to find shoes. You have to have special made shoes. But you can also speak truthful words that are hurtful. You know, what if we instead of calling that person by name, always refer to them as Bigfoot? And say, you know, Bigfoot, don't you ever stomp on small pets? And all that person is known for is his big feet. And every time we have a chance, we rub it in. It's true he has big feet, but we're using our speech to do harm. And there can be many, many ways that they do that. Motivation is wrong. We're not wanting to build up that person. So our words, even though they're truthful, can be evil. Because our motives are evil. We may be wanting to put that person down, so that we feel better. And so, consider the area of gossip. A huge area. Gossip often involves something that is true. But it's being shared with somebody who does not need to know that truth. Isn't that some of the allure? I know something about somebody that puts them in a bad light. Did you hear what they did last week? Now, slander is spreading a false report. And that's wrong, but sometimes we can spread a true report. But it's doing mischief. It's evil. And it would be covered under this, you know, not speak evil of your brother or sister in Christ. I'm going to give you two simple tests. How do you know if it's a gossip? How do you know if it's slander? Well, the first thing is to ask yourself as you're saying this, if that person was standing there, would you be saying the same thing in the same words? And the second thing is to say, can you take what you've just said and make it a prayer to God? And if you say no to either one of those, you're not speaking with the right attitude in your conduct. is unbecoming to one who's a Christian. Well, second conduct we're to avoid is also there in verse 11, to judge your brother. Of course, that's a phrase that's used several places in scripture. It's often quite a bit of a question. Does it mean we don't do any sort of judging? I think of a pastor who was talking about a certain fragrant sin, immorality, and he's really warning the congregation not to do that. His very own sister said, stop being so judgmental. We're not to judge others. Now, the irony is she was doing that herself with her own brother. But is that what's being prohibited here? I say no. The Bible recognizes there are times when it is legitimate to make judgments. You look at Matthew 18. We're seeing this church discipline. We're to recognize or to make a judgment that this brother of mine is involved in sin. I'm to confront him. Yes, there's a judgment. And there's a judgment that goes all the way to the church. As you read through the New Testament, you see a lot of instructions about false prophets. You need to come to the conclusion that what this person is teaching is wrong. It's a judgment that you make. When we're warned not to be unequally yoked with an unbeliever, you have to judge whether that person is truly a Christian or not. And Jesus really says the same sort of thing in John 7.24. He tells his disciples, stop judging. But then the next three words are important. By mere appearance. He's not saying never judge anyone. Stop judging by mere appearance and make a right judgment according to the truth, according to the facts, according to the reality of the situation. And too often we can judge on appearance. Here we warned really about that critical spirit of judging others, of looking down, of looking at someone else's words or actions in an uncharitable way, of really overlooking my own sin, but to say, oh boy, you've really messed up. Reminded Jesus told us we're to remove the speck from our own eyes. And here it's really talking in terms of We would be looking at the sin first in our lives. Do we see it? And are we dealing with it? You know, when the pastor preaches this message talking about sin, you think, oh, you know, this would be great for my brother-in-law. He really needs to hear this. And not, oh, how does this apply in my life? The Puritan spoke of a judgment of charity, that one of the things we're to do is to put the best possible light we can on another person's actions. And I wonder how often we just do the opposite. We put the worst possible light on what the person does. You see a person running a recital, do we think, what, an idiot? Do you think, oh, he must have been distracted? I hope what he's concerned about, you know, isn't too serious. Do I need to pray for him? Has somebody close to him had a heart attack? Or do we think, what has he been drinking? But he didn't see a red light. I bet in cases you're counseling with husbands and wives, I always think they're worse. The husband is trying to mend the relationship and says, oh, dear, that was a great dinner tonight. And the wife immediately thinks and maybe responds, ha, he must think I've not cooked a good dinner in months, and gets offended. And maybe that's what he meant, but probably not. And so we're not. to be thinking critically and in a condemning way, of judging others, their motives, of giving impure motives to why they're doing what they're doing. And you see that in the political arena. Somebody disagrees with you, it's because they're terrible people and want the worst for our nation, rather than it being an honorable disagreement about what's the best way to achieve goals that would be good for all. Well, the second point we need to say, what are the reasons we're not to do this? We're given these commands as we relate, we're not to judge others, and we're not to be speaking evil. But why? What's the cost? What's involved when we do that? It's surprising the reasons to be given. First of all, if you look at verse 11, when you do these things, James says, you speak against what? The other person? You're turning them down? No, he says, you speak against the law and judge the law. Yeah, you may be attacking the other person, but there's something much more important, much deeper going on when you do this. You're speaking, not just against the person, but you're speaking against the law. What does he mean? Well, at least part of it is, first of all, is we have, and he's already referred to, the law of love. And as we think of how the law summarizes, we're to love our neighbors ourselves. as the second greatest commandment, implicit is that we should be loving, charitable, that judgment of charity toward all. And when we're condemning and when we're judging and when we're falsely accusing and are quick to rush to judgment, we're not loving our neighbor, it's ourselves. We do something wrong and we want our best motives. That's what prompted us. It was out of love that I did that. It maybe hurt you, and I didn't mean to do that, but my motives were good. If we want that standard, we should be applying it to other people. It also has the idea that we become the judge of the law. We're judging which parts of the law are important and which ones aren't. We're saying that, yeah, that part about not sacrificing my children and a whole vertopical, that's good, but some of these others, they're not that important. I happened to watch this week, I turned on the TV, Pastor one of these mega churches was on when they're there over 10,000 people in the audience And he was telling a story. It was a story about himself, which he seems to always do and And as he was doing that, he was talking about staying in a hotel with his wife, and his wife wanted some coffee, and I think the point he was trying to make is a beautiful husband, he went down to get coffee, and he didn't have any money with him, and so basically he grabbed the coffee and rushed off while the worker was distracted, and then later on came back and gave the money to the clerk. And as he came back and gave the money to the clerk, She recognized him and said, oh, aren't you? And his response was to say, no, my name is, and he gave a fictitious name. The audience response was incredible to me. They roared with laughter. This was great fun. Now, if I had been a parent sitting there with my children, I would have been mortified. Because what is he telling the children? He's telling the children, it's okay to lie. There are times when it's inconvenient to tell the truth. And when those times come, go ahead and lie. Now, children, understand, it's not right to lie. What this pastor did was wrong. But there was a mentality that says, I can pick and choose which commandments of God, which parts of God's will I want to follow and which I don't. That's what James was referring to. He becomes the judge of the law. He decides which laws are important and which laws aren't. And he doesn't happen to think lying is a very important one. And he can dispense with it. But as you look here, It talks, the contrast in verse 11 is being a doer of the law. Either we set our hearts on doing it, or hearts on judging it, deciding which we think are important. And it seems to be that as we would think of the law that there are certain things that we follow, we think those are the important parts and those others that we don't follow, well those aren't so important. And so a person who maybe gives and gives well thinks, well, tithing, that's an important thing. And this guy over here, he only gives 9%. He's not very spiritual. Even though he gives joyfully, I just give out a sense of obligation. You know, he's not very spiritual. Pornography on the internet, well, you know, it's lost in the heart, but it's not really that important. Everybody does it. Or all the men do. And we excuse that. And become a judge. Saying these are important, these are not. It's the ones that I do that are important, the ones that I don't do, well, hey, those don't really matter as much. Become the judge of the law. Rather than being a doer. Say, how do I need to put into action those things that I see. We need to understand that the law, as it expresses the will of God, is not arbitrary. It focuses on what God knows is right, what God knows is good for us, and is helpful for us. And as we've been talking about humility, humility says, I accept the law. I want to see that law in action in my life. I want to be born like Christ. Really, this section is saying, don't criticize others, attend to yourself. Are you a doer of the law? Does it shine in your life? Does it show about how you think about others in the body? Does it show in terms of whether you judge them, whether you speak evil of them? B, at the end of verse 12, there's a very poignant question, but who are you to judge your neighbor? Because as we go through this process, as we take the things that we think are important from the Word of God and apply it to our neighbor, and kind of measure up to are they doing what they're doing, and we maybe don't know all their finances, but oh, I'm sure they're not tithing, and boy, they're unspiritual. Who are you? Do you have the authority? Have you been given that task? Do you have the wisdom and knowledge that's needed to accomplish that task? Do you even have the right to declare someone else is falling under the judgment of God? And the point that is being made there in verse 12, there's only one who has that right. One who is a lawgiver. who has the innate sense of right and wrong, who is right in all that he does, all that he thinks, and has the right to judge. And of course, he's speaking of God. God alone has the right to be the judge. And when we criticize, when we judge, and when we think we know someone's motives, we are usurping God's authority. And at the root of it is pride. You're taking the place of God. Because it's really two different views of where we stand. There'd be one that would say, you know, God is way up here, and everybody No matter if they're Isaiah or whoever they are, they're way down here. Now they may be a little bit higher, some of them may be a little more mature, but they're all down here. And God is way up here. And who is anyone down there to be judging someone else? But the other point of view says, you know, God's here, and I'm here, and the others in the church are about here. You know, I'm not too far from God. I have that ability to judge and to see the ones down here that are wrong. And you're exalting yourself. And you're failing to see who God is and who we are in relationship to God. You did not see our lowly position in that question. Who are you to judge? If you understood your position as down here, as far separated, as Isaiah did when he cried out, you'd realize I have no authority on my own to judge. Not in this way. And we need to recognize very carefully that there's one lawgiver and judge. Because we want to often take for ourselves those things of being a lawgiver. There are churches that feel free to add rules to the scripture. You know, if you want to be a good Christian, you do X, Y, and Z. And their motivation can be good, and they can look and say they have legitimate reasons for saying not to do this. Let me take one that is not, I don't know of any church that's against this, but it's the type of thing that could be done. You know, you could publish a rule that says no one should skydive. Could we come up with some reasons why that would be good? Well, you think about cost. Every time you go and spend $100 on skydiving, would it be better to send it to a missionary and help evangelize the world? Is there any risk involved? Well, every once in a while a parachute doesn't open. Why are you doing it? Is it because there's an adrenaline high as you jump out of that plane? It's easy to think, well, For the good of others, let's make a rule. If you're going to be part of this denomination, you don't start it. But has God said that? Has He said you should not do that? And if we begin making rules like that, have we not replaced God's logic? Now for me, there's no danger. I don't like heights. To think of looking out an open door in a plane would terrify me. So I won't do it. There are good reasons why you wouldn't want to do it. But it's different than saying the church is going to come along and it's going to give us the rules to Christians. If you want to be a good Christian, you can't do this and this and this and this. God has given us the rules. God has told us what things are right, what things are wrong. So the church Churches often become the law-giver rather than God. And as individuals, we can become judges of others. Judges with wrong motives. Judges looking to condemn. Well, the third point, and it's very brief, is how can we achieve this conduct that is becoming to a Christian that should characterize our life? Well, if you look at verse 12 in the middle, we have the answer there. It's speaking of God. It says, who is able to save and to destroy. It's a reminder that salvation, growth and grace, Christian maturity, really belongs to God. God working, God's grace, the help of the Holy Spirit, as we sang earlier from Psalm 123. We're all prone to evil, to speak about others in a way in which we shouldn't have judged them, to judge their motives, How do we overcome that? As we understand who God is, the salvation that He has, as we look to the Spirit and are directed by the Holy Spirit and enabled, our works can build up rather than tear down. We can have a judgment of charity where we look at the best possible motives, not the worst. And the higher your view of God, the more you'll realize I'm down here. And I need God's grace just as much as everyone else around. And who am I? I don't have the maturity. I don't have the wisdom. I don't have the understanding. The implications of Scripture? I don't know the hearts of others? In humility, I need be asking God to help me be a doer of the law. And not a judge of others. Again, not for salvation. Not so that I can be saying, But as one who has been saved, how do I show it? In humility. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we look at the words that you've written down in the book of James, and especially in chapter 4, verses 11 and 12 that speak about a sin that is common in the church. that can be so easily in our lives. Speaking harmful words, or judging others in the church, or outside the church, or thinking that we know the motives in those times when someone is not living up to your standards. rather than looking to ourselves and saying, show me those times when I'm not living up to those standards. Give us your grace, so we might be charitable and loving with one another, so we would say those things which build up and encourage. Rejoice with those who are rejoicing with it. Mourn with those who mourn. Help us by your grace to do that. We pray in Christ's name. Amen.