Ep 54-Peace Maker, Not a Trouble Maker – Pt. 2

Hi there. Thank you for coming back to follow our study and we’re looking at being a peacemaker. A lot of trouble maker. And how to grow up and mature, be perfected. James calls in in chapter four in christ and the wars that we have, the desires, the battles that we have from inside. He calls them wars. He calls them battles and they come from the sources are our own pleasures. Donny. We we looked at that. We’re looking at the other things that are there, the enemies that we have, the flesh, the world. The devil. Come on in the discussion, join us. I hope you enjoyed the discussions and then later on the preaching. So how do you receive saving grace? Really? It’s talking about uh that God has given us specific instructions in James Chapter four on how to receive grace. When all this war is going on. All these battles are going on when the flesh and the world and the devil are at us. What does God tell us to do? What are the instructions? He gives us some great insights here. And I’d like us to just look at the versace, scripture. Uh, James 46 Vicky. You’re gonna love this verse. It says he gives a greater grace card is we did a whole program. Uh, 45 programs on that. Therefore it says God is opposed on the that’s show me Uh huh Andy is against and Tasso is to arrange so he arranges himself against the proud he got as opposed to the proud and that word, epdp far knows. Epiphany knows and what he’s talking about is I pet or hyper peppery phenols talking about in a person who wants to be seen, you know, to offend no is to be revealed. But even going above that, a hyper seen. So somebody who wants to be seen above everyone else and that is the word for pride. That’s what satan did when he wanted to be above all the angels. And he wanted to be like God, this is the very word. But he gives a grace, a greater grace even to the humble that says, but he gives a greater grace to the humble. It’s a bigger grace. Now, God gives us 10 imperatives that, that are given to us here and there in the Greek heiress imperative uh, to humility. It helps us to understand how to get the humility because it starts with humility in verse six, it ends with humility in verse 10. And so we’re just gonna go right through them Vicki in fact, you can pick them up right there yourself. Okay, First one is submit people to so therefore to God, so that’s arranging yourself in the proper place under God and his authority is exactly right. And I have also Second Chronicles 7 14 because they’re, it says if my people who are called by my name, would humble themselves, that’s the first step and pray. That’s the second step and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and I will forgive their sin and I will heal their land. Second Chronicle 7 14. So God gives us actually the various stages and an ability on how to make ourselves humble and come into God’s anointing in God’s blessing. Getting under the blessing of God keep going for the second one resist anti steamy the devil and he will flee from you. So the first thing is you got to submit to God. This is against to stand against the devil. His team used to stand. Right. So, but what I’m saying is that there’s a progression here and they’re all in the greek heiress imperative. Uh you know, you have to do them and and it’s to be done right away as soon as you know about it, just do it. So submit to God resist the devil. Those are the first to then draw near. And he saw yep draw near to God and he wants to you. So you know what a lot of the times you wonder when you pray is God listening, uh you wonder, you know, uh oh, I did such a bad thing. God can’t possibly hear me. And yet God says if we submit to God and we resist the devil that he will, he was the devil will flee. And then if we draw near to God, we come close to God, he will come close to us. It’s God’s promise, it’s a great province, right? And we can and we can know that that will be true. And then the fourth thing cleanse cath, Catherine Rizzo your hands, you sinners and purify. Uh So uh so uh yeah, yeah, so is the holy word, the word for Holy Agnes. So is all it comes from that same word, but it’s pronounced differently. Uh miso. Which with you and and it’s talking about our hearts, not just cleanse your hands, but purify your hearts. You double minded. And that word is deep sea horse. I didn’t put it down there, but it’s too sold. So what happens a lot is that we were just like, you know, and like it says in the bible many times they were in a fork in the road, They didn’t know which way to go. God says, look make up your mind who you’re gonna serve. You know, Joshua said this for me and my house, we’re gonna serve the Lord. We’re gonna we’re going after God. So you cleanse your hands, You purify your hearts, You double minded, keep going, honey, be miserable, Calipari, vo that’s it. And war Ben fell mourn. So he’s not, he’s not finished with repentance. He says, you gotta clean your hands, you gotta purify your hearts, you have to be miserable to lepore evo and mourn painful. And then beyond that weep Clell, let your laughter be turned meta thread for turned into mourning and your joy into gloom. These are other words, the word for gloom is to literally cast down your eyes, you know, God wants a full and total repentance, humble to pin all humble yourself in the presence of the Lord and he will exalt you At the proper time. Now, these 10 Greek a wrist imperatives to humility. I I saw a little footnote in Dr. John MacArthur’s study Bible that had them there and you know, you can, you can get insight from the great bible teachers of our world. I remember when the warren, where’s B was teaching this very book upward of life island when I first heard I said man, that guy smart, I was like I was just saying I was just a child of God and every time somebody smoke I thought, wow, everything amazed me and that’s the way we ought to be when it comes to the word of God, you look at scripture and you, you should be amazed and then dr spiro zodiac, he would get me alone and we pray together and he would teach me God’s word and in fact he was my mentor and I just loved him. Warren wiz be uh spirits, jodi arias and uh then are the friends of mine, Dr john Macarthur and dr David Jeremiah. These guys have studied bibles today and I’ve had the privilege throughout my life to meet some of the greatest bible teachers that have ever lived, I just thought they were, you know, they’re just bible teachers. But now as I look back, they have been some of the warriors of the faith and the great bible teachers of of my life and I can learn and I can stand on the shoulders of great men that have gone before me. That’s why we study Spurgeon. That’s why we study all the various great men of Hebrew and greek. It’s so important that we are not so proud that we can’t learn from the next brother or even somebody that just became a christian that could teach us great lessons. So these are the greek, a wrist imperatives to humility. You say well what does that mean? A couple of pictures of guys in the temple just praying and weeping after God. He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says God is opposed to the proud but gives grace to the humble, so on the Tasso me from Andy opposite to and against Ente So to arrange properly square off like two football teams opposed to in principle and in practice, let me let me just continue Vicki just for another moment Haris, this is really a big point cadiz is favorable towards leaning towards to share benefits properly. Grace is preeminently uh used of the Lord’s favor, freely extended to give himself away to people because he ever leans towards them. So here’s the two opposites, the humble person God is leaning towards them to give grace the proud person, God is taking a stand. I mean if you can imagine somebody with a karate chop or ready to bounce somebody with a fist, you don’t want God to be against you. You know, it says God is opposed literally arranging himself against us when we’re proud, when we want to, you know, shine above others rather than fall down and kiss the dirt and be humble in our mind to go low rather than go high. And that’s what it’s talking about. Uh check it off, It means the greek areas means check it off, get it done, focus on the first opportunity to complete it. And uh, I don’t know what else you want to say about this Vicki, but you know when God tells us to do it, it’s like uh, it’s like that Nike commercial just do it, you know, and here are these 10 a wrist imperatives, maybe we can go over them one more time and just kind of look and see the order that God gives, you can just give the first word on each one. Well for me, my focus has been in my study on this passage, on submitting to God and to ranking myself under him because God is opposed to the proud and so in my life, I’ve really looked on the scriptures on the opposites of things, how we do it, we can walk in the flesh and we will, we will never really have the joy of the Lord and the Liberty and the freedom um, in the beginning of our study in James, we went over the uh several times that God’s word is called the law of Liberty in James chapter one verse 21 I believe it is. And then again repeated in James chapter two and he talks about it’s the Royal law, It’s the King’s law that you taught us and it’s so beautiful that this is how God transforms us into women and men of peace and contentment and joy. These are the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, Peace, patience, kindness, meekness, gentleness, self control. Who doesn’t want to be a man or woman who has the integrity in their life. The only way we become like that in Galatians, it talks about if we walk by the spirit, we will have freedom in our life, we will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Exactly. We won’t be battling all the time. We don’t have to wake up every day with a spirit of oh no! How am I gonna be like a christian? How am I gonna live with this person in my life who’s antagonistic to me or troublesome or the problems I have within my own family or within my own self things that I battle in my mind in my emotions in my spirit. And uh the whole law, the bible says in Galatians wolf. It starts off in verse one for you were called for freedom. That’s why God called us for liberty. Do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for my flesh. I should not have this freedom in christ and think well, you know, no, my freedom stops me at certain places, but it gives me tremendous freedom to love for the whole law is fulfilled. In verse 14. In one statement, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, which we’ve gone over before. Also the royal law, we said the 613 rules the mosaic and the vehicle laws, jesus said love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor, love your husband, love your Children, love your friends, love your relatives, love the people in your church. And we it’s a battle. It’s a battle to love other people as much as we love ourselves because we’re selfish. But if we do it in Galatians five, the battle is the fruit of the spirit versus the flesh will have victory by the Spirit. And and first Corinthians six says we will have freedom from slavery. The same battle is in that same chapter and God sets us free. Well, you were just so awesome right now. That was awesome. And I just love it when Vicki just gives us the word like that. I just keep on looking at verse one, I mean verse at the first point that is in verse seven submit therefore to God. Why? Because what came before it? You know that God is opposed to the proud and gives grace to the humble, I’m not gonna fight God. Hey, you gotta be smart enough to know who not to fight and who to fight. Yeah, sometimes you got to get into a fight. I’ll never forget. I when I came to America, I was surrounded by five or six kids at my corner. I was a little guy was about what, nine years old, 889, 10 years old. By that time I knew some a little bit and then I was surrounded and one of those guys, his name was junior and he was twice as big as me and twice as big as everybody, he was like a mack truck and and they just started surrounding me and I thought to myself, well I can’t fight them all, but I’ll fight the biggest one there. So they’ll leave me alone from now on. And I said to him, look I’ll fight you but one at a time. And then he he said okay? And I said, but we got to wrestle and when he said okay, I just jumped at him and put him in a headlock, knocked him down and he was crying like a little baby. Uh and I said okay, you give he says I give I give you know every time they would see me from then on, they call me crazy, my Harris maris’s crazy, leave him alone, you know you have to know who to fight, you can never get God in a headlock. God is too strong and too powerful for the devil and all of his demons. He could just think them away. God almighty the father the Son, the Holy Spirit submit. Therefore to God, rank yourself under God. And you have power now as a man, as a woman, to resist the devil, as a teenager, to resist the devil and he will flee from you God’s promise. And then the next step is again going back to God, draw near to God and he will draw near to you. And then it starts talking about our cleansing, repenting, cleanse your hands, you sinners, purify your hearts, you double minded, be miserable and mourn and weep and let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into gloom. To humble ourselves. Verse 10 under the mighty hand of God and he will exalt us at the proper time. That’s the most important thing about this thing that God he loves us. He’s equipped us. He told us these 10 greek heiress, imperatives to get this done, do this, do this, do this. God’s word is filled with instruction. Let’s do it and let’s be victorious as a result of it. Amen. Amen. Amen God bless you. So we’re gonna go into the text now and look and see how to get real peace in our life to be a peacemaker, not a troublemaker from James chapter four. And looking at this incredible versus scripture. James 46, but he gives a greater grace. Therefore it says he’s opposed to the proud but gives grace to the humble and uh what I picked up from dr john Macarthur’s uh bible uh commentary. It isn’t a commentary. It’s a it’s really a study bible. It’s a phenomenal tool. In fact, I was with him for a portion of the time that he did that on a cruise and He is so committed to the Greek language and to the text that he identifies in this particular text that there are 10 imperatives that these are a wrist imperatives that tell us clearly that these are object objectives, commands that are gonna follow one right after the other submit, resist draw near cleanse your hands, purify your hearts be miserable, mourn weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning your joy into gloom, humble yourself every one of these. And we’ve gone over them with Vicki that we want to now see the practical aspect of this passage on ending the wars and uh the wars that were fighting. And of course we’ve got these enemies, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes. The pride of life. I just thought a great portion of scripture was this passage on how to have victory over our sin From the book of Romans chapter six and what I learned as a new believer. And I use this every day of my life. You have to know who you are in christ. You have to know your position. You have to know that you have been a your especially called out. You are a chosen generation, A royal priesthood, priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that we would proclaim his excellency who brought us out of the darkness into his marvelous light. You have to know your position in christ, that’s first peter chapter two verse nine. But here I am in romans chapter six, what shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin? That grace may increase, May it never be? How shall we who have died to sin? Still live in it? And then he begins to show in verse three, or do you not know? So the first thing is to know who you are, that all of us who have been baptized into christ jesus have been baptized into his death, meaning the spiritual immersion in the cross by faith. And and uh it says in verse four, therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death In order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the father. We too might walk in newness of life. We have a new life when we by faith, connect ourselves to what he did 2000 years ago we died with him. We were buried, we arose in him. It calls it baptism here not the water baptism, but the spiritually we got baptized with christ for we have become united with him in the likeness of his death. Certainly, we shall also be united with him in the likeness of his resurrection. So this is the spiritual connection, verse five says in verse six, knowing this again, that our old self was crucified with him, that our body of sin might be done away with and that we should no longer serves uh be slaves of sin. For we, for he who has died is freed from sin. Now, if we have died with christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. Here’s the next knowing, knowing that christ having been raised from the dead is never to die again. Death has no longer master over him. So, you see it in verse three, you see it in verse six, You see it now in verse nine. This knowing and God is making it clear for us in verse 16, he repeats it again. Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one who you obey either of sin resulting in death or of obedience resulting in righteousness. But thanks be to God that though we were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching which you have, you were committed and having been freed from sin, You became slaves of righteousness. And then he goes on, I’m speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh for just as you uh you presented yourselves as slaves to impurity and lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness. So now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification. So he uses these four times concerning our position, what we who we are in christ, we died with him, we were buried with him, we rose again with him. And now he goes on further says, don’t you know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, So we need to know that every day we have the opportunity, the daily present ourselves even as we have once and for all, been presented in in the sacrifice of jesus christ as romans 12 is gonna tell us one and two here, we’re presenting ourselves as who we’re gonna obey. This is our new identity that we have in christ, we need to know who we are, we are Children of God, We are free from sin through the death, burial and resurrection of christ, uh we have victory over the world, we have victory over the flesh, We have victory over the devil because of jesus christ. The punishment has been paid. We have been saved from our past guilt. We have power now over the power of sin in this day and one day we’re gonna also be saved from the very presence of sin when we’re glorified with christ in heaven. The second word is considered. Look at verse 11. Even so, consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in christ jesus. Now this word consider is probably one of my favorite words in the greek language. It is the word that we that we have preached about many times. It’s a keyword found in romans chapter four, which meant mentions it 10 times. Louise. Oh man! To credit to your account, what is not there and to take out of your account, what is there? We credit into our account, christ righteousness, we take out of our account, our sinfulness by faith. And so he says, here, even so now consider or reckon or Loizeaux meme yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God. So every day I need to live in the reality of the cross, the death of christ the burial, the resurrection give me now power over my sin. And I can credit his righteousness in my life on a daily basis because he arose, I now have the power to live in unison. Walk as it says back in verse six, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him that our body of sin might be done away with. It’s fantastic that we walk in newness of life in newness of the resurrection verse five. So I consider that I credit that to my life, You credit that to your life and then the next word that we have is present In verse 13, 16 and 19 and verse 13 it says, and do not go on presenting the members of your earthly body. Do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteous nous. But present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. My hands, my eyes, my mouth, my feet, my very body, my very members of my body. To keep on presenting them now to God as instruments of righteousness rather than instruments of lawlessness and sin. And then verse 16, do not do you not know uh when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one you obey either of sin resulting in death or of obedience resulting in righteousness. So when I yield my hands to God, I’m gonna be serving God. When I yield my hands to doing something wrong, I’m gonna be serving sin and and uh something wrong. And then the last uh present is found in verse 19, I am speaking in human terms, because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness resulting in further lawlessness. So now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification phenomenal. So now you see that that God can use our body and the members are hands. The members of our body on to holiness and righteousness. And it says onto sanctification, something that is separated from sin and separated onto God and the final the final uh verb that we do not just know and consider and present but obey verse 16 and 17 notice what it says. Do you not know that when you present your members to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obeyed? And and it says um either of sin resulting in death or of obedience resulting in righteousness. But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed. So this is the practical aspect of what you do with the enemies and the wars that are going on in our lives. God has given us not only James chapter four where he gives us the 10 a wrist imperatives of what to do there, but he gives us in this passage of scripture in romans chapter six. These phenomenal verbs that he tells us on how to deal with sin, to isolate sin and then to know our new position in christ and to reckon that position as so that we died with him. We were buried. We rose again. I’m a new creation in christ. I need to present the members of my body onto God and not on to sin and then I need to obey God when he tells me to do something. Listen, we’re talking about how to become mature and perfected in, jesus christ it’s a matter of the will, it’s a matter of your submission and your attitude and if we’re gonna be proud forget it, we’re going to have God against us. God is opposed to the proud but he gives grace to the humble. Therefore let us humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God so that he might exalt us at the proper time. Let’s pray right now and ask God to help us father. God help us help us to humble ourselves in the areas of our life that you’re touching Lord, our mouth, our eyes, our ears, our hands or feet that you might take our life and that we might be a living sacrifice onto you. I pray in jesus name, Amen. Mhm. God bless you until next time. With it’s all greek to me with tom and Vicky.