Light on the Hill

Guest (Male): Today on Light on the Hill is our study in James continues.

James Kaddis: When we learn to function from a place of humility, when we learn to understand what it takes to be in that place of brokenness, only then will God elevate you to that place of understanding and knowing what he's called for you, and then when you move forward in that way, understand this, some of the most humble men alive are perceived as being some of the most aggressive because the nature of their engagement is spiritually based. And when that spiritual basis begins to expand as a result of a wilfulness to allow the intervention of the Holy Spirit to come into their lives and to motivate them and move them in that direction, it literally changes everything.

Guest (Female): I have found that peace only comes from you. I have found that joy only comes from you. Cuz all I need is you.

Guest (Male): The month of June has been characterized by the word pride, but pride is not something to be celebrated. In fact, God hates pride. It's plain and simple. He hates it because it destroys mankind. It's time to walk in humility. Our lives depend on it. Today on Light on the Hill, hear the ugly truth about pride as Pastor James Kaddis opens James chapter 4.

James Kaddis: This is a bit of an issue that kind of hits close to home with me in many ways. And I think it does because what we're about to talk about deals with issues that often times cannot be seen. The engagement that we deal with on a day-to-day basis is very spiritual in nature, and very little of the engagement that we face from day-to-day has anything to do with what we see in the physical. Although the things that we experience on a day-to-day basis feel like they're physical, right? And although the the day-to-day experiences that we have often times float in the realm of what is physically tangible, right?

All of it is driven by the areas and the realms that we cannot see. And this is critically important because there are characteristics that are associated with each and every single one of us that can often times be misconstrued for a sort of construct that exists behind it all that is founded in something that is not really biblical. And as a result of it, we begin to go down directions that are not healthy. And in that sort of vein, we go down a a a road or a path of destruction. And I can give you an example of this because I think this is important, and I have to be careful because at the expense of sounding a little vulnerable, I'm going to share with you a principle that very effectively demonstrates this.

And it centers around my speaking style, okay? It centers around my personality. It centers around around the way that I address people on a regular basis. If it's somebody who works with me in ministry or whether it be my teaching style, whether it be the way that I often times just address things, here's news, okay? And you might be shocked for me telling you this, but I am not a beat-around-the-bush person, right? This might shock you. Like this might be very shocking to you, right? I tend to be very direct, very straightforward. And although that's sarcasm, right?

You guys get that. I'm a very direct, straightforward person, and everybody knows that to the point where I often times get letters from people online that says my vocal intonations are off-putting, my volume is off-putting, which I never understood that. Like why can't you just lower the volume, right? I mean, but you know, there's a lot of people that say there are various characteristics about the way I carry myself that is very off-putting. I'm often times accused of being a proud, arrogant man. People come to me and they tell me, well, aren't you just a little presumptuous in making these confident assertions that are based in something that might not necessarily be biblical, you know?

I get those types of things all the time. And as a matter of fact, many of the accusations that have been made at me that have come from other people in the ministry have been primarily unfounded, but has been detrimentally based on this assertion that sort of claims somehow, some way that I'm just a proud, arrogant person because of the aggressive nature by which I communicate. And often times even the style of my communication can be perceived as something that is very aggressive, very when I talk about aggressive, even offensive in some cases. I I remember this one time many many years ago when I was working as not only as a police chaplain, but the chief information officer of my local municipal police department, I walked into one of the captains' offices.

And you have to understand in the area where I was in, I was centered around several secretaries, a few other support staff that very much respect the command structure, right? you have you know, chain of command, there's an authority structure that exists. And you you got to keep in mind in a police environment, an overwhelming part of that culture, especially in the older culture, right? the older years has always centered around the loudest, most aggressive person wins. And typically the way the loudest, most aggressive person is calculated is the person who uses the craziest combination of curse words, is the person who appears to be physically on edge, right?

is the person that kind of gets in your face and gets confrontational. And the more aggressive you can be with your speech, then the better off you tend to be. And I remembered having a a police chief that came in once. He was I think the third to the last police chief that I worked for and actually became a very dear friend, very close to me still to this day, who is very first day in office. He has his command staff around him, and he goes into the basement where I'm mining my own business in my office working.

And I this is just incredible. The chief tells the commanders, what is that office right there? And I can hear it. My door is kind of cracked open. And the commander said, oh, that's the IT guy. And he says, wait, hold on, hold on. I saw it in the paperwork somewhere. Isn't the IT guy also the chaplain? And he said, yes. And he walked in. He's got city council members around him. He's got all kinds of people around him that are guiding him through the tours. They want to be on his best side. And the guy walks in with the door open and he says, hey, chaplain, my name is so and so, so on and so forth.

He says, look, I just I just want to ask you a favor right away. Yes, sir. Whatever you need. I mean, I see the the stars on him. He's the chief, you know? I haven't introduced I haven't met him. He says, my wife and I in a week and a half are going to be out of the country for 2 weeks. Really, sir? Why? We're going on a mission trip. We're going to go with our church to minister to some people in South America. And man, I need your prayers. And I'm glad we have a chaplain here because I need you to promise you'll pray for me every day that I am in the other country.

I'm like, yeah, you got it, chief. And then as all of them are looking at him like, oh my gosh, what did he just say? What did he just say to the chaplain? He turns around to me on the way out. He's like, come on, guys, let's go. And he turns around and he was one of the hardest may maybe the hardest working chief I ever worked for, right? He turns around and he says, oh, by the way, I take it you're one of the late workers here. I said, yes, sir. I like typically work much later than I'm supposed to.

He says, all right, just a warning, gather some worship music together because I am coming down to your office and we're going to sit in your office for a while and sing some worship after briefing. Am I in the twilight zone? Like really is this guy for real? And people are looking at him like, wow, that's crazy. So we get to know each other. We become very good personal friends. And one day in the in the very first meeting that he has with all of the officers, he decides that he's going to get up in front of everybody.

And he even looked at a place doing it. Didn't even look like him, right? He just looked at a place. He just threw out a couple of curse words. And his whole hope in throwing out a couple of curse words were to get the acceptance of these guys who continued to curse on a regular basis, right? And he thought that he might be able to win some acceptance. And I said, I pulled him aside. I said in his office right after that moment, I said, chief, we're let's play a game of charades. Can we play a game of charades?

And I've had this conversation with many police officers before. He says, James, that's a little ridiculous. I said, no, let's just humor me, okay? I said, what's this? Somebody shaking a gel cell, you know, bars? You're you're right. Now let's identify the person that's shaking the bars, okay? A monkey? Yeah. That's a monkey in a zoo that's really hungry for something to eat. If you've ever been there, you've been there in the zoo, that monkey will start shaking the bars and then he takes his feces and throws it at you and he's and he's going crazy.

You, chief, are one of the most intelligent men that I know. And you go from intelligent to complete monkey in a cage when you decide you're going to throw out a couple of curse words. It makes you look terrible. And people look at you and they think you're not as intelligent as you really are. Learn to build a set of vocabulary that ends up being aggressive as aggressive can be, but when you use it, it comes from a place of humility and the world will view it in a completely different way because the words that come out of your mouth is a reflection of that which is spiritual that goes on in the spiritual realm.

So we go back to the story I was about to tell you. I mean, that same command staff chamber, when one of the captains comes to me and in his anger over something that he had actually heard from somebody else that wasn't founded in front of the video cameras, the secretaries and everything, he looks at me and he says, get your biggity blank and black black curse here curse there blah blah blah into the office. And I looked at him and as calmly as I could, I said, sir, in the 22 years that I have known you, from the very time that you were a patrolman, I have not once ever used derogatory language with you.

And the use of your derogatory language to me is not only unacceptable, but it continues to be a functional demonstration of your inability to be able to rule as a captain because you have no control over your words. Just come into my office right now. Not until you apologize. I'm helping you keep your dignity. I am helping you allow yourself to be respected in the eyes of everybody else. Apologize. So he apologized and I went into his office. And I got to tell you, I respect the man immensely because this man who eventually became a chief closed the door and he started crying like a baby and really did express his apology and he says, this is the way we've always talked our whole life.

We've never learned how to be able to use our words in a way that that constitutes, you know, a a a very tough or aggressive approach without using bad language. And I looked at him and I said, boss, you are way more intelligent than that. You are way more capable than that. Your use of your language is the most powerful tool you will ever have. And when it gets to the point where you crime in the ranks, it will be the only tool that you have to be able to continue to communicate the things that you need to communicate.

Well, what happens the next day? The next day the rumor mill is going and every single police officer in the house is talking about how Pastor James cursed every kind of curse word in the book to the captain. He said every terrible curse word in the back. He chewed out the captain in the way that no one's ever seen the captain get chewed out before. And all the guys are coming in and they go, bro, is it true? Did you really do that? Do we're going to pull the camera footage. And they were all very disappointed to find out that not a single curse word was said and not a single disrespectful word was used.

But what happened and I can tell you what why they felt that way. I'm going to tell you how it worked. The reason why that that happened is because what happened in that moment was spiritual. It was a series of very well constructed words that did not involve a lick of arrogance. And all of it came from a place of humility seeking to correct a very serious problem. And that aggressive language had nothing to do with cursing or anything like that. It was designed simply to put a person in the place where they deserved to be put in in order to get them realigned to understand the bigger picture, right?

In order to get them to realize what's going on. And so we go back to the picture that happens when somebody like me and many of you know exactly what I'm talking about, you guys are in the same boat, go out and use very aggressive language and it appears to be something that is like proud, you know? You go in and you're like, come on, I am telling you. And and people look and they think, wow, he's just an arrogant guy. He's he's crazy. But what most people don't know is this. And here's where the vulnerable part comes in, right?

What most people don't know is that if you're going to find power in the words that you share, the kind of power that is so effective, the kind of power in which the communication is so remarkable and not forgettable takes place, you have to have humility in your heart before the Lord with a clear and discernable understanding of the fact that you are incapable of communicating worth a dime had it not been for the spirit of God being inside of your life. And for every bold assertion that comes out of my mouth and with every aggressive stance that I take and every loud pumping volume that continues to get communicated, there's a broken man inside of that.

There's a guy who sits there and says, God, I don't have what it takes. God, I don't know what I'm going to say. God, I'm in so much physical pain and emotional that I don't even know where the beginning from the end is. That's a great sound effect. You know? It's it's funny how that works. And the reality of it is when we learn to function from a place of humility, when we learn to understand what it takes to be in that place of brokenness, only then will God elevate you to that place of understanding and knowing what he's called for you.

And then when you move forward in that way, understand this, some of the most humble men alive are perceived as being some of the most aggressive because the nature of their engagement is spiritually based. And when that spiritual basis begins to expand as a result of a wilfulness to allow the intervention of the Holy Spirit to come into their lives and to motivate them and move them in that direction, it literally changes everything. James is going to address that. He's going to build a foundation for it. Listen, the end of the verse that we are going to read or the end of the portion of the chapter that we are going to read is going to culminate to a statement that says, humble yourself in the sight of the Lord, right?

That he might actually lift you up, that he might bring you to that place. But the lead into that is remarkably important. The lead into this is critical because James is going to build a foundation. Remember this is the Proverbs of the New Testament, right? James is going to lay in a foundation for us to understand what true humility looks like. Keep this in mind, folks, okay? Do not conflate humility or pride with personality. Okay? Don't do that. Do not When you look into someone who's very calm and quiet and mellow, okay? Do not call that humility because you think humility is a picture of somebody who is calm and mellow.

President Obama was somebody who was calm and mellow. The current president of the United States was calm and mellow, is calm and mellow. I don't think that we can easily associate those characteristics with humility, right? Understand, it's critically important to know this. When we look at what real humility is, it comes from a descriptor that involves an encapsulation of all that is happening within the mind and the heart of the person that's being examined. So what's going on in your life? What's happening in your mind? What's happening in your heart? What are you giving yourself to?

What are you allowing yourself to be given to? What are you doing every day to improve the relationship that you have with the Lord? Are you allowing that to be the governor by which you continue to move forward and function? What is happening in the very moment in which you are in? Are you filtering that through the lens of God's word? Are you allowing God's word to be the primary influence for everything that you do in every moment of life? Or are you someone who says, I'll be like the most high God. I'll do whatever I want my way.

I don't care what anybody else says. It's a very heavy picture. So look what he's talking about here because obviously James has already noticed that there's conflict going on between people, right? There there's this back and forth battle that's taking place. And it's interesting because this is the question that he asks in the very beginning. He says, from whence come wars and fightings amongst you? Come they not hence even of your lusts that war in your members? He says, you want to know where all these fightings are happening in between you guys? You want to know where the conflict that exists between you guys is coming from?

It's coming from the root cause. And the root cause is that you have given yourself to the lust of your flesh. You want whatever is going to please your flesh. And here's the thing that people don't get. When you begin to feed the lusts of the flesh, you begin to demand of others a place of complete and total deprivation. You begin to have an exploiter relationship with the person that you are around. Why? Because when you give in to the lust of your flesh, you begin to look at other people not as a subject that God has put in your life in order to love and minister to and and bless as a fellow human being that God has put in your life, that God has given you to.

You begin to look at them as a subject of the fulfillment of your lust. You become a person who seeks out that other individual that your burn inside of you, the lust inside of you might be fulfilled. And the way you begin to look at the people around you begin to change. It goes from how can I serve you and how can I love you and how can I give of myself for you to how can I take from you? How can I approach you and literally rip off whatever I want from you that I myself might experience the gratification necessary in order to complete the lust that exists within my heart to find that sort of moment?

How many times people come to me and tell me, young men especially, I want to get married so bad. I want to get married so bad. You know what the translation is to that, right? You know what they really mean when they say, I want to get married so bad? It's not I have a place of loneliness and I understand my calling of God to be married and I want to really deny I'm I'm so excited to be the first person to completely deny myself for my wife. That's not what they tell me. They say they want to get married and the translation for that is, I want to fulfill the lust of my flesh.

I'm not going to be as graphic as I normally am when I'm talking to just men. But the reality of it is they look at it through the eyes and through the tenants of a person who says, I have a physical desire and I want to meet that physical desire, but I can't meet that physical desire according to what the Bible tells me until I get married. So the solution isn't to humble myself, give up the desire of my flesh to the Lord and allow the Lord to take control. No, the solution is feed the burning lust in my flesh by allowing myself to enter into a marriage relationship where I will abuse my spouse by making demands of them that they were never designed to keep.

It's kind of scary, isn't it? It's kind of sad. Don't get me wrong. The sexual relationship between a husband and wife is critical, right? It's very critical. Marriages don't survive without it. But the point behind it is when it becomes a tool that a person utilizes in order to obtain some kind of satisfaction or fulfillment of the lust that exists within your heart, it never works. James is saying this. He's saying the conflict that exists between the both of you, the conflict that exists among you is started by the lust that you have in your heart.

It's started by the lust of your flesh. I have a married couple that comes into me on a regular basis. Different married couples that come to me and they say, I need counsel. We're fighting and we just can stop and it's this conflict and that. Most of the time it starts off by them coming and talking about how bad each other is, you know? And they did this and he doesn't she doesn't submit and he doesn't he doesn't let me respect him and you know, you get all the things that are going back. And it always goes back to be going to each one of them.

I normally start with the man on this because the man models it to his wife. The wife is going to have the problem. I typically go to the man and I go, what sin are you struggling with right now? What does that mean? What sin are you struggling with? What does that have to do with anything? What are you watching? What are you listening to? What are you allowing yourself to be subject to? You have any crazy sinful habits that you don't want to talk about or deal with? And he begins to realize something if he has enough humility and he's actually intact enough spiritually.

He begins to realize that all of the conflict that he's beginning to experience is directly tied to the desire of his flesh and he keeps giving himself to. And until he denies that hunger, he's never going to find a solution, right? Interesting how that works, isn't it?

Guest (Male): Thanks for listening to the weekend edition of Light on the Hill with Pastor James Kaddis and part of our study in the book of James. Listen to this study and more at lightonthehillradio.com. Again, that's lightonthehillradio.com. Pastor James's teachings are also available through the Light on the Hill app and at oneplace.com. Listen to us wherever you get your podcasts too. We'd love to hear from you. It's encouraging to hear what God is doing in our listeners' lives and it's an opportunity to thank the Lord. There's a place to contact us at the website lightonthehillradio.com. If this is a ministry you would like to support, there's a place to make a secure donation at lightonthehillradio.com or you can give through the Light on the Hill app.

Throughout the week you can watch our live shows and short videos, many of which relate to Bible prophecy and help you to see current events through a biblical worldview. Look for those at jameskaddis.com. Now let's turn back to James chapter 4 and listen to the rest of today's message.

James Kaddis: Look what he goes on to say. He says, you lust and you have not. You kill and desire to have and cannot obtain. You fight and war yet you have not because you ask not. You ask and receive not because you ask amiss that you may consume it upon your lusts. These are some heavy things that he says. He says, you try to fulfill the lust of your flesh. You you do it, but it never happens. I have people that come up to me all the time. They say, well, James, I struggle with sexual issues and I just give in to them because it's easier for me to give in to them and ask for forgiveness than it actually is to resist it.

And I tell him this every single time, you're a fool. Because every time you give in to the desire of your flesh, you know what you do? You feed it to the point where that desire grows. And pretty soon the appetite becomes so insatiable. The desire that you have for that fulfillment becomes so strong that you begin to resort to things that are highly destructive, even more highly than what you've already been doing. And you end up getting into the place where you drive yourself into the ground in your own destruction. Funny thing about it is you can fill in the blank with any of those issues.

You lust for money, you'll never make enough to feed that lust. You want to get that raise, you'll never get enough of a raise to fulfill your requirement. You go and you buy the the next latest and greatest thing, guess what? The next latest and greatest thing is going to come out the moment you buy that. And you're never going to feel satisfied. It's never going to happen. You save up your whole life for a brand new car. You drive off the lot. You see one newer than the car you bought. And all of a sudden you regret buying it because you wanted to buy the newer one.

Funny thing about it is you lust and lust and lust and lust and you seek to fulfill the desires of your flesh. You seek to to bring it. And often times you ask for the things that will satisfy the lust of your flesh and you don't get it because the reality of it is you're not even asking the right person and you're not asking for the right thing. And when you do ask, you don't receive because you are asking for something that is going to hurt you, right? You think about that.

Guest (Male): More from the epistle of James is coming up next weekend on Light on the Hill with Pastor James Kaddis. This listener supported program is brought to you by Calvary Chapel Signal Hill.

Guest (Female): I have found that peace only comes from you. I have found that joy only comes from you. Cuz all I need is you.