Light on the Hill

Jane: Next on Light on the Hill.

James Kaddis: At all costs, put yourself in every possible possible to walk in obedience to God in one area. And that is to love God more than you love anything else, thus developing within you a lifestyle that avoids sinful behavior. Right now, you might have a heart of envy. You might actually have some bitterness in your heart. You might be dealing with lustful passions and all kinds of things that are going on in the mind, and the battle is terrible. How do you put it into it? Regardless of the thought patterns that exist within your mind at any given moment, at all costs, do what you know is right.

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

Jane: It's time once again for Light on the Hill online at lightonthehillradio.com. Today, we'll be in chapter 3 of James with Pastor James Kaddis. Envy and bitterness can easily creep into our hearts, and when it does, there's danger ahead. What can be done about it? We're about to find out in this helpful study called if it ends this way, it's over.

James Kaddis: Look what he says, and this is where it gets even more interesting because he's saying, look, this is what I want you to do. And just in case you're confused about the instruction being given to you, let me tell you what I don't want you to do. He says, but if you have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not and lie not against the truth. So what will stop what he calls the meekness of wisdom from taking place? It starts with the condition of your heart. If you're walking around and right now you have bitter envying or there's a sort of strife that's going on in your heart and you allow yourself to be yielded to that mindset, you're never going to be successful in the consistent life of exercising the meekness of wisdom.

It will never happen because the envying will drive you to actions that are superficially destructive. They will cause you to move in a direction that will completely tear you apart piece by piece, little by little. This is the most, I think, remarkable challenge that parents face when they have siblings that they're working through, working with. I still often times try to analyze those moments and those times in my childhood where my parents did certain things. And when you look back now, you realize they were calculated actions. They weren't just I'm going to do this cuz this is what parents do.

And I think to myself, how, Lord, how do you want me to do this? Because by default, our children, our children, not not my children, no, our children collectively, not like your children or my children. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying your children, right? And my children, all children in general are born with a sinful nature. And within that sinful nature, there are envying that take place. There is strife that takes place. Case in point, my oldest daughter will get a toy and start playing with it, and she'll play with it till she's blue in the face, and she loves it and loves it.

She'll play with it for days and days and days and days and days, and finally she's outgrown it. That typically happens faster and faster nowadays, right? And she doesn't touch the toy for a month. Doesn't think about it, doesn't pick it up, doesn't touch it. All of a sudden, after not caring about it, not thinking about it, not even remembering why it where it was or what it was, she develops a voracious desire to want to play with that toy again. She wants that toy more than life itself. What just happened? Her little sister picked it up for the first time and started playing with it.

And the moment her little sister picked it up to start I got to have it, right? You know, you guys all know what I'm talking about. Can we all say amen to that? You understand that dynamic, right? So as a parent, if I'm raising my children in the ways of the Lord, I recognize that those strivings and those envying are the beginning of a harmful and destructive pattern in their lives. And I need to look for creative ways to break them of that pattern. I'm trying to engineer it. For some parents, that might mean that you severely punish a child by taking away the toys that they love the most when they seek to envy and strife over something that they didn't want in the first place.

And maybe that kind of gets them to rethink their actions. But that only works for a short amount of time because eventually they learn how to manipulate the system. They're crazier than inmates, okay? Seriously. They're good at what they do. God doesn't want us as parents to just simply create consequences and then make the consequences worse and then walk away. God is trying to teach us how to engineer ways to train our children up in the ways of the Lord. That's what the Bible says, train your children up in God's ways that they won't depart from it.

So how do you do that? You begin to develop within them an understanding and a desire to want to bless their sibling because eventually when you begin to get them into that pattern, they find fulfillment in seeing the happiness in their sibling. And pretty soon, the envying begins to go away and the strife begins to go away because they find a greater fulfillment in observing the joy in the heart of their sibling than they ever would possessing the toy that came from a heart of envy. Sounds pretty great, doesn't it? Sounds like a great solution.

Please call me when you can figure out how to do that cuz I need help, right? You think about that. It's not easy, is it? That 's why with every single one of our children, we have to go before the Lord and say, God, give me wisdom. Show me. What what do I do? How do I take that desire that is built into my kid's heart that wants to be able to envy so bad and transform it into something that's rewarding as a result of a lifestyle of self-denial. A big part of that by the way is going to is going to be them watching you do the same thing, right?

I mean, it's going to be that. But the other problem with that is how do you make that work? How do you engineer it in a way that that that that puts the right training wheels on their bicycle until they can learn to balance it on themselves? It's a difficult thing, isn't it? Discipline is a very two-folded picture. It's not just spanking or or creating a consequence. It goes beyond all of that. So here's the bigger question. How do you do that for yourself? How do you do it for yourself? How do you find yourself in a position where you find a heart and a mind of envy?

And that envy begins to bring strife within you. It begins to cause you to wonder and jealousies begin to come forth. And these crazy feelings of bitterness begin to come forth. Remember that's what he says. Glory not and lie not. Why? Because you're bittering. You you you're not telling yourself the truth. How do you keep that from happening? He gives us the answer in the context. This wisdom, what descendeth not from above but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. Okay, remember how we talked about wax on, wax off, right?

That you've got to do the work that seems like it's the ditch digging before you can begin to find the value in the bigger lesson. Remember how I said that sometimes we have to do the hard and busy work that makes no sense? Here's the wax on and wax off of this problem. Ready? Here it is. At all costs, put yourself in every possible to walk in obedience to God in one area. And that is to love God more than you love anything else, thus developing within you a lifestyle that avoids sinful behavior. Okay? Right now, you might have a heart of envy.

You might actually have some bitterness in your heart. You might be dealing with lustful passions and all kinds of things that are going on in the mind, and the battle is terrible. How do you put it into it? Regardless of the thought patterns that exist within your mind at any given moment, at all costs, do what you know is right. You have a moment to do something evil, walk away from it. Your mind is filled with a particularly lustful thought. Listen to some worship music, theologically sound worship music by the way, right? Do whatever it takes to put yourself in a position where you refuse to sin against God.

You want to know why? Every day you find yourself in a place where you have victory over sin is another day you gain a little bit more clarity. So start with the prayer in your heart, not being I want to be that guy, I want to be the wisdom. Those are good prayers, those are nice general pictures, but the prayer is simple. In the morning, Lord, keep me from sin. 2 hours later, Lord, keep me from sin. Another hour later, God, give me wisdom, steer me away from this. What does that look like in men and women?

Sometimes it's very different in a man and in a woman, right? How does it look like in a woman's heart? It looks like this in a woman's heart. I'm ugly. My life isn't going the way I wanted it to go. I expected this, but I didn't get this. I never thought that by this age I would end up over here. The sinful practice is to say yes, yield to it, capitulate to it, and then allow those emotions to begin to overwhelm you. And you know what begins to happen when that takes place? You lose clarity.

And when you begin to lose clarity, that's when you start walking off cliffs. You might not feel this way, ladies, but the next time you tell yourself I'm ugly, you need to tell yourself this. The Lord's word tells me that I'm beautiful. I'm not valuable. I haven't done anything. God's word tells me that I was so valuable and so precious that my heavenly father sacrificed his son for me. Well, I never amount to anything. That's impossible because I already have to be worth something because I was bought for by a great price, a price that is insurmountable to pay for.

Yeah, but I I just can't deal with this because of this, that, here, there. It's not true. I'll never be able to do this. The Bible says although you may never be able to do it, God can do it. Well, I can't get to this point. I've been trying my whole life. I'm going to trust in God because God says that if I'm his child, his plan and his timing for me is perfect, so I'm going to rest in it. Now your hormones might be raging, ladies. Your minds might be raging. Your emotions might be raging.

All of those things might be going crazy, but you have a unique opportunity to ignore all of that and to simply say I know the truth and I'll embrace it. Now this comes out in different ways with men because men tend to be very physiological and logically driven by the way that they come to their conclusions, right? A man will be the type of person that will look at very specific outcomes that exist around them. And based on those outcomes, make propositions about how to correct the problem for the future, knowing full well that it will require them to take a shortcut from what God has asked them to do and end up making a a terrible mistake, right?

I mean, can I give you an example of this? Men, this is where men tend to fall. Bills are getting out of hand. I don't know where the money's going to come from. Somehow, the employer calls you out of the blue and says, hey, we need someone to work overtime on Sunday. It's going to pay a lot of money. And you think I'm short. I I I don't know where the money's going to come from. Hey boss, yeah, I'll take you up on that. And what happens? Mom and the kids go to church. Dad says, I'm working for the good of my family, for the greater good, right?

No, you 're not. You're choosing to put a priority on the dollar more than you are on obedience to God. Now what begins to happen? The logic in your mind begins to control what you allow yourself to believe and what you allow yourself not to believe. And you begin to rationalize sinful action, and it brings you to a place of what? Ready? Ready? Here it is. Confusion. You're no longer sober because now you've started on a premise that was faulty and your way of thinking is broken. It's gone. How do we fix it all? Here's the solution right here.

Again, wax on, wax off. You ready? Verse 17, but the wisdom that is from above Notice what he says. There's a reason why he says it this way is first. The wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, then gentle. That's the that's the implication of the of the language here, right? He's not establishing in order. He's saying this is exactly what has to happen. This is what culminates from this. One thing starts here and then it culminates into this. Purity. It starts with purity. Why? Because when you don't walk in purity, you automatically allow yourself to be in the midst of the very thing that will keep you drunk out of your brain.

You lose your sobriety. Impurity in any form takes your sobriety away. You cannot see clearly with impurity. You just can't. You can't. I I had somebody tell me the other day, I'm going to move out of state, um, you know, and I just I I I just it's it's time. My statement to the person was who is she? What's her name? Oh, they get really offended when you say things like that, but you know. Why? Because it starts with a sexual relationship. It starts with some kind of a lustful thought or pattern. It starts with some acquisition of something that is immoral.

And then all of a sudden you're you're willing to change your whole life for something you know is going to end up in flames, right? It's going to all burn down. But your lack of purity has caused you to lose your sobriety. Now you 're making all kinds of broken decisions, right? You 're not sober. You 're not sober. Look what he goes on to say. He says it starts with what? It's first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated. By the way, why does it say pure first and then the next thing after pure is what?

Peaceable? Because you're never going to find any peace without a full and complete giving into the mind of purity. When you walk in impurity, there is no peace. That's what he's saying. So first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and what? And easy to be entreated full of mercy and good fruits without partiality and without hypocrisy. In other words, you're going to be real. You're going to be open to the voice of God. Easily entreated means that you can turn on a dime when God's voice speaks to you, right? Literally. You function without partiality. You know the only way to function without partiality is to seek the voice of God, right?

Because you'll be partial to everything in your life. I don't care what anybody says. That's just the way it goes. Somebody told me the other day that I was wrong for showing my daughter's favoritism. I said you're wrong for telling me that. I'm their father. Of course I'm going to favor them. They're my children. Are you out of your mind? They're going to get preferential treatment. My children are never going to understand what it feels like to be in competition with the church. I am going to favor them. When it's talking about when it says without partiality is without partiality with your respect to your submission to the voice of God, right?

There's a favoring that you want to give to people when God's voice speak, it takes precedent over all of that, right? Think about that for a second. Look what he says. Without hypocrisy, I don't have to get into what that means. But look what he says in verse 18. And the fruit of righteousness, notice this, is sown in peace of them that make peace. The fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace. Make peace with who? Make peace with God. Right? You're never going to have the fruit of peace until you yourself have chosen to make peace with almighty God.

By the way, this is more true of Christians than it is with any other people group because you will find that if you are a believer and you are in a place where you are walking sinfully, you are not at peace with God. God is creating a series of consequences that are designed to wake you up and to get you to see the turmoil that you're creating for yourself. But when that peace between you and the Lord becomes instilled, everything changes. Guys, look, this is not hard in theory because God is the one that does the work for you.

But you are never ever going to go anywhere unless you do the wax on, wax off. It 'll never happen. You will never move until you do the core of the work. That's what God says. By the way, little side note here. This is a principle that applies in life, okay? It applies in the school environment. It applies in teaching. It's it's one of the tools that I deployed on a regular basis when I was teaching in the Bible college at the collegiate level. I was constantly giving kids work that seemed as though it was busy work.

And the hardest people to teach were the ones that were the most educated because they always thought that it was beneath them. But when they did the work that they were given and they did it in a way that represented a faithfulness and a trueness to it, they became the greatest of students and eventually became great teachers. Why? Because if you are willing to do the foundational work, you yourself will find yourself in a place of great success. I'll give you one example of a class that I had many years ago and we'll close with this.

I had a man sitting in that class who was a PhD. He had multiple earned doctor degrees. Absolutely brilliant man, probably one of the most brilliant man that I had ever uh come across. I think he spoke something like nine languages and was uh very wealthy and very influential, and he was one of my Bible college students. He failed that class because he wasn't willing to listen to do the footwork that he needed to do, and as a result, he did not hang in his exams, and he never did well. Ames is a little embarrassed by it, but he learned a valuable lesson, right?

I had another guy that was so determined to come to school that while he was in college, he was still working on his GED. He was a gangster, spent half his life in prison. He was so determined to do the work and understand what was being said that he bought a tape recorder into class, set it on my pulpit, and recorded my lectures. And he you know, you have a gangster that you know, he's got tats on him that indicate all the people he's killed and all that stuff, and he's an infamous looking guy. You're not going to say no, you know.

He comes and he slams it. Hey, hey pastor, hey homie, is it okay if I record this? You know, what are you going to say? No, you know. I asked him the next week, why are you recording me? He goes, bro, look, this is kind of embarrassing, but I work on the I work at the railroad for 12 hours a day. He's I come home, I only have 4 or 5 hours to understand what you said in the lecture. What do you mean? He goes, man, there's a bunch of words that you say, I don't even know what they mean.

So I played the recording, then I write down the word that I don't understand. I go to the dictionary. I learn what the word means, and then I played again. How long does it take you to get through a 3-hour lecture? Every last minute that I have until the next week. He had one of the best grades I've ever given any student. He was actually brilliant. He was smart. Something to be said about that, right? There's a big difference between the person who walks with humility and says I'm going to learn and the person who says I'm not going to.

This principle applies everywhere. This principle applies in work. This principle applies in school. This principle applies in life. Do the work that doesn't seem like it needs to be done, and God will teach you the rest. It's really simple. That's what this is all about. It's the foundation.

Jane: 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 to. Pastor James, today you spoke a great deal about the wisdom from above, which of course is from God. But there is another kind of wisdom, worldly wisdom. How would you describe the difference between the two?

James Kaddis: Jane, that's a great question. Look, worldly wisdom is predicated upon the philosophies, the ideals, the heart and the mind of man, which the Bible actually says is based in complete and total depravity. We were born in complete and total depravity. And when you begin to curate this type of thinking and philosophy that's predicated upon that very fact, that brings a type of wisdom that actually isn't wisdom, it's garbage. And that's what the world chooses to use. When we talk about godly wisdom, we talk about the knowledge of God and the ability to understand that knowledge in a way that applies it in direct obedience to God.

And that's where godly wisdom comes into play, and that is so much more consequential and so much more significant.

Jane: That's helpful. Thanks, Pastor James. 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 is 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. 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 the peace only comes from you. I have found the joy only comes from you. Cuz all I need is you.