Mike Bickle emphasizes the importance of taking personal responsibility in restoring wounded relationships, drawing from Matthew 5 and 18, which instruct believers to initiate reconciliation regardless of their role in the conflict. He highlights James 3, which delves deeper into the motives behind our actions, urging individuals to recognize how their responses contribute to their own bitterness. Bickle explains that while we may be victims of mistreatment, we also act as agents of our own wounding through jealousy and selfish ambition. He encourages believers to adopt a heavenly perspective, focusing on their own contributions to conflicts rather than solely on the injustices they face. Ultimately, he calls for a commitment to respond with gentleness and wisdom to foster healing and peace in relationships.

A short series I'm doing on restoring wounded relationships. Just a quick review of the first two parts, paragraph A, that when a relationship is wounded, the Bible teaches us to make a godly appeal. That we're not to draw back and leave the wounded relationship where it's at, but we're actually to move forward, not to get isolated, but go opposite. And to make appeals to the others that are involved in that wounded relationship. Now Jesus taught us the appeal goes in two different directions. He says that, or we make the appeal in two different directions. He said that when somebody has something, when you have something against somebody, when you have something against somebody, Matthew 18 says go to them. Then in Matthew 5, Jesus says if somebody has something against you, you go to them. On both occasions, he tells you to go to them. He goes if you're bothering them, go to them. If they're bothering you, go to them. Well Lord, what about them? And the answer is, is that the Lord actually gives the responsibility to take initiative to every believer, regardless which side of the conflict they're on. If they're the one bothered, or they're the one bothering somebody. And Jesus' idea is that if he mandates every believer to take initiative, if only one of them obeys, the healing process begins. And so as a sincere believer in the Lord, always take the responsibility to go forward and don't wait for them to come to you. Well that's Matthew 5 and Matthew 18. Those are the first two sessions in this series. Now today we're looking at James chapter 3. Now in Matthew 18 to Matthew 5, it mostly focused on what we did or what was done to us. It's more focused on what we do, wrong actions. James 3 goes a few layers deeper, and it's not talking about what we do, but it's talking about why we do it. He addresses the issue of our own motive and the emotions we have in our heart. Now I just want to really get your attention on James chapter 3 by the statement that in the years that I've been walking with the Lord, James 3 has been one of the most formative and significant passages in my spiritual life for over 30 years, 30, 40 years, something like that. And so I'm just, and I would only say that about 10 different chapters of the Bible. This is one of those most formative chapters, and the reason I'm saying that is that I'm wanting to give as much attention as to the importance of this chapter, this passage, in terms of what I believe will affect and change your spiritual life or strengthen your spiritual life. Now James 3, what he does is the Apostle James, he identifies the things that cause us to offend people and the things that cause us to be offended. He identifies the motives that cause us to offend and cause us to be offended. But the real burden of this passage is that he wants us to see our contribution to our own wounding. Now let me say that again, he wants us to see how we contribute to the very fact that we might be bitter. Now it's really obvious how the person who mistreated us contributes to our wounding. And James says that that's true. The other guy, the enemy without, they did mistreat you and you're hurt. That's understandable. But there's an enemy within as well. It's your response. And it's not just the story of who did it to you, but it's how you responded. There's an enemy without, there's an enemy within, and it's the whole picture that is very significant to understand if we're going to see relationships healed in our hearts set free. Let's look at paragraph E. We are all both victims and agents of our own wounding. Let me break that down a little bit. We're victims, meaning somebody, people really do mistreat you. They really do mistreat me. We're victims. But it's not just that we've been really mistreated. There's another dimension. We're also agents. What I mean by agents is that we responded wrong, so we're actually participating in our own bitterness. The cause of our bitterness is our response. Now an injustice against us will never cause bitterness. An injustice against us causes some pain and some turmoil and some anxiety, short term. But the injustice against us can't make us bitter until we respond to it in a wrong way. It's the response that makes the painful injustice escalate into a deep-seated bitterness. It's our wrong response that creates the bitterness. Now one of the points of James chapter 3 is that by nature, it's the most natural mindset, it's natural wisdom is the term that he's going to use, is that it's the most natural thing to focus on the injustice and not focus on our response. Because it's so easy to see the injustice and it's difficult to really measure and see and get a hold of our wrong responses. That's the passion of James chapter, I mean that's the theme of the last part of James 3. The reason this is so important because we can talk about going to our brother when they offend us, we can talk about going to our brother when we offend them. But if we don't go deeper to the issues of the heart that actually cause and fuel the offense, then we're never ever going to see relationships healed in the way and the measure God wants. Now here in Galatians chapter 5, Paul talks about, he warns us, he goes, if you bite and devour one another, he's talking about verbally here, if you bite and devour one another, slander, argue, counter argument, counter accusation, yeah but I didn't but you did, yeah but you didn't but I did, and just on and on and on, Paul calls that biting and devouring one another. He says, if you do it, I warn you, he's talking to believers, you will be consumed. It will consume your time, it will consume your energy, it will consume your money, it will consume your emotions, he goes, if that conflict escalates, it will consume you. Most of us probably, I certainly, I know what that means to be consumed by that for a period of time, a wrong, an injustice, and it just captures you and you respond wrong for a period of time. Roman numeral 2 in the notes here. Now the context of James 3, the context, you might not get this at a quick read, it's actually, you find it in James chapter 4 verse 1, the first few verses, the context of this passage is addressing conflict resolution. He makes it clear in chapter 4 verse 1, he goes, you have conflict, you have quarrels, you have debates, that's what he's talking about here. So we're going to back up to the verses before he makes that big statement, because it's all one big large, I mean, one section that goes together. So here in chapter 3 verse 13 to 16, very practical passage on how to avoid breaking relationships, how to do your part to heal them, but equally important, what to do so that your heart gets free when you're the victim of an injustice. When someone really did treat you wrong or say wrong things about you, this passage really addresses how our heart gets free. Now in this passage, first he points out two types of wisdom. There's heavenly wisdom and there's earthly wisdom, he contrasts those two. Now when he talks about heavenly wisdom, he's talking about the biblical perspective. There's a biblical perspective, a heavenly perspective of the conflict. He says, then there's a natural, an earthly perspective. The earthly perspective is the one that we're so aware of, that comes so natural to us, and mostly the earthly perspective is, they treated me wrong, I'm mad, and I'm going to pay back or at least get vindicated. And James goes, that's earthly perspective, that's earthly wisdom. Pay back, get vindicated, only see the conflict and the enemy without, he goes, you'll never get ahead in your spiritual life by the earthly perspective. He said, but there is a heavenly perspective, a heavenly wisdom, a biblical perspective, and that's to see the big picture of what's going on, and that's going to involve seeing the enemy within, our own motives, as well as the enemy without, the way we've been mistreated. Then he goes on and he describes, he goes, there's two different results. The heavenly wisdom leads, the heavenly wisdom, the biblical response, leads to righteousness with peace, and I have this on the notes here. He goes, but if you respond the natural way, the way we're all wired to respond, just by the way that our natural humanity, he goes, there will be disorder. He goes, and not just disorder in the relationship, there'll be disorder in your emotions, in your heart. You live with a disorder that's unnecessary if you respond in the way that's the most natural way to respond. Then now he addresses, I mean the real point, the crux of it, the two causes of the wrong response, and he outlines them very clearly as jealousy and selfish ambition. Now the problem with jealousy and selfish ambition, from James' point of view, is that he's not talking about the extreme expressions of jealousy and ambition. We all can see those and we go, oh, those are horrible. He's talking about the subtle operation that's unperceived in our heart. The unperceived, subtle operation of jealousy and ambition, he says, if you don't perceive it, and if you don't identify it, and if you don't resist it, that unspoken force that's motivating, that's driving your inward emotions and your thought processes, it will bring disorder to your life. No matter how you rationalize it, you can have Bible verses to back up and validate what you're doing, but if you don't identify those subtle operations of those two things, he says, you'll have disorder on your inside and you'll have disorder in your relationships that are affected in that particular conflict. Well let's read the passage and then I'll just make a few brief comments on it. He starts off by asking the question in verse 13, James 3 verse 13, who among you is wise in understanding? He's, and of course he's writing to Christians and so he's expecting them to go, I am. He's saying which ones of you have, are you wise in understanding? That means you have the biblical perspective, you agree with the biblical perspective. You believe it, you know it, you agree with it. And of course they would say, we do. And he says, well, wisdom is more than the knowledge of what the Bible says, it's the commitment to apply it. So you can have Bible knowledge or I can have Bible knowledge, but it's not called wisdom until we're committed to apply it. So wisdom is far more than knowledge. Wisdom requires application. He goes, who sees the biblical perspective and is committed to respond in a biblical way? And they go, we do. He goes, good. He goes, here's the test. Here's how you know. Here's how you can, because you don't want to live in delusion about this. You want to know if you're really doing it. And James really lays it out clear. He goes, okay, if you're committed to biblical wisdom, that means the perspective and to apply it by your responses. Let that man or woman show by his good behavior. Or another way you could say it, let them show that they're, that they're really into God's wisdom by their biblical responses. The place of good behavior, you could put biblical responses. And then he sums up. I love this summary. He gives the, the right response in a, in a very interesting phrase. He goes, uh, in the gentleness of wisdom, his deeds are motivated by the gentleness of wisdom. And then he goes on in verse 17, we'll look at it in a few minutes. And he elaborates on what the gentleness of wisdom really means. But he says, okay, who is wise? They go, we are. I guess. Okay. That means you see the biblical perspective. You're committed to respond. Here's how you'll know if you're really doing it or, or you're living self deluded in your spiritual life, that you will make responses outlined in verse 17 that he summarizes as called deeds done in the wisdom and the gentleness of wisdom. He goes in verse 14, but however, on the other side of the argument, he goes, the most natural response is to have jealousy and ambition in your heart. And particularly even in its subtle forms that we don't perceive and they're driving us, they, they become an emotional energy on the inside that we don't really label. Most of us don't really label it clearly, or we don't label it, uh, you know, in, in due time. And what James says, he goes, if you have that working in you and all of us do, that's the point. And it can escalate to bitter jealousy, but it starts off as subtle jealousy. He goes, don't be arrogant and lie against the truth. Don't lie to yourself about the truth of what's happening in your heart. Now when he says don't be arrogant, what he's really saying is, don't imagine that the reason you have feelings of bitterness is only because you're mistreated. Don't imagine that you're not contributing to your own bitterness. And the most natural thing for us to do is imagine they did it. That's why I'm mad. The enemy without is responsible. And James says, yes, but the enemy within is also responsible. It's the combination of the two. And if you think it's only them and that you're completely innocent about the reason you're bitter, he says, you're arrogant. You don't see the truth and you've just blame shifted the whole thing on part of the problem and you've missed a major part of the problem, the enemy within. He goes, you're lying against the truth. You've convinced yourself of the lie. You've sold the lie to yourself. But he goes, here's the problem. Verse 15, this wisdom, in other words, this way of interpreting the conflict. Because remember that the context is problem solving. You find it in James chapter four. He goes, this wisdom, this way of interpreting the conflict, it's not that which comes from above. It's not heavenly wisdom. It's not the biblical perspective. This is not God's wisdom. He said that way of interpreting the conflict where you don't have any contribution to why your heart is hurting. It's only they did it. You didn't do anything. You didn't respond in a wrong way. He says that mindset is earthly, it's natural, and the word natural there in some translations is the word sensual, and it's demonic. It's like demonic. He says, yeah, it really is. Because when jealousy and ambition are operating in your heart, he says it's the enemy's agenda, the agenda of the devil, the demonic agenda, you're making room for it in those relationships for the brokenness to continue. Because the kingdom agenda is always to heal and to bless and to serve and to be humble and to trust God, to answer, to give us the things we're longing for, trusting him to give it to us in his time. Then he goes on in verse 16, he said, well, let me really get your attention here. He goes, where there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there is disorder. The disorder is not only in the relationship that's in conflict, that's obvious disorder, there's disorder in the heart of the believer, the sincere believer, who doesn't own their part of the conflict. And I don't mean just their part of the conflict, but their part of their own bitterness or their part of their own offense. Because remember, a person doing an injustice against you, that's not enough for you to get bitter. You have to make a wrong response for bitterness to take root and to grow in our lives. So that's what he says. He says there's disorder and there's everything evil. So we have to be intentional about identifying this enemy within. We have to be intentional about resisting it. We have to be intentional about responding in the gentleness of wisdom. Again, verse 17 lays out seven different ways we respond in the gentleness of wisdom. But we have to be intentional about that. We have to be committed to it to avoid the disorder. Now it's not enough to avoid the disorder in the relationship, we want to avoid the disorder in our heart. We want a heart that has liberty. We want a vibrant heart. We want to feel the love of God and feel love for God and feel love for people, even our enemies. I mean God loves his enemies and it's our inheritance to be able to in the love of God love our enemies. Beloved, don't settle for anything less than that. Jesus said, I mean even the unbelievers love people who love them. If you like people that like you, he goes, you can be an unbeliever and not in the kingdom and like people who like you. There's not a problem with that. He goes, but it's your inheritance to love people who don't like you because you're like your heavenly father. Boy, I want to walk in that, not just because it's noble and a benefit to people, what a way to live on the inside. What a picture of liberty. Top of page two. Well, let's go back and look at a few of the phrases a little bit more. Paragraph B, he starts off with the question, who among you is wise in understanding? Again who has God's perspective, the biblical perspective, and committed to walk it out in the biblical responses as laid out in verse 17. Verse C, I mean paragraph C. Let him show by his good behavior, let him show by his biblical responses. Now it's not enough to claim faith in the truths of the Bible. I mean I have faith, confidence that the Bible truths are true. You have confidence. And so we could say as a company of people, we have faith in the Bible. And what James would say, that's good, but that's not enough. Because if under the pressure of not getting what you want, you don't respond in a biblical way, it's not enough to have a generic faith in the Bible, we need to have faith to respond in a biblical way, but particularly under the pressure of not getting what we want. I mean when we feel mistreated and overlooked, we don't get what we want, we have a pressure in our heart. We feel this pressure, they're not giving me the promotion, they're not giving me the honor, they're not giving me the inclusion into the group or the team or the inner circle that I want to be a part of. I don't feel included, I don't feel promoted, I don't feel honored, I don't feel recognized, I don't feel I've been given an opportunity. That creates pressure. I mean that's normal. And James is really saying here is that responding in the gentleness of wisdom means even under the pressure of not getting what you want. Then paragraph D, the gentleness of wisdom again, this speaks of deeds done in this gentleness or meekness that flow out of the biblical perspective. So we do deeds, we respond in a certain way as verse 17 says, because we believe the biblical perspective, the heavenly wisdom. Let's go to paragraph E. Let's look at this elusive thing called jealousy. Now it escalates to bitter jealousy if not dealt with, but it begins as a subtle form of jealousy. Now to understand what James is really addressing here, we need to see the subtlety of how jealousy and also how selfish ambition operates in our lives. First of all, it begins, I'll just give a very simplistic description of this, not an in-depth comprehensive one. The media. We're bombarded all of our lives with media images of what we, of things that are good and what we can expect. And when we see these images that bombard us, I mean all of our life, of what we can expect, those expectations begin, some of them, not all of them, they get entrenched in us. And they become something that becomes a very strong desire. It started off as an image, we just kind of looked at it, then that's what we're going to be. And some of the examples is, you know, the young people, they see, male or female, they see the model on TV and they go, I'm going to look like that, I'm going to be like that. Or they see the successful athlete, or the gifted musician, or the successful business person, or the political, or the scientist, or whatever, whatever. And they say, I'm going to be that, and they set this picture in their heart, and sometimes that can be good, because there's a fine line between being inspired to noble things and ending up with jealousy to be what you're not called to be in the will of God in that season of your life. And so jealousy is wanting to be, or have, what somebody else has, or what somebody else is. And so that expectation gets awakened in us, and it becomes a desire, but that's, it grows, it goes from a desire, a clear desire, to a demand. I demand that this is going to happen in my life. Then when somebody comes along who blocks that goal, and sometimes that goal's not clearly defined, but we know when the goal is blocked, when somebody blocks it. I don't get the promotion, I don't get the honor, I don't get the going forward, I don't get the money, I don't get the attention, I don't get the inclusion, I don't like it because I was picturing this would happen in my life, and those people, that guy is stopping it, or that guy is not helping me do it. That he could help me, all he's got to do is give me the money, open the door, make it work for me, and so we just subconsciously get bomb bugged. We look at that guy, because that expectation turned into a desire, turned into a demand. And then when that goal is blocked, or when somebody who could help doesn't help, we get this how could you treat me this way, and trouble begins. And a lot of folks, myself included, we don't connect that feeling with subtle jealousy. We've seen what someone else has, we've seen what someone else is, and we want to be that, and it grows to a demand that becomes part of our emotional makeup. And James says you better identify that, because over your life you're going to have collisions when people don't help you follow through and get that. And you might not even have that defined. I think of the preacher, it's just so common, they watch the megachurch guy on TV, and he's got this huge ministry, and the preacher's got a little congregation, and he watches it, and he just subtly shifts over to I'm going to have a ministry like that. He doesn't even know when it shifts, but it does, and it gets in him, and he doesn't even connect the dots. But over the time he starts, his leadership style is now affected by the pressure of wanting that that he saw that another person has, it's called jealousy, but he doesn't think of it as jealousy, and he's got this pressure, his leadership style creates this new pressures are involved in the way he leads, this new anxiety, this new discontentment, and James says it's jealousy operating in you, and the guy goes jealousy, I don't have a problem with jealousy, he goes you just don't know how it operates, that's the problem, connect the dots. Paragraph F, the same with selfish ambition, and again, I mean ambition's a powerful thing because there's godly ambition, all ambition's not bad, I've seen people, they neglect godly ambition and zeal because they don't want to be ambitious, I go no, no, you don't want to be selfish ambition is what you don't want, you do want godly ambition, you absolutely do, and again, there's a fine line between being inspired by, to a noble virtue, and to a noble thing, and there's a difference between that and being jealous to have what is not yours in the will of god in that season, it might be yours in some other season, fine line between those two things, well many offenses are rooted in selfish ambition, now the problem is only noticed when our ambition is blocked, you know I've served for five years in that business and I should now be one of the directors of that company, the director moved on or did something, I'm in line, and so all of a sudden they didn't pick you, that's when the ambition comes to us, but most of us don't think there's ambition, we think we've been now mistreated, and James says well, you know, you got a case, you have been mistreated, but that's not your biggest problem, your biggest problem is you got an enemy inside you don't know you have, and that enemy is roaring like a lion, and when your goals are blocked, you can identify that enemy if you love the truth, you can identify that enemy, well we have expectation for better position, for increased honor, more recognition, being invited, included, to be a part of something, I mean some people have this pain, they want a real special relationship with that guy or gal, I don't even mean romantic right now, they want to be in that little group, maybe be their best friend or one of their best friends that sort of thing, I see this all the time, and it doesn't happen because the other person doesn't have the same expectation, and the person goes how dare them not make me their best friend, I mean what mistreatment, I know, he's just not relational, or she's not relational, I'm being mistreated, they're not relational, and James says well that all might be true, but there's ambition in your heart, you're not identifying, you're just blame shifting the whole thing on someone else, and you're not taking responsibility for contributing to your own negative feelings, well I didn't do nothing wrong, he says well you were born with it, you came by it honestly, and it's been festering and growing in you all of your life, and unless it's identified and addressed, it doesn't take care of itself, now the selfish ambition in itself is not the big power, the big evil power, the big power is the demand that we make, it's when that ambition grows from desire to demand, like I demand this, and if I don't get it, I am mad, and I'm going to throw a fit about it, I'm going to make a point out of it, and I'm going to get some kind of payback, some kind of vindication, somebody better make this right and give me what's mine, that's when the ambition becomes dangerous, there's an evil force, there's a sinister force that begins to take root in our heart, and that's what James is talking about, now what James really means by the heavenly perspective here, because he's constantly contrasting the heavenly and the earthly, he's saying shift over and trust God to give you that promotion, to give you that relationship, to give you that honor, don't trust that guy or gal, trust God, shift over, put your alliance, your confidence I mean, in him to give it to you, because I have good news for you, nobody can stop the will of God in your life, and if God wants you in that position in the business world, in the political arena, in the ministry arena, in any arena of life, nobody can permanently, in any long term way, can stop that goal from happening in the will of God, so what the heavenly perspective is, shift over who you're trusting in, and don't look at the guy and say he didn't give me that role, look at heaven and say heaven if you want me to have the role, it will happen in your good time, nobody on earth can stop it, now paragraph number one, what happens, we see ourselves as being mistreated, and the truth is we are sometimes, I mean the mistreatment is legitimate, but we're never going to get a relationship healed and our heart freed by only focusing on the mistreatment, we got to address that a bit, but if that's all we address, and we don't address the enemy within, we're never going to get free, or the guy goes I've been used, I worked in that ministry, I worked in that company, you know I served on that team, and I'm used, and the Lord says well, you prayed for years that I would use you, I used you, and what they mean by used is, no I served, I served but with the intention of having a return to my personal life in a way I expected, and the Lord says oh, that's you served with an unspoken contract in your heart, expectation of getting a particular return, he says well there is a return in the kingdom, you've helped my kingdom, I remember it forever, I will reward you, I'm pleased by it, the return is there, no, I wanted the return that I identified myself to come back to my life, I've been used, and beloved that's not the biblical definition of being used, when you don't get the return that you demand, if you're used and you bring a return to the kingdom and God is pleased, beloved you're ahead of the ballgame, you win, I win, that's the heavenly perspective, well what James wants them to do is own their part in the offense, to see the big picture of what's going on, let's go down to paragraph 3, sometimes we want to get promoted, be included in a certain group or promoted to a different position of leadership, now when those things don't happen, how are we supposed to respond, I mean here we are stuck with that initial pain and turmoil which is understandable, the pain and turmoil that's initial is not bitterness yet, it's like oh I'm just combobulated, I don't like it, I don't like the feel of this, what do I do? James says go heavenly perspective, don't go earthly perspective, it will bring disorder if you go the other way, but I deserve it, I should be included, I should be promoted, I should get that money, I should get that honor, the Lord said don't go there, I'll give you what is yours in my time and nobody will stop me, but as we acknowledge that we have these selfish and jealous, the subtle beginning, I mean the subtle jealousy and ambition in our heart, it's more than just a beginning, it's a form of this operating in our heart, if we will acknowledge it and we understand that our ambition, that ambition is not rooted in the will of God for this season of our life, the Lord, you say you know that promotion I really did want it, I really did and I think I deserve it, but because I'm not in it, I'm willing to acknowledge its ambition that is not in the will of God right now because if it's in the will of God it will happen, then we release that demand into God's hand and beloved we can get peace in our heart, we can live in liberty and victory on the inside even in the midst of being mistreated, let's look at paragraph G, now this is one of the most important phrases in the entire passage, he says don't be arrogant and don't lie against the truth, now it's so compelling to lie to yourself about this, it's so compelling, it's so natural to not see ambition and jealousy, to only see the injustice, it is so natural to see the enemy on the outside and not the enemy on the inside, this is one of the most important principles in this passage, I think in the whole kingdom of God is this principle right here, if you lay hold of this principle and I know many of you already have, of not being arrogant as though you're not contributing to your own pain and not lying about the truth that you are also contributing to the pain that you have, if you will grasp that, if you will buy that, this will be one of the most important principles in healing relationships, it's one of the most important principles in a good marriage, I mean this is marriage 101 is for a man and a woman both to buy this truth in their marriage relationship, it's a absolute key principle in developing excellent character in your life, you're a person that's not going to lie against the truth, you're going to ask the spirit, by the way he's the spirit of truth, you ask him, he will tell you, don't ask him once, holy spirit do I have it? Okay he said no, and move on, no you ask him and you linger and ask him a few times over the next few months and you might get some disturbing answers, I get disturbing answers, I don't like the answers I get, you know I've been tempted to go for a second opinion but I go to someone else and they agree with the holy spirit but anyway, number one, it's the most natural response for us to lie against the truth by refusing to take responsibility for how we're contributing to the issue, the number two paragraph here, some people live in what I call bondage to having to be right, I know a few people, not many, I mean five years, ten years, twenty years, thirty years, they have never ever admitted they're wrong in their marriage, in their child raising, the raising of their children, in their work relationship, in their church relationships, I know a few guys like that, and I have one thing to say, that is bondage, that is not freedom, you live in perpetual turmoil, if your mindset is, you're most all the time right, I'm telling you, you will be living in a turmoil that's not necessary, you could be free from, the spirit of liberty is in walking in the truth, so let me ask you, when's the last time that you identified and verbalized, not just identified, identified is good, verbalizing it is better, when you, in your marriage, in a ministry context, in a relationship, a leadership thing, you know, in the business world, whatever, where you acknowledge, you know, I'm mad at you, and the guy goes, yeah I know you are, but I'm partly mad because of my ambition, when's the last time you actually acknowledged that, and you say, well, hmm, does anybody else know that you've ever done that, is it, do the people around you, has anyone ever heard you say that, anybody in your family, and if you haven't, then I, as a shepherd, with tenderness, I say this to you, if you don't do that regularly, and if you've never done it, I'll say very tenderly, alert, alert, alert, you're in spiritual danger zone, if that's how you carry your heart, you are in spiritual danger, your marriage will be bad, your friendships will be continually injured, your heart will be in turmoil perpetually, your spiritual life will be thwarted, if you don't acknowledge that you have ambition and jealousy contributing to your own anguish, and contributing to some of the disconnect with people, yes, you can acknowledge they're contributing, but if you don't see you are, you will never have a liberated heart, this is a critical principle in terms of healing wounded relationships, now paragraph H, James now defines this offense that is so easy for us to have that escalates to bitterness, so offense can be just the beginning that's not quite bitterness, and so offense that gets entrenched is what I mean by bitterness, he said that kind of mindset is earthly, it's natural, and it's demonic, now let's look at number one, it's earthly, meaning we didn't learn that response or that perspective from the Bible, we learned it from our culture, nowhere in the Bible are we taught demand your rights, demand honor, get revenge if they don't, tell everybody until they do, make a big trouble, you won't find that in the Bible, but you'll find it all over our culture, James says it's earthly, it's not heavenly, that's not the biblical perspective at all, number two, he says it's natural or the Greek word there, it's sensual, it's a pleasure oriented perspective, I want more comfort, I want more honor, not sensual only in the sense of sexual, but sensual, I want to feel more about my own grandeur and honor and security, he goes, it makes perfect sense to the natural mindset, but the Bible doesn't mandate us to demand those kinds of entitlements be given to us, top of page three, he goes on, it sounds like now he's exaggerating, but he's not, he says it's demonic, demonic, and what he means by demonic is we're giving the devil opportunity to touch our heart, and we're giving the devil opportunity to bring disorder to that relationship, that's what he's talking about, he's not saying that the people are demonized, he's saying you're giving the devil opportunity in your life, meaning all of us have done this so many times, we're not demonized because we do it, now if you give yourself to this in a lifestyle, I mean you really go for this, I mean like King Saul was demonized because of his jealousy, I mean people do get demonized by it, but in a more general sense he's saying you've given the devil an opportunity for his agenda to happen in your life, now the classic example of how James is using this term demonic, this wisdom is demonic, is found in Matthew chapter 16, you know the story when Jesus went to Peter and he said Peter, and the apostles, I'm going to go to Jerusalem and die, and then Peter, you can look at the passage, he says Lord I rebuke you, may it never be, and then the Lord says well Peter I rebuke you, he says you're speaking the voice of the devil to me right now, because your mind, you read the verse carefully, I have it in the notes there, Matthew 16, your mind is set on man's agenda, not on God's agenda, so the definition of it being demonic is when we're demanding man's agenda, and God says that's not my agenda, it's not my agenda for you to demand that role, or that honor, or that money, or that this, or that, that, that's not my agenda for you, my agenda is for you to walk in humility, that you to trust me, and you let me break in on my time, that's my agenda, well Lord I don't like your agenda, I want my agenda now, I want what my way of doing things now, and paragraph I, James says there will be disorder, there will be disorder and everything evil, now one of the things that is evil, there's disorder in your heart, disorder in the relationship, and no amount of counseling will fix you if you don't address this issue of causing disorder, our own ambition and jealousy, you go to counseling forever, but if you don't identify the jealousy, the ambition, the disorder won't go away no matter how much you pay the best counselor, it's not going to happen, now here's the everything evil, one part is, is that because of the pain, the bitterness, people step back from their part of their inheritance in God, they step back from a relationship that God says you have an inheritance in that relationship for all your days, well I don't want that relationship, because why, it's a beautiful relationship, well they didn't treat me right, and people lose their inheritance in that relationship, they step back from it, they lose their inheritance in that business, they lose that inheritance in that team, they lose that inheritance in that ministry, and it didn't need to happen because they never saw their own contribution to the problem, so they step back and lose their inheritance, James says don't let evil cascade in your life, and these consequences in a domino effect, don't do that, don't do that, own it, and walk in liberty, and get your full inheritance in every relationship, every business venture, every team you're part of, every ministry, every whatever, whatever, there's 10 things you can put in that category, let's look at Roman numeral 3, not just ever so fast, we only got about 2-3 minutes to go here, I just want to give a snapshot, James gives 7 virtues, or you could call it 7 responses, this is what the gentleness of wisdom looks like, these are things that give expression to the fact that you do have heaven's perspective, heavenly wisdom, God's perspective, he goes on to say, he goes verse 17, this wisdom is pure, it's peaceable, it's gentle, it's reasonable, it's full of mercy, it's unwavering, it has no hypocrisy in it, so in paragraph B, it's pure, that we are committed to the kingdom values in our life, and not the values of our culture, demanding we get what we want, or we throw a fit, in either a subtle fit, or an overt fit, but we throw a fit one way or the other, Paul, I mean James says, that's not purity, that's not what's pure, he goes check your responses, are you responding that way, that's not pure, he goes, it's peaceable, it loves peace, well I do want peace, but I want a little vindication, and a little payback, and James says, no, no, it's the response that's committed to peace, even if you lose the argument, and you lose some of the stuff, there's peace in that kingdom relationship, paragraph D, it's gentle, and now this word for gentle means accommodating, it's agreeable, it's a person that's easy, they're trying to be agreeable in it, they're not stubborn, they're not defensive in the conflict, they're not resistant, and that word gentle means that, it's not the same word as meekness and gentleness in other passages, paragraph E, they're reasonable, they are, and I like the translation many Bibles have, they have a willingness to yield, when somebody appeals to them, they set their heart to be willing to yield to the appeal, even if they're not doing things the absolute best way, you say, you know what, I want to do it as much your way as possible, I want to get on your team and be a part of that, of doing it your way, that's that reasonable, then it talks about they're full of mercy, full of mercy, now in the conflict, we say, yeah, but look Lord, look what they did in the conflict, they did it, and I want them to own it, they did it, and the Lord says, I want mercy in your heart, in your response, I want them to pay for what they did, and the Lord says, if it's kingdom perspective, I want mercy, I don't want payback, I want mercy, well Lord, their perception of the conflict is not 100% accurate, I've told the Lord that, that's not at all the conflict from my point of view, and the Lord says, just be merciful, well, okay, okay, I'll be merciful, it isn't what really happened, but I'll forgive you, that's not merciful, it's that overlooking the multitudes of faults that were done in that relationship, overlooking, love overlooks, paragraph G, it's unwavering, and the Greek word there in many Bible translations is without any partiality at all, there's no double standard for evaluating what's going on, no double standard at all, there's no hypocrisy in that, the top of page 4, just another 60 seconds here, and we'll bring this to a close and have the worship team lead us and respond to the Lord, verse 18, he says this, and the seed whose fruit is righteousness, the harvest is righteousness with peace is what he's saying, that seed, now here's the point, that it takes a while to see the harvest of righteousness going on if you respond this way, you won't necessarily see instantaneous fruits of righteousness, but you see righteousness in you, you see a new rightness in the relationship instead of disorder, and you even the adversary, you give them the chance to respond in a right way by your generosity, many people say, well, if you're going to be that way about it, then maybe I'll give it a little bit too, I mean, you actually emboldened them to respond in the same way, last thing I want to highlight here in this last moment is paragraph 1 and paragraph 2, you can read it on your own, but I'll just say it this way, if you have a friend and they come to you and say, listen to what so and so did to me, and you're their good friend, you go, they did that, are you kidding, yeah, they did that, and I didn't get the money, I didn't get the honor, I didn't get this, and they did that, and they said that against me, you're kidding, and our natural temptation is friends, put our arm around them saying, they're bad and you're good, and oh, I agree with you, bah humbug, they're bad, and here's what James says, if you really love them, you can agree they were mistreated, that's legitimate, but say, I love you so much, we agree there's an enemy on the outside, I want to help you see the enemy on the inside, they go, what do you mean an enemy on the inside, oh, there's no enemy there, yeah, I love you so much, I actually even want you to see that, and beloved, you will be a good friend if you do that, I love the story of Julie Meyer, she's told it several times, one of her sons was in a situation on one of the worship teams, they've been involved over the years, and they were getting a bad deal, it truly was a bad deal that was happening, and her son came home and said, mom, they're not letting me do this and that and the other, instead of saying, oh, my poor, innocent, amazing son who's always right, she goes, you know what, probably is, you probably deserve to do that, but let me tell you this, that's not the biblical response to demand anything, you go and you serve them, you do all the grunt work and you do it with a happy spirit and you bless them, and that's the kingdom response, and I tell you, her son did that and got a spirit of liberty on the inside, that's what a true spiritual mom and dad would say to a good friend or to a son and daughter, don't jump on their side and let them live in bondage, help them see the enemy without, yes, we agree with that, help them see the enemy within, amen and amen.