Mike Bickle emphasizes the importance of addressing wounded relationships, particularly in marriage and close friendships, using James chapter 3 as a foundational text. He highlights that conflicts often arise from unfulfilled expectations and self-seeking behaviors, urging individuals to take responsibility for their part in relational wounds. Bickle encourages believers to make direct appeals to one another rather than waiting for the other party to initiate reconciliation, emphasizing that healing begins with personal accountability and humility. He outlines eight characteristics of heavenly wisdom that can guide responses to conflict, ultimately leading to healing and restoration in relationships.

A series on how to restore wounded relationships, and my real focal point is wounded relationships in the most intimate sense, in marriage. Wounded relationship between parents and children, close friendships that get into conflict, those in close working relationships. But this is really a passage, James chapter 3, is really marriage 101. It really is a very important passage for healthy, godly relationships in the context of a family. I'm going to give a little review, and then we're going to move on into a new territory in James chapter 3. Paragraph A, the Lord's establishing the second commandment in the church, like He is the first commandment, as He's empowering His people to enjoy healthy relationships together. The spirit of a relationship can be wounded at various levels. It can be slightly injured, or it can be deeply broken. The reason I mention that is because some folks wait until a relationship is completely broken, and then they say, oh, I've got to start fixing it and repairing it. Well when it's slightly injured, that's the time to even be alerted. Paul tells us in Romans chapter 12 that as much as it depends upon you, live in peaceably with all people. In other words, we do our part, not every relationship will be restored, but the biblical mandate is for us to be focused on doing all that we need to do, all that we are called to do from the Word of God, and trust the Lord with the results then. Paragraph C, the first two parts of this four-part series I devoted to these two points in paragraph C, Jesus said one of the primary things we are to do in seeing relationships restored is that we're to go to our brother or to our sister or to make an appeal to them. And Jesus taught us to make an appeal, and He told us to make the appeal in two different directions. First, when we have something against somebody, meaning they have sinned against us, we go to them. We're supposed to not go to other people, but we're supposed to go to them and make an appeal in private. But Jesus took it up a notch and He said, if they think you've sinned against them, you still go to them. So whether they troubled you or you troubled them on both occasions, you go to them. Every believer has the responsibility to take the initiative to go and make a one-on-one conversation with the person that either you troubled or they troubled you. And the reason for this is that if only one of the two believers respond in obedience to this, the healing process begins. We're not to wait on the brother to come to us, we're to go to them on both occasions. And again, if both respond to the Word of God, then healing goes forth quite quickly. Roman numeral two. Again, in the first two parts of this series, we develop the principles of going and making a godly appeal. But there is no substitute for that. Some people wait on the Lord and say, Lord, heal the relationship. The Lord says, I'll do my part, but as you go to them. We can't skip the appeal process. Well, Romans, I mean, Roman numeral two, overcoming bitterness, James chapter three. Now notice James 3, 13 to 4, 12. That's quite a large passage of Scripture. But I want you to see the entire passage is speaking on healing relationships. We're going to pick a verse right in the middle of this larger passage. It's about 20 verses. We're going to pick a verse right in the middle of it. James chapter four, verse one. And we're going to read it here, because James is addressing relational conflicts. And as he's addressing these conflicts, he's covering several, he's making several points. He tells us how the relational conflicts occur. He says, I'm going to be real clear on how they happen. Then he tells us on how the relationships can be healed and how our hearts can be healed in the process as well. Then he points out in a very specific way how the people contribute to their own wounding and bitterness in the relationship. I mean, the typical way that we view conflict is that we've been mistreated, and we focus our attention on what the person did in mistreating us, and we focus on forgiving them, and that's a biblical posture. But James says, I want you to see how your negative emotions and your wrong responses actually contributed, not just to the injured relationship, but to the turmoil and the pain you're feeling about it in the meanwhile. Well, let's read right in the middle about this 20-verse passage from James 3.13 to 4.12, right here in chapter four, verse one. We see the context. He says, what is the source of quarrels, and what is the source of conflicts among you? Again, whether in a marriage. This is marriage 101. In the context of a team, working relationships in the marketplace, in the church, et cetera. He says, let me answer, is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? He goes, that's one of the primary sources. It's not the only source, but it's one of the sources that are pleasures. Some Bibles translate it, your desires. But another word that I think is very important I'm putting in there is your expectations. We have expectations. Our expectations and our desires are really one and the same thing. But expectations, we all know we have certain expectations, but I want to shift the whole discussion from the word desire and pleasure to the word our expectations. Because when we lock in to seeing what our expectations are, then we can see that even how some of those expectations contribute to some of the problems that we're having in our relationships. Because they're expectations that are outside the will of God. They're expectations that our culture affirms, but the Bible doesn't affirm them. And we get them easily mixed up and we say, well, everybody reasonably expects this. It must be biblical. And the Bible says, well, no, that's not something that the Bible insists on. And so we're going to tease that apart just a little bit. Because what James is saying, let's read it again, verse 1, he says, what is the source? What is one of the things that is fueling your quarrels and your conflicts and your friendships and your working relationships and your family and your marriage? He goes, isn't one of the sources your wrong expectations, your non-biblical expectations, your desires, your pleasures? Verse 2, he says, for instance, he gives one example, you're envious. And you can't have the thing that you're envious for. You see what other people have. You see the quality of relationship they have, or you see the status they have, or the honor they have, or the gifting they have, or the position in life they have. And you go, hey, I want to have that as well, though we look at others to imitate their dedication to the Lord, but we're not to look at others and determine that what they have is what we're going to have no matter what. He says, when you do that, what happens, you don't get it the way that you're imagining it, then you quarrel and fight, and you have conflict in your marriage, you have conflict in your family, et cetera, et cetera. So, paragraph A, I'm going to continue reading, James pointed out that a significant source of our relational conflicts, and even some of the anguish and the pain and bitterness we feel, he says, one of the sources is our own desires and expectations that are outside of the will of God, that we have not defined as being outside of the will of God. We just assume they're normal, and we assume they're something we should insist on, and he says, and those are creating some of your anguish in your heart. It's a very searching scripture, James chapter 3 is, and James chapter 4, paragraph B, the whole story of someone's bitterness, the whole story of their emotional pain, and bitterness and emotional pain don't always have to be the same, includes how we are mistreated, but also how we respond to the mistreatment. The whole story of somebody being bitter is not just they were mistreated, but it's how they responded to the mistreatment. The two together form the greater storyline. Well, let me restate it a different way, paragraph one, there is an enemy on the outside, there's the person that mistreats you, the injustice that's done towards you. Then number two, there's the enemy on the inside, and that's what James focuses on in this passage, it's our response to the mistreatment, and he identifies, we'll see in chapter 3 verse 14, we'll get there in a minute, that envy and self-seeking are one of the primary sources of the conflict, and even the turmoil we feel in the conflict. It's not only the injustice done against us, but it's our response to the injustice. Paragraph three, the Bible makes it clear, we are both victims and we are agents of our own offense and wounding. We're offended by a situation, we're wounded by a situation, we are victims in the sense we were really mistreated, it's real. They really should not have done the things that they did, but we're agents, in other words, we're helping the wound go forward by responding wrongly. We allow the injustice done against us to escalate into a festering wound of bitterness. One of the premises of the Scripture is this, that an injustice done against us doesn't produce bitterness in us. The injustice itself doesn't produce the bitterness, but rather it's the wrong response to the injustice that allows the bitterness to happen. Now we can have pain when somebody mistreats us, but bitterness doesn't set in until we respond wrong to it. Paragraph four, nobody can make us bitter by what they do. We only become bitter by responding wrongly to what they do. My point in this, of the four-part series, I talked on this a bit on the third part, but when we're tempted with bitterness, often our focus is on forgiving the person who mistreated us. People come forward and they receive prayer and they commit to forgive the person that mistreated us. That's completely biblical, but here in James chapter three, James is going a different direction. He's saying, in addition to forgiving the people that mistreated you, he's approaching it in a different way, not at all undermining the truth of the need of forgiving the people that mistreat us, but he tells us here, he says, focus on the enemy within, not just the enemy without. Don't just focus on forgiving the mistreatment, deal with the negative emotions that you have that contributed to the conflict initially, but even contributed to the anguish you had in the midst of the conflict. On the top of page two, in this passage, James three, again you can read the passage a bit on your own and just kind of get more familiar with it if you're not familiar with it. Paragraph C, just to kind of give you a summary of the passage we're looking at, James pointed out two main causes to relational conflict. The two causes are envy and self-seeking. Envy and self-seeking of the person that mistreated you and envy and self-seeking in the person that got mistreated. Envy and self-seeking in both parties in different applications, different measures, different expressions, but the envy and the self-seeking on the enemy, the outside of the person coming against you, but the enemy on the inside, our own envy and self-seeking that's responding in a wrong way. Then the next thing that James does in this passage, he contrasts two types of wisdom. He calls it wisdom, the heavenly wisdom and the earthly wisdom. And instead of the word wisdom, you could put two different perspectives of the conflict. He's saying if you look at the conflict from a heavenly perspective, you're going to respond differently than if you look at it from an earthly perspective. Now the problem today is that the wisdom that comes from our culture is very different than the wisdom that's in the kingdom of God. But the wisdom or the expectations or the way that we view conflict, the way our culture teaches us to do it, very different from how the kingdom does. But the two merge together in the church. They're not supposed to, but it's pretty easy for that to happen. And we end up responding out of the values and perspective of our culture. We respond to conflict and we think we're doing the Bible thing. And James is saying that's not the wisdom from heaven. That's not the kingdom response. That's not the kingdom perspective. You got that from the world. You got that from your culture. Those expectations were not at all the expectations the word of God set forth for your life. Those were ones that you picked up naturally out of the culture. So he contrasts the two different perspectives of the conflict. Two different perspectives of how we're to respond. Well let's read it real quickly. Verse 14, James 3. He goes, if you have bitter envy, if you have self-seeking in your hearts, he says don't boast and lie against the truth. He says don't imagine you're beyond it and you lie to yourself about the presence of envy and self-seeking in your heart. He goes, if you see none, you're boasting, you esteem yourself too highly. He says in another translation, he says you're arrogant. You're not walking in the truth about what's in your heart. But rather, lie against the truth and minimize that. He goes, own it fully and that will be the pathway to your own freedom in your heart and it will be the beginning of the restoration of that relationship. He says in verse 15, this perspective that refuses to acknowledge wrong emotions in our own heart, this perspective, this wisdom doesn't come from heaven. This isn't the biblical perspective. He goes, this is the earthly perspective. Verse 16. He goes, but there's no benefit in denying the truth or in rationalizing the truth or minimizing the truth about your own envy and your own self-seeking. He goes, verse 16, because wherever they exist, even a residue, wherever it exists, even a small measure in a mature believer, there will be confusion. There'll be confusion in the relationship and there will be confusion in our hearts. And the confusion means the opposite of God's order, which is peace and love and humility. He goes, you'll have the opposite of love and peace in your heart. And he goes, if you don't own these things, you'll end up staying in confusion in your own emotions. And that confusion, again, is the opposite of God's order. It means turmoil, anxiety, because of what's happening in the relationship above and beyond what it needed to be. Now, there's always a little pain, there's always some pain in a relationship when there's stress in it, but because we're not owning our part of it, then the confusion in us actually escalates and it goes to another measure. And all we can see is they mistreated us and that's the end of the story, and the Holy Spirit's saying, no, you can actually minimize some of that confusion in the relationship and even in your own emotions if you would own what I'm saying to you here. James, the apostle, would be teaching the early church these things. Paragraph D. Well, again, instead of the word desires causing our conflict, I'm going to use the word unfulfilled expectation. Those are the same things as desires. We all have unfulfilled expectations. Some of those expectations are godly expectations, and they will be fulfilled in God's time and God's way, and there's a challenge in waiting for that. But we have a whole other set of expectations that are not in the will of God. They're expectations, again, that we gain from our culture, but they're not in the word of God. We fight for them, but the Bible says, fight for humility in your own heart and fight to grow in a servant spirit. That's what you should be contending for. You're contending for things just to be easier and you to have more comfort and more honor, and the Holy Spirit's contending for you and I to grow in humility and in servant heart. I mean, there's two different agendas entirely. I mean, we're all the same in this. The Holy Spirit knows that humility in a servant heart, which the Bible calls the greatest things, both of them are called the greatest, they are expressions of love. Humility in a servant heart is another word for love. I mean, it's an expression of love. Beloved, when you and I die and we stand before the Lord, all that we're going to bring with us is love or humility and servanthood. So in my marriage, in my relationships, in friendships, working relationships, I want things to be easy and things to go well. The Lord wants me to grow in humility and servanthood. I'm going, yeah, I'll do that. Next week, next month, I'm going to get around to that. I really am Lord. And the Lord says, well, no, no, my agenda and your agenda are different. You want things easy, I want you growing in humility. Because when you stand before the Lord on the last day, the only thing you'll bring with you on that day is humility and servanthood or love, whatever you want to call it. We're not going to bring our testimony of an easy life. We're going to bring love. And so we would rather put off growing in humility. But the Holy Spirit says, no, you really don't. You only think you want to put that off because you'll have that forever if you grow in it. You will carry that with you to the age to come. So we look at relationships. We want more out of those relationships than we're getting. But the Lord wants us to grow in love and humility. We go, yeah, we know, Lord, but later. We'll walk into that later. We really will. We want more of these other things right now. And again, some of those things are godly expectations. Others are expectations from our culture, from the romance novels. And we don't always know which are which. And so James says, ask the Holy Spirit to search your heart. Be a man of the Spirit. Be a woman of the Spirit, a woman of the kingdom. And respond to the conflict the biblical way, and you will find liberty in your heart, and you'll find healthy relationships will begin to grow and be cultivated in a far greater measure. Well, Solomon, he talked about these desires that are not fulfilled. Verse 12 of Proverbs 13, he called, Solomon addresses this very issue. He called it hope deferred makes the heart sick. Hope deferred are desires that are unfulfilled. Or you can say expectations that are unfulfilled. When we have clear desires that are clear expectations and they're unfulfilled, our hearts become sick. Sick means we have pain in our heart. We have turmoil. We have anxiety. Some of those expectations are godly, and again, God will release them in His time and His way. But other of those expectations, they're not in the Word of God. Again, they're in our culture, but they're not in the Bible. And we fight for them, and we get captured into very negative emotions because we can't have those things the way that we want them. And again, the Holy Spirit would say, the wisdom from heaven, the biblical perspective is to grow in love and humility. And again, like, oh, Lord, we know that, we agree with that, we get that, but come on. Let's be realistic. We are Westerners. We're 21st century Westerners, and there's things we need, and there's things that we want. Well, the Holy Spirit, you know, He's champion wrestler. He's going to win at the end of the day. James says, don't boast against the truth about these things operating in your heart because you'll have confusion. You won't get free of the confusion on the inside. Beloved, I want to walk liberated on the inside, even if various peoples are against me, I can walk liberated in the inside. You can be in the closest relationships and even have injustices done against you, and though you care about the relationship, you can still have peace on the inside with a free heart. That's what James is talking about. Well, let's look at some of these expectations. There's bitter envy, and again, he went to the extreme, the bitter envy. But it's not all envy is bitter envy. That's only when it's escalated to a certain level. But that early stirrings of envy, and envy is an expectation to have what other people have. We look across the way and we look at this relationship, we look at this status, this position, that gifting. We look at the way their life is working and we go, I want that. And again, we look at people and we are to be inspired by their dedication to the Lord, but we're not to be envious or to be determined we're going to have the same life situation they have. Well, we determine we're going to have it. You know, I'm going to have that same status, I'm going to have that same platform, I'm going to have that same life situation, and that expectation gets locked in our heart. We call it an expectation, the Bible calls it envy. Well, you know, it doesn't seem that bad. And then he goes on in paragraph two and James adds another phrase, he says, self-seeking. That's the expectation to gain a better position, more honor, more recognition, et cetera, et cetera. But it's expectations that are outside the will of God. I mean, there are biblical reasons that we want more of the blessing of God, we want more of the activity of the Spirit, we want more of what God has freely provided for us on the cross, but we easily confuse some of those things with wanting more of other things that are outside the will of God, and we don't always know which are which, and that's called self-seeking. And again, it's the man or the woman that says, I want more out of the relationship than I'm getting out of it, and the Bible says, I want more humility and servanthood in your life during your pilgrimage on the earth. Well, Lord, that's good, but let's be practical. And the Lord says, no, I'll take you on that way of liberty if you'll go with me on it. Look at paragraph E. He says in verse 16 that there will be confusion wherever there's envy and self-interest in our heart. Even though the other person mistreated us, to the measure we have envy, again, these expectations that we gain from looking at others, or we have self-interest, He says confusion will be lodged in your own emotions, and a certain turmoil, certain anguish that actually could be minimized if you would own the truth about what's happening in your own heart. Paragraph F. He says, don't lie against the truth. This is one of the most important principles in healing relational conflict, is that each believer in the, each party in the, let's say there are two believers in a marriage, that's what I like to focus on, but it's bigger than marriage, if both of them are committed to Jesus, this is one of the most important principles in a healthy relationship, is that we don't lie against the truth of what's happening in our heart. Again, the envy, we've seen what others have. We want that kind of set up, or we don't have self-interest, where we're making demands that are actually outside the will of God, but they're within the confines of our cultural expectations. I mean, everybody else, the media says that we deserve these things, but the Bible doesn't. Paragraph G. Now many people focus on forgiving, I've mentioned this already, but they don't acknowledge the contribution they make to their own pain. They focus on forgiving the person that caused them pain, but they don't focus on acknowledging what they did to cause the pain to continue and to escalate. It's not enough to forgive people. We looked at that session one, two, and three, forgiving people that mistreat us. Well, James says you don't have the whole story if you allow the bitterness, I mean the mistreatment, to escalate to bitterness because you've kind of, you know, cuddled and your own negative emotions, and you've pampered them, and you've fed them, and they're growing stronger in you. James says you just stay in confusion, even as a believer who loves Jesus, you'll stay in the marriage, but you'll have a broken heart most of the time in it, and confusion on the inside, lots of turmoil. You really could go a different way in this. Thinking, oh man, this is intense. Well, this is my third time I've had to hear this this weekend. Okay, paragraph H. Some people, I mean, we all, I certainly do, we naturally rationalize and minimize our own self-interest. We figure out ways where it's not self-interest, it's normal what we want. It's what they're doing that's bad, what I want's normal. We see what they're doing clearly, but it's real easy to rationalize or minimize, explain away what we want. Some people, I've been pastoring about 40 years, and I've heard so much of this, said a little bit of it myself, but somebody will say, well, you know, I'm just real sensitive, and when they do that, I'm just a real sensitive person, or another guy says, well, I'm just real broken, and I can't help it. Another person says, well, I just struggle with insecurity and rejection, so I need to be treated a different way, and you need to kind of pamper my emotional brokenness with me and don't touch that emotional brokenness. I'm broken, I've admitted it, so I'm humble, and though they have an appearance of humility, they still come up short of getting set free, because they don't ever acknowledge what they're bringing to the conflict, or even to their own emotional confusion. They won't acknowledge that, they'll acknowledge they're broken, but James says, you're more than broken, you have self-interest, and that's fueling the pain in you, but you're only blaming the other person. Again, this is Marriage 101, but this is Friendship 101 too, and just Kingdom Relationship. Paragraph I, now the foundational response to being mistreated in the whole of the Bible, whether Old Testament or New Testament, the foundational response is, we entrust the Lord, we entrust the situation to the Lord, that the results of the conflict, the Lord will ultimately break in in His time and His way, and He will intervene and He will help out. That's the foundational principle, that we trust the Lord, He will intervene in His way. It says that when Jesus was reviled in 1 Peter 2, this is I think the primary passage in the whole Bible, although there's many passages like this, He entrusted Him, He committed Himself to the Father, that the Father would judge righteously. Now in the place of the word judge, you could put the word that the Father would intervene righteously, and righteously, God would intervene in the right timing to do the right thing, in the timing of God. It may be some years from now, maybe some weeks or months, who knows, but God will intervene. Jesus said, My Father will intervene, He will judge, He will break in at the right time and the right way, I'm trusting Him with that. The paragraph G, that though we trust Him with that, we still need to make our appeals. See some people look at that verse and they go, I trust the Lord to break in, but the Lord says now, I still want you to go make the appeal to the person that's troubling you, or the person that you've troubled. You still got to have that conversation. It's not either or, but it's both and, they go together. Top of page three. Well now we're getting to the really key verse, James 3, 17, and my prayer is that God would just write James 3, 17 on our hearts as a spiritual family, on every individual. James 3, 17, I mean it is really intense. James outlines eight responses to the conflict. He goes, if you have these eight responses, then you're expressing the heavenly wisdom, the biblical perspective. If you have these eight responses, the relationship is going to be on the pathway of healing. The other people don't respond, there's no guarantee the relationship will be healed completely, but these eight responses are the way the relationship are healed from your point of view, that's what you're to do, but your heart will get healed. If you do, if you respond in these eight ways, your heart will get healed in the process, even if the relationship does not fully get healed, because often the relationship's broken and we have turmoil on top of the broken relationship. We're paying twice because of some of our responses. Now again, James 3, 17, I call it marriage 101. It's the kingdom response. It's like an eight faceted diamond. It's the kingdom response in conflict. And these eight facets, they're pretty straightforward, so we're not going to spend a lot of time on them. They're really, they're not confusing to understand, they're just challenging to walk out. But beloved, your heart will get free in responding in these eight ways. And many relationships will get healed by responding in these eight ways. Because even if you respond to an injustice, there's another believer, many times they will be inspired by your tenderness and humility towards them, and they will actually begin to respond in tenderness and humility as well. But even if they don't, your heart can be set free. And again, I'm not just talking about a far away relationship. This is how marriage operates together. This is how family members interact, the most intimate relationships in this way. Now if one of the two parties are committed to this, a lot of good will happen. If both are committed to this, like in a Christian marriage, I mean the relationship, you can enter into the full inheritance of your relationship. Well maybe you're both Christians, but only one of you is going to respond in a biblical way to the conflict. Well I tell you, a lot of good will happen if one of you responds. Because other things, good things happen out of that. Well he says here in verse 17, again very searching passage. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, second it's peaceable, third it's gentle. The wisdom meaning the biblical perspective of the conflict and the response to it is what it's talking about. Then it's willing to yield, number five it's full of mercy, number six it's full of good fruits, number seven it's without partiality, and number eight it's without hypocrisy. In verse 18, James went on to say, now the fruit of righteousness, the harvest of righteousness is going to come forth by the people that sow the seed. This eightfold response is likened to a seed. He says you sow that seed, you sow that seed, you're going to find that there's going to be a harvest of righteousness that's going to come forth in due time. But I put chapter four verse one just so you could see that the very next verse is about the relational conflict. In other words, the whole passage is really in context to healing relationships and having the full kingdom benefit or the full kingdom possibility for relationships. First thing he says, and I'm just going to mention these real quickly, again they're not confusing, they're just challenging. And these eight things, it's being committed to them, we're still going to come up short, I've been committed to these eight things for some years now, I come up short all the time in the eight, but because I'm committed to them, they're part of my dialogue with the Lord. So when there's an injustice, somebody intentionally does something that's a lie or it's an intentional distortion to undermine me, and I've had a bit of that happen over the years, or in just normal relationships, people don't get the thing that they're expecting out of the relationship and so then they're mad at me. Or family relationships, whatever, all of these. I've set this verse James 3, 17 before me and I said, Lord, this is what I'm committed to. Again, I don't always walk in it, but because I'm committed to it and that's what I'm calling you to be committed to it, and many of you already are, it's part of my dialogue with the Lord. So when the guy intentionally seeks to undermine me, when I retreat before the Lord, one of the main things we talk about is me responding in these eight ways. I'm going, Lord, but he's lying on purpose. The Lord says, I know. But still, if you do these eight things, there's a chance for healing of that relationship and blessing. Well, I don't want him blessed. Well, we're going to need to change that. We need to get you in the right direction here. But your heart will be set free, the Lord would say to me, if you respond to these eight things even if he never, ever responds. And so if you're committed to these eight, you're in the pathway of healing and this stays a part of your conversation with the Lord when there's a conflict in your marriage. This is part of the conversation when you and the Lord talk. It's not just, Lord, change that woman. I mean, come on, Lord, change her. Your conversation is, Lord, I'm really not doing these. I don't really want to right now, but I am committed, but can I do them tomorrow? No, I'm going to do it. Lord, I would rather just be selfish for another couple hours. But the dialogue is honest and clear before the Lord. Not that I've ever had that dialogue. Thank you, that was a joke. Paragraph B, the first thing, and again, I'll just mention them just very, very briefly and you can read them and again, they're pretty straightforward. He says, be pure. The first thing is pure. Now, pure means having a clear perspective and a clear motive. Pure is the opposite of distortion. Don't be distorted. The pure motive is, I'm going to serve them and I'm going to respond in humility to them. And I'm going to do the will of God in the relationship. That's the pure motive. And the pure perception is, I don't feel like doing that and I'm admitting that my heart isn't in it, but I'm committed to it anyway, and that's what James says. First it needs to be pure. Lock in to the right motive and lock in to be honest with yourself. Don't have a distorted view. Don't lie against the truth. First of all, the first priority he said here is that you're pure in motives and you're pure about being honest about how you're responding. That's number one. Number two, be peaceable. Now being peaceable when the relationship, there's a conflict, again, I want to focus on the marriage right now, although not limited to that at all. The most natural response when you're not being treated the way you want to be treated or your spouse or your good friend or the teammate is not responding in the right way is they're accusing you to answer with an accusation or to answer with sarcasm or to answer with complaints. And James says, don't answer that way. You can say what's wrong, but do it in a peaceable way with no sarcasm, with sincerity, when your spirit is at peace. You must respond in a peaceable way. That's the second facet of this diamond called a kingdom response to conflict. Paragraph D, the next one is gentle. Have a gentle spirit. The tone of communication in a conflict is one of the most important issues in restoring a relationship, that the tone is gentle and it's not harsh, it's not accusatory, it's calmed down and it's not this amped up kind of environment. I've mentioned this a number of times over the years that my wife and I decided that when we have a conflict, we're not going to talk about it until both of us are at peace. And that was a decision we made at the very, very beginning, 37 years ago. If one of us are a little bit agitated, we're going to wait until we're both at peace because we have no chance to heal the relationship or heal the conflict unless we're both in peace. And so we've got to wait some time. And I made a commitment to her, I said, I'll wait until we're both at peace and I promise you I'll bring it up, I won't take it as an escape hatch to avoid the conversation. And so it has to be peaceable, it has to be gentle. Appeal. Paragraph E. Being willing to yield. We are willing to yield to the appeals of others. So they're making an appeal to you. They want your attitude different. They want you to do things their way. Well the problem is, their way isn't the best way. And the Lord might say, so? There's a number of best ways, a number of good ways to do something. There's a number of good ways and each one of them have a downside to it. So it isn't the best way, that's where humility comes in. Because it isn't the smartest person who wins, it's the one who loves most who wins in God's court. And so the Lord says, so it's not the best way. And so you don't fully agree with their perception, you need to change your attitude or your way or something. Just do it anyway. It's not a big deal, that's what humility is about. Now if doing it the wrong way or the lesser way in your perception hurts a lot of people, that's different. But if it just kind of disrupts your sensibilities, I just want it better because my way is good and I feel good because my way is good and that's just how it is. He's saying, no, no, yield. Let it be less than perfect. And just that's where humility comes in, in the relationship. Don't be stubborn, don't be resistant in the tone of the relationship, but seek to be accommodating. We're not talking about compromising biblical truths, we're talking about seeking to get on their team and to do it their way if at all possible, even if it's a little less optimum in your opinion. That's another kingdom response. Paragraph F, to be full of mercy. Lord, but they were intentional in what they did to us. They were intentional to what they did to me, to my family, etc. And the Lord says, I want you to cover them. I want you to seek even their good, don't have a spirit of revenge, don't try to punish them for it, let me take care of that. It's your job to have mercy in your response to them with their failures and their deficiencies. Paragraph 2, Peter said that love covers a multitude of sins. Now notice it's sins that are covered by love, not just annoying personality traits. It's not just you cover them when they annoy you with their personality. No I mean if they actually sinned against you, they actually mistreated you on purpose. It says love covers it, meaning love doesn't keep the mistreatment as part of the conversation in the relationship year after year after year. Love covers, love lets it go. Because that's how the Lord treats us. Paragraph 3, James went on to say that mercy triumphs over judgment. Mercy offered and mercy responded to will triumph over judgment every time. Well how and what way does mercy triumph in a relationship over judgment? Well when you show mercy, you offer it, your heart gets liberated, number one. Number two, when you show mercy, the healing process of the relationship begins. Number three, you show mercy, you will actually inspire them to respond in a different way as well. So they even triumph in mercy that's being offered to them. Now I want to make a point here at the end of paragraph 3, treating somebody with mercy and kindness is not the same thing as trusting them. Meaning you can, somebody can violate your trust and you can be kind, non-sarcastic, non-accusatory, kind seek their goodwill, have a meaningful interaction with them, but not trust all that they're saying or doing until trust is reestablished. So some people mix up being kind and being merciful as trusting is the same thing. Now trust is a separate issue. But you can be kind and helpful to people you don't trust. I mean, think about it, how the Lord is to us. I mean, He doesn't trust all that His people are doing or what they're going to do, but He's extremely kind to them. And He calls us to be the same. Paragraph 4, I'll just take about 90 more seconds here, because again it's pretty self-explanatory the, these characteristics. Paragraph G, the response that heaven wants, the kingdom response is full of good fruits. It's not just good intentions, but it has follow-through with actions. It's follow-through, and our follow-through isn't perfect, but when it's, when our follow-through comes up short, we reconnect to follow-through. It has good fruits, has good actions that follow the positive sentiments that we're offering people. Paragraph H is without partiality. You can just read a little bit of that. We don't have a different standard of evaluating ourselves and the people who bless us with good things. We don't evaluate ourselves and them one way, but evaluate the people that bother us in a much harsher way. James says, no, have the same evaluation. I mean, imagine the guy gave you a million dollars, or imagine you're thinking about yourself. You're getting your evaluation. It's going to be far kinder. He goes, don't have any partiality. Treat the person that's bothered you with the same mercy, with the same, with no partiality whatsoever. Then, finally, the eighth one, we'll end with this. It's without hypocrisy. Worship team, go ahead and come on up. Meaning, we don't show ourselves as kind and forgiving in front of them, and to put on a show of them behind their back, talk bad about them, or seek to hinder them and block them, or cause things to go negative. James says, no hypocrisy in it. When you're looking at them, and you're declaring your goodwill, you need to, behind their back, hold the testimony of your mouth that you're not going to speak evil against them, and you're not going to use your influence to block them in any way because they troubled you in the past. You're going to have no hypocrisy in what you're showing to them. Well, amen and amen.