The Test of Slander

Would you pray with me and for me as we look to God’s word this morning? Father, we come to you now and just ask for your grace. Help us to humble ourselves through the power of your Spirit, for we know that you promise to give grace to those who are humble. Help us to understand this text. Help us to live this text. Help us to see blind spots that we have in our lives. Help us to listen to the truths of your word this morning, not as a means of putting the magnifying glass upon others and thinking of how they need to apply it, but in how we need to apply it. Help us to love you. Help us to live for you. We pray these things in Christ’s name. Amen.

It was August 26th, 1955, when Carolyn Bryant told her husband that a 14-year-old black boy named Emmett Till had sexually harassed and physically grabbed her. Her husband was furious when he found out. In fact, he was irate. However, there was only one problem. She lied. It didn’t happen. Emmett never did what Carolyn said that he did, but nevertheless, her husband believed that she was telling the truth, and he was furious.

Carolyn was a daughter of a plantation manager who relied on her good looks, as she was a multi-beauty contest winner. And so for her, it was natural to try to find her identity, her satisfaction, her fulfillment in getting attention from others with her good looks. And this young boy was her means of doing so. Even though it was not true. So then on the morning of August 28th, Carolyn’s husband Roy and his half-brother stormed the home of Emmett with a gun, grabbing the young boy.

Emmett’s mother pleaded with the men not to take her boy, and she even offered them some money, which he began to consider, but his half-brother was a mean person. He was as mean as they come, and he would have nothing to do with it. And he held the gun. And so they took Emmett, marched him to their truck where Carolyn was waiting, and they asked if this was the boy, in which she nodded yes. And so they drove off. They took Emmett to a shed. They beat him. They shot him and threw him in the river. And it was only much, many years later that it was revealed that Carolyn had made the whole thing up. She had told her husband later that it was a lie, and he revealed that to others, but it was too late. And this all happened because of a lie, because of the sin of slander. And it led to the death of a young boy, a 14-year-old boy.

In the book of Proverbs 18, verse 21, it says:

Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits.

Proverbs 18:21

Or as James told us in chapter 3, the tongue is a consuming fire, and it is a fire that is set on fire by hell itself. It’s absolutely true. James, do you realize throughout the book of James, he talks more about the tongue than anything else? We’re going to get back to it in the next chapter, because James just keeps coming back to this: an uncontrolled tongue is a deadly, poisonous weapon, as he told us in chapter 3.

While misuse of our tongue may not end in the direct death of another person, make no mistake about it. James is crystal clear over and over and over again how our tongues can be a great instrument for evil. How we use our tongue is so incredibly important, church. In fact, James tells us the way we use our tongue is an indicator of whether or not our faith is genuine at all. For if we use our tongue like a fire and it sets on fire everything around us, James says, you know what? You have every good reason to believe you do not have real faith and that you are, in fact, on your way to the hell that puts that tongue on fire.

As you’re well aware by now, the book of James is primarily a book about tests. It’s about tests to help us examine ourselves and see whether or not our faith is real. Just like you go into the doctor and you open your mouth and say, ah, that’s what James is doing spiritually for us. And as James told us in chapter 2, verse 18:

But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.

James 2:18

And so James is calling us to examine our lives. He’s calling us to examine the behavior of our lives. Not as a means of acquiring faith. You don’t do these things and then you receive faith as a reward. No, he says these are an indicator of testing whether or not we truly have saving faith. For saving faith comes apart from works, but saving faith always produces works. They go together. It’s cause and effect.

And so this morning in James chapter 4, if you have your Bibles, turn there and we’re going to look at verses 11 and 12. Just two verses, but you’re going to see these are loaded. And in these verses now, we turn to James’s test of slander.

What is slander? Well, at first, when I was preparing this message and studying, I thought I knew what slander was, and I was right, because at its most basic level, it’s just making up lies about another person and spreading them. It’s a form of gossip. But in truth, there’s a whole wide host of meaning to this term. Basically, slander is to say something that isn’t true or to misrepresent someone that damages their reputation. It is to speak ill of them. It’s to degrade them. It’s to defame them. But it’s so much more than that. It’s to speak wrongly about a person. It’s to speak unlovingly about a person. This is a loaded term. Slander is unkind, harsh, and critical speech towards or about another person.

Or as James puts it in verse 11, slander is to speak evil against another. I like that translation better. It’s to speak evil against another. Not just a lie, it’s to speak an evil against them. Slander is a terrible sin. It’s not just a little white lie. It’s not just, oh, did you hear about so-and-so? No. And we need to recognize in a culture that lives and breathes the oxygen of slander and gossip and uncontrolled tongues how dangerous this is, and how much it infiltrates our church, how much it infiltrates me, you, our families.

Because this is a very serious sin. Our flesh loves to slander, it loves gossip. It’s tender morsels to our ears. We love to speak and hear evil against others. Now, why is that? It feels so good. It tastes so good. It’s like a massage upon our ego that we never want to end. However, slander, as we said, is evil. And as redeemed, saved followers of Jesus, we cannot and we must not be lovers of slander. If our lives are marked with continual, perpetual, regular slander, if we love slander and embrace it, James tells us there’s every good reason to believe that the faith you claim you have is not genuine, not real. You’re not saved. And in fact, as we said before, you’re on your way to an eternity in hell without God.

So in James chapter 4, we are going to see four things that we must see if we are going to pass the test of slander:

1. Slander is delusional.
2. Slander is lawlessness.
3. Slander is mutiny.
4. Slander is rejection.

In verse 11, James writes:

Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge.

James 4:11

How is slander speaking evil or speaking evil against someone? How is that delusional? Well, in a couple ways. First off, it’s extremely hypocritical. Extremely hypocritical. Why? You ever heard the expression, that’s like the pot calling the kettle black? It’s delusional. If the pot’s like, why are you so black, kettle? You know what I mean? It’s like, well, so are you. You know what I mean? Like, it lacks self-awareness. And that’s what it’s like for all of us when we speak evil against each other.

We all sin, and oh, how easy it is to get all uppity about it towards somebody else for a sin that we did yesterday. We do that, right? Or a sin that we beat a year ago, or even an hour ago. But we think to ourselves, hey, you know what? It’s been a while. In fact, it’s been 24 hours. I’ve changed quite a bit in 24 hours. Let me tell you, I’m pretty mature now. I’m way beyond the sin of yesterday, unlike these other Christian peasants around me. That’s how we start to think. Has anyone else here ever noticed just how easy it is for self-righteousness to slip into our thoughts? And then before we know it, it manifests in our behavior.

See, here’s how this works. Quick show of hands. Who here has committed murder? Throw your hand up. Okay, nobody. Good. This works. All right, awesome. Now, since none of us have committed murder, praise God, does that mean that we can speak negatively and evilly towards those who have? No. We can’t do that. Why? Because the truth is, with the God of the Bible, he says that we cannot do that. Even if I have not physically murdered somebody, I can’t do that because in my heart, I’m a guilty murderer. Let me show you. This is what Jesus says. In Matthew 5, beginning in verse 21, Jesus says:

You have heard that it was said to those of old, “You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.” But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, “You fool!” will be liable to the hell of fire.

So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.

Matthew 5:21–24

Jesus is telling us here and elsewhere throughout the New Testament, we find him explaining that if you hate someone in your heart, you’re a murderer at heart. Similarly, in Matthew 5, verse 28, Jesus says, “But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” How many times do we self-righteously condemn another person, another believer, for a sin that though we may not have acted it out, we are just as guilty for in our hearts all the time. Sure, maybe we haven’t engaged in that sin outwardly, but God still looks at it and he says, that is a sin in your heart, and it is just as much rebellion and awful against me. He hates it. Which is exactly then why, church, it is completely delusional to self-righteously condemn another believer. It’s insanity, is what it is. It lacks self-awareness.

Not only is slander rooted in hypocritical delusion, but it is a form of divine plagiarism. It’s ripping God off. It’s saying, you know what, God did this. It’s like me going and writing a paper and just taking somebody else’s and turning it in with my name on it. In 1 Corinthians 4, verse 7, Paul writes to a divided, slandering, factioned, self-righteous church, and he asks them this: “For what gives you the right to make such a judgment? What do you have that God hasn’t given you? And if everything you have is from God, why boast as though it were not a gift?” To stand in judgment upon another believer is divine plagiarism. Why? Because we’re taking credit for our victories against the world, the flesh, and the devil. When what we really should be doing is giving God the credit and praising him for the grace he’s giving us and then respond to him in humble and obedient worship.

As Americans, do you realize how much we are a product of our environment here? Do you realize that as Americans, we are huge believers and advocates for what is called self-determinism? Okay? You ever heard, you know, pull yourself up by your bootstraps and work hard and you can make it? That’s what we believe. And so, what we naturally do as American Christians, we take that truth and we apply it to the Scripture. We think, oh, when it comes to my faith, if I’m successful, and I’m going to be, that’s on me. I did that. It’s all about me. Look what I did. Look what I accomplished. In reality, I’ve done quite a bit. Look, I’m actually a spiritual Navy SEAL. Not like you Navy guys or Army guys or whatever. I’m the elite. And why? Because I worked at it. When all y’all were engaging in the little sins, which aren’t really so little, I didn’t. I refrained. I was vigilant. I pushed through it. And so look at me. Aren’t I so wonderful compared to all these second-rate, uncommitted Christians?

That’s how our culture ingrains us to think about these spiritual truths. And with this thinking, is it any wonder then that our high praise of ourselves leads to what? Constant criticism of everybody around us. It leads us to be blind, to think higher of ourselves than we ought, and as we said a moment ago, to commit divine plagiarism. Do you realize that a critical, nitpicky, strongly opinionated, perpetual Christian critic is not only an insufferable person to be around, but they are insufferable to themselves? Why? Because they’ve got to live with themselves. They’ve got to deal with themselves and the unhappiness that brings on a daily basis. It’s a miserable existence.

A critical spirit makes it hard to be happy, for it makes it hard to see any good in others at all. And it makes it hard for us to see the evil that is in ourselves. It makes us incredibly blind and it makes us lack self-awareness. Do you know what a hypercritical, strongly opinionated, judgy Christian is like? It’s like a scab picker. Stop picking the scab. Let it heal. Get off of the thing. You’re not helping. Stop doing it.

There’s no question about it now. Some of us as Christians are stronger than other Christians. That’s just the way it is. Some of us have walked longer with the Lord. But in a big way, we need to realize, if we are a stronger Christian, that that’s very much like winning a 200-meter dash when you get to start 75 meters ahead of everybody else. You realize that? Like, we’re not all starting at the same spot. Not at all. Why is that? Well, think about it. There’s two reasons.

One, do we all here have the same spiritual gifts? No, we do not. And where do those gifts come from? Determinism? Pulling up ourselves by our bootstraps and getting after them and praying for them and going to conferences and getting extra spiritual gifts handed down to us? Absolutely not. Ephesians 4 makes it abundantly clear that they are given to us by God in Ephesians 4, verse 7 by grace. And what is it? What is the accordance with? According to the measure of Christ’s gift. God determined the spiritual gifts you and I have. It’s not because I worked hard for them, not at all. I didn’t say, you know what, I want to be a preacher when I grow up. So, God, I want that spiritual gift. Give it to me now. No, it’s not how this works. It’s not how any of this works.

We think about that truth in a culture where so many pastors get inflated egos. How silly is that? Pastors who, when their church grows, start to take credit for it. Look what I did. That’s pretty awesome. Yeah. They need more of me around here. That’s what this country needs. So easy to start thinking that way. And it’s an absolute delusional lie. Every good gift, as James told us in chapter 1, every good gift comes from where? From the Father of lights, who gives them down in accordance with his grace.

Do you realize that not only do our spiritual gifts differ from one another, so does our heredity, my genetics, my upbringing? And that has an enormous impact upon our lives. Church, this means that we’re not all playing with the same deck. So if you’ve got a deck that’s loaded with aces, you’ve got a big advantage. All right? We’re not playing with the same hand. And because of this, the force of certain sins, temptations does not hit every single one of us with the same strength. It doesn’t. Certain sins, all right, will not tempt me in the slightest. All right, you can put that sin before me all day long, and I’m going to be like, I don’t want that. That’s gross. Don’t need it in my life. But there’s other sins and temptations that you put before me, it’s going to be real hard for me to resist it. And it’s the same for each one of us. We do not face sin’s temptations, all the different sins, in the same measure. They are different. And our upbringing and our heredity has much to do with that. And that’s the case why so many children struggle with the same sins of their parents. Just the way it works.

Now, it’s been a few weeks, and I’m looking around, and I can just really tell you all need a C.S. Lewis quote. So we’re going to get one here. In Mere Christianity, Lewis actually makes this point completely crystal clear for us. He does an amazing job. So I’m going to read what he says. Don’t zone out for this, because this is one of his best quotes. Here’s what Lewis says:

“Some of us who seem like quite nice people may, in fact, have made so little use of good heredity and good upbringing that we are really worse than those whom we regard as fiends. Can we be quite certain how we should have behaved if we had been saddled with the psychological outfit and then with the bad upbringing and then with the power of, say, the Nazi Heinrich Himmler? That is why Christians are told not to judge. We see only the results which a man’s choice makes out of his raw material, but God does not judge him on the raw material at all, but on what he has done with it. Most of man’s psychological makeup is probably due to his body. And when the body dies, all of that will fall off of him. And the real central man, the thing that chose, that made the best or worst out of this material, will stand naked. All sorts of nice things which we thought our own, which were really due to a good digestion”—that’s funny—“will fall off some of us. All sorts of nasty things which were due to complexes or bad health will fall off others. We shall then, for the first time, see everyone as he really is. There will be surprises.”

I love how he ends that. Now, Lewis is not writing this to excuse sin and be like, oh, it’s just the way you’re born. No big deal. No, it’s quite obvious what Lewis is saying. Lewis is saying, we cannot judge, for we cannot see the whole man and all of those particular details as God does. We don’t judge like God judges. How does God judge? Well, 1 Samuel 16:7 says:

For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.

1 Samuel 16:7

A massive difference. None of us is omniscient. That is, none of us knows everything. We don’t have all of the details. But you know who does? God does. He knows all of them. 1 Kings 8:39 says, “For you and you only know the hearts of all the children of mankind.” And so instead of delusionally thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought, and then using that as fuel to look down upon others, we must recognize in humility, as James calls us to, everything we have is due to him, not me. I do not get to boast. Christ is the only one who gets to boast. For every good gift comes from him. And when we do that, the sin of slander loses so much of its power over us. It’s hard to slander about things that you know are a gift that were given to you. It’s hard to feel arrogant about that and look down upon others for not being as strong as you are.

To pass the test of slander, we must see that slander is not only delusional, but slander is lawlessness. “The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law, but a judge.” Now, this, at first glance, when you read through it, it’s a pretty complicated verse. But stick with me here, and I think this is going to make sense because what James is saying is extremely helpful. James is saying that when we are critical of other people, when we speak evil against others, it’s a form of becoming an outlaw. It’s rebelling against the king. We become violators of God’s law because God’s law has always been, and God’s law always will be, a law of love. Always. In Matthew 22, Jesus summarized all of God’s law, saying this:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.

Matthew 22:37–40

And we know where Jesus is pulling this from. This is directly out of Leviticus in the Old Testament, where it says in Leviticus 19, verse 18:

You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

Leviticus 19:18

One more here. In John 13:34, here’s what Jesus says:

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.

John 13:34

One more. And all of this fits perfectly with what James told us back in chapter 2. Remember what he said? He said:

If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.

James 2:8–9

When we become nitpicky, hypercritical, condemning jerks, we clearly break God’s law of love, do we not? Absolutely we do. And as 1 John 4:8 points out, whoever does not love does not know God. Why? Because God is love. God is love. And those who are his children will love others.

Now, we don’t have time to do this this morning, but sometime in this next week, I would highly encourage you to check out Exodus chapter 20, the Ten Commandments. Read through the Ten Commandments and think, how is this a law of love? And you will absolutely see, yes, it is. It is a law of love towards God vertically and towards others horizontally. It’s a beautiful thing. I didn’t even realize this until this week. But that’s what it is. It’s not a list of urgent commands that is put in place to beat us into submission. No, it’s a law of love.

If I had a quarter, well, let me back up here and ask a question. Does this mean that we should never bring up sin to one another? Because, hey, that’s judging. We shouldn’t do that. You ever heard the expression, judge not lest they be judged? If I had a quarter, that’s where I was going to go with that. If I had a quarter for every time I heard that, I’m not going to say I’d be a rich man, but I’d have enough to buy something. I don’t know what. But I’ve heard it a lot. And this is a common idiom that our culture uses. It’s like, hey, I know the Bible. I know just enough here. This is all I need. Judge not lest they be judged. And then usually you should follow that up with bro because that’s the kind of thinking it is. Okay? Because that’s not what the text says. And in fact, the Scripture tells us that we must judge, but it tells us how to judge and how not to judge. And those are very, very, very different things.

Let’s look at this. Look at Matthew chapter 7, beginning in verse 1. This is the passage:

Judge not, that you be not judged.

Matthew 7:1

People only like to read that verse. Sorry, that’s verse 1. Matthew chapter 7, verse 1. It’s like, that’s all we need. It’s like, no, read the context. Keep going. Verse 2. Why should we judge not lest they be judged? Verse 2:

For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.

Matthew 7:2

So does that mean I should just not judge and live in the same sin as everybody else? No, let’s keep going. Verse 3:

Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, “Let me take the speck out of your eye,” when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

Matthew 7:3–5

We’re not supposed to leave the speck in our brother’s eye. We’re supposed to get the massive slandering, gossiping, hypercritical log out of our own eye before we go to him and help him. John 7:24 says, “Do not judge by appearances, but judge righteous judgment.” We are commanded to judge. We’re just supposed to do it rightly. And we’re supposed to do so in a way where I do not climb the stairs to God’s throne, sit myself upon it, and start judging people totally and entirely. We don’t get to do that.

Have you ever heard the expression, hate the sin, not the sinner? Hate the sin, not the sinner. Now, this is something that we’re super, super good at doing when it comes to ourselves, right? Because we know our sin to at least some degree. And it’s not very often where after I sin and I just hate myself for like five years about it and I’m like, I want nothing to do with myself. No, we’re really good about hating the sin and not the sinner when it comes to ourselves. However, we’re absolutely terrible at doing that when it comes to each other. So often, if somebody’s unfriendly to us once, we write them off as being an unfriendly person. Right? That’s the way we work. They were unfriendly. They were rude to me. Forget them. No. We don’t do that towards ourselves. Why do we do that towards one another?

Instead of breaking God’s law by slandering and criticizing another believer for doing the same things we do, we’re supposed to be like Moses. Moses, what did he do? He received the law from God. He brought it down from Mount Sinai, gave it to the people. And then when they break it, did he start smiting them on the spot? No. God did the smiting. Moses didn’t do the smittenness. It was God. It’s a real word I made up. And so we too are supposed to be bringers of God’s law, messengers who graciously, lovingly, and kindly bring that truth to others. Not in a self-righteous, pompous, can’t believe you did that kind of a way. And we are to do this because of love.

In James chapter 5, which we’re going to be getting to in the coming weeks here, we find what I believe is actually the entire foundation. It’s the center point of the book of James. It’s the reason he’s writing everything he’s writing. And in verses 19 through 20, James writes:

My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.

James 5:19–20

If you’re going to bring your brother back from their wandering, you’re going to have to do some judging. You’re going to have to think biblically and critically and examine their behavior and see, does that line up with Scripture? Does that line up with what James is calling us to do here? And then you go to them out of love for God and love for them, trying to save their soul from death. We must not be hypercritical, theologically, nitpicky know-it-alls. Instead, as Ephesians 4 calls us to do, we must speak the truth, but how? In love. Speak the truth in love. We must do so out of a love for God and a love for the eternal soul that stands before us.

In 1 John 4:20, you’re getting a lot of verses today. I had a couple weeks off here. “If anyone says, I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar. For he who does not love his brother, whom he can see, does not love the God whom he cannot see.” It’s a serious truth. When times come where we must judge righteous judgment, where we must speak the truth in love and offer a rebuke, we must not do so with glee. We must not be like, ooh, I get to get him. No, we should do so with heavy hearts. We should do so in a way where the correction we give is based on love, not irritation, nor self-righteous superiority. Because if we do so, we’ve got the log in our eye. We’re trying to take the speck out with a massive log. And that’s stupid. We shouldn’t do that.

Our hearts should be full of love and compassion, which actually should lead us to storming the throne room of God in prayer before we talk to the person and afterwards. The Spirit would work through the words we said, that we would speak humbly and gracious. It’s super important. And if we don’t do that, and we just critically and self-righteously and pompously spit out truths at people, even though those truths are truths, you know what Paul tells us we are? In 1 Corinthians 13, which is the Love chapter, Paul says, all you are is a noisy gong. You’re a clanging cymbal. Who wants to sit there, boom, boom, boom? No, get away from me. I don’t care, is going to be the natural response of the people we’re talking to.

To pass the test of slander, we must see that slander is delusional, slander is lawless, but third, slander is mutiny. That’s what it is. He says, “The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother speaks evil against the law.” Did you catch that? If you slander, you’re speaking evil against the law and you’re judging the law. He goes on, he says, “But if you judge the law and are not a doer of the law, you are but a judge. There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?”

When I was around the age of 17, I’m going to get the numbers wrong, and I’ll get corrected by family later, but it’s close enough. Numbers are meant to have some wiggle room. When I was around the age of 17, I got in trouble with my parents on a regular basis. And one time I got into big trouble with them. And growing up in Backus, here’s how it happened. One night my mom went shopping in Brainerd, and I was watching my younger brother, Bo. And Bo was, he’s how many years younger than—she’s way back there—he’s like 15 years younger, right? You know how old? Some, I don’t know. I’m bad at numbers. But you get the idea. He was like two at the time, I think. Anyways, he’s just a little kid. Maybe three. We’ll say three. It’ll make me sound better for what I’m about to tell you. He was three at the time. Not much better.

Anyways, I was babysitting him. My mom went to Brainerd, and this kid was driving me nuts. He sat by the window and just held his hands up on it. It was like, “Mom,” just crying for like an hour and a half. And I’m like, knock it off. Like, you’re whining. Scripture says not to whine. I probably didn’t say that part to him. But anyways, so what did I do? Well, I thought to myself, I’m like, you know, I’m 17. I have a lot of wisdom. I know exactly what to do. This boy needs a spanking, and I’m going to put him to bed. So that day, Bo got the second spank, one of two spankings I think he had in his entire life, which is a total ripoff, by the way. The way he was parented was much different than the way I was. Sorry, Mom and Dad, but you know it’s true.

But I got in big trouble for that. Now, why did I get into big trouble for that? Well, because I tried to assume the authority of my parents upon myself. And I had absolutely no right to do that. I felt like it was righteous indignation. I felt like it was righteous judgment, but it was not. And I had no right to assume their authority. In the same way, church, when we sit in self-righteous judgment over another believer, we’re doing the same thing with God. That’s what we’re doing. When we slander others and condemn them, we are overstepping our authority. And we are committing divine mutiny as we attempt to sit upon the throne of God and judge his very law and saying, we know better how to do this, God. I know more than you. I will do this. You need some help here, God. Why don’t you nudge over a little bit? I’ll do some judging here. Right? That’s what we’re doing.

And so, let me ask you: how many divine lawgivers are there? One. Are you it? No, you’re not. Neither am I. And so James says in verse 12: “Who are you to judge your neighbor?” You’re not God. Sit down. Be quiet. Stop being a critical, nitpicky person. Get off the throne. In fact, get off because you’re a terrible judge. For in our judgments, we never know all the facts. In our judgments, we can never fully see the motives of the heart of the person in front of us. We can never take in all of the evidence and come down with a righteous decree. We can’t do it. Only the all-powerful, all-knowing, all-present God of the universe can. And shall not the judge of all the earth do what is right, as Genesis says? And the implied answer is yes. He will do what is right. He will judge righteously and properly, and we will not. So get off his throne. Those shoes are too big for us to fill.

If you think back to our study in the book of Jude, do you remember what Michael the archangel refused to do when he was contending with Satan over the body of Moses? You remember what he refused to do? He refused to pronounce a blasphemous judgment towards Satan. Well, wait a minute, Michael. Like, if we think of anybody who we should be spitting words at, it should be Satan, right? That we should be slandering and condemning. It would be him. He’s a dirtball, right? We should do that. It’s okay to say that. Michael says no. Why? Because that’s sitting on God’s throne. It’d be a form of divine mutiny. And so Michael, the archangel, which is a super high position, would not even himself do that. So who are we to think we can do that? Instead, all he said was, I leave it to Christ to rebuke you. And Christ will rebuke the devil, especially at the end of the time when he triumphs over him and condemns him.

In 1 Corinthians 4:5, it says, “Therefore, do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his condemnation. Commendation.” There we go. That’s a very different word. “Commendation from God.” In Psalm 101:5, and this is a super, super convicting verse:

Whoever slanders his neighbor secretly I will destroy. Whoever has a haughty look and an arrogant heart I will not endure.

Psalm 101:5

You don’t even have to speak haughty words. If you just got a haughty look in your eyes at people, God says he’s going to destroy you because he hates it. Psalm 75:7 says:

But it is God who executes judgment, putting down one and lifting up another.

Psalm 75:7

God is the judge, not us.

And this leads us to our final point. To pass the test of slander, we must see that slander is delusional. Slander is lawlessness. It’s mutiny. But finally, it’s rejection. Rejection of what? Well, the gospel. It’s a rejection of Christ. It’s a rejection of God’s grace. In verse 12, look what James says: “There is only one lawgiver and judge who is able to save and to destroy.” There’s only one. When we arrogantly break God’s laws with slanderous judgments upon other believers, what we’ve done is we’ve set up our own law system. We’ve set it up and we’ve made ourselves the judge and the juror. And if that wasn’t bad enough, what we’re really ultimately doing when we do that is we’re rejecting the Savior and looking to our own self-righteousness to save us. That’s what we’re doing. How? Because we’re turning back to law.

When we do this, church, we’re turning back to law to save us. We’re saying, you know what, I’ve done the law pretty well, and these dirtballs haven’t, and I’m going to judge them for it, and I’m going to slander them, and I’m going to look down on them and be a critical, nitpicky know-it-all. And it’s a rejection of Christ and the gospel. By turning back to law and judging and comparing others to ourselves, we’re looking to ourselves to be our Savior. When, as we just read from verse 12, there is only one who is able to save and to destroy. Which means there’s only one Savior. And it’s not you. For Christ is the one and only Savior.

Well, the law is good. It’s not a bad thing. The law is a good thing, as Paul tells us in the book of Romans. The law cannot save us. All the law can do without Christ—okay, it’s different the way the law applies to us after Christ—but all the law does to us before Christ is condemn us because every single one of us breaks it and we break it regularly, either through our actions or through our thoughts and the desires of our hearts. And so, as Galatians 3:24 tells us, the purpose of the law was to be our schoolmaster, which brings us to Christ. And it is Christ who fulfilled the requirements of the law that you and I never could. If we are perpetual slanderers, James tells us it is because we have returned to law and we have shunned God’s grace.

And make no mistake about it: without Christ, every single one of us will perish under the weight of the law. As I read recently, we can no more save ourselves by following God’s law than we can sail across the Atlantic in a paper boat. Not going to get very far. And neither will you trying to save yourself through God’s law. It’s impossible. You cannot do it. And so instead, we must be saved by the one and only Savior, which comes by grace through faith in him and him alone. For God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble.

So I ask you this morning: have you received God’s grace in humility? Or are you still trying to stand in your own robes of righteousness, your own self-works, which manifest in your life by being a constantly continual, critical, nitpicky, judgy, know-it-all who is haughty and obnoxious to those around you? Those are harsh words. That’s what we have to ask ourselves. Because that’s what James is getting at here.

A few weeks ago, we looked at the parable of the prodigal son, which the prodigal son, what that is, is that’s a picture for every single redeemed person who has come to faith in Jesus. And if our path to Christ doesn’t resemble or make us at least think we are the prodigal son in that story, we have a serious problem. Now, with that story, there’s a part of that story that is often frequently overlooked. And it’s the fact that there were actually two brothers. Remember? There was an older brother. And when the younger brother returned home, the older brother was extremely furious and he insisted on doing what to his younger brother? Slandered him. Spoke evilly against his brother. So much so, he was so angry that he refused to enter the party because the Father’s grace repulsed him, ticked him off. You’re going to give grace to this dirtball? Are you kidding me? Look what I’ve done. I was here. I worked. I should get all this. Why are you helping him? This is serious stuff.

And so, church, if we are a slanderer, you know who we are in these two brothers? We’re the older brother. That’s exactly who we are, and we do not understand as we should the grace of God. So I ask you, which one are you? Are you the older brother slandering those around you, your brothers and sisters in Christ, refusing to enter the Father’s feast by his grace, not your robes of righteousness? Or are you the younger brother who realizes how terrible your sin was? And so what have you done? You’ve thrown yourself entirely upon the grace and mercy of the one lawgiver who is able to save and destroy.

There’s so much more that we could say here this morning, but this is the gospel. This is what we’re about. This is what our faith is in. Christ dying for us on a cross so that by grace through faith, we can enter the feast. Have you embraced that gospel? That gospel of grace? Not just to save you, but to be the means that is continually saving you and making you more like Christ every single day. Because the gospel is the fuel that not only starts the engine of our faith, but it’s also the fuel that we run on. Are you running on that fuel? Or have you reverted back to law? And has that become manifest in your life by a slanderous critical spirit? It is only when the gospel is our fuel that we can overcome the test of slander.

And all God’s people said. Father, this is a beat-em-up kind of a text. And so, Father, we ask that it wouldn’t be that for us, but that this would be a joy for us. That we would see the truths of this text as an opportunity to see blind spots in our lives, as an opportunity to receive your grace through the humbleness that you call us to. Father, I ask again that what we heard today would not be used as a means of beating up others who we think are doing this, but as a means of examining ourselves so we can see the sinful blind spots that only your word reveals to us through your Spirit.

Father, if there’s anyone here who says, you know, I think I am the older brother, I think I have rejected God’s grace, and that is completely manifest in my life by fractious relationships, relationships around me that continually fall apart because people do not want to be around my critical spirit. But Father, I just pray for that specific person, Lord. Help us to help them to embrace the gospel of Jesus more fully or for the first time, wherever they’re at. And Father, I just ask, Lord, that we would hear this truth and not shirk back from our responsibility of speaking the truth in love. We live in a culture, Lord, that calls us to not say things to each other, to not be judgy, to not be pointing out flaws that we have. So, Father, help us to find the Christ-balanced mixture between these two, where our motives are pure, our motives are grace-driven and not self-righteous law-driven. And help us, Father, to do this for your good, for your glory, and for our good. We’ll praise you for it. We pray these things in Christ’s name.