Confronting the Enemies of Unity: In Our Hearts Part 2

Unity is important to our Lord and ought to be to us as well. It is the high calling of all believers to be one with other Christians; to manifest the glory of the Oneness of the Persons of the Trinity in our relationships. What a powerful reality this is when our oneness is evident, as Jesus made clear in His High Priestly Prayer in John 17. Conversely, lack of unity is a lie; a denial of the gospel. We have seen that the enemies of unity are the world, the devil, and the flesh. We've looked at confronting these enemies in our words and in our attitudes; and we began in the last message, and will continue today, to look at confronting the enemies of unity in our hearts.

Our passage today is intensely personal and in urgent, pungent language. Words like “adulteresses”, “murder”, and phrases like “enemies of God” are meant to “wake us up”. They are pointed and painful, but they are things we need to hear. The Lord isn't like us; when He uses “hard words” it is because He knows that's what we need. He always speaks the right thing and in the right way. James uses inflammatory words like “quarrels” and “conflicts” (which are actually stronger in the original language) to help us understand the true nature of conflicts. We have seen that these conflicts always come from sin.