The Intervention

Good afternoon. Happy feast. It's exciting. It's good to see everyone. I have been in four fistfights in my life. It's not where you expected us to go in the Feast of Trumpets, I'm sure. For don't worry, only one of them was in the last couple of years. Two of them were fought until there was a winner, if you know what I mean. They were brutal. They were dirty, angry, emotional. There were no adults around, just pure emotion. A couple of kids, some bad choices, and a bloody lip or two. Thankfully, they weren't anything to cause any lasting damage. I was still friends with a couple of those kids, even after that. Thankfully, kids can make amends pretty quickly. The fights that I were in was nothing compared to some of the ones that I saw. I saw some pretty wild fights. I've seen quite a few growing up in school, a couple in the neighborhoods. For me, all the big fights at my middle school and high school happened across the street in the parking lot of a Chinese food restaurant. I don't know how that tradition started, but you could see the crowds gathering after school as a couple people were going to finally take justice in their own hands and have a no-holds-barred match right in front of the Chinese food restaurant. I never ventured over there, but I did see people gathering over there to watch, but I knew it was going down. It was a buzz in the hallway on those days. I saw several fights in the halls, the locker rooms. A lot of those were stopped by teachers, thankfully. Thankfully, sometimes in the hallways, people would just push through like, hey, I'm just trying to get to class. I don't care who stepped on whose shoes at this point. That's how a lot of those dissipated. I've seen how brutal fights can be. I can see how brutal people can be. These are just local neighborhood kids, teens, losing their emotions, and then deciding to take things in their own hands. I grew up in a relatively peaceful life. I grew up in a small steel town in southern Illinois. This is the experience I have with violence and seeing the brutality that we have within us. Let's go to James 3. James 3. Verse 16 says, where jealousy and selfish ambition exists, there will be disorder and every vile practice. Doesn't this where many of these fights start from? Jealousy, selfishness, embarrassment. He stole this. He's with my girl. She said this about me. Things escalate. That's where it leaves only one thing to do. It takes matters into my own hands. These fights that I saw and witnessed as a kid, they weren't like what I saw in the movies. They weren't a couple of people slowly taking turns with their hits until someone knocked the other one down. No, they were chaotic. It was chaos. Arms and legs and hair getting pulled and people slammed into lockers. It was chaos. It was a little bit scary. Rage and anger. It felt like disorder, what James says here. It felt like that, seeing those things. People just a total loss of control. Let's go down a few verses into chapter four, where James writes, what causes quarrels? I'm reading out the ESV if it looks a little different, but what causes quarrels? What causes fights among you? Is this not that your passions are at war within you? You desire and you do not have, so you murder, you covet, you cannot obtain, so you fight, and you quarrel. You know, James tells us something very interesting, and that is that we humans, we have this passion in us, and it's in there. My seeking of justice is in there. My seeking of the thing that I want, it's in there. And you can see this in the playgrounds and neighborhood brawls. You can see that coming out. You can see it in adults, too. We have it in us.

This extends past childhood, you know, disputes in the schoolyard. It extends past that. Think about it. This can scale up very easily, very quickly. I don't think James has given us the exact recipe like, oh, this is how a fight starts. This happens, and this happens, and this happens. But I think we can see what he's saying is that that fight, it's in us. And it doesn't take very much to trigger, because there is a war within me, within us, as human human beings. And we see this in the world around us. We've seen this throughout history. We see it in the news today. We see it is not limited to, you know, pretty relatively simple neighborhood brawls. We see that there is an escalation, disagreement, then resentment, then retaliation, then revenge, then inherited hate. Conflict.

I actually grew up, I knew some guys who were almost proud of their anger, too. I don't know if you know anyone that's like that. It's like they were proud, like, you know, I'm, you know, I'm just so angry. It's like, wow, okay, yeah. That's understanding what Christian God has called us to, to being a person of self-control. That's a little bit opposite of characteristics I'm trying to put on, but that's out there. We think about some of the historical stories that we're all familiar with. You know, the Hatfield and McCoy's. I was looking that up just recently before this message. You know, generations hating each other. I didn't know what, I actually didn't know what started the fight. I didn't know they were fighting over a pig. I had no idea that that was the thing. Someone, this, I own that pig. No, I own that pig. Okay. Generations of inherited hate and disagreement, retaliation, and violence. The famous literature, Romeo and Juliet, is based on two families at war. The first scene, I remember reading it at the freshman in high school, you know, that the servants were fighting. The servants of the families were fighting. An ancient grudge, it says. Let's go to Matthew, Matthew 15. Just one verse here. Verse 19. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person.

So if you reconstitute your reading, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone. So this is at the end where Jesus was accused by the Pharisees that his people were not washing their hands before they ate. And then Jesus cuts to the core of what really the issue is. And that is what's on the inside. That's the dirty stuff. That's the rot that's eating us alive. The hate and the grudges, you know, we're perfectly capable of having that on our own. You know, washing my hands, Jesus is saying, is, you know, okay, yeah, that's good, probably good practice, but it's not what's killing us on the inside. In fact, the anger and the feelings that we have has been festering since the beginning of a time. And ultimately, that's what leads to a world on the brink right before the return of Jesus. And the disciples asked about that. Mr. Elliott alluded to it this morning. So let's go there to Matthew 24, just a couple of chapters over. Because the disciples, they wanted to know, what's it going to be like? How are we going to know? What's the world going to look like so that we know you're about to return? Verse 3 of Matthew 24, he said on the Mount of Olives, and the disciples came to him privately, tell us when these things will be. What will be the sign of your coming? And Jesus answered, See that no one leads you, astray, for many will come in my name, saying I'm the Christ. They will lead many astray. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed. This must take place before the end, but the end is not yet. You know, one of the signs that Jesus gives us is the world will be on the brink, and there will be actual wars. And I like the term rumors of wars. Rumors of wars. It's almost like that there will just be a spirit that a conflict can arise at any time. That will be the vibe of the end times. Always about to be on the brink. And that's what he tells them here. The contentions will be ever present. This will be the environment that he tells us. And then he goes on to list all the things that will mark the time right before his return. And it's not a party. It's not a party. But I like that he says, and I don't know the tone. I can't read the tone of what he says. You know, we can only read the words, but I like that he says, See that you're not alarmed. That's a loving savior. I am so grateful for that. Because when you go on through the rest of the list, it's a wild time. But he's telling his followers, don't be alarmed. Don't be alarmed. It must take place, but the end is not yet. Verse 22. And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect, those days will be cut short. This is the intervention that we're waiting for. This is the intervention we're waiting for. This is God finally saying, the fighting and the violence, the brutality, it's over. It's over. All of the trouble and the fighting and the contentions and the selfish ambitions and the way that the world's been trying to operate without God in their lives since the beginning of time, without God and his involvement, will at this time be stopped. Being led and driven by our passions will finally be intervened by a Savior who loves the world. And he's coming back in the most dramatic and triumphant way. And we read about that. And he's making an announcement to the world. The hate can stop. I'm intervening. I'm not. I'm not. I'm intervening. I'm stepping in. And that's what we celebrate today. That's what we're celebrating today.

I said I was in four fights. Two of them were pretty dirty. You can ask me about it later. And kids, I'm not promoting fighting. But a teacher intervened in two of them. Stopped it. Could have gotten worse. The punishments were doled out. The tension here, suspension there. But it ended it. But the other two fights ended in only the way that we as human beings know how. Violence. Until there's a winner. That's how we've operated since Kay and killed Abel. The world's fighting and hatred ultimately come from the human heart. And no government has been able to permanently solve it. And even when we have tried to solve it, the only way we know how to do it is with more violence. But Jesus Christ is coming back to intervene before humanity destroys itself. Right on the brink. He's coming back. And he will establish a righteous kingdom on this earth. On this earth. And when he comes, the cycle of jealousy and resentment and retaliation and war will finally end. And humanity will be taught a way of peace. And that is the intervention that we're waiting for. And our job now is to keep our eyes on that promise and prepare for the return of our king.