Inward Wisdom

James  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented   •  33:50
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James tells us that the allegiance of our hearts is seen in our outward actions; therefore, wisdom from heaven must begin in the allegiance of our hearts.

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We are now crossing about half way through reading the book of James. And at this point some of the common themes of the letter should be getting more clear to see in the words that James is writing. We noticed it right away when we started this series back in chapter 1. James is addressing an inconsistency he sees in the church. He is calling attention to the contradiction between inner beliefs and outward actions. The things that the people of the church profess to believe do not match up with the outward actions of their lives.
Today as we look at the cross-over from chapter 3 to chapter 4 James focuses his attention on the nature of inward wisdom. In order for the outward actions of our lives to come from a place of spiritual wisdom, we need to recognize and embrace an inward wisdom within our hearts.
Think of it this way; it is like taking care of a medical problem by treating the symptoms, but never addressing or treating the illness itself. If I get a cut on my finger that just doesn’t ever seem to heal, I can keep putting bandaids on it over and over again, but that is only covering up the symptoms; it will never get to the bottom of why my finger is not healing. Or if I have a chronic headache that just won’t ever go away, I can take Advil and Tylenol around the clock to relieve some of that headache discomfort, but that is only covering up the symptoms; it will never get the bottom of why I keep getting headaches that won’t go away.
see the difference between covering over the symptoms rather than diagnosing and treating the real issue
This is what James is pulling at in today’s passage. He wants us to see the difference between covering over the symptoms rather than diagnosing and treating the real issue.
James 3:13–4:10 (NIV)
James 3:13–4:10 NIV
13 Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. 14 But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. 15 Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. 16 For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. 17 But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. 18 Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness. 1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. 4 You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us? 6 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.” 7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
Outward wisdom begins with and comes from a place of inward wisdom. James wants us to see that in the words of this passage today. Just look at the ways he insists our outward actions have a beginning place within our hearts. If we are people who harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in our hearts, those things will ultimately be the driving force behind outward actions which bear the bitter fruit of envy and selfishness.
“The fact that James refers to no specific dispute might signal to us a situation so rife with tensions that the church was at a standstill. In any event, the conflict is clearly within the Christian community.” —David Nystrom
James is not speaking into a vacuum here. He is addressing the people in the New Testament church who are bearing this kind of bitter fruit in the actions of their lives. Biblical commentator David Nystrom writes this about these verses in James: “The fact that James refers to no specific dispute might signal to us a situation so rife with tensions that the church was at a standstill. In any event, the conflict is clearly within the Christian community.” James is not imagining any kind of hypothetical situation that may at some point come about. When James asks in chapter 4:1 “What causes fights and quarrels among you?” he means for that question to be real! There is every indication to believe that the people in the church were, in fact, fighting and quarreling.
symptom — people who are fighting and quarreling
And it is precisely at this point in the letter in which James insists the solution to their divisiveness must be more than simply telling them to knock it off. That would only be a bandaid placed over a wound which would not heal. That would be treating the symptoms but never addressing the illness. It is not a matter of just trying harder to all get along. James says it is time for the church to do a heart-check. It is time for some serious self-examination to discover where these divisions and fights are coming from in the first place.
diagnosis — a heart that is bitter, envious, selfish
Right along side of that James offers the true solution; the treatment which does not just cover over top of the symptoms, but moves towards the cure. It starts with the inward wisdom of the heart.
James 3:17–18 (NIV)
James 3:17–18 NIV
17 But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. 18 Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.
cure — a heart that is peace-loving, considerate, submissive, merciful, impartial, sincere
It is certainly the intent of James to guide his readers not only towards outward actions that will bring about peace, but also the inner attitudes from which these actions flow. And so James says, don’t just be a person who pursues peaceful actions, be a person who is peace-loving in your heart. A heart that is considerate is a cure for a heart of envy. A heart that is submissive is a cure for a heart that is selfish. A heart that is full of mercy is a cure for a heart that is judgmental. A heart that is impartial is a cure for a heart that shows favoritism. And a heart that is sincere is a cure for a heart that is double-minded (the term James uses in this letter for being hypocritical). A heart that produces good fruit is the cure for a heart that produces bitter fruit.
So far all that sounds great. It seems we are still left with a bit of a question: how do we do this? Sure, I would love to have a heart that embraces all of these good spiritual qualities. I would love to have a heart that then overflows with the kind of faithful action that James is urging. But how exactly are we supposed to start down that path? What do those first steps look like in our lives? It may not sound much like encouragement that way James puts it, and yet it is the way James points us towards taking those first steps.
James 4:4 (NIV)
James 4:4 NIV
4 You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.
clinical analysis — restore proper relationship with God
Alright, it appears like James is being quite harsh here. Don’t overlook the label he places upon the people in verse 4. You adulterous people. James does not in this letter ever really take up the subject of marital fidelity or sexual immorality. Why then does he label that people of the church as adulterous? It is helpful to note the ways in which the apostle Paul refers to the relationship between Christ and the church as if it is a marriage. Paul calls Christ the groom, and calls the church the bride of Christ. In reading the rest of what James has to say here in verse 4 it becomes obvious that this is the analogy he is borrowing.
Christ is the groom, church is the bride of Christ — a covenantal relationship
You want a place to start? Begin with this: remember that you are the bride of Christ. Start by affirming once again that Christ himself has united us with him in a sacred bond. When Jesus took our sins to the cross and gave to us his perfect righteousness in its place he created a covenant union between God and the church which he has promised to never break. God will never let go of the love he has for you. He has promised and made a commitment to keep holding onto that covenant bond.
Christ redeems us as his own, longs for us to embrace a restored covenantal relationship with God
We are the ones who have walked away, says James. We are the ones who have chosen to be friends with the world (committed adultery against God) instead of remaining faithful to God. It is worth pausing here and addressing what James has in mind when he talks about being friends with the world. What James in his letter refers to as the world, the apostle Paul likes to refer to as the flesh. These two biblical authors use those terms interchangeably to mean the same thing. And in both cases, James and Paul connect this term to those inner attitudes of bitterness, envy, and selfishness. It is not the intent of the biblical authors to identify the ways of the world with anything that is strictly physical or material. It is not their intent to be saying that this physical earth is somehow bad and the only good things are spiritual, not physical.
The physical and spiritual can coexist—because it is God who has made both the physical world and the spiritual world. But what cannot coexist alongside each other, says James, is a heart of bitterness and a heart of love; a heart of envy and a heart of peace, a heart of selfishness and a heart of mercy. To embrace one is to reject the other. Here is the solution James is offering.
James 4:6-7 (NIV)
James 4:6–7 NIV
6 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.” 7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
And again in verse 10
James 4:10 (NIV)
James 4:10 NIV
10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
treatment — humble submission to God
Let me capture the advice of James here in a single word: surrender. To submit to God and to be humble before God is to embrace a posture of surrender. It is the people who are proud who rely upon their own self-righteousness instead of surrendering to God’s righteousness. It is the people who are proud who exalt and take joy in their own accomplishments instead of submitting to Christ’s accomplishment given to us in grace.
posture of surrender and repentance — honest confession before God of our struggles and failures
Humble submission before God means having to get real. It means that when things are not going well, I stop walking into church with a plastic smile and pretending everything is okay. It means I get real with God about my own struggles—in particular my struggles with bitterness, envy, and selfishness. You and I cannot conquer and defeat those ways of the world on our own. James gives us step one right here. Humble submission before God is the start towards a repentant heart that can be filled with the good things of the Holy Spirit. That is where it begins.
sanctuary — a place of refuge and safety for those who are humble and broken
in moments of humble submission the Holy Spirit plants, nurtures, and grows good spiritual fruit through his people, that we may be peacemakers who sow in peace and reap a harvest of righteousness
This room that we come into at the church every Sunday for a time of worship is called the sanctuary. The literal definition of sanctuary means a place of refuge or safety. It is essential that this place we come into every week be a safe place in which we can be brutally honest with God. Because it is in those moments of humble submission to the Lord that Christ meets us in this place. It is in those moments of humble submission to the Lord that God reminds us of his faithful eternal covenant love for us. It is in those moments of humble submission to the Lord that the Holy Spirit plants, nurtures, and grows that good spiritual fruit of the gospel, taking away that heart of stone and replacing it with a heart that is peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere; that we may be peacemakers who sow in peace and reap a harvest of righteousness.
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