Wisdom from God (Week 7)

Announcements:

We have serving opportunities at trunk or tree on October 26th

we also have a serving opportunity for the hymn sing on November 23rd

This is a great opportunity to give back to the older generation and care for the elderly and to show them that they are valued and loved

And on December 14th we have our angel tree project which I'd like all of you to mark your calendars for

The Angel Tree project is us providing wrapping and delivering gifts for families who have parents incarcerated

It is an incredible ministry and I believe we as location should be a part of this

And this Thursday Katie and I could use your help helping with the Berrendal toy giveaway we need help loading the trailer with toys unloading unwrapping and distributing toys so if you're able to help with that please talk to me tonight I really need the help

but with all that getting said let's get into our study

Intro:

We'll be in James chapter three 13 through 18

But by way of introduction

Have you ever met anybody who claimed to have knowledge about something or claimed to be wise in a certain area but it turned out that they really knew nothing?

When I was young I would pretend to understand things that I didn't

When people would talk about a tv show or a movie I would pretend to be like yeah I've seen that or yeah I know what you're talking about

But the moment that they got specific or asked me a question I would fall apart

I claimed to have understanding I claimed to know what they were talking about when in reality I had no such knowledge

I had no such wisdom

And in today's passage we're going to be looking at what it means to have wisdom

SO Today we are going to be looking at the end of James chapter 3 talking about wisdom and foolishness

So how would you define wisdom?

According to the dictionary Wisdom: “the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgment; the quality of being wise.”

I don't know if you've ever met somebody who seemed to just have wisdom

The other day I bought something off of Facebook marketplace from an older gentleman

and as we began to talk I could tell that this man was full of life experience and wisdom

Job 12:12 ESV

12 Wisdom is with the aged, and understanding in length of days.

And what job is saying is wisdom can be a byproduct of age and life experience

But this is a general saying it isn't a guarantee

I'm sure many of us know people who are old and aged and are fools

Which leads me to a quote that my mentor shared with me once:

"With age comes wisdom, but sometimes age comes alone."

Wisdom is from the Lord we don't have to be 100 years old to be wise because our wisdom comes from the eternal king

Proverbs 9:10 ESV

10 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.

Proverbs 8:11 ESV

11 for wisdom is better than jewels, and all that you may desire cannot compare with her.

Wisdom is invaluable each and every one of us need wisdom

If we look at our previous passages we need wisdom to control what we say and define what we say

We need wisdom to understand how best to use our gifts to work as unto the Lord

Each of us need wisdom to discern whether a relationship is right for us

We need wisdom to discern whether we are truly Christians or whether we have been pretending for years

When King Solomon in the Old Testament had the opportunity to receive anything from the Lord he asked for wisdom

And if you look back at what James has already said about wisdom

James 1:5 ESV

5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.

So our passage today deals with those of us who claim to be wise

Again when I was younger I would claim to have understanding of things that I truly didn't so James asks us or makes a statement saying who is Wise in understanding among you

but let's go ahead and read our passage today

James 3:13–18 (ESV)

13 Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom.

14 But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth.

15 This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic.

16 For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice.

17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.

18 And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

Pray

Now before we go any further let's go to God and ask him for help with the passage to night

Pray

Jumping straight into verse 13

James 3:13–18 (ESV)

13 Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom.

James 3:13 NLT

13 If you are wise and understand God’s ways, prove it by living an honorable life, doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom.

A way that I would put it is those of you who claim to be wise show that by your good works

And this isn't saying that you should be boastful or proud or arrogant about your wisdom but it's saying with power under control let your actions match your claim of wisdom

If you or I claim to be wise our life should be characterized by a pattern of wisdom

I should be able to look at your life and see that wisdom on display by how you live how you act

Going back to the tongue by what you say

And I want to emphasize that James says in meekness this isn't out of a self gratifying I want applause kind of way

This is showing off what Christ has done in your life not what you do for Christ

Pastor Chuck put it this way on Sunday :

“The Christian life is a response to what Christ has done “

And James wants us to demonstrate our faith and our wisdom by our works in Meekness and humility

But as we get to verse 14 we see James make a shift from talking about those who claim to be wise and moving to foolishness

How would you define foolishness ?

have you ever been foolish?

And when you have been foolish what do you think the root cause of that foolishness was?

For me personally when I tend to be foolish it comes out of a place of pride

Again we just talked about taming the tongue and when it comes to taming the tongue I struggle

And I say the most unwise thing when I get caught up in pride

I tried to talk people into circles until they forget how stupid the things I am saying are

So I truly believe that this foolishness that we're about to talk about is rooted in pride as we see in verse 14

14 But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth.

If you and I find in our life that we are bitter Jealous and full of selfish ambition we may try to claim to be wise when in fact we're just jealous of what someone else said

A picture of this is when you're in growth community or Bible study and somebody says something really wise and you feel this tension in your soul in your body that you need to say something now just as wise

All of a sudden we become jealous of the wisdom that they displayed or the prestige that that wisdom may bring

And because of that jealousy or selfish ambition we begin to boast and try to say something wise ourself

But James makes it clear that this actually isn't wisdom and people see right through that and if people don't God at least does

In verse 15 James continues

15 This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic.

We are by nature selfish we are by nature jealous creatures

And because of that we need to be careful to discern whether we are acting in spiritual wisdom or earthly wisdom

Do we seek to be seen as wise for our own sake

Or do we seek to share wisdom for the sake of others and the sake of the Lord being magnified?

So so far in our passage we see wisdom and foolishness

Wisdom is shown to be consistent with one's lifestyle

But worldly wisdom tends to be inconsistent with ones lifestyle

It comes from a place of selfish ambition and jealousy which James deals with in verse 16

16 For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice.

what would an example of selfish ambition be?

How would you describe selfish ambition?

When I think of selfish ambition if I was to put it into a picture I think of a high school point guard

I remember seeing a point guard who would score 35 points a night but their team would lose every game

And the coach went to him and said you need to be having 15 assists per night I don't care how much you score

You see this player wanted to look good he wanted to put points on the board to look like he was helping but the reality was he had selfishness at the center of his play at the center of his game

And did that selfish ambition would cost His team games

So the coach eventually benched him and put someone else in who would pass the ball they would only score 10 points a game but they would get 15 assists per game

And that team began to win

Selfish ambition puts one self-desires over everybody else's

And as Christians if we exercise biblical wisdom we don't allow our lives to be ruled by selfish ambition

But our life should be ruled by Christ paul and Philippians says

Philippians 1:21 ESV

21 For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

And what James is pointing out is selfish ambition looks harmless

Jealousy looks harmless

But he says

For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice.

We are not the exception to that rule

If we allow selfish ambition and jealousy to rule our lives we will find ourselves in every vile practice

Pride Will lead us astray but humility and meekness will lead us to wisdom

I believe what James is trying to Say is do not be deceived

Don't let this world trick you if your wisdom is based out of a selfish ambition or a jealousy It isn't from God it is from this world that is from demonic influence it is from evil

Wisdom must be rooted in meekness which is power under control

This is truth in love

Wisdom and truth is like a sword

Or a very sharp knife with it you can defend protect or Even perform necessary surgery

But it can also be used to kill.

So we see that wisdom that's rooted in selfish ambition and jealousy is not from God but from the world

but in verse 17 James addresses wisdom that is from God

17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.

The wisdom that is from God has characteristics

it is pure

This means it isn't tainted with selfishness or jealousy or evil thoughts

It comes from pure motivations such as love compassion empathy and conviction

And wisdom that's from God isn't trying to stir the pot

It's a goal isn't to cause more conflict

But it desires to be peaceable to end conflict

And wisdom that's from God desires to be presented in a gentle manner

The wisdom of the Lord doesn't run into a situation like a wrecking ball trying to crush and convict anybody that it sees in its path

As a young man there have been people in my life who try to give me wisdom

And I can tell you when someone comes with a gentle spirit seeking to help me not to harm me it's much easier to listen to them

But when a person comes in like a wrecking ball oftentimes I can tell that that person hasn't prayed about what they're saying

That person isn't saying this out of place of love but out of a place of the flesh

And I'm sure many of us have experienced that in our life

But continuing to look at verse 17 wisdom from above from God is open to reason

This means if I come to a brother seeking to bring wisdom into a situation I'm also available to hear his thoughts

It becomes a conversation a discussion that is civil and honoring to God

But sometimes people come to us and say or we go to people and say

This is what I think this is wisdom and if you don't agree with me I don't want to hear it you're obviously wrong

A person who tries to offer wisdom but isn't open to reason doesn't have wisdom that is from above

Wisdom that's from above has the characteristics of being full of mercy and good works good fruits

The life of the person presenting godly wisdom should be reflective of the wisdom that they are presenting

Wisdom should have mercy and care and love

We should not seek to correct somebody because we just want to feel morally superior but it should come out of a place of mercy

And I believe this mercy can look two ways

The first being if I have broccoli in my teeth a merciful thing would be to point it out to me so that I can remove it

If I am living or acting in a way that is not becoming of Jesus the merciful thing would be to confront me with wisdom

but there should also be mercy in the wisdom

This means we don't talk in a way that is condescending we don't share wisdom or correct somebody in a crowd of people but we go to them in private and seek to help

Again if I have broccoli in my teeth I wouldn't want you to call me out in front of the entire group but I would want you to come to me afterwards saying hey do you have something near teeth or be discreet

Wisdom that's from God is full of mercy

It is impartial and sincere

Whether I'm rich or I'm poor whether we're close or we're not wisdom should not be discriminating

It should be giving fairly and it should come from a sincere place of concern or love

So as a group of young adults do we have wisdom that is from above?

Is our wisdom based in a competitive selfish ambition that leads to every kind of evil

Or is our wisdom from above?

And I believe each of us should look at our lives look at this passage and hold it up as a mirror

Do we base our wisdom in selfishness or do we base our wisdom in the characteristics listed in verse 17

And the reason this is important is because these things that we practice

These things that we sow in our life will reap a harvest

We see in verse 18

18 And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

Wisdom that's from above is peaceful it seeks peace

And when you sew that type of wisdom if you sew peace you will find righteousness

But if you sew wisdom out of selfish ambition or jealousy it will reap harvests of every kind of evil

So today tonight this week first and foremost are we seeking wisdom from God

again James 1:5

James 1:5 ESV

5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.

But secondly do we seek or exercise wisdom out of godliness or out of unrighteousness

Because each and every one of us needs wisdom and each and every one of us needs to go to our brother with wisdom but it must be from above and not from selfish ambition or jealousy

The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord so my question is do we have a healthy fear of God

Do we seek to honor him do we seek to respect what he has told us to do and obey

It also says and the knowledge of the almighty is the beginning of insight do we seek to understand God deeply and allow that to affect our lives

So let's go ahead and break up into prayer groups and seek God this week on whether we are operating in true wisdom or worldly wisdom

Because the answer is to repent and trust in Jesus and seek to understand him and know him better