Smart or Wise?

Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. It is always a blessing to be in the Word, being edified and edifying the saints of Durbin Memorial Baptist Church. Our church exists by grace, for glory, in love.

I want to start this morning by asking the question, what is wisdom?

I could give you the dictionary answer. Some of those include, “knowledge that is gained by having many experiences in life,” “the natural ability to understand things that most other people cannot understand,” or “knowledge of what is proper or reasonable.”

Those are okay definitions of earthly wisdom, but I don’t think these definitions are practical enough for our approach to biblical wisdom. We have been walking through the book of James for some time now and we have already seen that God grants wisdom generously to all who asks God for it, see James 1:5 for more on that. But what is godly wisdom? How do we know if we have it?

We typically connect wisdom to intelligence, that is being smart enough to know how things work together so that you can make the proper decision in a given situation. Sometimes we like to think about wisdom like an airport. If you’ve ever had to fly anywhere, you know how crazy an airport can be. Depending on the size of the airport you’re flying out of, there can be thousands of flights in and out every single day. When you’re walking around trying to find your flight, you can be overwhelmed by the scope of it all. Then you finally get to your terminal and find out flight was delayed. In the moment you’re probably frustrated and confused.

If you were given the opportunity to go up in the air traffic control tower, you’d get to see how all 2000 of the flights are coordinated together by a team working to the best of their abilities to create safe and efficient travel. You’d see that the delays were due to specific and reasonable causes. You’d see all the radars, the charts, and the background communication that takes place which would likely give a greater appreciation for how the airport works, why you’ve experienced a delay in your own trip, and have a greater sense of peace with your situation.

This is often how we, incorrectly, imagine biblical wisdom to work. We assume that Biblical Wisdom is God granting us behind the scenes information. We connect wisdom with being granted the reasons why something has happened. We imagine that if we walk close enough with God that He will allow us into the air traffic control tower in the sky so that we can see how everything connects together. So then we spend our time looking for the why of everything, trying to read the signs. Now don’t get me wrong, God may very well make something so obviously clear to us that we know how to react in a given situation. But that is not the consistent pattern of regular life we see play out in Scripture.

The best biblical example of this might be Job. Job was a righteous man who had every earthly possession and relationship stripped from him. Job laments over his condition and says “Let the Almighty answer me!” basically asking for why all of this calamity has fallen on him. Then eventually the Lord does answer Job. But He doesn’t answer his question. Instead God declares His Majesty, His Sovereignty. Job’s response is humbled silence. Seeing that God did not owe him an answer. Job repents and continues serving God in His life. Biblical Wisdom is not gaining insight on the intricacies of WHY everything happens. It’s pressing forward knowing who is in control.

One pastor gave a more appropriate illustration for biblical wisdom. He said this: “the experience of God’s wisdom is like learning to drive a car. When driving it is important to make appropriate responses to the constantly changing scene, to exercise soundness of judgment regarding speed, distance, and braking. If you are going to drive well, you don’t spend your time analyzing the highway engineer’s reasoning for an S curve; the philosophy that produced red, green, and yellow traffic lights; or why the lady in front of you is accelerating while her foot is on the brake. Rather, “You simply try to see and do the right thing in the actual situation that presents itself. The effect of divine wisdom is to enable you and me to do just that in the actual situations of life.”

“Being wise does not mean we understand everything that is going on because of our superior knowledge, but that we do the right thing as life comes along. Some drivers may have immense knowledge about everything, but they cannot drive well at all. Others who are less knowledgeable consistently do the right thing as they wisely drive through life.”

So how do we actually gain this wisdom? How do we learn to drive through life for the glory of God?

“The formula is simple enough: 1) reverence/fear, for “the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom” (Psalm 111:10); 2) conversion, receiving Christ who is “wisdom from God” (1 Corinthians 1:30); 3) the Scriptures, which convey the wisdom of God; and 4) prayer, which brings wisdom for the asking. As we follow this formula we will grow and know how to conduct our lives with ultimate wisdom.” So with this in mind, let’s now look at wisdom in the context of the local church.

Open your Bibles, if you have not already to James chapter 3. Today we will be looking at wisdom in the church. We will evaluating real biblical wisdom as opposed to false earthly wisdom. We will use this to help us evaluate our own lives and seek godly wisdom for the glory of God. Begin with me in verse 13.

Meekness of the Wise (If you got it, flaunt it?)

James 3:13 ESV

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

I don’t want to push the “wisdom is like driving a car” analogy too far, but I think there is an interesting parallel when we see James here explaining the connection between wisdom and meekness. A car is a massively powerful object. While some cars go faster than others, if you really think about it and compare it to even the rest of human history, it is astounding that we can travel down the road at 70, 80, 100 miles per hour. When you drive down the road, making the appropriate decisions based on your experience and knowledge of the roadway system, you are controlling an extremely powerful machine that has the potential to be either an efficient and effective mode of travel, or it can be devastating and destructive

So if we think about verse 13 here in the greater context of chapter 3, last week when we looked at verses 1-12 we saw just how destructive the tongue, our mouths, our language can be. We were warned to watch our mouths. We were also warned that teachers, preachers, should be extra vigilant, knowing that we will give account for what we say and how we lead.

When we put that into our text this morning, we should be noting that meekness is power under control. It is the word used to describe a taming a race horse. So now James says, let the one who is wise, show that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom. Primarily James is referring to the leadership, the Pastors, Elders of the churches. That phrase “wise and understanding” was a common greek reference to the one whose education is above average. There is a connection to those who served as teachers. So teachers in the church should especially interested in what James is presenting. However, the principle is good for all of us.

“James is giving a penetrating moral test for any who think themselves to be wise—the test being not pride, but gentleness, meekness, in dealing with others. The wise know that God is in control, and they know who they are as redeemed sinners. Thus they can confidently meet their problems and their detractors with the gentle assurance that God will vindicate them. The meek/wise know how to do the right thing as they pass through the traffic of life.”

What we’re learning here is that being smart doesn’t supersede character. Really understanding the grace of God doesn’t end in our mental faculties, but plays out in how we live our lives, how we treat other people.

So James begins the test for true wisdom in our lives by connecting the positive connection of meekness, control, gentleness with real wisdom. As we progress through the text, we now come to the negative test, the things that if you have these, you have false wisdom. Read with me verses 14 and 15

False Wisdom, Check the internals

James 3:14–15 ESV

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.

This past Wednesday our men’s group had a great conversation about setting biblical priorities in our lives. If you haven’t come to those meetings, you really should try to make it. Our next one and probably last one for the year as we break for the busyness of December will be on Nov 20. But as we were talking in the men’s group, we were talking about setting priorities and taking time to periodically re-evaluate what we are prioritizing and how that lines up with Scripture.

When we come across tests like this this morning, we are reminded to re-evaluate not necessarily our priorities in this moment but our motivations.

As a general principle, Christian’s ought to be more comfortable regularly evaluating our priorities and motivations, reflecting on how we were stewarding our lives for the glory of God. I’m not saying that we have to continually beat ourselves up over every mistake we’ve ever made. But we CAN look at our pasts and celebrate the grace of God even in our sin. If we understand that we are to daily put off the old and put on the new, then we need to be consistently asking ourselves, what is the old, how is it rearing its head? How can I steward this life by putting to death the sin that I see in me?

James gives us some specific categories to look at right here. He says, “if you have”, so we need to be asking ourselves as the read, “do I have…” “bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart.” “in MY heart.”

Before we continue, let’s define those terms.

Bitter jealousy. Also literally pungent or harsh zeal. These folks can’t stand to see others in possession of the positions of influence that they desire for themselves.

Then we see selfish ambition. There is an internal yearning for self-promotion motivating their actions and their divisive behavior. Their participation in the church is not about the good of God’s people, but about their personal need to be seen as especially important and receive the validation of others.

These two characteristics go hand in hand. They are two sides of the same coin.

“There once was a story of two men who lived in a particular city. One was known for being envious and the other known for being covetous. The ruler of the city sent for them and said he wanted to grant them one wish each—with this one provision, that the one who chose first would get exactly what he asked for, while the other man would get exactly twice what the first had asked for himself. The envious man was ordered to choose first, but immediately found himself in a perdicament. He wanted to choose something great for himself, but realized that if he did so the other would get twice as much. He thought for a while and then asked that one of his eyes be put out. In the church this type of person could honestly pray, “Lord, I would sooner your work was not done at all than done by someone better than I can do it.”

You see when our hearts are filled with bitter envy and selfish ambition, our motivations are out of whack, and the results are disastrous. We’re metaphorically taking out our own eye to spite both the eyes of those around us but that is often the results.

Allow me to give you a corporate example of how churches and the leadership therein can fall to this kind of heart attitude. Have you all ever heard of geofencing? This is a fairly new technology. Basically when you get on your smartphone, it will use your location to send you advertisements that are specific to where you are. Companies can go online and draw maps of the specific areas where they want people to receive their ad. Now this happens all the time for a variety of businesses. Churches can even do this. If we’re running some sort of event, I can go on Facebook and say that I want people in 3 mile radius to receive an ad about our event. It can be helpful in getting the word out about something that is going.

In the last year a story came out about a church in the Carolinas that was using geofencing to invite people to their church. Seems like no big deal. Except it came out that the locations that they were targeting were all of the small/normative size churches in their area. This church’s growth strategy was to go after people who already claimed faith in Christ, people who were already used to giving and support ministries financially, and hope that they might be able to allure them to a place with perceivably more resources. Imagine, the church just had a rocky business meeting, you get in the car, scroll through facebook, and there’s an ad for a church that seemingly has it all together, has every program you could want, and just seems easier. And from the reports I heard, this strategy worked. The church doing the advertising grew not by evangelism but by bringing in disgruntled church members while the normative sized churches struggled to retain membership.

Now my point in bringing this up isn’t to point fingers at all of the larger churches out there, nor to throw a pity party for smaller/normative sized churches. My intention in bringing this is up is that it is a verified example of people claiming to be working for the Kingdom of Christ, who were actually much more motivated self-ambition. They were more worried about building their own brand than the kingdom of Christ. When a church is seeking to grow, our goal should never be to do so at the expense of other churches. While there will be times when people move from church to church for various reasons, we aren’t going out of our way to intentionally lure members from other congregations. The other faithful churches in our area they are not our competition, they are co-laborers for the Kingdom!

That is a corporate example, but the similar results can be found on the interpersonal level. When we’re driven by selfish-ambition and bitter jealousy, our Sunday-school classes turn to into theological showcases of who can out debate the other. Instead of celebrating with others in the wins we mourn what we don’t have in our lives. The people whom we are called to spur on in love and good works become our competition and our conflict.

If you search your heart and find bitter jealousy and selfish-ambition, James says, do not boast and be false to the truth. These aren’t the results of truly understanding the grace of God. Reject those earthly, unspiritual, and demonic characteristics. These adjectives are point us to think of the results of the fall. This means that selfish ambition and bitter jealousy are the very things we are to be taking off and putting to death day in and day out. They may be the natural inclination of our flesh but they are certainly not for our good, the good of our church, nor the glory of our God.

Look at the next verse:

Check your heart

James 3:16 ESV

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

One pastor noted that “An interesting word that came out of World War II was snafu, which is an acronym for “situation normal, all fouled up.” According to the Chicago Tribune, the Pentagon has now scrapped that word for a new one, fubb—“fouled up beyond belief.” Sadly, both words describe any church where the false wisdom of the world prevails”

Jealousy and selfish ambition not only cause disorder in the functioning of a church because of the interpersonal issues that they cause, but they also make a mess of the theology we claim to hold. Bitter jealousy mars the reality that we are all members of the same body, working together for the glory of Christ. Self-ambition places ourselves, our interests, in the forefront of our practice when we know that Christ is the one to whom, through whom, and for whom all things we made. These character traits invert the gospel and make everything about ourselves.

“Where jealousy and selfish ambition exist there is going to be disorder and every vile practice.”

I hope that it is painfully obvious at this point how destruction jealousy and selfish ambition can be. I can’t give a more stern denouncement that what James has presented in our text thus far this morning.

And while this certainly is a heavy topic and we should be searching our own hearts, asking the Holy Spirit to rid us of any bitter roots that may remain, I want to also present the optimistic side our text this morning.

There is phrase that I have probably said 100 times in my time in this pulpit. “If you have breath, He ain’t done with you yet.”

It is very likely that as we have looked at selfishness and jealousy in these few verses, that you may have recognized that they exist in your own life. Maybe in this very moment, you are thinking of some display of selfishness you’ve committed even this morning. If that is the case, then I do implore you to see the seriousness of these behaviors. I want you to see your sin for the ugliness that it is.

But the good news is that through self-reflection upon the hearing of the Word of God and the conviction of the Holy Spirit, there is hope for repentance!

This portion of James we have worked through thus far intentionally serve as an audit of the heart. And that audit then invites repentance from sin and renewed reliance on Christ’s righteousness. You may know every book of the Bible, you may have read more biblical commentaries than anyone else in this room. You may have your own Youtube channel where you explain cultural apologetics. But as we see in the text this morning, if all of that knowledge isn’t shaping you to reject selfish ambition and jealousy, then you lack true lived out, practical biblical wisdom. Face the truth of your lack of true wisdom, repent, and humbly trust in the all-wise God rather than vaunting your false and foundationless “wisdom.”

There is a better way than the earthly, unspiritual, demon-like, desires of our flesh exposed in our selfishness and jealousy. Look at our last set of verses.

Reap the harvest

James 3:17–18 ESV

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.

James contrasts the jealous, selfish worldly “wisdom”, with seven descriptors of biblical wisdom applied in the life of the believer and one action step to get the ball rolling on applying godly wisdom in our lives.

Godly wisdom, wisdom from above, is first “pure.” It is pure in the sense of being undefiled. This is a purity that comes to all who have been cleansed by the blood of Christ. 1 John 3:3 reads “3 And everyone who thus hopes in [Christ] purifies [them]self as [christ] is pure.” Theres this dual reality that we have both been cleansed by Christ through the washing of His blood at the point of regeneration and that in response to the washing of our sins, we continue to purify and put off the old and on the new. Regeneration and sanctification. In regards to our text this morning, real wisdom is pure because it comes from the Lord. We find it in the reading and application of the Word, in the power of the Holy Spirit to convict us of our earthly tendencies and repent! You want real wisdom? Then put aside sensuality, pride, and covetousness, and cling to Christ through the Word! Evaluate your priorities and be resolved that you have an undivided devotion to the source of Purity, the Pure One, Jesus Christ.

Then from purity we move to peaceable, or peace loving. Blessed are the peacemakers as Christ would say! Now peace loving doesn’t mean that we abdicate truth to generally get along with others. But rather that we weigh grace and truth together, seeking the good of others, standing up for truth and purity, while seeking the good of others by walking with them as they sort out their own lives, and finding common ground at the foot of the cross. One couple once made it to their 50th anniversary. They were asked how they stayed together so long. The man said that they had an arrangement, when she was bothered about something, she’d get it off her chest and tell him how she was feeling. When he was mad, he’d go out and take a lone walk. He said, “I suppose you could attribute our happy marriage to the fact that I have largely led an outdoor life.” Unfortunately, this is our common approach to peace. But real peace comes from finding common ground in Christ. Actively bearing with one another. Not ignoring the sins that occur on all sides.

This then flows into the next five descriptors of biblical wisdom in our text, “gentle, open to reason, full or mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.” Gentleness is reasonableness. Its understanding that I can keep my calm in any situation because God is in control. He is the judge that will ensure righteousness prevails even if I feel I have been wronged. Open to reason means that we carry ourselves with humility being willing to be corrected. It’s willing to yield when yielding is for the good of others. Seeking “Mercy”, not beating down others for the rest of their lives, but seeking to extend the same mercy and forgiveness that we have received for our own sins. Mercy also refers to showing compassion and pity towards the needy. Good fruits are putting that mercy into practical application, DOING the work the Word of God commands of us, and seeing that benefit others and the kingdom of God. We reject partiality, or giving preferential treatment. With sincerity, with genuine concern for others.

It’s interesting that all of these descriptors of heavenly wisdom listed by James are fully embodied in Christ through His life. He is the fullest sense and embodiment of the Wisdom of God. We model our lives after His, knowing that we are not the Savior, but that His ways are better than our ways. It is for our good and God’s glory.

One pastor noted “In Biblical times a young ox was yoked to an older, experienced ox, so that the older might train him to perform properly. By bearing the same yoke, the untrained ox learned the proper pace and how to heed the direction of the master. Jesus calls us to yoke ourselves to him. What a privilege and joy!”

The first step we take in being yoked to Jesus, the first step to applied, biblical wisdom, the first step to having a harvest of righteousness in our lives, is as we see in verse 18, making peace. Being peacemakers. Peace grounded in sharing Christ and finding common footing the grace of God displayed on the Cross of Christ.

Conclusion

As we wrap this up this morning, be reminded of the formula for wisdom we see throughout Scripture.

1) reverence/fear, for “the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom” (Psalm 111:10); Do you have reverential fear of the Lord of creation?

2) conversion, receiving Christ who is “wisdom from God” (1 Corinthians 1:30 “30 And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption,”); Do you know that you in Christ Jesus by grace through faith?

3) the Scriptures, which convey the wisdom of God; Are you searching the Scriptures with solemn and joyful personal reflection to see how you fall short, where you can turn from sin and turn to Christ, and enjoy the grace of God that covers your sins?

4) prayer, which brings wisdom for the asking. Are you pleading to God for applied wisdom, for guidance on how to go down the road of life in accordance with His will?

This church exists to help you in all facets of that formula. We proclaim the glory of God that He might be revered. We preach the necessity of the gospel and the great need for all to have faith in Him. We search the Scriptures as we have done this morning to point out of shortcomings and highlight the grace of God that He would allow our repentance and spur one another on in love and good works. And we pray together, pleading to God for wisdom.

Do you find yourself falling short on any of the characteristics we have walked through this morning?

Then dear friend and fellow sinner, do not despair! Rather, Repent (daily!), thank God for kindly revealing our sin, and rest in the finished work of Christ. Know that we are accepted because of Christ and not because of the purity of our motives or actions. In our hymn of response I encourage all of us to reflect and repent. I’ll be up front to help you with any of that should you desire counsel. We do this together, without selfish ambition. We go forward for the glory of God relying on the Holy spirit and the grace and encouragement of Christ’s church. Let us be a people who are more ashamed of our sin than being judged for repenting of it! Let us cry out to God in reliance on Him for His wisdom together. Respond today.

Let’s pray.