Wisdom from Above

Intro

Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations 5222 Peace Child

In a book entitled Peace Child, Don Richardson records the moving account of how the Sawi people of Irian Jaya came to understand salvation through Jesus Christ. For many months he and his family sought for some way to communicate the gospel to this tribe. Then they discovered the key for which they had been praying. All demonstrations of kindness expressed by the Sawi were regarded with suspicion except one act. If a father gave his own son to his enemy, his sacrificial deed showed that he could be trusted! Furthermore, everyone who touched that child was brought into a friendly relationship with the father. The Sawi were then taught that in a similar way God’s beloved Son could bring them eternal peace.

Don Richardson and his family went to become missionaries to the Sawi people of West Paupa.

They went there to share with the native people the Gospel. But for a long while no matter what they said message of the gospel did not get through. They had learned the language, but it seemed like they were still mission something. You see for the Sawi people acts of kindness from an outsider were always regarded with suspicion. The Sawi people did not trust any would not trust anyone outside their own people. So the idea of God showing them kindness did not resonate.

But eventually Don found that there was one slight exception to this. He learned that if the Sawi people were at war with a neighbouring tribe there was one way to earn trust and make peace.

If the Chief of the tribe gave a peace child, that is if he gave his own son to the tribe they were at war with that would would then be at peace and there would be no more war.

When Don learned of this practice he immediately shared with the Sawi people that Jesus was God’s peace child. He was given by the Father so that they no longer would be at war, but peace.

It was then that the Sawi people really heard the good news for the first time.

God in his wisdom is the great peacemaker and he sent his son Jesus to make peace. To not simply create a cease fire but to bring shalom, wholeness, peace.

Don Richardson in his book Peace

God has made peace with us, but often the peace that a Christian has with God gets lost in translation when it comes to our friends and neighbors.

Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God. These are some of Jesus most famous words. They are part of his famous sermon on the mount and are one of the eight beatitudes. They are called this because the person who is truly blessed or happy in this life lives like this.

Jesus

Develop the idea that God’s wisdom has made peace with us

FCF: We know what it is like to have tense relationships, strained friendships, shaky marriages. Our families are usually the most intense place where we can experience the lack of peace the most. An alcoholic brother who refuses to get help.

Or an aunt who calls to gossip about so and so. Can you believe what she did. How dare he shame on him.

FCF: We know what it is like to experience tense relationships right. The church is a great place to experience this. Like our family our church is like an extended family.

We know what it is like to experience tense relationships right. The church is a great place to experience this. Like our family our church is like an extended family.

The next place we experience can experince this lack of peace is often in the church which is another type of extended family. If you have been around the church for long you know how quickly relationships can get disordered.

But what we see in our passage this morning is that

The reasons: world the flesh and the devil

Because God has made peace with us we should make peace with one another

Because God has made peace with us we should make peace with one another

What are the consequences? We should make peace with one another

And in order to make peace we need the right wisdom. And in our passage we see two types of wisdom, the right kind, the wisdom from above and the wrong kind, the wisdom from below.

So first if we want to create a community that is peaceful let’s see what kind of wisdom we need to avoid. The

Wisdom from Below

Look with me at James 3:14-15

James 3:14–15 ESV

But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic.

Fist James shows what happens if our wisdom is from below. You know you are not really a wise community if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition running a muck. The bitter jealousy that James is talking about is a kind of zeal (the Greek word for jealousy is zelos which we get the word zeal) A kind of zeal for your own particular agenda especially when what you desire is being pushed aside.

James 3:14 ESV

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

James 3:14–15 ESV

But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic.

Fist James shows what happens if our wisdom is from below. You know you are not really a wise community if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition running a muck. The bitter jealousy that James is talking about is a kind of zeal (the Greek word for jealousy is zelos which we get the word zeal) A kind of zeal for your own particular agenda especially when what you desire is being pushed aside.

James 3:14

James 3:

Fist James shows what happens if our wisdom is from below. You know you are not really a wise community if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition running a muck. The bitter jealousy that James is talking about is a kind of zeal (the Greek word for jealousy is zelos which we get the word zeal) A kind of zeal for your own particular agenda especially when what you desire is being pushed aside.

So let’s say you love fill in the blank - environmentalism, singing hymns, healing prayer, biblical theology, racial reconciliation, liturgical dance, underwater basket weaving. Whatever it may be.

Let’s say its something good and you love it. But you don’t feel like it gets enough air time. That this other thing that you don’t care about AS MUCH seems to be talked about a lot, and what you desire is not recognized as much as you would like.

Well if you are not careful bitter jealousy can creep in. An attitude that says: “Why do they get what they want, but I a get left in the dust.”

Now we might not think about this as bitter jealousy because we just feel is disappointed, frustrated, or even angry when what we desire is marginalized, but it is.

And if bitter jealousy sets then in comes selfish ambition, we start pushing our agenda at the expense of other people. Or we simply take our talents to south beach or someplace else.

James says if bitter jealousy and selfish ambition are present it means that we have bought into a different kind of wisdom

Look with me at verse 15

James 3:15 ESV

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

earthly, nonspiritual and demonic. Another way Christians have described these three evil forces is the world, the flesh, and the devil. What James means by earthly are the empty promises and deadly deceits of the world. So let’s say your particular desire is not getting much air time, the earthly wisdom of the world advises us that if we can’t give full expression to all our desires we are being inauthentic and untrue to ourselves. And the wisdom of our culture there is probably no greater sin than not being true to your desires.

Secondly he share the source of wisdom from below

The World

The Flesh

And the un

And the unspiritual wisdom of our sinful flesh likes to hear this. “Yeah why should I have to suppress my desires.”

And then there is a demonic element. Yes demonic. demonic forces are at play and in the case of jealousy and selfish ambition, the way they work is to amplify the worlds wisdom and twist God’s word so that our sin seems to be virtuous, or that sin is not really that big of deal, or demonic forces will misrepresent God’s desire.

The Devil

Illustration

So if we go back all the way to the beginning, in the garden with Adam and Eve, we can see how this might look. God created Adam and Eve complete and whole and God told them and now look at this in

Genesis 2:16 ESV

And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden,

Genesis 2:16–17 ESV

And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

Now look at how the evil one places a seed of doubt

Genesis 3:1 ESV

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”

Genesis 3

He twists God’s word. God just said they could eat of any tree in the garden except one. That would be like if I told you hey Clemson’s mascot is the tiger. And then someone comes up and says Did Luke actually say that Clemson’s mascot is a gamecock.

No but just a little bit of doubt might creep in.

Then Eve responds to the evil one by twisting God’s word herself.

Genesis 3:2–3 ESV

And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ”

God never said they could not touch it. The evil one twisted God’s word then Eve twisted God’s word, oh and Adam who was with Eve did not do squat about it.

Application:

The evil one is crafty. And he will do whatever he can to have us justify our actions and specifically convince us that our jealousy is not wrong, but actually Godly zeal. And our selfish ambition is not self promotion at the expense of others, but confidences and perseverance in the face of opposition.

The world’s wisdom says that if you don’t get full expression of your desires you are being untrue to yourself.

Our sinful flesh seeks to promote self over everyone else

So what do we do? Well avoid that so called wisdom and seek the

And demonic forces will do whatever they can to amplify the word and flesh and twist God’s word.

they were give one commandment not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Then evil slithers in. And what happens? He places a seed of doubt. He does not frighten Eve. He just asks aquestion “Did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden?

He does not frighten Eve. He just asks aquestion “Did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden?

Application

Wisdom from Above

Look with me at verse 17

James 3:13 ESV

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

and then in verse

James 3:17 ESV

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

James 3:

So first let’s just unfold what the person who is directed by wisdom from above

The first and all encompassing attribute of wisdom is that it is pure and pure here means morally blameless.

The list that follows are dimensions of this purity.

Peaceable: That is a person who loves and moves toward reconciled relationships, This is a person who simply avoided rocking the boat, but who is willing to rock the boat for the sake of reconciliation.

Then Gentle. And gentle here means a willingness to yield to others, the person who is directed by the wisdom from above does not dig in his or her heals, but dignifies others by considering them more significant than themselves.

Then Open to Reason. A person directed by wisdom from above is open to new insights and different perspectives, whose defenses are not imminently up if somethings sounds different than what they are used to hearing.

Then full of mercy and good fruit. A person directed by wisdom from above is gracious, and this moves to serve those in need.

Then impartial. A person directed by wisdom from above is aware of their own bias’s and can relate to others fairly.

Then James ends his fruit of wisdom with sincere. The person directed by wisdom from above is sincere, that is they don’t play a part. But are stable and trustworthy.

Now, that is what a person who is directed by wisdom looks like, but what is the wisdom that is being talked about here?

Now

So that is what a person looks like who is directed by wisdom

Now

What is the wisdom from above? Is it some downloaded information that gets beamed into Christians? Well, if we look over at another passage of scripture we see that Jesus is called the wisdom from God. Look with me at

1 Corinthians 1:30 ESV

And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption,

And in many ways the way James talks about the fruit of wisdom sounds a lot like the way Paul talked about the fruit of the Spirit.

And that is it. Wisdom from above is Jesus who through the Holy Spirit we are united to by faith.

So if we want to be people who are directed by the wisdom from above we need to be lean more fully and depend more on Jesus.

And one of the main things the Holy Spirit does is act as a flood light. To shine the light on Jesus, helping us to see who he is and what he does. And as the Holy Spirit shines light on Jesus the more our hearts will be moved to awe and gratitude. And when we are in that place of thankfulness we have peace and can share that peace with others.

So if we want wisdom from above let us draw near to Jesus and the Holy Spirit will flood light on him causing us to see him and

his purity, his blamelessness, Because his moral purity is counted to us

Because his moral purity is counted to us

his peaceableness for it is his love of peace that moved him to go to the cross to reconcile us to God.

by his peaceableness for it is his love of peace that moved him to go to the cross to reconcile us to God.

His gentleness who sat down with the woman at the well, dignifying her and dignifying us.

His mercy, to the woman caught in adultery, and his mercy toward us when we are caught in sin

His sincerity in every word he spoke, and his sincerity and trustworthiness to us when he says come all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.

he is the rock in whom we can build our life on.

Jesus is the wisdom from above.

Application:

So if Jesus is the wisdom from above what does this mean for us who desire a community that is marked by peace and not jealousy, selfish ambition, and disorder?

Well it means going to the place of awe and gratitude. We usually think of changing trying to control our wills to be or do something, but what we need to do is heart work.

What we do, our actions follows our heart.

You see what the heart love’s the will chooses. So when we read Scripture we should ask the Holy Spirit to flood his light on Jesus so we might see his face. How does this passage reveal Jesus. We need to find ways to enjoy our relationship with God for when our hearts desire him, our will what we do, how we act follows.

How does this passage reveal Jesus

And when we pray we seek to

It is sort of like going on a date with your spouse. In our busy distracted world we have to make an effort to carve out that time. The same is true of our relationship with God. It is an effort to spend that time, but it is about cultivating aew and gratitude

So if you want to change

So if we set our hearts affections on Jesus our will follows.

And when we do that our hearts desire is turned toward God and our will is then directed from the wisdom from above.

So at Christ the Redeemer we need to be aware of the competing so called widom of the world the flesh and the devil, but if we want to be a church that is marked by the peace of God then we also need to set our mind on the wisdom from above where Christ is seated at the right hand of the father.

Conclusion

There are two kinds of wisdom. Wisdom from below and wisdom from above. And what our hearts are set on is the wisdom that will direct us.

Let us lift our hearts to Jesus the wisdom from above so that we might be a community marked by peace. For the more that we see the beauty of his reconciliation and peace the more we experience awe and gratitude the more we can share that peace with one another.

Jesus is God’s wisdom who has made a harvest of righteousness by making peace through his blood