Selfishness

True Wisdom is Ambitious To Live Selflessly

9.26.21 [James 3:13-18] River of Life (18th Sunday after Pentecost)

How do you prove to another that you know what you’re talking about? That you know what you’re doing? I suppose that depends, to some degree, on what you’re talking about or what you’re doing.

If you’re a doctor or a teacher, you might point people to your academic credentials—your training and your degrees, papers you’ve written for journals or presentations you’ve done for your peers. If you’re a tradesman like a plumber or an electrician, your apprenticeship is critical, but not everyone understands that. You might point to the fact that you’re licensed, bonded, and insured. You’d provide references of satisfied clients, too. If you’re a chef, you may have won some awards for your food. You may have wowed some local food critic. But even if you haven’t you can point people to the reviews people can find online. When you are good at your job, when you are wise in your field, you can typically demonstrate that to people in some way. Wisdom and understanding is proved by what you produce.

Today James asks Christians a similar question. (James 3:13) Who is wise and understanding among you? Typically, when we think of a wise or understanding Christian we immediately think of examples of head knowledge. A wise and understanding Christian is someone who knows the Bible backwards and forwards. A wise and and understanding Christian is someone who can rattle off finer points of doctrine. A wise and understanding Christian is someone who has a good answer to every theological question.

But James doesn’t mention any of that, does he? He says you’ll recognize a (James 3:13) wise and understanding Christian by their good life—the beautiful behavior that marks their ways and days. James goes on to tell us what makes a life good. The beautiful life is filled with (James 3:13) humble deeds. It is (James 3:17) pure, peace-loving, considerate, submissive, merciful, impartial and sincere.

The wise and understanding Christian not only knows that the Bible is the very words of life, but the wise and understanding Christian knows how those words connect to and guide their own lives.

Everyone wants to be known as wise and understanding. But how that happens, what makes a person wise and understanding, is crucial.

Because as James speaks about wisdom, he wants us to recognize that in this world there are two kinds of wisdom. One is (James 3:17) from heaven. The other is not. It is earthly. You would think that this alone would make it easy to spot the difference. It should be as simple to differentiate between the wisdom that is from heaven and the wisdom that is from earth as it would be to tell the difference between Chris Evans playing Captain America and a child in a Halloween costume.

God wants it to be that clear to each of us. We must understand these two kinds of wisdom—where they come from and what they do. (1 Cor. 2:5) Human wisdom is all around us. This is the wisdom that drives culture. The wisdom that initiates, leads, and terminates our most important discussions. This wisdom counsels and corrects classrooms across our country. This wisdom drives the business decisions that are made in the boardroom and the break room and everywhere in between. This wisdom guides people of all ages, languages, and races. That is why it is rightly called (1 Cor. 1:20) the wisdom of this world, because it is everywhere.

We are all surrounded by this wisdom. It is delightful to (Rom. 8:6) the mind governed by the flesh. This wisdom has an incredibly powerful grip on our world and us. This kind of wisdom has driven your decision making and prompted you to take action.

James says the two of the defining marks of this kind of wisdom are (James 3:14) bitter envy and selfish ambition. At first glance, these may seem totally random. We may see them as unrighteous practices, but they also strike us as unrelated. But they are not. In fact they are a close as two sides of the same coin. Heads is selfish ambition. Tails, bitter envy. Selfish ambition and bitter envy are the sum and substance of this world’s wisdom.

In the classroom, the fires of selfish ambition are stoked early. Students are implored to work hard so that they can pursue their passions. Ambition drives some to achieve at the highest levels. They earn high marks. They get into the great school.

But what about the rest? They get their first taste of tails: bitter envy. They grow envious of their more accomplished peers. They say: She only got good grades because the teacher likes her. He got into that school because his parents are connected. I would be able to do the same if I didn’t have to deal with…and then they list whatever obstacles and challenges they’ve had to face in life and pretend their more accomplished peers had no such problems.

Selfish ambition and bitter envy are two sides of the same coin. Keep flipping the coin of this world’s wisdom and you’ll experience both. Even the highly successful students do. Eventually.

When they get out of school and into the workplace their employers are the ones who get frustrated, first. The employers will tell you that they are frustrated because this new generation is entitled and quixotic. They expect to get promoted to management positions before they even know what they’re doing. Maybe the employers are right to be frustrated. But maybe they shouldn’t be surprised when, for their entire lives, these students have been told they can be anything they want to be and that living their truth is the most powerful and important thing they can do that they might actually buy into such ideas.

And it’s not as if these companies are any less selfishly ambitious. They, too, are entitled and quixotic. They expect profits to rise every quarter. Sales numbers to be higher. Growth to be industry-leading. And what happens when profits stagnate? Heads roll. Why? Because, someone else in their industry is doing better. Because they’ve reached the tails side of worldly wisdom: bitter envy.

And that bitter envy spills down into the break room. Suddenly employees who recognize how tenuous their careers can be, start looking for work somewhere else. They chase after raises and better titles and benefits. After a few years, it becomes clear no company can make them happy. So the goal becomes to retire as quickly as possible. Because the sooner you retire, the sooner you can really do what you want. The wisdom of this world is clear. Get what’s yours while the getting’s still good. You’ve got to look out for number one because no one else will! The wisdom of this world is just rank selfishness.

And it impacts us, too. Because when you live in a world when everyone is fighting tooth and nail to have for themselves, you and I get caught up in that kind of thinking too. When every fiber of your sinful nature is shouting that if you don’t fight for what’s yours someone is going to take it from you, it’s hard to ignore.

But we must understand how this wisdom views the us and the world around us, we must recognize where it comes from and whom it serves. James tells us this wisdom is (James 3:15) earthly, and unspiritual. It is materialistic, in both senses. First it is materialistic in that it is initially obsessed with acquiring things and amassing treasures. But it is also materialistic in the sense that it denies that there is anything more to life in this world than what we can see, touch, and enjoy.

There is no concept of God in this kind of wisdom—which shouldn’t surprise us when we consider where it comes form and whom it serves.

James tells us this wisdom is (James 3:15) demonic because this is the wisdom that slithered down the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and began to plant the seeds of doubt in the hearts and minds of Adam and Eve. He began with (Gen. 3:1) Did God really say? and ended with Does God really know what he is doing? Does God really care about you or is he just trying to keep all the good stuff for himself?

How often don’t you find yourself buying into the wisdom that slithered down that tree, rather than the wisdom that comes from above? The wisdom of the serpent sounds smart at first. It is very persuasive, exceedingly practical, and often effective in an earthly sense. The wisdom of selfish ambition can get you a lot of the things that you want. But eventually you will find yourself surrounded by disorder, battling against every evil practice.

If this life is all we have, if this world is all there is, then it is smart to be selfish. But if life is a gift from God, if he made this world and all that is in it, then it is wise to be selfless and even self-sacrificing.

Yet, even when we come to that realization, we struggle to live as wise and understanding people. Our lives are not as beautiful as they should be. That is why wisdom had to come down from heaven.

James began these words about wisdom with a question. Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his humble deeds. We recognized that was a strange way of someone showing their wisdom. We expected a list of head knowledge kind of stuff. But we didn’t get it. James 3:17 follows suit. James does not say wisdom comes from the Bible. He says wisdom comes from heaven. This wisdom is pure, peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy, good fruit, impartial, and sincere. All of these would be strange ways of describing any kind of book—even the Bible. Some of them kinda, sorta fit. The Bible is pure. God’s Word without errors or contradictions. The Bible is peace-loving and full of mercy and impartial. But the Bible is not submissive. The Bible is not considerate or full of good fruit or sincere. That’s because James isn’t referring to the Word of God, but the Word made flesh. The wisdom that came down from heaven is the man, Christ-Jesus. It is the Holy Scriptures that make us wise for salvation, aware that we desperately need a Savior who would live wisely and die sacrificially for our sins.

That is what we find in Jesus. He is first of pure. Without sin in thought, word, and deed. He loves peace. Not surface peace of people just getting along, but the peace that lasts for eternity. Peace between God and man. Peace on earth. This is the peace our Prince purchased with his holy precious blood.

Jesus is considerate—gentle and kind. As he takes little children upon his lap and blesses them, he shows his deep concern for all souls.

Jesus is submissive. He took on flesh and blood because he had to to make atonement for our sins. He went to the cross, even though it was scary and sad and excruciatingly painful.

He was full of mercy & impartial. On the cross he prayed for his abusers, welcomed a criminal into his kingdom, and made earthly arrangements for his mother. Whom did he love most? It’s hard to say because he is so full of mercy and impartial.

By his innocent suffering and death and his glorious resurrection, Jesus made peace for sinners like us. That is why he greeted his disciples with those words so often after his resurrection. Jesus is the wisdom that came down from heaven so that we might be redeemed from the wisdom that comes from within our sinful nature.

It is easy to distinguish between heaven’s wisdom and this world’s wisdom that. As easy as telling the difference between the real Captain America and a child in a Halloween costume. The wisdom of this world is like a child in a Halloween costume. Hand out, saying whatever it takes to fill up his bucket. Gimme, gimme is all that is on his mind. The wisdom that is from above is different—a greater hero than even Captain America. He is our Savior, Jesus Christ, and he longs to save all sinners. This Wisdom has planted the seeds of wisdom, a fear of and faith in the Lord, in the hearts and minds of all Christians. He calls us to be wise in this world. We are (James 3:18) the harvest of his righteousness. (Eph 5:15) So live wisely!

What does it mean to be wise? It means we recognize how things are connected. When we look at considerate, submissive, merciful, sincere Jesus, we long to imitate him. We strike to be gentle in dealing with one another. We aspire to submit to God’s will with joy. We seek to show how (James 2:13) mercy triumphs over judgment and to deal with sinners in sincere love and concern.

Here’s what Jesus says about us. (Lk. 7:25) Wisdom is proved right by her children. You and I are called to be evidence of God’s Wisdom working in our hearts. Christians are to be as active, aggressive, and creative with the wisdom we’ve been given from above as the world is with its charlatan kind of wisdom.

Our lives are no longer about pursuing our dreams, finding happiness and satisfaction in this life, because this life isn’t all we’ve been given and our dreams don’t measure up to all that God has planned for us. It may be smart, according to our world, to live selfishly. But we know better. It is wise to live selflessly, for this demonstrates a fear, love, and trust in the Lord our GOd. The Wisdom we have been given moves us to think carefully, speak confidently, and act courageously.

Look at how wisdom has done that for so many people in the Scriptures. The greatest triumphs of God’s children were always moments when they lived wisely, when they connected the words of God with the events of their lives.

When Joshua and Caleb came back after exploring the Promised Land they were the only two spies who said that Israel should invade. Why? Did they not see the fortified cities and the powerful warriors? Of course they did. But they connected that with God’s promise. Same thing with David and Goliath. David wasn’t better equipped for battle. He was wiser. He understood Goliath was blaspheming the same Lord God who anointed David to one day be king of Israel. Paul lived a comfortable life when he persecuted Christians. When he was converted by Christ, he began to face the same kind of persecution. But Paul was wise. He connected the promises of Christ to his life. He knew that Jesus said anyone who follows me must take up their cross. Paul knew that his sufferings were drawing him closer to his Savior. So he rejoiced and said (Php. 4:13) I can endure all these things through him who gives me strength.

The wise and understanding Christian not only knows that the Bible is the very words of life, but the wise and understanding Christian knows how those words connect to and guide their own lives. (James 3:13) Who is wise and understanding among us? Let us show it in how we live, by learning and understanding the Word and will of God so that we might (Eph. 5:15-18) make the most of every opportunity, humbly serving our neighbor and glorifying our Beautiful Savior. Amen.