Who is the Holy Spirit?

Have you guys ever really thought about what makes a wise person? Like, what are the characteristics of a truly wise person? Some of us have a picture of someone when we think about the word “wise.” For me, it’s this old man sitting on the front porch smoking a pipe. He’s got gray hair and glasses on, sometimes he’s smoking a pipe or witling. Some of you guys may think about someone who has a ton of degrees or plaques on their wall, letting people know how much they’ve learned in their life. Maybe it’s as simple as someone who just reads a lot.

Now, show of hands, who wants to be wise themselves? When you picture yourself as wise, what do you see? Do you see a much older version of yourself? Maybe that version has gone through a lot of hardships in life, learned a lot of really valuable lessons through tough times in life, maybe through your degrees or experiences.

Tonight, we’re going to read in James 3: 13-18 to get some insight into what wisdom from the Holy Spirit gives us. Everybody turn there in your bibles.

Let’s read together

James 3:13-18 Who among you is wise and understanding? By his good conduct he should show that his works are done in the gentleness that comes from wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your heart, don’t boast and deny the truth. Such wisdom does not come down from above but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there is disorder and every evil practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peace-loving, gentle, compliant, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without pretense. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who cultivate peace.

- Pray -

When we read through this, James gives us the two versions of wisdom. They butt heads hard. I mean, these two versions are completely different, could not be more opposite. When you break them apart, like we’re going to do tonight, you see that there’s wisdom from above that’s true wisdom coming from God, and the other is like this cheap Chinese knockoff. Have you seen those? It’s got all the right stitches in just the right places, the fake leather smells super good. At first glance everything looks pretty solid but then you realize that the check is backwards, or it’s got 4 stripes instead of three. There’s a difference between the legit sneaker and the fake.

Wisdom works in the same way. The grey-haired guy on the porch with glasses making toothpicks may seem pretty wise, but does he have all the characteristics of legit wisdom? What even are the characteristics of legit wisdom? James just told us, but let’s go through it together.

1. Stay Humble

James 3:13-18 Who among you is wise and understanding? By his good conduct he should show that his works are done in the gentleness that comes from wisdom.

Right out of the gate, James is asking the tough questions. “Which one of you guys is wise?” We’ve got to remember, in this passage, James is talking to people who want to teach the word. Presumably, these guys all know the word pretty well. They’ve probably been around the block a few times, maybe even spent some time learning under James directly, but he’s giving them a chance to really show the genuineness of their wisdom here.

This verse is kind of an “if-then” statement. If you are wise and understanding, your conduct will show that the things you do are done in gentleness that comes from wisdom. Wisdom isn’t measured by degrees; it’s measured by deeds, and how those deeds are done. It’s important to note this word, gentleness. The Greek for it is actually “Prautēs” and its meaning is a little more in depth than just “gentle.” It means to be gentle in the spirit, have a mildness of disposition. What do you take from that? We know that definition as humility. If you are prautēs you are humble and meek. So, in this verse when James says your works are done in gentleness, he means humility.

You see, Jesus was the ultimate example of humility. Son of God, born from a virgin in a barn and raised as a carpenter. Always having the full power and authority of God, but never bragging. Never putting himself above others but doing exactly the opposite. If you flip over to Matthew 23:11we see Christ talking to a bunch of people about how to be humble. He’s basically calling out the Pharisees for placing themselves above everyone else, and he says,

“The greatest among you will be your servant. 12 Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”

Back in the long-long ago, I’m sure you’ve all heard me talk about this, but I was really good at exalting myself. I could walk into any situation and make it something about me. Guys I made money, I had “friends,” I had fame, I had people tattooing my initials on their bodies, and all of that felt really good. I could look in the mirror at night and tell myself that I was successful; that I’d made all this happen.

But here’s the deal. I didn’t know God. That’s not an excuse, but I had no idea who God was. When I got saved, all of a sudden, it’s this face plant into the reality where the things that I had built me up on, the things that I was propping up this absolutely massive ego on, all those things belonged to God. All of a sudden it felt wrong to let people give me praise for something that I should have been pointing to God to all along. Even now, if you come up to me a say, “hey Jason, you did a great job on that song tonight. The new single is banging. I really dig how you’re wearing that jacket.”

- Praise God -

That’s it. Praise God because God alone deserves the glory and the worship and the praise. It’s not me and you doing good things for other people, it’s God working through us. It’s not me or you that’s blessing people with the gifts that God gave us, it’s God gave us gifts to glorify him in all that we do so that He would be praised, and we might be blessed through it. Stay humble, church. The success that you get in this life did not come from you. The talents that gave you platform did not come from you. You’re a good singer, good dancer; you’re a super passionate person about giving to those less fortunate, you’re good at basketball or football…you get where I’m going with this. None of these things come from you, that’s why they call it gifted.

Wisdom from the Holy Spirit is going to show when the things you do are meant to serve Him. When you’re not looking to lift yourself up but trying to find new ways to show God to other people through your walk.

2. What We Know

So, what is earthly wisdom? How are we supposed to tell it apart from the wisdom of the Holy Spirit? We see it all over the place, ever single day. It’s in politics and on the news, in the movie theatres and in the music that we listen to; how do we tell it apart?

Romans 1:21-23 For though they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became worthless, and their senseless hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles.

There’s a really important word in here “they became fools,” mōrianō. Right here it actually says that they made themselves fools. That they did it to themselves. By leaning on their own understanding of things, their own knowledge, experience, false wisdom, the Pharisees abandoned the wisdom of the Holy Spirit. In their minds, they had it all figured out. In all their piety, in all their perceived wisdom, in every holier than thou smile they gave out, they laid heavier and heavier into themselves instead of God. And according to Romans, it was the idea that they were wise that made them become fools.

How many of us in the room are super good at assembling Ikea furniture? I’m the best. Probably in the world. Dee used to go pick up this massive box of random pieces and we’d bring it home. Open it up and spread it all out on the floor, and for me, I immediately look for the biggest panel of wood. Because that’s my starting point, right? If I can just get the back figured out, the rest of it is going to come together, no problem. I find the back of the cabinet and throw out the instructions. If you don’t, you’re not a man.

That’s a picture of me leaning on my own wisdom. 600 screws somehow fit into 900 holes in 4 boards, but I’ve got this figured out, right? I mean, I can build this from scratch in the garage with the right tools, so surely, I know how to assemble the giant box of affordable Swedish garbage. But here’s the deal; 45 minutes, 3 screws in 500 different combinations in, I look up and what was supposed to be a moderately priced shelf to hold the beautiful things my wife stocks our home with, it’s now all but firewood. In my own infinite wisdom, I can turn any amount of wood into a pallet wall.

I’m a fool for not checking out the instruction manual. It’s all in there, this screw into this hole to make this happen…it’s all planned out. I would have been wise to check out the manual. I would have reached a better place a whole lot sooner if I had been wise enough to open the book that they sent for me to read.

That’s why we have the Bible. God, in all his mercy, gave us the word to guide us through all these different challenges that the world will present you. It’s a solid read. It’s got love, action, death, redemption, all the things you look for New York Times best seller. Wisdom from the Holy Spirit leads us into the word to find answers to our questions. It leads us into the Bible to find truth in a place that will lie to you, it tells us about the life of Jesus to show us what true redemption looks like. Guys, true wisdom, wisdom that will change your life, comes from one place, and it’s not from you or me. True wisdom comes only from the Spirit of God, and He gives it freely! All you have to do is ask and listen.

3. Heavenly Wisdom

Let’s look a little more at what Heavenly wisdom looks like. We’ve figured out that we’re pretty much just some constantly updating version of Dumb and Dumber, Jeff Daniels and Jim Carey walking around just trying not to die, but what does it look like when we rely on the wisdom of the Holy Spirit? I mean, we don’t capitalize the name of God every time we type because we really enjoy using the shift key, there’s a reason God is God and we are not. The NIV translation of James 3:17 gives us a pretty great definition.

James 3:17 NIV 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.

For times sake, we’re going to go through only a few of these, but we’ll go over them some more in our small groups.

- Heavenly wisdom is pure before anything else. James says it point blank in 7 words, “but the wisdom that is from above is first pure.” It lacks nothing, it’s unbiassed, the only agenda it has it to line you up closer with Christ, which is exactly what you should be doing anyway. We don’t have this on our own because our flesh gets in the way. Our desire to achieve our own selfish outcome will block out reason from us, it’ll blind us to what the best outcome is.

- Heavenly wisdom is peaceable. It doesn’t look for trouble, but for peace. In all things, it seeks reconciliation. Not making amends between you and someone else, but between us and God. It shapes our actions, molds our thoughts into something that honors God in every situation.

- Heavenly wisdom is sincere. There’s no hidden agenda with true wisdom. It doesn’t have some secret desire hiding inside its heart and is trying to manipulate an outcome. Heavenly wisdom does one thing, it points people in the direction of Christ. Is it blue and white or black and yellow, the Spirit doesn’t care.

Romans 12:9 Let love be without dissimulation (to be an actor on a stage). Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.

- Cleave to that which is good. Guys, we’ve got a pretty clear description of what’s good.

Closing

Hindsight is 20/20, right? We can look back on problems we had a year ago, a month ago, last night, and we can see the repercussions of mistakes we made while trusting in our own wisdom. I can look at every argument I’ve ever had and, in hindsight, show you every time I should have said something else, done something else; been purer, more peace seeking, more genuine and open. Why is that? Why is this heavenly wisdom so hard to achieve? Why am I constantly fighting off temptations to be right, or to be unbiased, or to be calm during an argument?

“The word of the cross is foolishness to the wisdom of this world. That’s why the wisdom of men is destructive to faith and why Paul was, and we should be, very eager that no one turn to the wisdom of men as the basis of faith but that all turn to the power of God.” – John Piper

It’s hard because it goes against everything the Christ told us. Where the world says to put yourself first, the Word says the first will be last. Where your heart tells you that you should have everything, God says that love doesn’t envy or boast. Where every single interaction that we’ve had in this world tells us that we are to chase down our ambitions and go after what feels right in the moment, the Bible tells us that the only thing we should be chasing is Him. To look more like Him.

So, what do we do? How do we get this kind of wisdom? Consult the manual guys. Instead of leaning on your own understanding, ask for His. Maybe you’re walking out of this room with a new view on everything. Maybe you’re recapping the last 4 fights you had with your family or your room mates. Maybe you’re reshaping the picture of the little old man on the porch.

We see people every day that look to be so wise. People who seem to really captivate their audience, everybody wants just a small piece of their time to get some of their wisdom, these guys are quotable. They’ve got something for everything. Whoever that looks like to you, run them through the list of what we know to be heavenly wisdom. Are they honorable, humble, selfless, and pure? Are they peace-loving, gentle, and merciful? Are they impartial and sincere? Ask these people how they got that way. If they’re checking off these boxes, I’m going to say they got there through walking with God, praying to God, reading the word and trying every day to look more like Him.

Maybe we’re hearing this for the first or second time and you’re saying, “that doesn’t look anything like me,” and you’re trying to figure out where to start on this list. It’s simple, guys. Do the same thing you do any other time that you don’t know what to do. Ask God. Pray. That’s all we have to do.

James 1:5 “But if any of you needs wisdom, you should ask God for it. He is generous to everyone and will give you wisdom without criticizing you.”

If we need wisdom tonight, all we have to do is ask God. He’ll give it to us, no questions asked.