So last week, if you forgot or weren’t paying any attention, I concluded by saying that every week we are silenced by what Jesus did for us on that cross and every time we speak we speak in acceptance that our words, just like Jesus’ words change us and change those around us who hear it. That means that backtalking, trashtalking, badmouthing, etc, that all dies to the silence because Jesus wouldn’t. This week we’re going to continue in the Book of James and move our conversation from our mouths and hearts to wisdom and doing. That is to say that we’re going to talk about why we know better but don’t do better. Open up your Bibles to James 3.
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. (James 3:13-18)
I want to stop here in verse 13 because I think this sentence is really interesting. I don’t want you to gloss over this but really give this thought. James says off, the bat, “Hey, if you think you are wise, then actually walk in the wisdom you think you have. People who are wise don’t just say they are wise and not walk in it. So if you think you’re wise, then show me.” This verse reminds me of the aprcryphal anecdote told by Joe Kennedy in regards to the great crash of 1929: one day he decided to stop to have his shoes shined before he started his day at work, when the boy finished, he offered Kennedy a stock tip: ‘by Hindenburg”. Kennedy said, “you know the bull market is over when shoeshine boys give you stock tips.” What Kennedy was getting at was the fact that people who live in their wisdom wouldn’t be shoe shine boys. Just saying that James is saying the same exact thing. After verse 13, James spends 5 verses contrasting false and true wisdom.
But before I get onto that, I think I need to revisit two truths about God that all of us know but need to keep at the forefront of our thoughts as we talk about false and true wisdom today. The first truth is that God is for God’s own glory. The second truth is that God created us with a divine purpose and it is up to us to decide whether or not we want to live in it. Without getting into a deep spiritual and theological conversation about these two truths, I’m going to lay it out for you because I think fundamentally all of you believe this.
My first point about God being for God’s own glory, this is evident in all of the Psalms. God does things and rescues people because He wants us to sing His praises. God wants us to call on Him. In Genesis, the writer makes it clear that God created human kind in His image. You don’t create in your own image if you don’t want or you don’t believe that you want your own glory. The acts of God that are peppered throughout the Old Testament, God says He does for His own name and not for the stiffnecked Israelites who rebel at His name. If you want more proof or want to discuss it in more depth, we can do Bible study after service today.
My second point about God creating us for a divine purpose and it’s our choice to decide what we want to do with it, I want you to read any book written by a prophet. You will see there is always in those books a little chapter or a few verses that say something like, “I, [insert name of prophet], called by God, from xyz when I was doing abc, will be doing so and so for God.” But what’s more evident of God’s purpose of us is in Jeremiah, where he says to the people of Israel, “I have known you since you were in your mother’s womb.” But you will see that God never forces anybody to do anything, He gives everybody the option to do what he or she believes is the best for him or her. All of this brings me to start my actual sermon which goes into what marks false and true wisdom in our lives and what that actually means for us. Let’s go to verse 14.
The Marks of False Wisdom
14 But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth.
This only makes sense in light of what I said earlier about two fundamental truths about God. God is for God’s glory. God created you for a purpose that you can choose to live into. Here’s how those two things fit into this verse. You only have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition if you believe you are better than your situation and if your purpose in life is about your glory. In fact, you will live a horribly angry and unhappy life if you believe contrary to this, it’s true. If you look at any miserable life, miserable marriage, fractures in your relationships, and your failures and shortcomings at the workplace, it’s because you believe your life is about you.
More than believing that your life is about you, it’s that you believe that you should have something or someone or someplace instead of somebody else. But it’s more than wanting something or somebody that somebody else has, it’s about how you not having is offensive to you. I know that it feels right, but is it right to live life thinking that you deserve and should obtain and that you spin your greased up squeaky wheels trying to live this way? The truth of the matter is that your life is not about you, and you shouldn’t think that or suppose anybody else cares because it’s frustrating and exhausting.
James calls out that this is false wisdom—to believe that your life is your own that it revolves around you. Can I be honest, I’m an idiot because I sometimes forget that my life is not about myself. It never was about myself. I mean, if you want a strained, fractured, miserable life, then make your life about yourself and see what you have at the end of the day. Look at what he writes in verses 15 and 16. 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.
If we can accept that your life is not about you and that jealousy and selfish ambition is not true wisdom, but earthly, unspiritual, and demonic, let me explain to you what that means about you and your life: you’re free. You are free because it’s not personal. You are free to serve. You are free to do things and be things in the name of God. I know this is super theoretical right now, but I’m going to tell you that it’s the greatest feeling in the world because there is no such thing as a ruined day because you didn’t have an agenda that was driven by some type of selfish ambition in your hearts.
The reason that wisdom that is driven by personal desire is false wisdom is that it leads to disorder and vile practices. Here’s what I mean: who has lied to you more than yourself? That’s right, let’s get real with this, you are bitterly jealous and selfishly ambition when you can’t do or be because you believe and sold it to yourself that you could. Is that smart? It’s pretty dumb. You do more damage to you and your wants and desires than Satan himself. It’s earthly, unspiritual and demonic. False wisdom is fueled by lies we believe about the nature and character of God, about our own self value, and about how life should be lived. It’s, “My way is better than God’s! There is no truth but my truth.”
The Marks of True Wisdom
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 really loads it up here. You see what James is saying? He’s saying that if God is ultimately about God and that He designed a way the world is going to work when I choose to walk in God’s plan, then I will be living the fullest life that I could possibly live. What?! James is throwing us an allusion from Matthew 6 when Jesus says, “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (v33).
I want you to walk away with this message here: being wise is acting wise. You do stupid things and I’ll be the first to tell you that it’s not wise. If I do stupid things, I have plenty of people telling me that it was stupid and unwise, I have you all, my wife, my bosses, my pastor, my friends, lots of people. To be do wise in our lives means that we don’t compromise our lives in believing that God is for something or somebody other than God. He is for us in that He expects that the smarter ones will choose to do His will because it is the best thing to do.
Wisdom acts in purity, it acts in peace, it acts gently, especially when dealing with others. Wisdom is willing to yield even though you know you’re right and the other person is wrong—I’m not talking about truth, I’m talking about opinion, and there is only one truth that matters—that God loves you so much that he sent his son to die for us so that we can have everlasting life. But outside of that, sure, whatever rocks your boat. Wisdom is full of mercy, meaning that even if you’re driving, you understand that the idiot playing on his phone while driving 60 miles an hour is not a child of God trying to kill you, and it’s not personal, so you honk for the guy to pay attention and you drive away impersonally.
You need to see that “wisdom from above” is driven by understanding and knowing that God’s Word transforms us from the inside out, meaning that God shapes us to live like we should and do the things that we need to do to make us perfect in His sight because God is about God and His plan for us is for His glory. True wisdom is found only in the person and work of Jesus Christ. To line yourself up with how God has commanded us to live but not submit your life to Jesus Christ does not get your life and the Lord’s blessing. Jesus is the Lord’s blessing. Jesus is wisdom. A life submitted to him is life and the Lord’s blessing. I have no idea why you would settle for anything else.
When we seek to live into God’s plan for us, we accept that God’s way is better than our way. So we grow in peace, meekness, mercy, and we produce righteousness. We are then wise for doing so because our lives become much more enjoyable and more full with the blessings of God. Let’s pray.
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