Page 1 of 8

For July 8, 2012 Message Title: CHRISTIANS MUST LIVE BY THE WISDOM OF GOD AND NOT BY THE WISDOM OF THE WORLD James 3:13-18

Message text:

13 Who among you is wise and understanding? Let him show by his good behavior his deeds in the gentleness of wisdom. 14 But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth. 15 This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic. 16 For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing. 17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy. 18 And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. I will start by saying that these are beautiful words that should keep us in our place, reminding us of who we are; nothing but sinners saved by Gods grace and unprofitable slaves of Jesus Christ. It is very important for us to remember this, especially since James says who among you is wise and understanding or if any man among you is wise and understanding. This tells us that even if we are all the people of God, we are not all equally wise and understanding. God does not distribute equally all His gifts to all His people. He gives what He wills to whomever He wills. THE PERSON WHO IS WISE AND UNDERSTANDING IS TO SHOW IT. James says, Let him show by his good behavior his deeds in the gentleness of wisdom. The person who is wise and understanding among Gods people is to show it (1) by what he does and (2) by how he does it.

Page 2 of 8

Now we must take this wisdom and understanding to mean being wise in the things of God and having understanding in the things of God. That is to say that they are things to benefit the people of God spiritually. THE WISE AND UNDERSTANDING PERSON IS KNOWN BY WHAT HE DOES The wise and understanding person must show by what he does that God has given him that wisdom and understanding. His works must be that of using the things of God to build up the body of Christ and it must be done at two levels. First of all, and most importantly, it must be done when the church is not assembled and secondly it must be done when it is assembled. His works must also be directed to the church and away from it. In both cases it must be for the churchs benefit. When the works are directed towards the church the results will be its edification, enlightenment, admonition, instruction and building up in the things of God. When the works are directed away from the church it will be to maintain the integrity of the church to the outside world and towards adding new members to the body of Christ. In every case the work must be to promote or to advance the Kingdom of God on earth. What are the works to advance the kingdom? For this we must turn to the command given by Jesus Christ when He was about to leave earth to go back to heaven. What is the command given by Jesus? The command is make disciples of Me, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. This is how that command is recorded for us Matt 28:19-20 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." We can also go the apostle Pauls understanding of how this is worked out in the church. He says that the one among you who has been granted wisdom and understanding by God is to show this by his work in the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; Eph 4:12.

Page 3 of 8

From those two passages we can see that the work is directed to the church for its building up and work of service and from the church to those who are outside so that they would be brought in. HOW MUST THE WORK OF THE WISE AND UNDERSTANDING BE DONE? The work of the wise and understanding must be done in good behavior, gentleness and wisdom. Good behavior must characterize the life of the individual. This is absolutely necessary because the work that you do will be evaluated by ones behavior, other than the performance of the work itself. People from within and without the church would look at your behavior before they look at your work. Bad behavior will destroy your good work even before it is done. Gentleness and its sister virtues of patience and compassion are the foundations for success in good works. We need to remember that we are all sinners and as such we are blind to and ignorant of the things of God and were it not for His grace in opening our hearts and minds to understand and receive we would all remain in darkness and ignorance. We must therefore be gentle and understanding in teaching others the truths that God may have made clear to us. Wisdom is the governing virtue. All that is done must be governed by this and it must be the wisdom given by God; not the wisdom of men. This wisdom comes from fearing God, from being instructed in righteousness and from obeying commands. This is what is taught in the scripture. For example: Psalm 111:10 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; A good understanding have all those who do His commandments; His praise endures forever. And Prov 1:7-9; The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; Fools despise wisdom and instruction. 8 Hear, my son, your father's instruction and do not forsake your mother's teaching; 9 Indeed, they are a graceful wreath to your head and ornaments about your neck.

Page 4 of 8

Wisdom comes from fearing the Lord and the fear of the Lord has the meanings of reverence or respect for God and of fearing the terror of the Lord. This is the beginning of wisdom says the scripture. It is when we recognize God for who He is that we will desire to make His way our way, His will our will, and His purposes our purposes. It is only then that we will see Him as the only wise, all knowing all powerful God and bow before Him as the only sovereign and law giver. True wisdom is knowing God and doing His will. Wisdom comes from being instructed in the things of God. God has revealed the truth about Himself and what He requires from us in His word. The scripture teaches that we must be instructed in that truth in order to become wise. Jesus Christ knew this to be true so He gave to the church some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers and in addition both He and the Father have given us the Holy Spirit as our Teacher to open our understanding so that we would be instructed in righteousness. Wisdom comes from obeying Gods commands. Obedience means practicing the things that we have been taught. Practicing is part of learning and this results in experience and maturity, which is what wisdom is all about. So James says let the one who is wise and has understanding in the things of God show it by the work that he performs and that that work must be performed from a platform of good behavior in a spirit of gentleness and wisdom. This is how we are to live in serving God and in relating to one another. This is how the church of God is to be characterized. But James, being the wise pastor that he was, knew that we would not behave this way all the time. He knew that we would not always appeal to the wisdom of God or live by it so he deals with that also.
THE CHRISTIAN MUST NOT BE GOVERNED BY MANS WISDOM

What happens when we do not fear God, when we do not keep His commands or when we think we are too big to be instructed? What happens when we do not accept that it is God who gives to each one as He pleases and that we are responsible to use what He has given for His glory and not for our glory?

Page 5 of 8

I am glad that I do not have to work out the answer myself or to guess as to what might happen. James gives us the answer. Are you not glad that we have been given the answer so that you would not have to say that those are only the words or ideas of brother Lake and as such we dont have to take it seriously? James is very practical and very real and hides nothing. It is evident he is truly concerned about Gods glory and the wellbeing of His church. He says from verse 14 of the passage that we are considering, 14 But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth. 15 This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic. 16 For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart! What does he mean by this? Let us ask him. James do you mean that there is the possibility of bitter jealousy in the church of Jesus Christ, where because of selfish ambition members are jealous of one another because of the gifts given to them by God? James answers. Yes that is exactly what I mean. Let us go to the churches that received this letter from James and ask them a question. Do you find this to be true in your church? The answer is. Yes we have found this to be true, and not only that, we were a little shocked to realize that James knew that this will be happening in the church and that he would write so boldly about it. But then again we shouldnt be surprised because we know him. We know of his love, of his concerns for our wellbeing, of his passion for the purity of the body of Christ and above all we know of his uncompromising stand to promote the glory of Christ and of God the Father at any cost. Let us now ask ourselves a question. Is this happening in our church? Is there bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in our heart over what God has given to others? How do we answer? Hold on, before we answer, let us consider James admonition regarding how we should answer. He says, But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth. Dont you love James, isnt he a true pastor? He suspects that we would lie and warns us against it. He is trying to get us not to compound our sin.

Page 6 of 8

He says in verses 15 and 16,This wisdom (if it can be called wisdom) is not that which comes down from above, (it is not from God) but is earthly, natural, demonic. (Should the people of God be practicing the deeds of demons in the church?) 16 For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing. James is not letting up; he is pushing the point to the limit. He is not making it easy for us to avoid the subject. If we are truly concerned about Gods business we must address the question. The consequences are too great for us to skip over a deep, soul searching look our tendency to and practice of jealousy and selfish ambition. So how do we answer the question that has been put to us? Is there bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in our heart over what God has given to others? We must not take this lightly as if this is not something we have to deal with. We must examine our hearts closely and sincerely lest we bring Gods judgment upon us. We must endeavor to have a heart like James so that God would be pleased with us. One of the consequences of living according to this earthly, natural, demonic wisdom is that the person who lives by this standard is disqualified from entering the kingdom of God. Consider that. THE CHRISTIAN MUST LIVE ACCORDING TO GODS WISDOM On the other hand, those who live according to Gods wisdom here on earth are qualified to enter His heavenly kingdom. This is so because by living according to His wisdom they show that they are filled with and led by His Spirit and as such they produce the fruit of the Spirit. This is how James puts it in verses 17 and 18 of the passage we are considering. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy. 18 And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. The wisdom of God is pure and it produces purity in the life of the true child of God, it is peaceable and produces peace, it is gentle and produces gentleness, it is

Page 7 of 8

reasonable and produces compassion, it is full of mercy and good fruits and produces mercy and good behaviour, it is unwavering and produces soundness or steadfastness in faith, it is without hypocrisy and produces truthfulness and sincerity. It produces righteousness in peace and through peace. PREACHING OF THE GOSPEL IN THE WISDOM OF GOD This is how the apostle Paul puts it in1 Cor. 1:17-21 17 For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in [1]cleverness of speech, so that the cross of Christ would not be made void. 18 For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written, " I WILL DESTROY THE WISDOM OF THE WISE, AND THE CLEVERNESS OF THE CLEVER I WILL SET ASIDE." 20 Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. Isnt it good that none of us can put ourselves outside the authority of the word of God? None of us can say that Gods word does not apply to me. We may reject it but we will be doing so at our peril. For wisdom will enter your heart and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul; 11 discretion will guard you, understanding will watch over you, 12 to deliver you from the way of evil, from the man who speaks perverse things; 13 from those who leave the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness; 14 who delight in doing evil and rejoice in the perversity of evil; 15 whose paths are crooked, and who are devious in their ways; Prov 2:10-15 (NASB) James began this chapter by speaking of the teacher on the assumption that the teacher in the church would be a model of spiritual maturity, and that as a model of

Page 8 of 8

spiritual maturity they would be marked by the ability to discipline their tongue as evidence of having disciplined their lives for the glory of Jesus Christ. Now he is saying that there is something else that marks the matured Christian. The matured Christian is marked by the wisdom that comes from above, he says.