James (part 7)

We did talk. Wisdom. Wisdom. Let's just do a real quick inventory.

What do we know so far from our study in the Book of James? Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to act.

He said a cool one. What did it say? Excellence in matters of words. And what were you going to say,

Rich? Slow to speak, quick to listen, slow to act. Quick to listen, slow to speak.

We got that from our from our study. How does the

Book of James fit into the greater context of the New Testament? Based on that works of Zen, it tells us to, you know, work out our salvation when we're created for it.

Yeah, James. Results. Outer. An exhibition. Outer evidence.

You've been listening. I've got two weeks to listen. A changed life.

Christ's presence in you will result, should result in exterior manifestation in some way.

And so that brings us to the last portion of chapter three. Last session, which would have been before Easter, Eric helped finish us off.

Talking about the tongue. Very hard. Very hard to control. Now we move into a section in James where we're going to talk about wisdom.

It ties together. It doesn't seem like it. It almost seems like he's becoming very random.

He's taking a thought and going with it, but it is all going to tie together.

So why don't we open with a word of prayer. Bob, would you start us today? Yes. Father, we thank

You, Lord, for this opportunity to look in Your Word. We thank You, Lord, for Your Word, Your living

Word that is here for us to read and to guide us and to help us,

Lord, today as John is presenting this lesson. Lord, to be an insight and understanding and to know

Your presence here with us, Lord. We ask all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Jan, do me a favor.

Give us the entire section, verses 13 to 18. Who is wise in understanding of all things?

Life can show us what is good life by deeds of inhumility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth.

Such wisdom does not come down from heaven, but is earthly, unspiritual, of the devil.

For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder in every evil practice.

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.

Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness. The central theme about what we're going to talk today is wisdom.

Give me verse 13 one more time, please. Who is wise in understanding among you?

Let him show us by his good life by deeds done in humility that comes from wisdom. Just filling in my little blanks just to get us started.

Who is... Who is wise? Who is wise among you? Again, let's place ourselves in context.

The book of James is written to who? His first Jewish Christians.

Thank you. We're talking then about an exhortation, a challenge that James is giving to believers.

And he's saying, okay, among you guys it would be like if we knew for certain that everybody in this room was a believer.

I believe in my heart that we are. But let's say we knew that for certain. And Pastor Jeff came in and said, hey, who among you is wise?

And it's kind of like, well, that would almost sound like there's a declaration that some of you aren't wise.

And it almost sounds harsh. Give me a definition of wisdom.

Either way, that's a real good statement. Either way. In man, wisdom is considered, in all,

I would say, of his own abilities to understand things.

Whereas godly wisdom is wisdom through the spirit. And understanding god's nature and spirit within us.

How's that for confusion? No, you're very, that's well said. That's pretty well said.

I mean, we've talked before the difference between wisdom and knowledge. Knowledge is information that we've accumulated and that we're able to understand.

Wisdom is almost the ability to create knowledge. And correctly apply it. I saw this definition, which kind of works for me.

Take it into context of where we are here in James. Wisdom is the ability empowered by god to discern and apply.

That kind of covers everything you guys had to say. Wisdom is the ability empowered by god to be able to discern and apply.

So he has this question. Who among you is wise? So let me ask that question.

Who is wise? God is.

Good answer. They say in Sunday school Jesus is always the right answer.

Now if somebody answers that they might seem prideful. Maybe that's why nobody wants to answer that.

No, I didn't mean to say Raise your hand if you're wise. I didn't mean to say that. That's a scriptural answer.

We're going to see that. Who has the capability for wisdom?

Let me ask this question first. Who gives true wisdom? Holy Spirit. Who has the capability?

Believers. Every true believer. I believe that you not only have the capability for it, but it's within you.

Which is going to get us to a question of how does how does it not manifest why does it not manifest itself?

Why does James have to actually ask this question? Who among you is wise? We get into the next major section of this.

It sounds like it sounds like he's all over the place. He's reacting to how people are manifesting.

Okay. What's the relationship between faith and true wisdom?

As we're getting ready to answer that, if you would get James 1 .5, Deuteronomy 4, Rich, Bob, Hosea, Matthew 7,

Eric, Job 28, Gary in Ephesians 1, Arlene. How does faith impact wisdom?

The source of wisdom is scripture and discernment.

True wisdom. As a believer,

I believe biblically as a believer, we're taught that when you surrender to God, when you ask

Christ into your life, when you are born again, at that point in time, who's dwelling within you?

Holy Spirit. So the capacity to wisdom resides in you immediately upon salvation.

Let's read some of these passages of James 1 .5. If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask

God, who gives generously to all without finding fault. And that's kind of an interesting question again, because we're talking to believers, and the concept is not that you really are lacking in whatever

God desires of you, but if you feel that you're lacking wisdom, where are you supposed to go? You're supposed to go to your best friend.

You're supposed to get a good Christian book out of the library. That's not the answer.

Where are you supposed to go? God. And what's the promise? He will give it to you.

He will give it liberally. Just don't doubt. Don't doubt. And that's the next part of that passage.

Absolutely. Deuteronomy 4. There are some codicils upon this thing.

Go ahead. Deuteronomy 4. 4, 5, and 6? Please. Well, not 4, 5, and 6. Just 5 and 6. See, I have taught you statutes and rules as the

Lord my God commanded me, that you should do them in the land that you are entering to take possession of it.

Keep them and do them for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of all peoples when they hear all these statutes.

They will say surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.

We're going to put these three passages together. There's a concept that, there's a theme that happens.

Give me the one in Hosea, please. Yeah, 14 .9. Who is wise? Let them realize these things.

Who is discerning? Let them understand. The ways of the Lord are right. The righteous walk in them.

But the rebellious stumble in them. In riches we have obeying.

In bobs we have walking in the way. Matthew 7. Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.

Hearing and doing. There appears to be an association between our reaction again

James faith manifesting itself externally. There seems to be there seems to be an association on how we experience and live with wisdom and how we live in obedience.

Why? Let me reverse that question. How would disobedience or choosing not to walk impact our ability to manifest

Godly wisdom? As James says, there's wisdom from above and there's wisdom from below.

So man's wisdom is from below and therefore empty.

Yeah. You should be teaching this lesson. That's exactly where we're going to be going.

Yes. I think my back hurts. Gotta go. Carry it alone.

Thank you so much. How would you characterize life outside of obedience?

Chaotic. Yeah. Let's go back to the garden. What how did

Satan entice Eve? Told her she would be his

God. Lies would be his God. Half -truths.

Yeah. A little bit of truth in there but mixed with lies.

What was Satan's problem in the first place? Go back to the book of Isaiah. He wanted to be as God.

He wanted to exalt himself. He wanted to make himself quite the most high.

So it comes down to a desire or a need, a compulsion to not be in submission to God.

Because that in some way would not meet with your expectations, your agenda, whatever else.

If we're not walking in obedience, if we're not walking according to commandments, if we're not, if we're not, that is a good indication that we're choosing to be the authority in our own life as opposed to surrendering to God as the authority in our own life.

By choosing to be the authority in our own life, what would that say about your desire to identify wisdom?

Not very desirous. Actually, not very correctly desirous.

But it's going to make you very vulnerable to be the creator of your own wisdom. Or to find other sources of true wisdom.

That's what the question is. Who among you is wise? Who among you has surrendered the life to Christ so that the wisdom that can only come from above is going to be there?

And if you're lacking it, you're looking to the one who is the source of all we're doing without wavering.

Because if you're not doing it, we're created in a way to try to look wise.

And we're going to become very vulnerable to doing what's going to come up next in this chapter. Ephesians, no,

Job 28. And he said to man, Behold, the fear of the Lord that is wisdom, and to turn away from evil is understanding.

How politically correct is it for us to say we fear the Lord? Why? is against it.

Because it's not scientific. That's right. I believe that that's a lie.

It appears foolish to the natural mind. And because it's not scientific, it appears foolish.

And it's outside of our control. It's submission. It's submission. Man, without the willingness to surrender to God, choosing not to be in submission, fear the

Lord, wisdom. And that says that I get it. I don't get it.

Arlene, how about yours in Ephesians 4? For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the

Lord Jesus, and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the

God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him.

It's given by God. Spending time thinking about this concept of wisdom, it's been kind of cool because I've had like three weeks to think about this one.

I got driven to an amazing biblical example. Any thoughts of who that might be?

By the way, you're going to get 1 Kings 3. Aha!

Somebody who knows the scripture. Tell me about Solomon. He wrote

Proverbs. Rick, why don't you give me verse 3 to 5 first. Solomon loved the

Lord, walking in the statutes of David his father. Only he sacrificed and made offerings at the high places.

And the king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there, for that was the great high place. Solomon used to offer a thousand burnt offerings on that altar.

At Gibeon, the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night, and God said, Ask what I shall give you. And Solomon said,

You have shown great and steadfast love to your servant David my father, because he walked before you in faithfulness and righteousness and in uprightness of heart toward you.

First time? Yeah. Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people that I may discern between good and evil, for who is able to govern this?

Your great people. It pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this.

And God said to him, Because you have asked this and have not asked for yourself long life or riches or the life of your enemies, but you have asked for your self -understanding to discern what is right, behold,

I now do according to your word. Behold, I give you a wise and discerning mind, so that none like you has been before you and none like you shall arise after you.

What opportunity did Solomon have? What opportunity did God present Solomon with?

He could ask for anything he wanted. And he chose wisdom.

Very unusual, I would say, in most days. Because the kings were able to take anything they wanted.

The rulers. So for him to ask for that, I think, was extremely unique.

What was almost assumed? What characteristic was almost assumed by a king that they had inherently because they were the king?

They already had wisdom. They already had wisdom. And recognizing that perhaps not, he went to the source and he said, if I can have anything, anything, anything, discerning heart, understanding, wisdom.

And God granted it to them. Who among you has wisdom?

Now, again, I believe that because we have the Holy Spirit, that there is this wisdom given to us because the

Holy Spirit is within us. Why does James have to ask that question?

What situation is driving James to ask that question? Ralph may have touched on it when he said they were relying on earthly wisdom, which he calls natural, earthly, demonic.

Well, he's talking about works, too. Yeah. And the evidence of works, I think what he's saying is we're known by or we want to be known by our works as Christians.

So it's the Holy Spirit working through us, through us, seeking God's wisdom and understanding of his work.

Let's take a look at this confusion that's going on. Jen, give me, again, please, 14 to 17.

Yeah. Okay. Ecclesiastes 2 .26, you're going to get that.

And Ecclesiastes 7 .19, you're going to get that. Give me 14 to 17 again.

But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth.

Such wisdom does not come down from heaven, but is earthly and spiritual of the devil.

For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder in every evil practice.

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.

Okay, we'll stop there. What is false wisdom? Give me a definition of false wisdom.

If I say that, and I like this definition, wisdom, in its true definition, is the ability empowered by God to discern and apply.

What is false wisdom? In attempting to discern and apply.

Which we see. I mean, like, to bring it to today,

I mean, we see it on TV all the time, some of these protests and things, these college professors, they're considered wise, they're considered to have a great deal of intellect, but it's not the wisdom of God.

And yet, society leaves them intelligent. Professing themselves wise, they became fools.

You see, Bertha's having a hard bad week, wasn't it? Ecclesiastes 2 26.

Yeah. To the man who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge, and happiness.

But to the sinner, he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases

God. This too is meaningless, but chasing after the wind.

Do you remember Ecclesiastes? Vanity, vanity, all of vanity, it's the things, he tried everything and everything and nothing, satisfied, it was all vanity, chasing after the wind.

The things that man chooses to go after because man does not want to be in submission to God.

Become vanity, vanity. Submit to God, you find wisdom, you find meaning, you find reality.

Give me yours, please. Ecclesiastes 7, 19. Wisdom makes one wise man more powerful than ten rulers in a city.

What is, as a believer, and I'm going to put this back into our context, as a believer, what is our motivation?

What is the source behind us succumbing to false wisdom?

First of all, I'm going to make this statement. Go ahead and react to it.

As believers, we are susceptible and prone to manifesting false wisdom.

I keep going back to the fact that we have two natures. We have the sin nature, we have our new nature, and they're always in conflict.

There's a conflict going on. So we still have that, and Paul was the one who really pointed that out.

He wanted to do what he thought he should do, but he had trouble doing it. In each of us, there are, there's a portion of your life where you are uniquely susceptible to falling back onto false wisdom.

Those of you who know me know that Hartford Road and Route 38 is a place where I immediately fall back and I don't exhibit godly wisdom.

I want my vengeance. Even Solomon, I mean,

I keep going back to him. It's like, okay, so he asked for wisdom. He was one of the most wise guys in the

Bible, and yet he still acted very unwisely in lots of situations and eventually split the country.

His actions split the country in half. And you think, okay, if he's asked, if he has to ask for wisdom and God grants him that, how could he still act so unwisely?

Yeah. That almost becomes an encouragement to say, I'm not the worst.

Okay, it's not bad to say I am the worst, but even Solomon, even

David, even David. We still have this sin nature. So that becomes the question, what's the source and the motivation behind us acting out of false wisdom?

Keep going. Keep digging deeper. Pride, what's below that? Selfishness. Keep going, yes.

Keep going, digging below that. What causes our selfishness?

Our sin nature. What's the source behind our sin nature? Say it.

We still have to wrestle with the evil one. We still have to wrestle with the evil. This is a spiritual battle. This is a spiritual battle.

When we are talking about the concept of dealing in godly wisdom or other wisdom, it is a spiritual battle.

Especially for us who are believers. What makes false wisdom so attractive?

And you brought up Solomon. He had the unique opportunity to experience wisdom in a way that was amazing.

What made false wisdom attractive to him? Wives. 700 wives and 300 concubines?

He was he was those were political marriages but I think later he was attracted to them by his lust.

He gave in to his lust which forced him to compromise with their false gods.

There is a again I go to this this is theology by John which means nothing except that Satan I don't believe is omniscient but he's unrelenting.

And so if he's going to attempt to get in Nate's wheelhouse, his first 78 tries might not work but number 79 might.

He will remember number 79. It's those weaknesses, those areas and quite frankly they are areas that we have chosen not to surrender to God.

For whatever reason I have a hard time surrendering Hartford Road and Route 38 to God.

I just have a hard time with it. I know. And I've had people help me. And he is like a roaring lion constantly on the prowl.

Constantly looking for weaknesses. For the moment that you do whatever you do on Route 38 it gives you pleasure.

Yes. It gives you pleasure to curse that person out or to give them the bird or to wish harmful things about them.

Same thing with you know whether you look at pornography or you curse or you lose your temper.

Like it feels good to yell at my kids when I'm angry. Because I feel like I'm just and right but then afterwards that pleasure is fleeting.

And that's the mood of a lot of you know 700 wives you know it's a fleeting pleasure you know.

I just have a hard time even going there. The next section which

Jen read it goes back and forth and back and forth and there are I did

I've read different commentaries trying to put sequence and order to this.

This little table it means nothing except that as I've looked at it I said alright

I've got true wisdom and I've got imitation wisdom. And these passages here these four verses give you characteristics of true wisdom and imitation wisdom.

So I just started to put some answers down in categories. True wisdom.

What's the source of true wisdom in that in everything What's the source of true wisdom? God. God.

What's the source of imitation wisdom? Satan. Satan. What does the word assay mean?

Rick you're our scholar in English language. What does the word assay mean? To test.

To try. To test and to try to understand what the quality and content is.

So let's assay true wisdom is pure.

True wisdom is pure. You'll find that in the text there. Imitation wisdom is earthly and unspiritual which by definition means it's not pure.

And it's demonic. But it would also be attractive. Which gets us to the motive to true wisdom is sincerity impartiality.

The motive for false wisdom is going to be things like self ambition.

Boasting. It's going to be placing the spotlight for accomplishment and all good things on you as opposed to on God.

Last time we were here I tried to get somebody to find a verse. I think it was you Eric. Eventually therefore let your good works shine before men so that they may see your good works.

If it stopped right there it would be a brutal verse to praise your father who is in heaven.

Who is basically the source. Imitation wisdom is not going to be giving glory to God.

Imitation wisdom is going to be giving glory to you. And I go back to Satan is going to know that number 79 in your life and if he pushes that button chances are he's going to get you down that path.

Get you down there. What's the impact on others when you experience when you exhibit true wisdom.

True wisdom. Philippians 2 3. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit but in humility count others as more significant than yourself.

You'll put others first. You'll find in the text Jen read there words like meekness humility mercy you're going to find those words in there.

Under the description of under the description of imitation you're going to find words like bitterness jealousy to be placed in a situation where you're being challenged the other side seems to be winning it almost

I know for me again this is one of my weaknesses I want to have my engineering background control and everything else

I can get jealous no what we should be is meek and merciful we should be what you read there we should be not putting ourselves esteeming others and the opposite side of that if you were to make the opposite observation imitation wisdom is and building yourself up yes that's a great observation on fellowship the impact of true wisdom you're going to find the word peace and on the other side you're going to find the word disorder we many of us have probably experienced church or fellowship venues where individuals are practicing imitation wisdom and it creates disorder but when the people are practicing godly wisdom it creates peace the output of godly wisdom in the text

Jan read on one side is good fruit the ultimate outcome of godly wisdom is good fruit and the imitation side has got vile practice anybody grow fruit anybody use fruit trees grow fruit not good ok this will be good then what went wrong not well with the peach tree it was too much moisture the guy told us that we would never be able to grow it without a vigorous spraying of insecticides for certain things it's not the right climate to grow peaches in New Jersey did you try to eat them well the ones that made it were delicious but most of them never made it because of disease and mold or whatever that was on it it was the same thing that happened

Satan somebody said in the garden half -truths he puts just enough out there to make it seem like well maybe but it's not and we can try real hard and give the appearance of a godly life and a godly ministry under our own for a while I think the word fruit is a good word to use because we can when

I looked at imitation the first thing that popped into my mind was imitation vanilla so when you bake you can spend more money on real vanilla which is probably better for you because it's natural or you can buy imitation vanilla which tastes just the same but it's chemicals

I think of artificial sweeteners they save you on calories but you're poisoning your body with chemicals tastes just as good or sometimes better than real sugar so like the good fruit or things that are real that are beneficial to the body but yet our society creates these false false foods or false sweeteners that taste just as good as the real thing but they're cheaper, easier to weigh less calories or whatever but in the long run they're damaging your body the nutrients aren't in there they're shallow and false as opposed to great segue,

Jen, give us verse 18 Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness a harvest of righteousness that's sown what is meant by and this is a great segue to what you were just saying what is meant by a harvest of righteousness to harvest righteous fruits in your life the fruit that you produce as the

Holy Spirit forms in you you produce acts of righteousness the fruit that comes out of our lives is beneficial to who?

to others and brings glory to God and brings glory to God so yeah, you were talking about this artificial sweeteners and all this other kind of stuff yeah, there are things but it's not right if we sow in peace, so now the question is what does it mean to sow in peace is he talking about peace with God or peace on God or peace with others or all three

I think he's tying it into verses before where you have imitation wisdom which ultimately leads to disorder is motivated by jealousy is the source of Satan and everything else it creates disorder but the passage talks about true wisdom which comes from God which essentially has a harvest of peace a harvest of righteousness that comes by peace,

I'm going to put out a challenge as we come to the end of this we as believers we are servants of God that's who we are we're citizens we're adopted heirs we're servants of God we are commanded to go and do, we are commanded to be, we're given spiritual gifts, that was a class that we just did for a reason and so as we're approaching the opportunity to be in ministry, to go do whatever

I believe that we're going to go down one path or the other, we are either going to sow by wisdom and by wisdom

I'm talking about empowered by God or we're going to sow by ambition

I'm just looking at the sermon on the mail in Matthew 5 -9 Jesus said blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God if we're all sons and daughters of God we should naturally be peacemakers and be at peace with each other if we sow by wisdom

I think the passage teaches us if we sow by wisdom we're going to yield peace, good fruit and a harvest of righteousness but if we choose to sow by ambition

I think the passage tells us that we're going to yield disorder and evil practices so my get off the stage question is this,

Galatians 5 -16 Nate if you would get that 1 Corinthians 2 9 -14 what's the key as a believer what's the key to ensure that you're sowing by wisdom obedience comes to my mind where's your walk go ahead

Nate so I say live by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh 1

Corinthians 2 9 -14 I think so but what no eye has seen nor hear heard nor the heart of man has imagined what

God has prepared for those who love him these things God has revealed to us through the spirit for the spirit searches everything even the depths of God for who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of the person which is in him so also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the spirit of God now we have received not the spirit of the world but the spirit who is from God that we might understand the things freely given to us by God and we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the spirit interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual the natural person does not accept the things in the spirit of God for they are folly to him and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned who among you is wise and he's talking to believers there's a risk that we have there is a vulnerability that we have and Satan knows how to get us down to that path this is a spiritual battle and if you want if you want success in a spiritual battle what do you got to do?

surrender to the spirit you're not going to study enough scripture and seek enough information to get there you're not going to find enough good friends mentors to get there these are good things but at the end of the day spiritual matters are understood how?

through prayer by the spirit spiritual matters are understood by the spirit this is a submission thing this is a submission thing to God who among you is wise when we were doing that the men's breakfast on Mondays the hole in our holiness by Kevin DeYoung he says the three main things that will help us to grow in Christ are prayer, bible study and regular fellowship the three most important things he talked about as far as growing prayer gets you in communion with God scripture gets you to hear what

God has to say in fellowship challenges you in the ways that God has challenged you

Eric do you want to close us in prayer tonight? certainly Father Father we thank you for the opportunity to study your word and we pray that we would continue to seek you and to the

Holy Spirit for wisdom in our lives and our decision making thank you for John preparing and teaching us this morning we pray that you'll be with Pastor Jeff as he preaches the word and as we prepare our hearts to worship you we ask this in Jesus name amen amen