Works of Wisdom

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We're going to go to James where we've been.
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We're going to go back to chapter 3.
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And today we're going to finish out the chapter.
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Lord willing, we'll finish out the chapter.
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The title of today's lesson is Worldly Wisdom vs.
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Heavenly Wisdom.
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Worldly Wisdom vs.
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Heavenly Wisdom.
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And the text says this, verse 13.
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Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom.
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But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth.
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This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic.
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For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder in every vile practice.
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But the wisdom that from above is pure, peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.
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And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for your word.
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Now that we have the opportunity as men to sit down and look at the word, I pray that you would first and foremost fill me with your spirit and keep me from error.
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For God, I am a fallible man and capable of preaching error and I don't want to do that for the sake of my own conscience, for the sake of the men's hearts that hear me and for the sake of your great name.
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So Father, for those things I ask for protection.
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I ask, Lord, that the word of God would be made clear today, that we would understand the context and meanings that James had when he sat down to write this and the overarching application that the spirit had when the spirit had James sit down and write these words.
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Father, give us clarity, give us a mind to understand, give us your Holy Spirit, for he only is the teacher of the soul.
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We pray all this in Christ's name.
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Amen.
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When we started looking at James several months ago, I mentioned that James is equivalent in a sense to the book of Proverbs in the Old Testament.
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In that, there's different types of literature in the Bible.
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There are narrative, historical narrative, such as Genesis, Exodus, these tell the story.
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Matthew, Mark, Luke and John tell the story of Jesus.
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We call that historical narrative.
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The book of Acts is historical narrative.
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Then you have books that are called didactic teachings.
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These are teachings that are meant to give instruction in doctrine and in living.
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These are the book of Romans and Ephesians.
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These are didactic works of scripture.
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And then we have what we call wisdom literature, books that are meant to lead us in the paths of wisdom.
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Now, all of the Bible is wisdom literature in one sense, but there are books like Proverbs, which I know you guys study a lot here, is intended to give you wise words for living and to point you toward wisdom.
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So too is what we see in the book of James.
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In fact, James is full of practical, daily wisdom for living.
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But the question becomes, what is real wisdom? What does the word wisdom mean? How does the Bible define it? We've talked about this in the past because we've talked about this in James.
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What does wisdom mean? Well, in one sense, wisdom is the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgment.
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That's how the dictionary defines wisdom.
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But wisdom is not limited to knowledge, and we know that.
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Because somebody can have knowledge without wisdom.
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You understand that? Yeah, you can think of all the people that have all of the knowledge of science, but deny the existence of God.
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Or they have all of the knowledge of law, but deny the law giver.
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They have all of the knowledge of interpersonal relationships, psychologists, psychiatrists, but they deny the creator of the mind.
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They have knowledge, but they don't have wisdom.
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They lack that wisdom.
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That very foundational thing that is the source of all true wisdom.
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In fact, what does the Bible say is the beginning of wisdom? The fear of the Lord.
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And so I can look to a person who denies the existence of God, and I can say, you may be smart, but you're not very wise.
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And I don't say that to be ugly.
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I don't say that to put myself on a pedestal upon which I can get knocked off.
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But I say to that person, you are very intelligent, but you're not very wise.
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For if you deny God, that has abandoned the beginning of wisdom.
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The Bible says a lot about true wisdom.
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As we said, it tells us in Proverbs 1.7, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, and fools despise wisdom and instruction.
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Psalm 14.1 says, the fool says in his heart, what? There is no God.
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So I can say that the person who says there is no God is not just unwise, but he is a fool.
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And the Bible actually says it's dangerous to call someone a fool.
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Think of what Jesus said.
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If you call someone empty-headed or foolish or a fool, that's a harsh thing and you're liable to judgment when you do that.
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But the Bible's not afraid to call the person who doesn't believe in God a fool.
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And I think about when I listen to atheistic philosophers, and I do, I spend time listening sometimes to people that I know disagree with the Bible, not because I'm trying to fill my head with earthly and demonic things, but because I want to be able to give a defense for the hope that is within me.
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And so I listen to what other people have to say so that I am able to make a defense.
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And I don't want to be caught off guard if I'm out witnessing with some kind of a new argument.
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How many of you ever heard of the flying spaghetti monster? Really, nobody here? That's great.
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I'm glad that you have it because it's so foolish, but I'm going to tell you what it is now because I can't just say that without voice.
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There's a man by the name of Richard Dawkins.
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Richard Dawkins is a evolutionary biologist.
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He denies the existence of God.
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In fact, he has made his fame on writing books like The Blind Watchmaker and things like that, trying to argue that the world could come into existence without a divine creator, without any divine intelligence.
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And he has made his fame throughout the world as being the world's leading atheistic apologist or a person who goes about defending atheism.
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And he makes the argument that there's no more reason to believe in God, especially the God of the Bible, who he considers a megalomaniacal monster, is how he describes God.
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He says there's no reason to believe in God any more than there is to believe in a flying spaghetti monster.
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He said because it's all just made up.
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That's his argument.
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And he uses the term flying spaghetti monster.
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So anytime I'm out and about and I hear someone use the term flying spaghetti monster, what do I know automatically? They've been reading Dawkins.
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Oh, well, no, that's Christopher Hitchens.
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Christopher Hitchens, he knows now.
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Yeah, and you know, his brother is a Christian, wrote a great book on living with his brother who was an atheist and their relationship.
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But that's Christopher Hitchens who died of cancer.
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Richard Dawkins still lives, but he won't live forever.
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Well, he will.
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He'll live forever either in grace if God saves him and he still has the ability to save him.
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God can save anybody.
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Or he will live forever knowing that God exists.
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He knows God exists now, by the way.
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No one knows not that God exists.
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That's a horrible way of saying that.
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Let me say it again.
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No one in the world doesn't know God exists.
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Romans 1 tells us that.
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In fact, Romans 1 tells us when you see God, you will have no excuse before Him because He placed the knowledge of His existence in your heart.
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And all you did is suppress that truth and unrighteousness, whereby when you stand before Him, you will be unapologetous.
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In the Greek, that means without an excuse.
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When you face God, you will have no excuse.
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You will not be able to say, I didn't know you were there.
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You won't be able to say, I didn't know I was supposed to worship you.
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You won't say, I didn't know what sin was because all of those things are placed in your heart from the very moment of your birth.
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You know God exists.
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I don't have to wonder.
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I don't have to guess.
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The Bible tells me so and I believe it.
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Every man knows God exists.
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I see hands going up now.
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Y'all want to argue about that? I want to hear what he says.
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You have to know God exists if you argue against it.
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Yeah, and that's the truth.
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That's the two great truths of atheism.
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One, God exists.
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All atheists believe God doesn't exist and two, they hate Him.
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Yeah, how do you hate something that doesn't exist? Because they know He does exist and they hate Him.
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Brother, you had your hand up.
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I'd be happy to answer.
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Yes sir.
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I'm from the Discovery Channel.
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Forgotten.
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I was growing up in the middle of science.
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To watch it, and at first, you know, when I was growing up, I was like, you know, I always believed in God.
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I was sick.
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I was an early kid and everything.
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And they used to like, really come on TV and with these big things.
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That was a big thing.
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You know, I'm 45, so right around the time when I was growing up, you know, I was like, when did it become a big thing? You know, it just blowed my mind and then it's like, to discredit God to me, it seems like they're writing these books.
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They're doing all this to try to disprove Him.
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It seems like so much energy into doing that than to believe.
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You know what I'm saying? It's like, they have no, like, it just bothers me that, and people that don't really know the truth because it's so easy to just probably say, oh, I don't have the answer to anyone.
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You know, that's, I hate that.
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It's true and I'll take it one step further.
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The person who does not believe in God will believe in just about anything.
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They'll believe in ghosts.
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They'll believe in spirits.
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They'll believe in aliens.
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Richard Dawkins believes in aliens.
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I mean, they'll believe in anything because they would prefer, as Romans 1 says, to suppress the truth with a lie.
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And so they'll believe in all kinds of things.
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It's easier to believe in that than to believe that God exists and He has commanded us to worship Him and when we don't worship Him we are sinning and our sin deserves His wrath.
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That's hard to believe and so they want to replace that with something that's easier to believe.
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So you're right.
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And what's interesting, you said, and I'm getting away from the text a little, but you said you love science.
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I love science.
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As a Christian, I have nothing to fear from science.
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I think the church has gotten a black eye in the last several hundred years because the church has been unwilling to look around and see things like the Copernican Revolution, the idea that the earth is not the center of the universe, and the idea that the earth is actually surrounding the sun and those things.
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And there are still people today who believe in a flat earth and things.
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I don't want to get into that.
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But the point is, I don't really...
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The Bible is not anti-scientific.
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Even the Big Bang, I don't believe that the Big Bang happened the way the scientists say it does.
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But a lot of scientists are moving away from the Big Bang because they say it sounds too much like creation.
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Because something happened and then everything came to life.
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And they say, oh, that sounds too much like divine intervention.
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We've got to come up with a new idea.
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And so now you have the idea of the perpetuation of the universe, the idea that the universe has always existed, and all kinds of other things that kind of get away from the idea of the Big Bang.
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Because if something banged, something had to bang it.
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Something had to make it bang.
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And so there has to be some kind of established something prior to the bang.
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Nothing times nothing equals nothing.
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In fact, this is my argument from a simple argument for the existence of God.
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Out of nothing, nothing comes.
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That's ex nihilo nihil fit.
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That's a Latin phrase.
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Out of nothing, nothing comes.
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If you take a jar and you put nothing in a jar and you set the jar on a shelf for a billion years and you go back and open the jar, it's still going to have nothing in it.
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Because if there was nothing in it to begin with, there's going to be nothing in it later because nothing comes from nothing.
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So if ever there was a time where there was nothing, then there would still be nothing.
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Because nothing has the ability to create nothing.
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You can't get anything from nothing.
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I'm sorry.
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I don't mean to confuse you, but my point is this is why I believe in an eternally existent, self-existent Creator.
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Because God lives in Himself His life and He has always existed and from Him comes everything else.
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Everything in this universe is an effect.
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Which means everything in this universe has a cause.
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God is the first cause of all things.
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He Himself being uncaused.
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He is the unmoved mover, the uncaused cause.
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He is the first of all things and the only thing that in Himself is self-existent, which is why He identifies Himself as I am.
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When you say I am, you have to add something to that.
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I am because I have enough air.
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I am because I have enough food.
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I am because I have the right atmosphere.
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I am because I'm close enough to the sun not to burn up, but not far enough away that I would freeze.
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I am because of all of these outlying dependent factors.
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God simply says I am and that's all because He is absolutely independent of any other thing.
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God is I am.
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That's how He describes Himself so that we understand that He is the absolute independent creator of all other things.
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Everything comes from Him.
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And see, a person who doesn't believe in God has to believe in something that's eternal because if you believe there was ever a time when there was nothing, there would still be nothing.
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If you read Stephen Hawking, he's dead.
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That's the one you might have been thinking about too.
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Stephen Hawking.
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He was an atheist.
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He was a scientist.
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Stephen Hawking said, yes, something can come from nothing because of gravity.
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Thank you brother because my response was gravity is a something.
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What are you doing? Nothing can come from something because of gravity.
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Gravity is something.
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He says, well, gravity is a law.
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Yeah, but that's still something.
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I'm saying nothing.
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If you ain't got nothing, you still got nothing.
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Yes, sir.
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Yes, sir.
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He lived in a chair and he had a recorder that he manipulated with his mouth.
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Yeah, that's him.
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And here's the thing though.
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We often hear about the scientists who are atheists.
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Richard Dawkins, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Hitchens.
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Carl Sagan.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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The Cosmos and his series.
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But the reality is there are many, many, many, many thousands of scientists who are legitimate scientists who write and perform experiments who believe in the God of the Bible.
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In fact, I would say this.
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The reason why they are scientists is because they believe that God has created a universe of order that obeys laws that He set down.
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And that's why science works.
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Because the law that water freezes at 32 degrees is going to be the same tomorrow as it was today.
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There's consistency and that's not going to change.
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The fact that water boils at 212 degrees is going to be the same tomorrow as it is today because God created a universe that obeys His order.
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And that order is because He established it.
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And so we have a God who is orderly, therefore we can have an order in our science.
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You see, where wisdom becomes no wisdom if it doesn't have God.
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It's just knowledge.
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They know that water boils at 212 degrees, but they don't know why it's always going to be that way.
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They simply say, well, it's always been that way so it's always got to be that way.
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Why? Because God has established order.
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In fact, the Bible says all things are to be done in order and decently and in order.
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That's God created it that way.
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God created you a certain way.
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He built in certain factors into your life to remind you of His existence.
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Absolutely.
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Yeah, and they're always going to try to fill that with something.
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Always going to try to fill that with something.
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Did you have your hand up, brother? Go ahead.
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Isn't that neat? Yeah, I've seen it and it's weird.
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I'd be afraid to go over the line.
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I know what you're talking about.
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Yeah, yeah.
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It's a wild reality, but it's so true.
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Yes, sir.
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They didn't even open up to the Scriptures one time and it's almost like I don't want to put it down, but like a Joel Olson, like everything's fine, you know.
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You're great.
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God is good.
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You live happy, you wake up and you're just fine.
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You know what I mean? I have a big smile.
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I mentioned Joel last week.
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Oh, you did? I did.
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I didn't want to start a fight.
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These youngsters now are defeated by no absolute truth.
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They want that gap and well, it's okay to think that this could happen, but you can't answer this.
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Everything is just a dispute, man.
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We live in an age of hyper-skepticism, but it's balanced by a sense of hyper-gullibility.
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And you say, did I just contradict myself? No, I didn't.
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Everybody is skeptical against the things that they don't want to believe, but everybody is gullible in the things that they do want to believe.
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I proved this through Facebook because I'm on Facebook and everybody who believes and this is not an attempt to be political, so I'm going to use a political example, but it's not an attempt to be political.
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I'm just using this as an example.
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Everybody who wants to believe Trump is a good president will post things that say he's a good president and identify him as a good president.
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Everybody who wants to believe he's a racist, dictator, megalomaniacal jerk is going to post everything that agrees with them.
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And so everything that says he's good is going to be looked at with skepticism by those who think he's evil and everybody who thinks he's evil is going to look at with skepticism at those who would say he's good.
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And so what happens is Facebook actually collects that information and ensures that you only see the things that agree with you.
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They have algorithms that are meant to put in your news feed the things that will agree with you because they know that you get a shot of endorphins in your mind when you get someone who agrees with you.
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And so they want you to get that hit.
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I think it's called dopamine or whatever.
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They want you to get that hit in your brain, and that's why every time you get a like, there's like a big deal.
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You get a red thing on your phone.
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You got a like.
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Ooh, I got a fan.
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Somebody cares about what I had to say.
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And so we want our opinions validated.
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And Facebook is the ultimate validation tool because we put something out there and everybody agrees with us and gives us high fives and amens and blah, blah, blah.
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And we don't friend people who disagree with us because we don't want to have anybody disagree with us.
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So we unfriend the disagreeable people, and then we don't see what they have to say, and we get stuck in a bubble of only hearing people that sound like us.
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It's not a bad bubble.
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But the danger is, everything is, you're hyper skeptical against what someone else says, but you're hyper gullible about what someone who you agree with says.
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So we have this issue of both.
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Hyper skepticism for anything we disagree with, hyper gullibility for anything we do agree with.
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So we show partiality.
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Yes, oh yeah.
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We're not called to do that.
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I do want to get back to the text, but go ahead brother, ask your question, because I have veered.
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Isn't that where being humble and being wise? Yeah, and that's what we're going to talk about today.
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Wisdom starts with understanding that God exists.
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But then the second thing is humility starts with understanding we ain't Him.
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Wisdom begins with understanding God exists, and humility begins with understanding it's not me.
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What was the reason for the fall of man? You will be like God.
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That was Eve's promise from Satan.
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Don't you know that when you eat of this on this very day you will be like God? And ever since then that has been the failure of men.
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They want to be their own God.
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They want to be the sovereign of their own life.
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I have a three-year-old son, and there's nobody in my house that wants to be more sovereign than my three-year-old son.
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I got an 18-year-old son.
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He and I are pretty cool.
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He's leaving for the Air Force in a couple months, and he's just chilling out.
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He's trying to be good and thank God, because he was a teenager and a few years ago we were fighting all the time.
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But now he's just getting ready to go to the Air Force and I'm praying for him.
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But my three-year-old, he wants to be the sovereign.
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I call him T.D.
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It means total depravity.
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I really do.
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I call my wife, how's T.D.
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doing today? Well, he's alright.
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Because he wants to be God.
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He wants to watch what he wants to watch.
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He wants to play with what he wants to play with.
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He wants to eat what he wants to eat.
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He wants to wear what he wants to wear.
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He wants to sleep where he wants to sleep.
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He wants to be the God of his world.
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And the problem is, it's my ship and I'm the captain.
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And I have to explain that to him.
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But he's three years old.
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He don't get it yet.
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It's God's ship.
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He's the captain.
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But in my house, you understand what I'm saying.
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My son, that's his problem.
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He's like Eve.
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He wants to be God.
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He doesn't understand that.
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He couldn't articulate that.
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But that doesn't go away.
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We want to be the sovereign.
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So like I said, wisdom begins with knowing God exists and humility is understanding we are not God.
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So let's look here at this text.
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It says, Who is wise in understanding among you? First of all, just stop right there at the question.
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If I were to ask, and I'm not going to do it, but if I were to ask right now, who among you is wise? I wonder how many hands would go up.
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Okay.
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I think that's sort of in James' mind here.
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Who is wise among you? I think the attitude is, it's me! Because we always think we're the one who is wise.
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So he responds, By his good conduct, let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom.
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How do we know who is wise? According to James, it's by how we live.
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Wisdom is shown up in our life.
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It's shown in the meekness of wisdom.
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Not in the boastful pridefulness of knowledge, somebody who just boasts about how much he knows, but the person who demonstrates what he knows by what he does.
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Remember what wisdom is.
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Wisdom is knowledge applied.
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In fact, in the Jewish culture, if somebody said they knew something, and they didn't apply that knowledge, they would say they didn't know it.
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For instance, a good example, is somebody who said, I know this is bad for me, but I'm still going to do it.
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Then you really don't know it's bad for you.
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If you knew it was bad for you, you wouldn't do it.
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That's how wisdom is applied.
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That's how it was understood.
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And so James is very simply saying, if you want to be the one who raises your hand when I ask the question who among you is wise, you want to throw that hand up, know this, we're not going to judge it by what you say.
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We're going to judge it by what you do.
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Because wisdom demonstrates itself in what you do.
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Now, verse 14 follows that up.
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But, that's the adversative.
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But, if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth.
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Well, what does that mean? Well, he just asked who's wise.
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I'm wise.
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Well, let's see it by how you live.
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But understand this, if you have bitter jealousy or selfish ambition in your heart, know that you're not being honest.
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That's the two things he gives us.
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He says bitter jealousy and selfish ambition.
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Two phrases.
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I'm sorry I messed that Y up.
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I'll fix that real quick.
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Bitter jealousy and selfish ambition.
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Why these two things? Why those things? Why is he choosing those things? That's right.
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Well, you both are right.
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It's self-righteousness and it's pride.
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It's all about me.
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It's all about what I want.
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Go ahead brother, you have your hand up.
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I was asking someone, you say bitter jealousy.
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Is jealousy by itself a sin? Let me address that.
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Jealousy, when you say God is a jealous God, yes, the Bible says that.
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But God, God's jealousy is based on who He is.
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He deserves to be worshipped because of who He is.
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Therefore, if you worship anything other than Him, you are violating the fact of what He deserves.
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He deserves to be worshipped and you are violating Him by worshipping something else.
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Therefore, He has every right to exercise jealousy in that relationship because He created you.
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He made you.
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And in that sense, jealousy would not be wrong from God's perspective because He deserved what you're taking away from Him and giving to someone else.
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Right? From a man's perspective, most of our jealousy does not come from what we deserve, but it comes from our pride.
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We know God doesn't have pride, but we do.
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Most of our jealousy happens when somebody gets something that we thought we deserved better.
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There's a woman out there, you and I both think that she's pretty, we both ask her for a date, she chooses you over me, and I'm jealous of you.
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I'm married, I don't have to worry about that.
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But let's just say, that's the situation.
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I'm prideful because I feel like she should have come to me.
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Why would she choose you? You know? That's how pride works among men.
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And thus, pride and jealousy are considered sins among men because it's ways that men compare themselves and contrast themselves with other men.
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And they live in pride and arrogance and envy and jealousy.
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But the difference between us and God is God deserves our worship.
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And when we give it to anything else, whether it's a totem, or an idol, or a person, if we give God's worship to anything else, He is well within His rights to be a jealous God in saying that it's wrong for us to take that and give it to anyone else.
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Yeah, but only from God.
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I don't know that there's a jealousy that we can have that isn't sinful.
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Because in every time man's jealousy is brought up in Scripture, it's always attached to pride.
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And pride is the original sin.
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Pride is not original sin.
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Original sin is a doctrine.
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But pride is the first sin.
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Pride is what caused Eve to listen to Satan.
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You will be like God.
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I want to be like God.
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That's pride.
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That's what happened.
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Pride is the root of every sin.
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Because every sin you've ever committed, at that moment, you thought you knew better than God.
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And that's pride.
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Every time you commit sin, at that moment, you think you know better than God, and that's pride.
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Pride is the root of all sin.
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Alright, so these are basically ways of describing pride.
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Bitter jealousy, which we've just described, is feeling like I'm better and I deserve what you have and more than you do.
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And selfish ambition, focusing on the escalation of my own reputation.
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I want to be the one who's lifted up.
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I want to be the one who's exalted.
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I want to be the one who's called doctor, mister, pastor, whatever.
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I want the titles.
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I want the respect.
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I want the people to want to shake my hand.
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I want them to want me to sign their Bibles.
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Nobody laughed.
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Didn't everybody see that? Donald Trump was signing Bibles the other day.
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And I'm not anti-Trump.
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Everybody's going to think I am.
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But why sign a Bible? But Donald Trump, I've seen pastors do that.
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I've seen big-name pastors who will sit behind their tables and people will bring their books to sign, and one of the things they'll have them sign is the inside cover of their Bible.
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I'm like, why are you getting him to sign a Bible? He ain't an author.
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He didn't write it.
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It ain't like you're meeting the Apostle Paul.
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You know? And even then, the Holy Spirit was the one who inspired it.
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So, these two things are brought up.
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Selfish ambition and bitter jealousy.
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And he says, if these are in your hearts, then you are being false to the truth.
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You're boasting in something that's not true.
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You're boasting in being wise.
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And you think you're the one who should raise your hand.
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But really, you have a problem.
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And then he goes on to say, verse 15, this is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but it's earthly, unspiritual, demonic.
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These are three very important words.
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Earthly, unspiritual, and demonic.
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You say, why are these three words important? Well, you have probably heard, and maybe you haven't, but you probably have heard that there are three great enemies to the soul.
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What are they? The world, the flesh, and the devil.
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Right? Earthly, that's the world.
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Unspiritual, that's the flesh.
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Demonic, that's the devil.
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That's the threefold enemy of the soul right there.
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And that's what gives birth to pride.
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It's right there in the text.
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It's earthly, that's the world.
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It's unspiritual, that means it's of the flesh, not of the spirit.
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It's demonic, it's of the devil.
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Yes, sir.
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I just want to read this.
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Okay.
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I read this yesterday.
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This is the world, the organized satanic system that is opposed to God and hostile to Jesus and his followers.
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It also refers to the non-Christian culture including governments, educational systems, and businesses.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, that's one definition of world.
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John's Gospel alone uses the word world 11 different ways.
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So you have to remember that there are different nuances in what we call semantic domains of words.
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The word world is the Greek word kosmos.
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It's actually where we get the word cosmetology, interestingly enough, because it identifies something that's orderly.
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Why do women put on makeup? Because it creates an order and symmetry and things.
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And so kosmos represents order.
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That's what we call the kosmos or the order.
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We have kosmos, not chaos.
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That's one of the reasons why we believe in God.
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And so kosmos is a Greek word for world.
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And sometimes world is used positively.
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God so loved the world.
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And sometimes it's used negatively for the Bible says do not be like the world or do not love the world.
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So we said God loves the world, and then it says do not love the world.
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And it says, well, why? Is that a contradiction? No, because it's using the word world in two different ways.
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But in the negative sense, the worldly is what you just read.
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It's the worldly system.
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It's a system that's driven by the world, the flesh, and the devil.
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And I've shown you guys this, I think, but people often think there's three spheres of danger, world, flesh, and devil.
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That's really not how it works.
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How it works is like this.
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Forgive the crudity of this drawing, but that's you, okay? You are flesh.
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You live in the world that is influenced by the devil.
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So you have flesh, which is you.
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The flesh is influenced by the world around you.
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The world around you is influenced by the devil.
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This is why you, driving down the road, you see the Victoria's Secret pictures, and you immediately have the flesh to deal with, and that's the world influencing the flesh.
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And who do you think influenced those pictures? See? So that's how the devil influences the world.
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The world influences the flesh.
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And that's how those things work.
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It's not like you have three different enemies.
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It's three different ways that the enemy gets through the soul.
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And so we call those the three great enemies of the soul.
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The world, the flesh, and the devil.
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In fact, the word unspiritual there in the ESV is translated sensual in the King James Bible.
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If you think of that word unspiritual, sensual.
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What do you think of when you think of sensual? Sensuality.
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Somebody said sex, yeah? It's the love of what makes your flesh feel good.
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It's what tantalizes the senses or sensuality.
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Typically we attach that to something of sexuality.
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So he says, these things are not the wisdom of God.
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And then he goes on to say, verse 16, for where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice.
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So what's he talking about there? He's talking about, again, the person who lives in those things.
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The person who lives in earthliness, unspiritualness, and in league with a demon mindset is going to be a person whose life is marked by disorder and vile practices.
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What do you say about someone who's got their life together? You say that person has...
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It starts with an I.
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It's a word that we use to talk about somebody who we say...
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Thank you.
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Integrity.
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So there's a man of integrity.
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There's a man I can trust.
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There's a man, when he gives his word, I believe it.
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There's a man that I can follow or a man I can work with.
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That's integrity.
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What's the opposite of integrity? Well, dis-integrity, or we would say dis-integrate.
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You've heard the word dis-integrate? That means fall apart.
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Yeah.
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So that's what he's saying here.
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He says there's going to be dis-integrity or disorder in the life of the person.
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That's what the word there is, is disorder.
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There's going to be disorder in the person who is living in this way rather than in the wisdom of God.
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There's going to be disorder and vile practice.
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So again, what's James' point? When we look at our lives, if we see disorder, if we see vile practice, we know we're not living in the wisdom of God.
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It's as simple as that.
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As I said, this is wisdom literature.
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It's simple.
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Go back and think about Proverbs.
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What is the whole book of Proverbs about? About right and wrong doing.
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It talks about all kinds of things in Proverbs.
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The whoreish woman and all those things and the dangers of that.
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And James is simply mirroring that here in the New Testament, giving us the point that if we say we're wise and we want to raise the hand and say we're the wise ones, well stop for a second and look at yourself and be honest.
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Because if you're being guided by selfish ambition, if you're being guided by pride, if you're being guided by bitter jealousy, then you don't need to raise that hand.
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But, here's another verse, verse 17, but the wisdom from above...
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Remember, that's the whole subject.
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The wisdom.
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The wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason.
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God bless you, brother.
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Have a good day.
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Peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.
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Honestly, we could go through each one of those and talk about what it means to be pure, to be peaceable, to be gentle, to be open to reason, to be full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.
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For just a second, hold your place and turn to Galatians chapter 5.
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I was thinking more specifically verse 22, but we could read the whole context there because that's what it is.
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But I'm thinking of the fruit of the Spirit, verse 22.
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In Galatians chapter 5, Paul is comparing somebody who walks in the Spirit to somebody who walks in the flesh.
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And really, you could think about that.
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That's what James is doing in James 3.
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He's comparing the wisdom of the world to the wisdom of man.
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And he's saying the wisdom of the world is that which is unspiritual, demonic and earthly, but the wisdom of God is that which is governed by the Spirit of God.
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And what does that look like? We see in verse 22 here, the fruit of the Spirit.
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What is fruit? Fruit is what naturally is given birth to from a plant that bears fruit.
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The fruit of the Spirit, meaning if you have the Spirit in you, this is what should come out of you.
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It's the natural thing.
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The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
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Against such things, there is no law.
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If you do those things, you don't have to worry about breaking God's law because there's no law against being loving, against being patient, against any of those things.
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Now, compare that list going back to James 3.
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The wisdom that is from above is pure, peaceable, gentle, reasoning, merciful, bears good fruits, and is impartial and sincere.
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It's basically the same list worded a different way.
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How do we know we're wise? We're bearing the fruit of the Spirit.
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Where is wisdom displayed in the life of the Christian man? In the fruit of the Spirit.
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And did you know there's really only one fruit of the Spirit? Have I showed you that before? Because if you go back to Galatians 5.22, the fruit of the Spirit is love, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, all those things.
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There's seven fruits of the Spirit.
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But there's actually only one.
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Because fruit is singular in that text.
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Huh? Well, actually the fruit, though I think honestly the fruit is love because everything that follows love is an expression of love.
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Peace, kindness, patience, all of those things.
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If you go back to 1 Corinthians 13, when Paul defines what love is, love is patient and kind.
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It doesn't envy or boast.
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It does not seek its own.
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It does not keep a record of wrongs.
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All of those things are fruits of the Spirit.
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Therefore, the big piece of fruit that all the other fruit we're tasting there is love.
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This is why the law is love your neighbor and love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
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You say, so what you're saying is love is wisdom? Well, in a sense.
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If we are living in the wisdom of God, we will show love to others.
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And if we refuse to show love to others, and how do we do that? Bitter jealousy, selfish ambition, all those things.
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Then we are not living in the wisdom of God.
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It really is that simple.
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You want to boil it down to a simple, distilled understanding of wisdom? The wisdom of God starts with loving God, and then it goes to loving others.
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In fact, you've probably seen this before, the joy analogy.
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Yeah, how to have joy.
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You put Jesus first, you put others before yourself.
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You put Jesus first, and you put others before yourself.
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And that is how you live in joy.
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And, again, that all stems from this.
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You love God, and you love your neighbor.
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Well, God is love, and the Spirit being in you is what's bearing that fruit.
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And that's why, if you're not showing love, if you're not able to love, there's something wrong in your spirit.
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Either the Spirit's not there because you're not saved, or you're grieving the Spirit by how you're behaving.
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The Bible says that we can grieve the Spirit and we can quench the Spirit if He's within us.
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We can battle that, which sometimes does happen, unfortunately.
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And so we have to be willing to submit to the Spirit within us.
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And that submission will demonstrate itself in love.
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So let's look at the last verse and we'll finish because I've got to go.
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It says, And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.
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Why peace? Because peace is a fruit of love.
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Love is peace.
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Love demonstrates itself in peace.
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How do we know those who know not Christ? It's constant turmoil.
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I've got to have my way.
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I've got to have it my way.
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It's got to be done my way.
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It's all about me.
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It's all about selfish ambition.
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It's all about bitter jealousy.
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It's all about me.
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That person knows not Christ.
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Because the person who knows Christ, it's all about Christ.
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It's all about loving Christ.
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It's all about putting Christ first.
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It's all about telling you about Christ.
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This Saturday, I'm going to be preaching in a conference.
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I'm going to be talking about how we disciple other people.
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And I say the first and foremost reason why we disciple is because we love Jesus so much that we want other people to love Jesus.
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When Jesus said, go into all the world and make disciples, those men that were standing had just seen Him raised from the dead.
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They're standing on the mountain and they look up at Him.
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And He says, go and make disciples.
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And they did.
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Why? Because they were told to? No, because they loved Jesus.
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The love for Christ impelled them to go.
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It compelled them to go.
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And if we love Christ, it changes everything.
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How we respond, how we receive, how we behave.
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If we love Christ, it changes everything.
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Let's pray.
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Father, thank You for this time to study together.
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I pray that we've been fair and truthful with Your Word.
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And I do pray, Lord, that we would seek to love Jesus so that we would have the mind of Christ.
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And Lord, through that, the wisdom of God.
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And it's in Christ's name, Amen.