James - James 3:13-18

Whenever a person is using wisdom that's from above, there's always a fruitfulness to it. The fruit comes with satisfaction, without partiality, without hypocrisy. Not wavering, not on one side one day and the other side the other day. 

It rejoices our hearts, Father, to have the privilege of opening the Word. Thank You for Your grace in saving us, in keeping us, and now in teaching us. How wonderful it is You have given us this precious Book that reveals Your mind and Your heart to us. I pray, Father, Your blessing upon our study of the Word today. And I pray Your blessing upon our radio family; some are going through difficulties now with one thing or another, some a very busy week. Lord, give them courage and grace and wisdom. And help us now, I ask, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

"Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic. For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing will be there. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace."

Well, the subject here is obviously wisdom. You know, it's a tragedy when people don't get along with each other. James 4:1 picks up this theme: "Where do wars and fightings come from among you?" Can you imagine God's people warring and fighting? Well, yes. I've preached in hundreds of churches in many places and, yes, God's people do fight. I suppose your children had fights when they were little, perhaps your grandchildren are fighting. And God's children sometimes don't get along with each other, and one reason is because they're believing the wrong kind of wisdom. 

In James 3:1, James warned them not to become teachers. Teachers need to have wisdom as they explain and apply the Word of God, and the wrong kind of wisdom will always bring trouble to a church. Selfish ambition—the wisdom that does not come from above. Well, how can you tell? In other words, what tests do we apply to be sure that the wisdom that runs our lives, our homes, our churches, that this wisdom is really God's wisdom? Well, we ask three questions: Where did it come from? What kind of people use it? And what does it lead to? Very simple. The origin—where did it come from? The operation—what kind of people use it? The outcome—what does it lead to? And it doesn't take long, if you apply this kind of discernment, it doesn't take long to find out that some of the wisdom that is running our lives is not God's wisdom. Some of the wisdom that is guiding in our homes is not God's wisdom, and some of the wisdom that's working in our churches is not the wisdom of God.

Question number one: where did this wisdom come from? Somebody sitting in a committee meeting, a board meeting, a congregational meeting, a husband and wife are making decisions, and somehow there's war, there's dissension, there's not that unity. And we ask the question: where is this wisdom coming from? Now he tells us it's going to come from either above or beneath, from heaven or from hell. There is a false wisdom that comes from beneath. He tells us in James 3:15, "This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly"—that's the world—"sensual"—that's the flesh—"demonic"—that's the devil. 

Now, Satan is a counterfeiter. When Satan came to our first parents in the garden, he said to Eve, "Oh, God knows that if you eat of this tree, it'll make you wise, you'll become like God." Man has always wanted some kind of wisdom. Man wants to be his own god, he wants to be able to penetrate the secrets and the insights, he wants to know. Every once in a while somebody mails me a letter advertising a magazine that forecasts the future. If I want to invest, this newsletter will tell me where to invest. Well, I'm not interested in that particularly, but I'm wondering where do they get all of this wisdom? 

There is a wisdom that comes from the world; it's earthly. In 1 Corinthians 1:18, Paul had something to say about this: "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.' Where is the wise?" There's your philosopher. "Where is the scribe?" There's your writer, your great scholar. "Where is the disputer," the debater, "of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?" Now, we don't believe that really, but it's true. The cross shows how foolish man really is. Here is man crucifying his own Creator God. 

Now, the world has a great deal of knowledge; God put it here. Nothing wrong with knowledge, but the problem is, every time we learn something new, it brings to us five new problems. We learn how to build an automobile and then we have the problem of pollution and danger and all sorts of things. We learn how to control the atom and now it's controlling us. We discover marvelous medicines to heal and to help the human body, and then they're being used by people for "trips," for narcotics experiences. You see, everything man discovers, he needs wisdom to know how to use it, and so often we don't know how to use it. And so we discover how to manufacture gasoline and how to make steel, and we pollute our air and we pollute our water and we send down acid rain. That's because man lacks wisdom. The world has knowledge—God put that knowledge here—but the world lacks the wisdom to understand how to use that knowledge to the glory of God. 

So this wisdom is worldly, it's earthly, it's sensual—it's the flesh. It appeals to the flesh. It caters to the flesh. It's a fleshly wisdom of man, a selfish wisdom. It's animal-like and it's demonic. "The tree desired to make one wise," says Genesis 3. Satan knows how to appeal to the ego of man. And so when you find confusion in your Sunday school class or confusion in your church, ask yourself the question: where has this wisdom come from that we are following? The true wisdom comes from above. "Every good gift and every perfect gift comes down from above," James 1:17. We are born from above. The Savior came from above; He's the bread of life who came down from heaven. The Holy Spirit was sent from above. Our Father is in heaven, our home is in heaven, our treasures are in heaven, our names are written in heaven. The true wisdom comes from above. 1 Corinthians 1:24 and 1 Corinthians 1:30: Jesus Christ is the wisdom of God. 

Anything that glorifies Christ is the wisdom of God. The Word of God is our wisdom. Moses said that back in Deuteronomy 4, didn't he? He said that this Book, this Word, is your wisdom; observe it. Deuteronomy 4: "And the nations will say, 'Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.'" We have the Son of God—He's our wisdom. We have the Word of God, which is our wisdom. We can pray for wisdom, James 1:5. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of wisdom and revelation. We have all of this wisdom that comes from above. The only thing is, we don't like to admit how stupid we are. We don't like to say that we need the wisdom of God. Solomon did a smart thing when he said to God, "Give me wisdom." That's what I need more than anything else. If a person has wisdom, he'll know how to manage life. 

Question number one: where did this wisdom come from? From above or from beneath? Question number two: what kind of people are using it? How does it operate? Well, he tells us in these verses what happens when you have the wisdom that is from beneath. James 3:14: "If you have bitter envy"—now there's one thing. Wherever there's envy, selfish ambition—which can, by the way, masquerade under religious zeal. There has been many a preacher, there has been many a religious leader who has masqueraded his own ego-building zeal by so-called religious service. Gotta be careful about that. Wherever you find envy, which is zeal—promote yourself—self-seeking, selfish ambition, strife—party spirit, rivalry. It's the word for a candidate going around getting votes. You know, when somebody walks around your congregation saying, "Are you for me or are you for the preacher?" Watch out! That wisdom is not from above. Where there's envy and strife and boasting—"do not boast." The tongue loves to boast. Boasting, lying—"lie not against the truth." James 3:14 tells us that where you find these kinds of works, be careful. 

"Who is wise and understanding among you?" says James 3:13. "Let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom." But you see, the person who follows the wisdom from beneath does not have wisdom or understanding or good conduct or meekness of wisdom. Rather, he brings bitterness and envy, self-seeking—promoting himself—boasting, lying. My, that's going to wreck any Sunday school class, any home. 

Now, what are the evidences of true wisdom? How does true wisdom operate? James 3:13: first of all, there is meekness, the meekness of wisdom. Meekness means you don't promote yourself; you let the truth promote itself. This word "meekness" describes a horse that has been broken: power under control. It's the description used of a gentle breeze or a healing medicine. James 1:21 says we should receive the Word of God with meekness. Now, meekness is not weakness. If somebody in a board meeting is quiet-spoken, if somebody gets up in a congregational meeting and quietly addresses an issue, that doesn't show this person is weak. It shows they have their power under control. We need meekness. That's the evidence of true wisdom. When you know you have the wisdom of God, you don't have to make a lot of noise. You don't have to raise your voice and become obnoxious. 

There's the meekness of wisdom. There's purity. James 3:17: "But the wisdom that is from above is first pure." It's God's chaste, pure wisdom. Sin has been taken care of. God is light; in Him is no darkness at all. It's pure, and then it's peaceable. Notice that? Now there are those who say "peace at any price." God's wisdom never says peace at any price. First there has to be purity, then peace. Isaiah talks about that, doesn't he? I love that verse, Isaiah 32:17. You ought to mark it in your Bible, Isaiah 32:17. It's a great verse for board meetings: "And the work of righteousness will be peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever." Righteousness is the foundation; peace is the fruit. Righteousness leads to quietness and assurance forever. 

And so when there is the wisdom from above, there is purity and there is peace. The person's not a troublemaker; he's a peacemaker. There's gentleness. Notice that? Gentle, yielding. That means being courteous. Not just trying to do the right thing, but trying to do the right thing in the right way—gentleness. Our Lord Jesus was so gentle. Easy to be entreated, willing to yield, eagerly persuaded, wanting to be persuaded. Now this doesn't mean you compromise; there are some things you won't persuade me to change. But it means we are "swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to get angry," James 1:19. We listen. James tells us in James 3, you know, you have two ears and one mouth, and so listen twice as much as you speak. 

Full of mercy. That means mercy and good works. The wisdom that produces good fruit in the life. Merciful. Not looking for blame, not looking for judgment, but mercy and good fruits. Whenever a person is using wisdom that's from above, there's always a fruitfulness to it. People are satisfied. The fruit comes with satisfaction, without partiality, without hypocrisy. Not wavering. That word "partiality" means wavering. He uses it back in James 1. Without uncertainty. Sincere, wholehearted integrity. Not on one side one day and the other side the other day. Without hypocrisy—open, honest. Well, those are the descriptions of the kind of person who uses the true wisdom that comes from above. 

Question number one: where did this wisdom come from? Question number two: what kind of people use it? "Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by good conduct"—not just by his words, but by his good conduct. 

Thirdly, what's the outcome? What does it accomplish? Well, according to James 3:16, the wisdom from beneath brings "confusion and every evil work." "For where envy and self-seeking," rivalry, "exists"—oh, we find that. Who is the greatest? Who's the greatest singer? Who's the greatest preacher? "Where envy and self-seeking," or rivalry, "exists, confusion and every evil thing will be there. Every evil thing will be there." That means that when we don't have the proper wisdom, watch out! There will be lying, there will be lust. Oh, I know situations where people have gotten angry in a church and they've gone out to start their own fellowship someplace, but it wasn't the wisdom from above. It wasn't pure and peaceable and easy to be entreated; it was rather filled with envy and confusion. And you know what happened? Before long there were divorces, before long people were living godless lives in that new fellowship. Why? Because they were not being run by the wisdom that is from above. 

The false wisdom causes confusion, and God is not the author of confusion. Whenever you're in a meeting and there is confusion, stop and pray for the wisdom that is from above, because God does not operate through confusion. And every evil work—wrong thinking always leads to wrong living. Wrong philosophy always leads to wrong practice. However, James 3:18 says the true wisdom brings peace: "Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace." Not peace at any price, not compromise, not backing down on the truth—no. The kind of peace that is from life. "The fruit of righteousness is sown." Now we don't sow fruit, we sow seed. But what he's saying is this: when people who spread peace produce the fruit of peace—the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace—others partake of that peace. They eat of that fruit, and in the fruit there is seed for more fruit. 

And so wherever you and I go as peacemakers, not troublemakers, we are sowing the fruit of righteousness, and first there's righteousness and then there's peace. I wonder if James was not acquainted with that marvelous verse in Isaiah 32:17: "The work of righteousness is peace." "Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace." And then he asks in James 4:1, "All right, then where are these wars and fightings coming from?" He'll go on to explain they come from the selfishness down inside. 

You and I are always sowing. By our words, we are sowing either war or peace, either unity or division. By our words and our actions, we are either operating from the wisdom that's from above—and therefore we spread peace and joy and righteousness—or we're operating by that wisdom that comes from beneath and we are spreading envy and strife and self-seeking. Let's examine our own hearts. What kind of wisdom controls your life today? Do you get your wisdom from God's Word? Do you come to the Word of God and let the Word of God cleanse your heart and your mind? Do we come to the throne of grace and ask the Holy Spirit to give us wisdom? Do we come to Jesus Christ, who is our wisdom, and ask Him to be unto us all the wisdom that we need? This is our need today. This is our need in our lives—lives are falling apart, homes are falling apart, churches are falling apart. Oh, how we need the wisdom that can only come from above. Are you wise and understanding? Are you sowing the peace of God as you walk on the path of God?