Who Among You Is Wise and Understanding

Good morning. Let's see if my voice holds out. This morning will be in James chapter 3, verses 13 to 18. And our passage this morning deals with wisdom. And it deals with wisdom in the context of fighting and arguing. My desire for us this morning as we look at this passage is that we would have godly wisdom as we relate with one another. And that in pursuing wisdom, we would also pursue peace. That's what wisdom leads to. Wisdom leads to peace with one another. Would you please stand for the reading of God's word? This is the word of the Lord, and it is eternally true. Who among you is wise and understanding? Let him show by his good behavior his deeds in the gentleness of wisdom.

But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth. This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering. without hypocrisy. And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. So I want to start simply by asking you, who among you is wise? Who among you has understanding? Do you think you're wise? Do you know other people who think they're wise?

James' question here is meant to expose us. The truth is that most people think that they're wise. That I think I'm wise and you think you're wise. We all think we're wise. We all believe we have some kind of wisdom or knowledge or expertise. And we often think of ourselves as wiser than we are. And that's what James is drawing out here. Don't we prove this by how quick we are to speak? and impart our wisdom to those around us? The context of where we're at in James is that James has just finished talking about the tongue. In the beginning of chapter 3, he spends a long time talking about the tongue and the sin of the tongue. He says the tongue is a small part of the body, and yet it boasts of great things. He follows it up and says, see how great a forest is set aflame by such a small fire.

And the tongue is a fire. Our tongues defile us, just like Jesus says in the Gospels. It's not that which goes into a man that defiles him. It's what comes out that defiles him. James also says that the tongue cannot be tamed. He says we've tamed all the beasts. We've tamed beasts, reptiles, birds. We've tamed it all, and yet we have not, we cannot tame the tongue. The tongue is a restless evil. and we bless God with it, and we curse men with it. We do both. And so we run our mouths, and we talk, and we argue, and we fight, and we tear each other down with our words. We set whole forests on fire, and we do it on purpose. We know what's going to tear down our enemy in a fight. We know how to win the argument.

We set whole forests on fire with our words. We destroy, we destroy our spouses and our children and our siblings and our parents with our words. So this is what immediately precedes James' question. Who among you is wise and understanding? Who among you is wise? What do people do when they think they're wise? What do they do when they believe they have knowledge or that they've achieved some kind of secret wisdom? regarding some thing or some topic. They talk. They use their words. They talk. They share. They run their mouths. They talk to anyone that will listen about this knowledge that they're zealous to give. And they'll give it to everybody. They don't care. This is what we do. Most people who think themselves wise, just, you know, spitballing here, most of them think they're right. They think they're right all the time.

And as a result of that, the inverse is true to them as well, which is that everyone else around them must be wrong. That no one else can be right. I must be right and everyone else around me is wrong. I was telling Paige last night while I was going through this. I preached this at Pastor James Church last week, but I can never leave well enough alone and I have to tweak it and work on it more. And I was telling Paige last night, I said, I feel like I'm the pot calling the kettle black. Because I think that most commonly I see this problem in young men like myself. That we learn something or we think we've learned something and our entire life goal now is to share about the thing that we've learned. We watch some YouTube video or we read some blog and now we must impart the wisdom we learned from 30 minutes of content to everyone else around us. When I think of James' question, I think of myself. I think that I'm wise. We are so determined, young men.

in particular, are so determined to show how smart we are to our peers, to our elders, and so we run our mouths. We think of ourselves as being authorities on any subject that we've bothered to research. We think we know best about all kinds of things and that no one else knows anything. We can't be persuaded. We can't have our minds changed because that would look weak. We engage ourselves in the decisions and talks of, Of decisions that leaders make. And we assume that we could do them better than the leader did them. We assume that we can do better than those who came before us. And to be fair, this is not just young men. This is all of us. This kind of thing doesn't discriminate. It's young men. It's old men. It's young women. It's old women. Older women. And so again, who among you is wise?

Who among us is wise? Well, I think I am. I must be. We talk like we're wise. We talk down to others. We refuse to hear contrary opinions or arguments. We cause fights and bickerings over things like politics and small minutia because we must be right. What I really think James is saying with this question is it's time for you to be quiet. It's time for you to stop talking. You think you're wise, but you're not wise. You don't know what real wisdom is. In fact, if you think you're so wise that you're so smart, then stop telling me and show me. That's what he says. Stop telling me and show me. Stop talking about it and show me your wisdom by your good behavior and your deeds in the gentleness of wisdom.

James is essentially repeating what he said in chapter 2 where he says, show me your faith by your works. But here he says, show me your wisdom by your works. And I also want to point out that immediately after this passage, James addresses the quarrels among the people that he's writing to. And those quarrels are directly related to the fact that they keep running their mouths to one another. That they keep tearing each other down and tearing each other apart with their tongues. It's all connected. This is the context. that James is talking about wisdom. Their conflicts in their church are directly tied to the fact that they keep talking because they think they're wise and they think they know. And then James says, but if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth. This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but it is earthly, natural, demonic.

For where jealousy and selfish ambition exists, there is disorder and every evil thing. So what we see is a description of worldly wisdom, its causes and its effects. This wisdom is earthly, natural, demonic. And so we should ask ourselves, those of us who think we're wise, we should ask ourselves, where does our sense of wisdom come from? Where does our sense of wisdom come from? Does your wisdom come from your pride? Some sense of pride in what you've achieved or what you've learned? Maybe in your work or your field of expertise. What happens, just to kind of prove the point, what happens if someone comes to you at work about something that you've been working on, a project you've done, and they come to you and they're like, hey, you know, I notice there are a couple of issues with the work you've done.

There are a couple of holes or there are a couple of spots or a couple of things that we could change that would make this better. Is our initial response to become defensive? It's mine. We get defensive. They might have the purest intentions. They just want to see the company succeed. They want to see the project done well. They want to see things happen. They want to make sure that the job is done right. But it's an affront to my work. And so we get defensive. They might have. The purest intentions. And we get defensive because it hurts our pride. Because we have selfish ambition. We want to climb. We want to be seen as the best at what we do. We cannot be wrong. We must be right. We know what our work should look like and how it should be done. And so we can't accept their help or their correction or their wisdom. Because that would imply some kind of deficiency in our work.

It would imply failure. I'm going to fix this because it's driving me nuts. We're no longer worried about whether the job gets done right. We are now only concerned about how we are perceived in the office. We're only concerned about how we're perceived to our boss or to our coworkers. Well, they must think I can't do my job. But I can. I know I can. So it can't be my fault. It must be someone else's fault. I can't be wrong. And we may even realize that we were wrong and then we'll double down on what we did. And we'll make excuses for why we did it the way we did it. We have to be wise. We have to be right. And all of this is driven by our own ambitions. Maybe you're jealous of someone else. And so you constantly feel the need to one-up them. You might do it by having a better story than theirs. You know, you get together with your family and your friends or with people at church.

You know, we all hang out. The great thing about our church is the fellowship, right? And we hang out, we talk, and we tell stories. And it's great, okay? I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. That's awesome. But in our hearts, in our hearts, don't we, we sometimes have this desire to look or appear better or wiser than we actually are. We feel the need to prove that we have wisdom. I used to work with a guy at my old job, and he's like three years younger than me. But he had a life story for everything. It didn't matter what it was. He had a life story. You could tell a story and then he would have a better story. It was always better. It didn't matter who it was in the office that was telling the story. He had a better story. I was like, man, at some point I kind of don't believe you because you're like 22 and you have all this life experience. Where did it come from? We're trying to build up our status. We're trying to build up ourselves. Are you jealous of other people and their lot in life?

Often we look at others and we think their lives are easier. Social media really helps us with that. We look and we see everyone's happy and smiling and we see their families or we see young mothers see the TikTok or Instagram influencers that their children are just perfect and their day goes perfect and they have all the time in the world and they don't have any problems. And we become jealous of that. We look at others and we think their lives are easier than mine. And so we're filled with bitter jealousy. And we might run our mouths. And I'm this and I'm that, but I don't have what they have. They have an easier life. Why do they have an easier life? Why is my life harder? We do that with each other. We compare ourselves consistently. We envy the good gifts that God has given others. And we compare ourselves to them. And in all our envy and comparison, we have to find some way to be better than them.

We have to find some way to one-up them. We have to find some way to get ahead. Because we're driven by our bitter jealousy and our selfish ambition. We're driven by our own desire to get ahead. Whatever that means. Whatever it looks like. It could be here. It could be at work. It could be with your family. We're all about to go for the holidays. Well, maybe not all of us. But some of us are going to go and spend time with our families for the holidays. Right? I see there are Christmas parties lined up. here at the church for families. And we're going to spend our time with our families. And those times are tense. And some of it's because of our own bitter jealousy and selfish ambition. Some of it's because of theirs too. But when all of us have it, when all of us feel the pressure to be better than or to have more than, it leads to all kinds of frustrations and divisions and fights.

We have to find some way to show our wisdom to those we compare ourselves to. And so everything becomes a competition. Everything becomes a competition. Things that should not be competitions become competitions. And it's based on our bitter jealousies and our comparisons. Have you ever... I don't want to say it that way. Sometimes we key in on a person. And we see them and we see their life and we see what they have and we see how God's blessed them. And we despise it. Now, we would never say it or even think it that way, but we despise it. Because what happens is we want to be like them or be better than them. And it colors the way that we deal with that person. And so every chance you get, you start fighting with them. You disagree with them. You may actually agree with them, but you play devil's advocate in an attempt to try to make yourself look smarter or wiser.

You're tempted to denigrate those that you're jealous of and make them look stupid in front of others. You disagree with them simply to make a point. And why? Why do we do this? Because we're jealous. We do this with our siblings and our church family, and we do this with those we work with because we have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in our hearts. James says this kind of wisdom is earthly, natural, and demonic. James could have said anything else for the last word, and I would have been happy with it. I do not, I'm going to tell you, I do not like this passage. I do not like that this wisdom is earthly, natural, and demonic. It makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Because what do you think when you think demonic? What do you think? What did you say, Daniel? Demons, yeah?

I think hell. Hell. For those that have worldly wisdom, hell. It's contrary to God's wisdom. This worldly wisdom is the exact opposite of God's wisdom. It's not an alternative that can be chosen. It's not like, oh, there's God's wisdom, and then like, oh, I can have worldly wisdom too. It's not like listening to secular music versus listening to Christian music. It's contrary to God's wisdom. It's opposed to God's wisdom. And it tells you. To sin to get what you want and to sin if you don't get what you want. So you fight with your brothers or your sisters. You learn this wisdom from the world or literally you learn it from demons. It's really what this means, that it is wisdom from demons. Think about the serpent in the garden and the lie he told Adam and Eve. He told them that they could be wiser than God, that they would be better than God.

If you eat this fruit, that you will be like God. And Eve saw the fruit, and what does she say? What does it say? She saw that it was desirable to make one wise. This is that wisdom. It is the wisdom of demons. It is the wisdom that caused Adam and Eve to fall in the garden. It is the wisdom that plagues us. And we see this wisdom on display all throughout the world. We denigrate one another. We trash each other. We try to find things to tarnish people's reputations. Just pay attention during the political cycles how politicians talk about one another. This is how the world tells us we must win. This is what winning looks like. In order to win, you must destroy the competition. An example of this that I thought of is for the longest time, I used to think that the loudest person in an argument won.

Now, those of you that, everyone here, almost everyone here knows me. I'm a very loud person. Even now, when I get animated about things, I get loud. And subconsciously, I get louder than you, don't I, Zach? Isn't that annoying? It's me, and it annoys me. But in an argument, we get animated, and we get angry, and we start shouting, or we start raising our voices. And we do all of this in an effort to win. We're aspirational. We're consistently striving to get ahead, looking to the next thing, trying to get to the next thing. The world is full of jealousy and selfish ambition. This verse in James reminds me of Galatians 5.15. We've been going through Galatians in youth group. And Micah's not here. At least I don't. There he is. He's in the back. And we talked about Galatians 5.15.

Micah had pointed that out to us in our youth group. But Galatians 5.15 says, but if you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another. And that's what James is worried about. You guys are running your mouths. You're biting and devouring one another because you're jealous and you have selfish ambition. You're trying to get ahead. You're trying to climb the ladder, whether it's the corporate ladder or it's trying to become an officer in a church. You're doing the same things in both places. You're chewing each other up and spitting each other out. We do this to each other. James isn't talking to the world. He's talking to us. He's talking to the church. We bite and devour one another with our words. We think that if we can tear down the competition to whatever we want, then we'll be the sole winner of the prize. Whatever your prize is, whether it's that promotion at work or a call to serve as an officer. When I worked in security,

When I moved up here in 2019, I got a job selling security service. I worked in a call center. It was the worst job I've ever had. And they literally gave us a handout. And on the handout, it had every competitor for our company. And with it, it had all the details of their service and what you would pay per month and everything they offered. And then under that, it had like three or four lines or phrases that just were meant to demolish your competitor when you were on the phone. So if someone said, oh, well, I'm looking at such and such security service, you just read them that line, and all it did was destroy them. You can't advertise that way. They won't let you do that. But on the sales call, sure, why not? This is how we're taught to get ahead. This is how we're taught. And we need to be aware that even in the church, we can have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition for one another. That shouldn't be surprising to us. But there are people that...

or times or occasions that we have jealousy or selfish ambition here in the church with one another, to one another. We aren't as clean as we like to think we are. I mean, think about the disciples on the night of Passover. It's literally the night that Jesus is betrayed, the day before he goes and dies on the cross. And what are they doing? Luke tells us, There arose also a dispute among them as to which one of them was regarded to be the greatest. They were so concerned with where they stood in God's eyes or in Jesus' eyes or whatever. They were so concerned with if they were better than one another. Not if God was pleased with them, but if they were better than the other. And are we any better than them? No, we're just like them. We are tempted to be jealous of each other's positions and offices.

at work, at the church. We're tempted to be jealous of each other's gifting and the things that God gives to other people. Worldly wisdom produces disorder and every evil thing. That's what this wisdom produces. This bitter jealousy, this selfish ambition, it produces disorder and every evil thing. It produces slander, lies, gossip, fighting, quarreling. This wisdom is not from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic. Don't hide these sins in your heart. Bitter jealousy and selfish ambition produce death. James says in chapter 1 that our sin gives birth to death. That's what these things do. They produce death. They feed your lusts and they produce evil. And that's why wisdom like this is demonic. So confess it. Repent of it. Flee it. Flee envy and selfish ambition.

And then what? Get wisdom from above. So what does wisdom from above look like? What is godly wisdom? Wisdom from above is gentle. Notice in verse 13, let him show by his good behavior his deeds in the gentleness of wisdom. We don't tend to think of gentleness as a very strong or manly trait. Generally, when we think of gentleness, we think of weakness. We think of passivity. We think soft. Gentleness is soft. But that's not at all what God says about gentleness. Throughout Scripture, gentleness is a godly trait. In the fruit of the Spirit, Paul says that the fruit of the Spirit is gentle. Jesus says on the Sermon on the Mount, he says, Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth. Unfortunately, gentleness is often seen by the world and by us as a weakness.

But God's wisdom is gentle, not soft, not weak, not passive. Years ago, someone I was talking to was talking to me about strength. And I can't remember exactly how the conversation came up, but he said, you know, no one looks at a guy who's really strong and who holds a newborn and has no self-control and kills the newborn and is like, oh, wow, look at him. He's really strong. No, you look at that guy and you go, you're a monster. Men need self-control. And he said gentleness is that control. That you need to be gentle. You can't just be strong. You can't be weak either. You can't be so weak you can't hold a newborn. You have to be gentle. But gentleness looks foolish to the world. So what does gentleness look like? It might look like being quiet when someone is starting an argument or conflict.

Someone who thinks they know and thinks they're wise. It might look like not entertaining. Don't be ashamed of the gentleness of wisdom. It's not the wisdom of the world to be gentle. But God makes foolish the wisdom of the world. Wisdom from above is pure and peaceable. The motives of someone with wisdom from above are pure. They're pure in heart. Their desires are pure. Now, no one's desires are perfectly pure, right? But the one with godly wisdom doesn't generally give in to their envy, their bitter jealousy, and their selfish ambition. The pure in heart don't strive and fight for their own selfish ambitions. It's not that they don't fight. They just don't fight for themselves. Godly wisdom means that if you do entertain an argument, if you do entertain a fight, that it's for the right reasons. It's for peace.

That the goal of your fighting is for peace with one another. Not just to win, not just to one up, not just to be better than, but to have peace with the people that you disagree with. Godly wisdom doesn't create conflicts and quarrels simply to get ahead. It strives to preserve the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus also says, blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. And blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Godly wisdom is pure and peaceable. James is simply calling us. Remember, the Beatitudes tell us what the marks of a Christian are. James is simply saying that godly wisdom is a mark of a Christian. That if you're a Christian, this is the kind of wisdom that you should have. That you should be working towards. You should be striving to have. Be peaceable. Be reasonable. Be patient with people.

Even the ones who think they'll get ahead with the wisdom of the world. Be patient with them. Be full of mercy and good fruits towards them. One of the ways that you display good fruit is by not always arguing or fighting back when you're corrected. We don't like to be corrected, right? The example at work, where people are pointing out our flaws in our work, we don't like that. We get defensive. We get defensive here if people point out our failures or our flaws or our ways that we failed in our work here at church or our sins. We don't like to be corrected when we've sinned either. So do you always fight when someone comes and corrects you? In our worldly wisdom and in our desire to get ahead, we tend to fight back when people correct us. Well, but this only happened because such and such.

Or, well, but I only did this because such and such did that. I only responded this way because she said that. We're always trying to make excuses for our failures, for the ways that we have sinned. So how do you respond to correction? Are you reasonable? Do you hear the correction? Do you take it? Do you own it? Do you confess when you've made a mistake? Do you humble yourself? Or do you make it miserable and difficult? For the people who are trying to correct you. If you argue every time you're being corrected. Then you should be aware. You should watch out. That's a sign of worldly wisdom. That's a sign that you can't be wrong. Don't make correction miserable for your pastors, your elders. Or even your brothers and sisters. When they come and correct you. If you argue every time you're corrected. Or if you just shrug off corrections.

Maybe you don't fight, but people correct you and you're just like, eh, whatever, you don't know what you're talking about. Eh, whatever, you don't know what you're talking about. And if that's generally your response to correction or to those who love you and want to help you, you should be careful. You should examine yourself really closely. Why do I do that? Is that generally my response when people correct me? Think about your specifics. How often when I've been corrected, do I shrug it or do I fight? If you argue every time you're being corrected, for better or worse, fewer people will be inclined to help you. It makes it hard. It makes it miserable for those that love us. And that also means not only can you not just shrug it off and not only can you not fight every time, but you can't sulk. You can't be passive aggressive. You can't sulk. We need to be humble when we're corrected.

We need to be peaceable. We need to be reasonable. We need to be gentle when we're corrected. We need to accept it. We need to own our failures. Is the mark of your life constant friction, conflict, argument? Do you just think everyone else around you is wrong and you know better? You know better because they just don't understand. They don't understand your situation. We ought to be careful about how we respond to those God has put in authority over us. We live in a society where leadership and authority is despised. Where those that have been put over us, who have the office to exercise authority over us, we hate them. We despise them. Maybe not them, but the fact that they have authority. We despise authority. We always think that we could do it better than our leaders. Sometimes we try to find ways to discount, discredit, or disobey our leaders and their counsel.

We're not going to submit to them because we know they're wrong and we have wisdom. Some people just want to be an authority to themselves. They don't want to be accountable to anybody. And in a lot of ways, we all have that problem. When we were teenagers, when I was a teenager, I did this kind of thing with my parents. I never admitted it, but I regularly thought they had no idea what was going on. I regularly thought, well, when I get older, I'll do whatever I want. I'm older and I don't do whatever I want. And I'm glad that I can't do whatever I want because there are now authorities in my life that I'm called to submit to. Don't think or assume that you're wiser than the authorities God has given you. Submit to them in the gentleness of wisdom. Don't talk about how wise you are. Show it. When you're corrected, be gentle. Wisdom from above comes from God. And what I mean by that is that first, you get godly wisdom by having the spirit of God.

That when you become a Christian and God gives you his spirit, you have access to godly wisdom. Just like you have access to the fruit of the spirit. James 1.5 tells us that if you ask for wisdom, God gives it freely. That if you want wisdom and you ask for it, God will give it freely. So ask. If you want wisdom, if you need wisdom, ask God and he'll give it to you. You get godly wisdom from the fruit of the Spirit. And the second way you get godly wisdom, and they work together, you need both of them. But you read God's Word. You have to read God's Word. How else are you supposed to know? God's Word has, we have everything we need for life and godliness in God's Word. Everything we need for wisdom is in God's Word. God has spoken to you. He's given you the gift of His Word to you. So read it and get godly wisdom.

So ask for it and then go after it and read it. We must be actively reading scripture if we are to grow in godly wisdom. If you want to see your sins and repent and grow in your walk with the Lord, you have to know what he says. And the way he speaks to us is through his word. The point of our passage is to stop fighting because you think you're always right and because you want to get ahead or are jealous of your brothers. What they have or their positions or their authority. That's what the world does. That's what worldly wisdom does. But godly wisdom pursues peace. He says, and the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. So make peace. Godly wisdom pursues peace, especially with our brothers. Godly wisdom seeks unity. Godly wisdom shows itself through our good behavior in our deeds in the gentleness of wisdom. Godly wisdom bears the fruits of righteousness.

It is pure. It is peaceable. It is gentle. It is reasonable. It's full of mercy. It's unwavering and without hypocrisy. This passage is strongly worded. And when I first read it a few weeks ago, it convicted me. It hit me hard. I called Dan and Dave the day after. And I was broken. And I'm afraid that... this passage, we could read it and we could feel like there's no hope, right? We've just spent a whole lot of time talking about the differences between wisdom and where's the hope? Where do we go from here? What do we do? How do I make sure that I have godly wisdom? How do I not have worldly wisdom? And I've told you that we should ask of it and that we should seek it in his word. But I also want to say, when I called Dan, Dan talked to me for 45 minutes.

And I expected Dan to ask me some questions and maybe scold me a little bit, right? Tell me like, well, you know, your jealousy and your ambition, you just need to get over that. Why don't you cry me a river, build a bridge and get over it? That's kind of what I half expected. Do you guys think that's what Dan did? Dan preached the gospel to me for 45 minutes. So remember the gospel. If you're worried that your life is marked by worldly wisdom, then ask God to give you godly wisdom. Repent of your bitter jealousy and selfish ambition. But remember the gospel because that washes all of that away. Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection takes care of all of that. Examine your heart. Watch for bitter jealousy. Watch for selfish ambition rising up in you towards your brothers. You should examine yourself. Examine how you talk. Examine how you interact. Examine where you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition. But at the end of the day, you bring those things to the cross.

And you take those things to the Lord Jesus and you ask him to wash you. And he does. He will. Your sin is not uncommon. And your God is ready and willing to forgive you of your sins and give you his spirit to enable you to have godly wisdom. I'm going to read from James chapter 4 verse 8. Because I was looking at this and I was like, well, where is the gospel? And it's right here in verse 8. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. There it is. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Let's pray.