James 3, we’re looking at verses 13 through 18 this evening. Picking up where I last left off, whenever that was. Excited to get back into it though, James chapter 3, verses 13 through 18. Now what I’m gonna do as I’m asking you to turn there, we’re also As part of the reading of that passage, I’m also going to go back and read verses 5 through 8 of chapter 1. So I’m going to look at 5 through 8 of chapter 1, and then I’m going to go to verse 13 of chapter 3. And I’ll talk about this later on, but it’s because 5 through 8 kind of serve as a helpful introduction to this evening’s passage. So I’m going to start in verse 5 of chapter 1, read through verse 8, and then we’ll go to verse 13 of chapter 3.

Verse 5, chapter 1, James is inspired by the Spirit, writes, But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But he must ask in faith, without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. Then going over to verse 13 of chapter 3.

Who among you is wise and understanding? Let him show by his good behavior his deeds and 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 in 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.

Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, I thank you that we can gather together this evening as a local body of believers in this church and learn more about you, specifically what wisdom looks like and what it’s to look like in our lives. I pray the Holy Spirit speaks through me as I preach this evening and he opens up the hearts and minds of all of us here. In Jesus’ name, amen. Wisdom, obviously, is what we’re talking about this evening, what we’re looking at in this passage.

But it’s an important part of life. And even unbelievers talk about wisdom. Even people who don’t know Christ will say, you need wisdom. You need to know what wisdom is and you need to practice it in life. And people need wisdom. Here’s three different quotes about wisdom. The first one is, the only true wisdom is knowing you know nothing.

I’m not sure about that, but it is thought-provoking. The second one is by Albert Einstein. He said, wisdom is not a product of schooling, but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it. That’s interesting. There’s some truth to that, that wisdom is something you acquire, you learn about. Finally, a quote by the famous Oprah Winfrey. Oprah had this to say, turn your wounds into wisdom.

I’m not exactly sure what she meant by that, but, you know, food for thought, I guess. But I read those just to show that the world has a lot to say about wisdom. It’s not just Christians who talk about it, the world. Unbelievers talk about it. And they obviously put a great emphasis on it.

But we need to understand what the Bible says about wisdom. We just read three different quotes from the world about what they think wisdom is, and there’s some truth in it, but we need to understand what does the Bible say about wisdom? What does God say about it? And when we come to this passage this evening, when we come to James 3, verses 13 through 18, we see that true wisdom displays itself in godly living. True wisdom displays itself in godly living.

But before we really get into the passage, we want to review just a little bit. And James first introduced wisdom in chapter one, verses five through eight, which is why I had us read it. There he emphasizes the importance of asking God for wisdom. And it’s interesting that that’s how he starts this whole discussion of wisdom. He doesn’t go right into explaining it. He says, hey, you need to ask God for it. You need to ask God for wisdom. And in these verses we’re looking at this evening, he’s showing you, hey, this is what you’re asking for. This is what God gives when you ask for wisdom and faith.

So he’s sort of completing that discussion about wisdom. And then as we look at the more immediate context, looking at kind of what we talked about in chapter 3 and even chapter 2, we see that James has talked about not showing partiality, living out your faith, and controlling the tongue. And James is heavily focused on how we ought to live our lives, our actions. And I’ve emphasized this over and over again, but he’s saying, hey, you’re Christians living in a pagan world, a world that is against the gospel, against God. This is how you are to live. Your actions matter. It’s important how you act. It’s important what you think, what you say, what you do. And the wise person lives out their faith with good works, not showing partiality in controlling their tongue. True wisdom displays itself in godly living. We’ll be looking at the text this evening under three headings, and the first heading is a humble wisdom, and this covers verse 13.

And I’ll read it again. He starts with a question. He uses questions, and he uses these questions to get his readers thinking. Who among you is wise and understanding? Let him show by his good behavior his deeds in the gentleness of wisdom. He wants them thinking about wisdom and understanding. He wants them thinking about what they look like. He’s getting their minds ready. He wants them thinking about if they actually have it. He asks them, if any of you are wise and understanding, he wants them asking the question, is this me?

For those who claim to be wise and understanding, are they acting like it? That’s also what he’s really getting at. I imagine James pointing the finger at these people and saying, is this you? Are you really wise and understanding? You claim to be, but are you really?

Now, wisdom, and we should briefly remind ourselves what it is, wisdom is often described as having discernment, and discerning between good and evil, maybe between discerning what is mostly right and what is truly right. And I do think that’s a critical part of wisdom, but I think wisdom’s a bit more than just that.

Wisdom is concerned with how we are to live in the world that God has placed us in. Wisdom deals with practical, godly living in a fallen world. We see this often in the wisdom literature. Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, James, they talk about how we are to live. How we are to live as godly people in this sinful, fallen world. It’s basically what wisdom is. My Old Testament II professor at Southern Seminary had this to say. He defined one aspect of wisdom as understanding the fundamental issues of life in relation to God. Understanding the fundamental issues of life in relation to God.

And I like that. Because part of wisdom is seeing the world, seeing life, as God sees it. It’s not just, okay, this is how we see it, we gotta figure it out, this is how we live practical, godly lives. It’s like, no, okay, here’s this situation in life. Here’s work, here’s family, here’s church, here’s school. How can I look at it as God looks at it? That’s wisdom.

How can we see the world as God sees it? God is the source of wisdom and the goal of it. We get our wisdom from him, as James already talked about in chapter one. And this wisdom that he gives us allows us to know him better. And he talks about in that verse 13 again, he says, who is wise in understanding. And understanding is similar, but even has a more practical aspect to it. So James is really hitting on that practical stuff. He’s saying, hey, Who is wise? Who lives a godly life? Who among you lives a godly life? Who walks in faith? Who controls their tongue? Who has faith in the midst of trials? Who among you is like this?

These are all things he’s talked about. James is not just talking about a really smart guy. He’s not talking about someone who has a lot of head knowledge about a particular subject, a particular field of study. He’s not criticizing those who have a lot of knowledge, but he’s talking about the person Godly wise practical life who sees life is God sees it and is striving to see life is God sees it That’s the kind of person he’s talking about. I think sometimes we can maybe confuse wisdom and knowledge Like we look at someone who’s really brilliant and say man, they’re so wise And maybe they are but we need to look a little close closer with wisdom. Are they actually wise? Do they actually live a wise life?

Because that’s what James is talking about. He’s talking about people who are taking what they’ve learned and putting it into practice. Wisdom should ignite action. And James is showing here in just this first verse that wisdom is the starting ground for good works and humility.

Now, we look at verse 13, it says, the second part of verse 13, let him show by his good behavior his deeds and the gentleness of wisdom. Now, depending on what translation you’re using, it may say gentleness, it may say meekness, some of your translations even may say humility. But the word in the original language, as we understand it, really deals with humility. In fact, when we see meekness and gentleness used in scripture, oftentimes they’re getting at the idea of being humble or humility.

So in Doug Moo, a New Testament scholar, says this. He says that James is showing that true wisdom produces good works, and true wisdom produces humility. So in this first verse, James is kind of almost starting having the thesis for the rest of the passage. He says, this wisdom, it’s important. It’s a foundation. It’s the ground for good works and for humility. You need wisdom. And he’s saying, hey, those of you who claim to be wise and understanding, Is this what you have? Is this wisdom producing good works? Is this wisdom producing humility?

James is challenging his readers to demonstrate their wisdom and understanding. And when we looked at chapter 2, we already talked about how he was challenging his readers to demonstrate their faith by acting godly, by doing good works. So and even a lot of what we’re talking about here is stuff he’s talked about already, but in a different way. Talking about that wisdom. And this is a challenge he probably knows many of his readers can’t meet.

That they can’t demonstrate their wisdom and understanding. The wise person acts like it. They act like it in their daily life. And that includes their public life and their private life. You know, the Christian life doesn’t turn off when you get home and it’s just you or with your family. The Christian life is all aspects, all spheres of our life, no matter where we are.

Wisdom demands action. And then as James goes on in the rest of this passage, he’ll show improper action and proper action, or more specifically, ungodly actions and godly actions. Now, one of the first things we know in verse 13 is that this wisdom he is talking about, it should be a humble wisdom. Humility is a mark of wisdom, not being puffed up, not trying to bring honor to ourselves. You know, to be wise, to live a godly practical life where you’re seeking to see life as God sees it, it’s kind of impossible to do that without humility.

Because the prideful person is seeing life as they want to see it, as they think life should be. But the truly wise person needs humility to say, hey, I don’t understand life. I need God. I need what he has to say. One of the biggest parts of the Christian life I’ve realized in studying the Word of God is humility. We need humility. We cannot be puffed up.

I’ll never forget in 2016, a little bit of a silly story, but in 2016 when we went to Portugal on a mission strip, Really, this is an embarrassing story, but I’m already telling it, but we were going one day to a castle, this old Moorish castle, and I was putting on my outfit to get ready, and it was an outfit I was excited to wear, and it was this white kind of T-shirt with like a hoodie, and it was really white, and the hoodie had like the American flag in it, and I just remember, this is so embarrassing, I remember looking in the mirror before we left in this white shirt and these blue shorts, and looking at myself in the mirror thinking like, I look good.

Watch out, world. Here I come.” I just remember admiring myself. Then we get to this castle, and we’re walking along, and we get to this turret, and I look down, and it was a hot day, and on this white shirt, I have about a million gnats all over it. I’m like, I look terrible. I’ll never forget that, because it was one of those moments in my life where it’s like, A little too puffed up, a little too prideful there. And I tell that story just, it’s a funny story, but it’s also a reminder of it’s easy to slip into that pride. It’s so easy to look in our mirror and think, I look good. Or even, I’ve got this. I don’t need help. I don’t need the church. I don’t need God.

That’s how easy it is to slip into that pride. We are to have a humble wisdom, a wisdom where, God, I need you to show me how to live my life. And that’s an important part as we’re understanding this humble wisdom. We need to be humble. Like I said, we should not associate the wise with the proud. It doesn’t really go together. The wise person should not be prideful. The wise person should be humble. We are to fight that self, that desire for self-glorification, whether it’s in front of family, friends, or even bosses.

Now, it’s okay. It’s okay to do a good job. And it’s okay if people say, hey, you did a great job. It’s okay to want to do a good job, whether it’s your actual job, your family, wherever you are. You should want to have excellence in whatever you’re doing. But if the motivation behind what you’re doing is, I want to look good, I want to appear great, I want the honor brought to myself, no matter even what happens to others, then that is sin. That is pride. That’s a lack of humility.

And humility is important when it comes to understanding faith, faith in Jesus Christ. Faith in Christ requires humility. Salvation means we depend on Christ for our salvation from sins and not on our own works. Salvation is about screaming to Jesus, I need you Jesus. That’s a humble cry. And it doesn’t start, it just doesn’t end when we’re saved, it goes on for the rest of our life. That I need you Jesus cry should be cried every day for the rest of our lives. So humility is a mark of the Christian life for our whole lives. We need humility. We need to scream out I need you Jesus from salvation to the day we die.

And a lack of a humble wisdom leads to a false wisdom, which brings us to our second heading, false wisdom, and this will cover verses 14 through 16. And I’ll read those briefly. But if you ever, I’ll read verse 14 first. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth.

Now James has given a clear statement already of what wisdom looks like, specifically a humble wisdom. I said it’s kind of, verse 13 serves as sort of his thesis for the whole passage. And now he’s going to describe the bad, so to speak, or the false wisdom, the ungodly actions. And he’s showing these wicked actions.

And I think verse 14 can almost serve as a response to those who in verse 13 said yes. So those who answered yes to, who among you is wise in understanding? Those who said, yeah, that’s me. James then comes in verse 14 and says, but if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth. James knows what some of these readers are like. And he says, those of you who are saying yes, you are wise and arrogant, you’re actually probably like this.

You have this jealousy and selfish ambition. Those who say they are wise but actually have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in their hearts are not wise. They’re not being godly. Instead of being humble, they care only for themselves. That’s a lot of what he’s going to be getting at in the rest of these verses, that selfishness. Wisdom cannot be associated with selfishness.

Now bitter jealousy indicates that they want what others have no matter what. It’s interesting, he just doesn’t leave it at jealousy or some translations say envy. He says bitter. Let’s say we’re bitter in front of it. And you know, bitter’s never really meant in a good way. If something tastes bitter, if a drink tastes bitter, it’s not good. We don’t like it. So he says bitter jealousy.

And this is when people convince themselves that they not only want, but they need what others have. Whether it’s a car or money, man, that person has it. I need that. I have to have that no matter what. And it’s the jealousy that consumes us. It’s all we think about. We obsess over it. That’s what James is talking about here.

The complete opposite of humility. It’s where you care nothing but for yourself and what you want. And bitter jealousy combined with selfish ambition paints the picture of someone who is only concerned with themselves. They don’t care about anybody else. They don’t care about what God says. They want it their way.

I think sometimes we have the tendency to look at jealousy as almost a little sin. You know, oh, they’re a little envious, they’re a little jealous, but that’s okay. But James is making clear this is not some little sin. And even the Ten Commands, we look at envy that it’s not just some little sin and we should not treat it as such. This is a jealousy that obsesses and eats away at us.

I think we see this with Rachel and Leah in Genesis chapter 30 verse 1. This is when Rachel and Leah are, they’re both married to Jacob at this time and they’re trying, Leah’s having a lot of kids and Rachel hasn’t had any kids yet. And Rachel’s jealous and Genesis chapter 30 verse one says this. Now when Rachel saw that she had not born Jacob any children, she became jealous of her sister. She said to Jacob, give me children or else I’m going to die. And we see that what she does is she actually gives Jacob one of her concubines. So we see Rachel’s jealousy toward Leah. Now it should be noted that jealousy is not always bad.

And we can see that in Exodus chapter 34 verse 14. For you shall not worship any other God because the Lord, whose name is jealous, is a jealous God. That’s a very important passage for understanding that God is jealous for our love. And I’ve talked about this before, but that’s a good thing. We want God to be jealous for our love. Because if not, he wouldn’t care if we are serving ourselves or if the Israelites were worshiping other gods.

So that’s a good jealousy. I was talking to someone the other day, and they mentioned that a husband should be jealous for his wife’s affections. That’s true. You know, Carrie, I love you. But she can’t go looking around and being interested in other men. It’s a no. I put my foot down on it. But the same thing for me. She puts her foot down on that. It’s a great understanding we have.

But no, I’m jealous for her affections. She’s jealous for my affections. But what’s interesting in this passage in verse 14 is that James couples bitter jealousy, he couples the word jealousy with bitter, and then he parallels it with selfish ambition. And I think this bitter jealousy and then tied with selfish ambition show this is not a good jealousy, this is a bad jealousy. This is sin. Clear and simple. And it’s also indicated by what we’ll see as we get down into verse 16. But he also talks about selfish ambition.

And it goes along with this bitter jealousy, but selfish ambition is someone who’s pursuing their own interests, no matter the cost, no matter the expense to others. And ambition in and of itself is not a bad thing. You think of America, how many people built things, made companies, and because of ambition, a good ambition, you should have ambition in your work, in your life, whatever it is. But if it’s an ambition, it’s not motivated by bringing honor to God and even trying to help people, then that’s not right. If it’s an ambition of, I’m going to get this done no matter what. It’s interesting when you study, I mentioned some of the corporations of America and their CEOs and how when they started the ambition of some of those men, and it is amazing, but some of those origin stories of those corporations, when you look at it, some of those guys really did have a selfish ambition.

They were willing to step on others to get what they wanted, write others off, no matter the cost. So James is saying, hey, you cannot be like that. You should not have an ambition that’s motivated only by what you want, by selfishness. That’s wrong.

And James talks about having these qualities in the heart. He says in verse 14, but if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition, No, he doesn’t stop there, he says, in your heart. The heart is where a person’s true colors are. The heart, when it’s used in scripture, is often used to identify who the person is, who they truly are. So James is talking about a person who has bitter jealousy and truly selfish ambition.

A narcissist, almost, could maybe be another word for them. All they care about and think about is themself. James is literally, pun intended, getting to the heart of the matter with this. And the one who is boasting that they are wise but they have a heart like this is lying. The one who says, hey, I’m wise and understanding, James. I’ve got it. I’ve got everything under control. But has jealousy and selfish ambition in their heart is lying. And that’s what James is saying. He’s calling them out on it.

Because to say you are wise and understanding when your heart is like this is contrary to what is true. What is the genuine truth? In John 14, 6, Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. The person who has bitter jealousy and selfish ambition is not trusting in Christ, is not recognizing him as the truth. They are lying. It’s a false boasting. We are known by our actions.

And bitter jealousy and selfish ambition do not go with wisdom. As we move into verse 15, we read, James says this, this wisdom, so this bitter jealousy, selfish ambition wisdom, this wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic. So as we move into verse 15, James shows that this wisdom is not godly. This is the wisdom that is not from above, which indicates it’s not from God. It’s not a godly wisdom, it’s an earthly wisdom.

And we can think of earthly as the opposite of above. And James is really making sure his readers know this is not a godly wisdom, because he says earthly, natural, and demonic. He could have just said one of those, but he uses all three to show, hey, this is not right. This is not what you are supposed to be doing. Earthly shows it’s from earth, from the world, not from God. Natural could be understood as fleshly, almost unspiritual.

The natural person is the one who does not have the Holy Spirit living in them, residing in them. Galatians chapter 5 verses 16 and 17 say this, but I say walk by the Spirit. That’s what the spiritual person does, they walk by the Spirit. And you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the desire of the flesh is against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. For these are in opposition to one another in order to keep you from doing whatever you want. So the natural person is in the flesh and is not walking with the spirit.

That’s what James is talking about when he says natural. So this wisdom is worldly, is earthly, and it’s also fleshly. Simply put, natural is what we are in our sinful state. It’s what our wicked desires are. So this natural wisdom is just what we want to do in that wicked state where we are apart from Christ. But he just doesn’t end there. He says, earthly, natural, and demonic. If earthly and natural aren’t bad enough, he says, hey, this wisdom, it’s from the world.

It’s what it’s like when you’re in your sin-filled state, and it’s demonic. It’s of Satan and his demons. It is Satan from which this wisdom originated. And he and his demons continue to spread it. We live in a world, Pastor Ryan talked about it this morning in the Sunday school class in our Statements of Faith, but he talked about Satan. Satan is a person. He is real. He exists. And he wants to see people follow him, follow wickedness.

1 Peter tells us that he prowls around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour, and his demons are the same. And where jealousy and selfish ambition reside, disorder and evil will follow. Verse 16, for where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there’s disorder and every evil thing. Basically, sin follows more sin.

It’s just true. We read that in scripture and we see it in our lives. And disorder is a big deal. I don’t think we oftentimes think of that as something that’s bad, but disorder is a big deal. That’s a problem. And we can know it’s a problem because James is talking about it.

He says, for while jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there’s disorder in every evil thing. Jealousy and selfish ambition do not think of the needs of others. It’s all about what I want. It means your priorities are not in the right place. Your priorities are not with, well, what’s the concern of these people I love, of my family, maybe these brothers and sisters, or of my house. It’s all about what you want. And when priorities are not in the right place, that can lead to disorder.

I think of generals in a time of war. Generals often are responsible for maybe taking an objective. You’ll have two generals. One will say, we have to take this objective. We have to make sure it’s secure and safe. But then oftentimes when you look at history, you see other generals who their priority is only their own glory. And they say, I’m going to take this objective so I can get there first, no matter what, no matter how many men are lost. And oftentimes what that can lead to is disorder. Because all he cares about is getting there first, being the general who says, I was the first one to walk in the city.

And disorder at the end of the day is chaos. And sin thrives in chaos. It does. Paul in 1 Corinthians 14 verse 40 says that church should be done in an orderly way, not a chaotic way. It may have been that these churches James was writing to, chaos and disorder had slipped into their churches. But there’s a reason that we here, Fellowship Baptists, in many churches have a way we do things.

We start the service a certain way. We sing songs. We then move to the scripture reading. We move to the preaching. There’s an order. There’s an orderly way to do things. It’s not a free-for-all. Pastor Pi doesn’t stand up and say, you know what? I think right now I’m going to give a word. And then Pastor Ryan stands up and say, I’m going to give a word. And then I stand up and say, let’s all sing and dance.

No. There’s multiple things wrong with that. But one of them is it’s disorder. And here’s the thing about disorder that we need to think about. When things, especially church, is not done in an orderly way, the focus is taken away from God. It is. We’re not focused on what we’re singing about, we’re not focused on what we’re reading about, we’re not focused on what we’re preaching about. Disorder leads to chaos and chaos leads to sin. Sin thrives in chaos.

I’ve recently been reading a book about America and how to understand kind of some general, some founding principles of this nation. And one of the things when you study the American Revolution, oftentimes people will compare it to the French Revolution. that came about 13 or so years later. And they stand in such sharp contrast to each other. Because the American Revolution, for as bloody and awful as it was, really was, and if you want to call a war ordered, it was.

The founding fathers of our nation, though they weren’t perfect, they said, this is what we want to do. They laid out founding documents. They said, we’re declaring our independence. And they did it in an orderly way. Whereas with the French Revolution, they just rounded up a bunch of people and cut off their heads. And that’s not really an exaggeration. And then they limped on after that. It was very, just chaotic. And it led to many, many problems. So order is a big deal. Because when disorder reigns, truth is not heard, God is ignored. False wisdom is sinful. And we must reject the false wisdom. We must not give in to that bitter jealousy or selfish ambition. Fight the desire to be consumed by what others have.

It’s easy. Oh, look at that vacation he went on. Oh, look at that car they have. Look at that house they got. Look it, look it, look it, look it. And then you keep thinking about it. You keep dwelling on it, and it doesn’t go away. When you have those thoughts to get consumed by those things, cry out to God and say, Lord, help me with this envy or bitter jealousy I’m fighting. Take this away. Go to Him.

We must put ourselves before others. Selfish ambition only cares about us. We must fight that. And a good way to fight it is put others before yourself. In whatever way this looks like in your life or in our lives, putting others before ourself. A good guiding verse for this and just an amazing verse is Philippians 2, 3.

Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit. But with humility, consider one another as more important than yourselves.” That is a beautiful verse, and it is also very hard to do. He just doesn’t say put others before you. He says, with humility, consider one another as more important than yourself. Hey, this fellow God image bearer, they’re more important than me.

And that just so goes against that flesh, that unspiritual, that natural state that we have to fight. We have to put others before ourselves and not do things out of selfishness or empty conceit. We must reject the wisdom that screams selfishness. We must reject a false wisdom and embrace a true wisdom. Which brings us to our final heading, true wisdom, and that covers the last two verses, verses 17 and 18. And I’ll go ahead and read both of those.

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. Now this wisdom he begins talking about in verse 17 is very similar to what he talked about in verse 13, the humble wisdom. It’s just in verse 13, James wanted to kind of show the significance of humility with the wisdom. But verse 17 gives us a description of what the wisdom from above looks like.

So he’s talked about the wisdom that’s not from above, the earthly, natural, demonic. Now he’s gonna talk about the wisdom from above, the wisdom from God, the wisdom that we are to pray for. We are to pray for in faith and the wisdom God gives. And this should be getting their attention. Okay, he’s talked about the bad wisdom. Now he’s talking about the good wisdom. Let’s hear it, because all of us want to hear the good news. Carrie will sometimes talk to me and say, I’ve got good news and bad news.

I’m like, bad first. And then sometimes she gives me the good first. And I’m like, you messed the whole thing up. We’ve got to start again. I need bad first and then good. That’s kind of what James is doing here. He’s like, here’s the bad. Here’s where some of you are at. Here’s the good.

Here’s what you are to be. And really what he’s done is he’s described the evil and now he will describe the godly. He’s talking about the wisdom that comes from God, the wisdom we are to ask for. And James is saying, if you’re wise, if you’re truly wise, this is how you will act. This is what you will look like.

He is showing what is demanded by wisdom. And I like that, that’s one of the things I thought about when I read this passage, is that wisdom demands godly action. If we’re gonna be wise, it’s not, oh, I think I’m gonna act like this today, I think I may do, you know, I think I may be godly, I may be kind, I may be nice. No, wisdom demands that.

And we see as we get into verse 17, the first thing he says is, the wise are pure. And scholars describe this purity as the chief attribute in this passage. So all the others kind of flow from it. And this purity deals with putting away all filthiness and wickedness.

It’s not just talking about a sexual purity, though of course that’s a part of it, but it’s sort of an abstaining from the world. It’s kind of walking that balance of how Christians are in the world but not of the world. We are in this fall, and this gets into what James is talking about in this whole book. Hey, you’re Christians in this fallen world.

Be godly, be pure. Stay unstained from the world. Fight sin. It is striving to avoid sin and contamination from the world. If one is pure, then these other attributes will follow. Similar, in an opposite and sinful way, that if one has bitter jealousy and selfish ambition, disorder and all other sins will follow. But we don’t want that, we want to be pure and the attributes that come from that. And as he moves on, we see the wise love peace. And this is actually, we’ll talk about in this verse 18, but this is something he really hits on in this passage is peace and the peacemakers.

Actually, I was talking about this passage just the other day with Carrie and she brought out how peace requires, if you think about it, letting go of bitter jealousy and selfish ambition because you want what’s best. You want what’s best for everybody. The one who doesn’t want peace is really just focused on themselves, but the one who desires peace, whatever the situation is, is, okay, what’s best for everybody right now? When governments are coming together and they’re trying to, in the midst of whether it’s a conflict or war, and they’re trying to sign a peace deal, often what they’re doing is, okay, what’s best for the world?

What can we do to end this conflict? Because this conflict needs to be ended. People need to be protected. Instead of disorder and chaos, these wise people should love peace. They should want peace. But as we go on, we see that James says that the wise are gentle or considerate. They’re not rude. They’re considerate people. They’re likable people. Humble people. The wise are reasonable or submissive.

They’re not always trying to argue with you. We all know what it’s like to be around someone who’s always very argumentative, okay? If some of you are sitting in the pew thinking that’s me, well, I need to work on that, and you can come tell me later about that, but no, we don’t want to be around someone who’s argumentative. Everything we say, they’re like, well, what about that? No, we want to be around reasonable people, people who give good ideas and are helpful to the conversation.

They’re thoughtful listeners, maybe even willing to compromise. Now, not compromise in an ungodly way, obviously, but reasonable, submissive, maybe someone who recognizes leadership or authority. The wise are also merciful and kind. And when I read these, honestly, what I think about is that the wise person is nice.

They’re a nice person. We like to be around them. That’s one of the things I thought of as I read this passage, like, oh, the wise person, I want to be around this guy or lady. But this is the kind of person we want to be around. They’re pleasant to be around. They’re just a joy to be around. which should make us ask, are we this person? Are we this pleasant, nice person to be around?

And these wise and merciful and kind people, they produce good fruit, which is similar to what James talked about in chapter two. It reminds me of what Jesus says in Matthew chapter seven, verse 17. So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. The wise person, godly, practical living, they should be bearing good fruit.

And James ends this discussion in verse 17 with describing wisdom as being impartial and sincere. Impartial, he already talked about the sin of partiality in chapter two. We should not do it. We should not engage in partiality. And I love that he ends with, and I wrote sincere, my version says at the end of verse 17 without hypocrisy, but I like that he says this.

The wise person is not two-faced. They’re not hypocritical, they’re sincere. They’re genuine. When they say they’re gonna do something, they really intend to do it. The same place, wherever they are. There’s somebody you can trust. When they say they’re gonna do something, you know they’re gonna do it. A genuine person. That’s important.

I know one thing I appreciate about my professors in seminary was their sincerity. especially wanting to see us grow. Oftentimes they would start class with prayer, but sometimes they would look at us and say, we want you guys to grow. We want you to be godly. And I always appreciated that because they just didn’t look at us as an academic exercise or something they had to do. They actually prayed for us.

And I believe their sincerity. I believe they were genuine. And oftentimes when you get to know someone, you can tell whether they’re genuine or sincere. You really can. But there’s two things before we move on to verse 18 I want to look at. I’ve already talked about one of them. And like I said, the first is that this person James has described is the kind of person everybody wants to be around. Even the unbeliever. Even the unbeliever could look at this list and be like, that’s a great guy. I want to be around that person. It’s a pleasant person to be around.

And secondly, look at how unselfish this list is. Pure, peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy. You’re thinking of others, thinking of others more important than yourselves. You do not have a heart of bitter jealousy or selfish ambition. This list is not about what we want, but about what God wants. And we saw in that verse, and as we move into verse 18, we see that the wise are peaceful.

He spends a lot of time talking about peace and peacefulness. New Testament scholar Rob Plummer has this to say about verse 18. He says, the truly wise person is a peacemaker who leaves behind a legacy of righteous behavior and influence. How often do we think of the Christian walk as being one we are to be peacemakers? Or even what it means to be wise as being a peacemaker. That’s what James is calling us to do. The wise want peace.

And this list of what he just talked about is true wisdom. And we should strive for true wisdom. We are to seek, as Colossians 3, 1 tells us, that what is above. That’s what Colossians 3 tells us to do. Seek that which is above. Seek God. Seek his wisdom. Seek Christ. We should pray to God that we will be the kind of person James describes here. When you think to yourself, what does wisdom look like? What am I to pray about? This is what we are to pray about. This right here. And we should practice these attributes.

We should love peace. We should not always be seeking to cause division or be argumentative. We should want peace. We should pray for peace, even in our own lives and even in global conflicts. We should seek to be a nice person. Now, that word nice can seem kind of soft sometimes. The Bible uses words like merciful and kindness. But we should seek to be merciful and kind. We should. We should want people to enjoy being around us. That should not be our main goal. Our main goal is to glorify God and honor Him. But people should be around us and say, hey, there’s something different about Him.

What is it? He’s merciful. He’s kind. He’s practicing godly wisdom. That’s what’s different about Him. When people notice what’s different, it should be, hey, I’m a Christian. God changed my life. We should be considered towards others, and we should be sincere in all we do. Be genuine people.

We are to practice a true wisdom. True wisdom displays itself in godly action. And we are to practice a true humble wisdom and not a false wisdom. We are to reject a false wisdom. Claiming to be wise while having a heart full of wickedness is a lie. If we are truly wise, we must live like it. Every day, no matter how old we are, we are to continue and live a wise, godly life.

Let’s pray before our last song. Heavenly Father, I pray that we all here know You, and if we don’t know You, if there are those here who don’t know You, they will give their life to You. Realize they need to get down on their knees and cry, I need You, Lord. I need Your Son to save me from my sins. But I pray that we practice a true and godly wisdom. In Jesus’ name, amen.