Your Wisdom: Heavenly or Unheavenly?

Your Wisdom: Heavenly or Unheavenly?

“Your Wisdom: Heavenly or Unheavenly?”
(James 3:13-18)
Series: Living the Faith (James)

Rev. Todd A. Linn, PhD

Henderson’s First Baptist Church, Henderson

I invite you to take your Bibles and join me this morning in James, chapter 3 (page 813; YouVersion Bible app).

We have been making our way verse-by-verse through this small letter James wrote to small churches gathering in houses outside of Palestine. These Jewish Christians had been scattered outside of Jerusalem and were meeting together in small churches and this letter of James was written to be read aloud to those churches.

And James’ main thrust in the letter is about living out the Christian faith. This letter is not so much about how to become a Christian as it is about how to behave as a Christian. He’s different from, say, the Apostle John who focuses on how you can know you are a Christian; whereas James focuses on how you can show you are a Christian.

So James has talked about in chapter 1 how to behave when under pressure and facing trials and hardships. He also talks about being not merely a hearer of the word, but a what? A doer of the word. Chapter 2 he warns about showing favoritism and teaches that if we say we have faith but we have no works that follow then we have a dead faith. Chapter 3, James warns of the perils of the tongue.

And that’s where we left off last time right there at verse 12 in chapter 3. And I think it’s important to recall that context because, do you remember what James was teaching there around verses 9 through 12? He was talking about how inconsistent we can be with our tongues. With our tongues—verse 9—“we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness.” And James was like, you know, “That’s like going to a natural spring outside from which flows both pure delicious water and, at the same time, bitter and disgusting water.” That’s inconsistent.

We would wonder what was wrong with the source of that spring. And so we talked about this with regard to the tongue. The source of the tongue, the source of the words that end up coming out of our mouths is the heart. What we say up here is merely a reflection of what is down here in our heart. Our words reflect what’s in our heart.

Jesus taught this in Luke 6:45. He said, “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” The tongue reveals what is in the heart. Or, and I’m paraphrasing a bit from Mark 7:15, Jesus said, “It’s not what goes in your mouth and into your stomach that defiles you, but rather you are defiled by what comes from your heart, and out of your mouth.” What we say is an evidence of what is in our heart. Our words reflect our heart.

So now as James writes about wisdom, he writes about two kinds of wisdom, each of which flows from one kind of heart or the other. Two kinds of wisdom—a biblical and unbiblical wisdom—a heavenly wisdom and an earthly wisdom—each of which flows from one kind of heart or the other. One wisdom, a heavenly kind of wisdom flows from a heart that has been changed by God. And the other kind of wisdom is a wisdom that flows from a godless heart, a heart James actually describes as demonic. James doesn’t pull any punches! Listen for these two types of wisdom as I read the text.

•Please stand in honor of the reading of God’s Holy Word.

13 Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom.
14 But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth.
15 This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic.
16 For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there.
17 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.
18 Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

•Pray.

Introduction:

Years ago I heard a definition of wisdom that continues to be helpful to me in my Christian walk: Wisdom is the ability to see things from God’s perspective. Wisdom is the ability to see things from God’s perspective.

And yet, because we are finite and God is infinite, we will never be able to see and know everything that God sees and knows. Even in heaven! Because God is infinite there is no end to His knowledge and therefore there is no way for us to know everything God knows—which, by the way is kind of exciting when you think about it—we will never stop learning things about God. He is infinite. He goes on and on into eternity. And so we’ll continue to learn more and more about God for eternity. It’s like walking into one of those house of mirrors where you look into one mirror that reflects another mirror, and yet another mirror is reflected, and another still. And you move just a bit and it looks like there are these passageways that go on forever. And that’s like God’s being and His knowledge.

And we’re not like that. He created us. We are made in His image, but we are not infinite. We are not God. We are finite. So wisdom is the ability to see things from God’s perspective—and yet, we never can fully see everything as He sees it.

This is the very first sin of our first parents. Adam and Eve overreached. They failed at the point of wisdom. Tempted by Satan, they disobeyed God by reaching for a wisdom that was not theirs to have, a wisdom they believed would put them on equal footing with God, that they might become even like God Himself. Genesis 3:6, “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her (remember that, men. Adam was there, being passive, failing to lead, to provide and protect; “with her”), and he ate.” And sin entered into the world.

So today, by default, we have this sin nature that continues to chase after a godless wisdom, a counterfeit wisdom, a wisdom not from above but from below—as James says—in verse 15, a wisdom he describes as “earthly, sensual, and demonic.”

So let’s take a closer look at this passage, these last six verses of chapter 3, verses 13-18 and let’s identify:

**Marks of Biblical, Heavenly Wisdom:

Three things here, this text divides neatly into three indicators of biblical wisdom. First, from verse 13, number one:

I. It is Displayed by Good Conduct (13)

Biblical wisdom is displayed or shown by the Christian’s conduct. Put another way, “Biblical wisdom is not so much what you know, but how you live.”

That makes sense given James’ emphasis on the practical expression of our Christian faith. Remember this letter is a letter of action. Don’t be merely a hearer of the word, but a doer of it. James is like a guy from Missouri, the “Show Me” state. He’s like show, display, your faith.

Biblical wisdom is displayed by good conduct. Look at it there again in verse 13:

13 Who is wise and understanding among you?

At first, it might seem as though James would expect that as his letter is read there would be some in the congregation who might raise their hands! You know, “Who are the wise among you? Who are you all in the church who have understanding? Would you kindly raise your hands? We would like to see where all the wise people are.”

But then he’s like, “Don’t raise your hand!” Verse 13, next phrase, here’s who you can know the wise among you:

Let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom.

Biblical wisdom is displayed, or shown, by good conduct. We see who are the wise by the way they live. Biblical wisdom is not so much what you know, but how you live. And the way you live, and this would be a paraphrase, but the way you live is to live beautifully or in a lovely way before others.

The word “good” there, and there are different words for “good” in Greek, and this word in the New Testament is a neat little word that describes something beautiful, the word “Kallos.” We get, for example, we get our English word “Caligraphy” from Kallos. Calligraphy is beautiful writing.

So James is like, “Do you want to know how you can tell whether someone has biblical wisdom? They are the ones who live beautiful lives before others. The way they speak is beautiful, edifying. The way they act is beautiful, the way the look at you, at others.”

You don’t have to have physical beauty to live a beautiful life before others. Okay? There are a lot of people who have physical beauty, but the way they live is ugly.

Verse 13, James says, “Let him (or her) show by good conduct (beautiful living) that his (or her) works are done in the meekness of wisdom.”

Meekness doesn’t mean cowardice or passivity. Works done in the meekness of wisdom simply means we are not about promoting ourselves, but rather we are thoroughly content to depend upon God and trust in Him and live for Him.

So when James asks in verse 13, “Who are the wise among you?” It’s not as though he’s looking for resumes or titles or business cards with our education and college degrees neatly typed upon them. It’s more like, “Just show you are wise by living a beautiful life before others.”

Biblical wisdom is not so much what you know, but how you live. And remember that James has Christians in view here; believers. So he’s not saying, “Here is how you live in order to get into heaven.” No one earns their way in to heaven.

Remember when James has already taught, “You can’t be good enough to earn your way in to heaven?” He said back in chapter 2, verse 10: “Whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumbles in one point, he is guilty of all.” Even if it were possible to earn your way into heaven, one blemish on your record makes you guilty before God as if you had broken every sin.

On the way back from a pastors conference in Cleveland this past Thursday a tiny little rock shot up and nicked the top left corner of my windshield. Just a little spot there where the glass cracked into a tiny star. I was disappointed, but I thought, “Well, at least it’s just a tiny little crack and doesn’t obscure my vision or anything.” So I drove to our senior adult luncheon the next day, Silvertones, and afterwards went out to the car and the little tiny crack grew significantly, a long line now spiraling across the diver’s side. The windshield is ruined.

James teaches that sin is like that. Whoever keeps the whole law and yet offends in just one little point, one teeny tiny sin, is guilty of all. Your life is like a windshield hit by a rock. Just one rock, just one sin, will ruin everything.

So James is not teaching that we can earn our way into heaven. We can’t. This is why Christ has come through the power of the Gospel. Christ came and did for us what we could not do ourselves.

James is writing to those who have already embraced the Gospel. He’s writing to those who know that, because of Christ, they are already in a position of favor with God. He’s writing to those who know that they cannot earn God’s favor because—in Christ—they already have it. And that is what motivates the Christian to live a beautiful life.

Biblical wisdom is displayed by the Christian’s good conduct. And this wisdom is distinguished from what is best described as a counterfeit wisdom, not the wisdom from above, but the wisdom from below. So here’s the second mark of biblical wisdom, number two:

II. It is Distinguished from a Godless Counterfeit (14-16)

There’s a guy named Guy. His name is Guy King. He wrote a little book on James and he writes in the book about these two kinds of wisdom and he distinguished them from one another by talking about “Mr. Wise” and “Mr. Otherwise.” That’s great, isn’t it? Mr. Wise has the wisdom from above, the wisdom displayed by good conduct—and then Mr. Otherwise has the wisdom from below, the godless wisdom.

And that really is what James says here. Look again at verse 14

14 But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth.
15 This wisdom does not descend from above, but (is what?) is earthly, sensual, demonic.

So this is a worldly wisdom, an unheavenly wisdom, even a godless wisdom. And it is a wisdom that Satan would love for us to pursue in place of biblical wisdom. Satan would love us to exchange heavenly wisdom for unheavenly wisdom.

So what does this earthly wisdom look like? Again verse 14:

14 But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth (in other words, you’ve got nothing to brag about if you have this kind of wisdom).

So James says, verse 14, this wisdom is characterized by ungodly characteristics such as “bitter envy,” envying others, jealous of others, others in the church as well as others outside the church.

The other godless characteristic is this phrase, “Self-seeking in your hearts.” Self-seeking connotes the idea of “Selfish ambition” with little to no regard for others. It is a willingness to be divisive, or to divide a group, to marginalize or alienate others in the interests of one’s own desire for power or prestige.

Many years ago about the time I was beginning high school in Georgia, there was a baseball league for which I played—briefly—it was called the Dixie League in Stone Mountain Georgia. And this was a definite step up from little league. And I learned that really quickly.

I remember once when I was playing right field that this batter on the other team came up to bat and one my team’s coaches made a decision that really bothered me. By the way, this coach was a salty fellow. His language was horrible and he chewed tobacco and smoked a cigar at the same time. I read recently where the mayor of San Francisco signed into law an ordinance to ban all tobacco, including chewing tobacco, by anyone at AT&T Ballpark, both fans and MLB baseball players. If the legislation was meant to discourage young people from using tobacco, I would just suggest getting them around someone like this crusty old coach I had! It was pretty disgusting watching him chew that tobacco and smoke a cigar between his efforts to bark orders, chew, smoke, and spit.

So the coach takes me out of deep right field and puts me into center field and then puts his son into deep right field where I had been. The guy on the other team gets up to bat and he hits the ball deep into right field and the coach’s son catches the ball and the guy’s out. And then the coach’s son goes back over to shallow center field and I go back over to deep right field. And the coach just says to me, “I just wanted to bring him in for the big catch.”

And I remember thinking, “Man, am I that bad?!” The big catch?! It was right around then that I decided I had better stick with band because this just wasn’t working.

Now look, that’s just the way the world operates. Often, there is a willingness to split the group in order to achieve what a person wants. And the sense is, “I really don’t care how this affects you, I’m going to do this because it’s what I want.”

That may work okay in baseball. Maybe I should have just gotten over it. Although that’s been over 35 years ago and you can tell I’m still ticked about it. That works okay in baseball, but that doesn’t work in the church.

Imagine doing something just to get your way; speaking your mind just to get your way. You don’t really care how what you say affects the other person, you just want to win. James says, verse 15:

15 This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic.
16 For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there.

Biblical wisdom is distinguished from that kind of wisdom. That kind of wisdom is focused on self. Biblical wisdom is focused upon others—both vertically and horizontally—God and others. Jesus says, “Let me sum up the entirety of the Law and the prophets: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength—and love your neighbor as yourself.’” That’ s biblical wisdom. So this takes us to the final point, the final mark of biblical wisdom.

Biblical wisdom is Displayed by Good Conduct,
Biblical wisdom is Distinguished from a Godless Counterfeit,
Thirdly; Biblical wisdom is:

III. It is Defined by Godly Characteristics (17-18)

And there are like 7 or 8 characteristics of heavenly wisdom in verses 17 and 18. Let’s just read through them here, verse 17:

17 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure (think about that in contrast with the impurity of selfish ambition or envy; pure), then peaceable (not looking for a fight), gentle, willing to yield,

That goes against the grain of the American spirit, doesn’t it? Willing to yield. We’re a proud nation of rugged individualists. I share that proud heritage, but if we follow Christ then we are Christians first and we will live out our faith in a way that often if not usually goes against the grain. He who is wise is always willing to yield out of deference and respect for others.

Derek Prime, pastor for many years in Edinburgh, capital of Scotland, made a statement once about the Christian’s willingness to yield. He remarked to a younger minister on their way to an important meeting at the church were there was going to be some varying opinions, he said this, “It’s one thing to know your mind (to know what you believe), it’s another thing to have your mind made up.”

If we have our minds made up before we ever enter into a meeting, whether it’s a meeting of a group, or a one-on-one meeting, and we enter into that meeting with a smug, self-assured, “I know I’m right” sort of spirit, then, even if we are right, we’re in no position ever to learn anything. To have a spirit that is, verse 17, “willing to yield,” means we humble ourselves and are teachable and willing to learn something.

Can I speak autobiographically again? I spoke earlier of my days in baseball, so let me talk about band for a moment. When we moved from California to Georgia when I was at the end of my 5th grade year, coming from California it was just like nearly everyone played a musical instrument. So I played trumpet in California and I was good. I was first chair. So we moved to Georgia and they just got a later start than California and music wasn’t stressed as much and so I go to band and they divided the bands by grades so I’m like in the 5th grade band, but I’m thinking, “Man, this is pretty pathetic. I need to be in the 6th or 7th grade band.” It was horrendous. And because I was new the band director assigned me like the fourth part, and honestly it was so beneath my ability and so not challenging and so disappointing. So I go up to him and I’m like, “I’m sorry, Mr. Brown, but in California we were playing stuff a lot harder than this and I’m used to playing first part.” And, I remember he said this, “A really good trumpet player will play any part assigned him.”

Willing to yield! Sometimes God forces us to learn how to yield, doesn’t He? Biblical wisdom means we have humility, we’re teachable. Going on in verse 17:

full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality (not divisive) and without hypocrisy (in other words, we’re real).
18 Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

And verse 18 is an echo of what James said in verse 17 about being “Peaceable.” Those who make peace—peacemakers—who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness. So again, biblical wisdom is not about self; it’s about others. We endeavor to make peace; peace with others, peace between others.

And the most practical expression of this is in the church. Never forget that James is writing to Christians in a church context. That will be helpful to us when we move on to study the very next verse in chapter 4 where James talks about how wars get started in the church body. Be a peacemaker.

One of the keys to being a peacemaker is found in the preceding verse, verse 17, were James says that biblical wisdom is “full of mercy and good fruits.” If you are full of mercy then you can extend mercy to others. You’ve got a limitless supply of mercy.

When another Christian hurts you, you’ve got plenty of mercy to give out. A helpful parallel is Ephesians 4:32: “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another just as God has forgiven you in Christ.” God has shown you mercy, so you show others mercy.

Think of the atonement in your forgiveness of others. Because of the Gospel we can say, “God has forgiven all of my sins, all sins past, present, and future. We are justified; declared righteous; not guilty of all sin, including future sins.”

If that is so, and it is, think about how this works out in your relationships with others. We’re quick to think about how God’s grace and mercy applies to us individually, but think about how God’s grace and mercy also applies to other Christians with whom you may find yourself at odds.

In other words consider how God’s forgiveness of another Christian’s sin may include God’s forgiveness of that person’s sin against you.  So if—because of Christ—God forgives that person’s sin against you, so should you forgive that person’s sin against you.

This is a major key to overcoming bitterness.  Whatever hurt that Christian may have inflicted upon you—or may yet inflict upon you—consider it a sin for which God has forgiven them at Calvary.  God forgives them just as He forgives you.  You then, forgive them also based upon Christ’s atoning sacrifice.

Conclusion:

So we’ve come full circle. The way we act indicates what kind of heart we have, whether we’ve been changed. The way we speak reveals what’s in our heart. The way we live is shaped by what is in our hearts.

How do you get a heart that is pure? If you’re not a Christian, you need a new heart.

God says through the Prophet Ezekiel, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”

God does that thought the Gospel.

•Stand for prayer.