Books of James & Jude - Wisdom part 1 - James 3:13-16
James 3:13-16 · Bob Eckel · Jun 30, 2013
James & Jude, No. 25
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926355427860

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

So let's read 13-16. I don't know that we have to read the whole chapter. We're going to reflect back on what Roger taught last week. So Roger, read 13-16. 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 ambitions exist, there is disorder and evil in every evil thing. But the wisdom from above is first pure, symbol, full of mercy and good fruit, unwavering, without hypocrisy, and the seeds whose fruit His righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

Alright, so Roger's read the entire section. He gave me four verses today and him two. You have two next week, right? Actually, it's going to be Jim. You're on for next week, right? Jeremy's not here to defend himself. Okay, so I'm going to take four today, but I think it's a continuum.

We're going to deal with the first four today. So the first verse, who is wise and has understanding among you, let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom. So notice what scripture precedes this. So isn't it interesting that we are talking now about he who is wise and has understanding among you follows one who in fact is using the tongue and not to God's glory.

So Jeremy, you're on for next week, right? So this is kind of a continuum. Is that your understanding that you're on for next week? That is my understanding. Okay, we've declared that to be true, so we wanted to assure ourselves that you were also on the same page. All right, so this is going to be a continuum. So I'm going to do through 16. You can revert back next week if you want to finish up. But you've got the two Keep in mind now in context, what does this relate to?

If you look at James 3.1, this is teaching. We're kind of talking about people who are in a position of leading others, including many in this room. You have all four teachers here of the six people here today. Al, you teach.

We are all involved in this kind of ministry of the Word of God, so ultimately this relates to us, but also extends beyond us, but I think that is purposefully who it is directed to. Let's try to distinguish being wise and being understanding. Are these two things the same thing? What are your thoughts before we look at this a little bit more in detail? Wisdom versus understanding.

When I think of those two, I go back to Proverbs 2.6, from the Lord comes wisdom, and they said, out of his mouth proceeds knowledge and understanding. Wisdom applies the understanding. To me, understanding is more like head knowledge first.

And the wisdom then takes that and makes it an integral part of the whole being. I think you've done a really good job with that. If you look at the definitions that are given to me in scriptural language, wise or sophist can be interpreted two ways, skilled in letters, cultivated, learned. But I like the second one much better, and I think it's more applicable here, one who forms the best plans and uses the best means for their execution. That's more wisdom. It's more of an application, isn't it? Whereas understanding is a different Greek term. And it implies intelligent, experienced, one having the knowledge of an expert.

So understanding is a head knowledge, but I think in context this is applied to things of the Lord, right? I mean, I think we're all here because we have a certain knowledge of God's Word. We have an understanding of what God's all about and how he's working in each and every one of us by his great grace to grow us in that grace and truth. But yet the wisdom is now, let's go back again, the wisdom I think is forming the best plans based on our knowledge and how to execute them. So again, understanding is knowledge and ultimately wisdom is application.

Everybody okay with that kind of? So I guess the question is what's the metric for these things? I mean metric for understanding in the world system is a test. We pass a test. We get certified or we become accountable. And wisdom in the world system is somewhat different than wisdom in the Lord's definition, isn't it? Well it seems like one of the key things here is that Both wisdom and understanding are not our wisdom, they're the Lord's wisdom.

They're resonant in His word. So it's just not, well I'll go out and find a wise person in whatever field. You're looking, this is focused on the Lord. It's His wisdom, and His wisdom is in His word, and His understanding of that is there as well. Your wisdom is going to come up again today, so we'll look at that in some more detail. And that's certainly the emphasis in all that you read, because you read the counterpart as well, which certifies that it really is the Lord's wisdom that we want to have.

But let me put this in kind of the church atmosphere in which we all, we're all members of the body of Christ. It's interesting, The Hungry Heart today talked about churches, and what churches are and what they are not. Trying to be a New Testament church was not really the goal. There is no outline for what this church should look like. The church is an outliving of the body of Christ. And by the way, if you have something local, that's great. But the church is the body gathered together.

But anyway, let's think about just within Christianity. We can have people go to seminary at length with advanced degrees and doctors of divinity, so they have an understanding, but the wisdom is lacking if in fact we live out of the book of Judges. Not that Judges isn't an important book in the Bible, but the point is I think understanding and wisdom are not identical, but the understanding here needs to be the foundation of the wisdom going forward.

Is that okay? Everybody okay with that? Yeah, Jeremy. But are they, in this context, are they separable? I mean, can you have, if you have understanding, is that going to have wisdom? It does say wise and understanding, right? They are connected here. I think that we're not looking at understanding only. And wisdom that's not based on understanding could be the world's wisdom, right? And the world's wisdom only brings glory to yourself, right? That's self-sustaining and self-fulfilling.

So I think this is a good point. These are married and adjoined, I think, in context. It's the only New Testament use of the term understanding. No other place is this word used. How do we show by good conduct that our works are done in the meekness of wisdom? Well, good conduct. Let's look at a few verses.

So, Al, I'm giving you 1 Timothy 4.12.

Jeremy, 1 Peter 1.15.

Let's see, 1 Peter 3.16. Oh, you got it. You've got yours down here. Jim's a little slower on his iPhone here, are you? Are you free? Let's see, what do you want? One of you, please.

1 Peter 3.16. So this is good conduct. Go, Jeremy. But as he who called you is holy, so also be holy in all your conduct. Okay, so it's calling Paul through the epistle to Timothy.

1 Peter 1.15?

That was 1 Peter 1.15. Oh, okay.

You have 1 Timothy 4.15? Okay, I'm sorry.

Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity. And keep a good conscience, so that in the thing in which you are slandered, those who have all your good behavior in Christ will be put to shame. Okay, so there is this outward playing of the conduct that really relates to our works being done in the nature of the Lord. Works used 176 times in the New Testament.

And let's look at one verse that I think sums us all up. And I think it places us in identification truth. I couldn't find a better one. There are lots of ones that deal with work, but I think in terms of how this work is done in the meatness of wisdom is of the Lord. Is it not? For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. I can't think of many verses of works in it that probably sets a stage and is laced with truth any better than this one. Again, 176 times. You can pick any one you want. Of course, you know, being where we're at and, you know, the precession. Yeah. One that's particularly early in my Christian walk that hit me.

And now my mind won't say it right, but anyway, it talks about in Matthew 5.16 where it says, Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven. So again linking the works to God's work. I lost it.

The attitude, Sermon on the Mount, so we're not going to go there, but that's okay. In a sense, if you look at the Sermon on the Mount, even though we look at this Kingdom Age stuff, it's really applicable to Christ's life within us in many ways. You can actually bring that forward if you want, but in terms of to whom it was written is another discussion.

So it's done in the meekness of wisdom. Meatness. How would you define meatness? Meatness is not weakness. It's not weakness. Here's the best definitions I could find. It's tough to define. It's really the nature of the Lord Jesus Christ. How about this? Mildness of disposition, gentleness of spirit. Anybody have anything to add to that? Mildness of disposition, zealousness of spirit.

But yet, Christ threw the money changers out, right? But, obviously we have the example in Jesus, but I'm thinking of more current events, you know, with Nelson Mandela being in the news. He's kind of an example, like he's not, you know, let's go and overthrow this stuff, but he stands strong and is able to accomplish what he wants. So there's a certain gentleness of spirit there from a human aspect, but certainly not from a greater Christian aspect that we have in Jesus Christ.

It's not, you know, like you said, it's not weakness. It's not that, you know, oh poor me. You have the strength of the truth behind you. You have the understanding of the scripture and you're going to stand on that, but it's not abrasive. It's not, you know, these hellfire redstone I don't care how I come across when I present it. It's definitely not in your face. It's not, you know, it's God's, you know, it's God's judgment. The verse that talks about speaking the truth in love, I'd always like that, because to me that's an example.

We recognize that we only see in part, we only know in part, and it leads to weakness, whereas the world, gets arrogant about the knowledge they have, knowledge puffs up. So is this meekness of wisdom? And keep in mind that meekness is tied to wisdom. We've already defined wisdom as the application of probably a firm knowledge of something.

I just looked up where else it was used, Titus 3.2, they used the word consideration as the translation there. And it's in the context of rulers and the godly living in Titus. And so the thought would be, what are you considering in order to present yourself mildly or humbly or this disposition, what is it that you consider? And it's the fact that you tied it to that wisdom in that statement there.

You can't be meek without the consideration of truth as it applies to your situation. So you can fake it. And I would maybe say you have leaders like maybe Nelson Mandela who can present themselves humbly and peaceably but are they considering God's perspective on an issue and therefore it's true meekness.

Versus I mean we all can be humble in a situation, but what are we considering in that moment? You know are we looking at? how God sees that person and the needs of that person, or are we looking about achieving our own greatness through humility? There might be a different way of doing it, even though it looks the same to a man.

It really does, and we can't be the judge of motives, can we? No, we can't. I think what I think about a little bit here, and I didn't put it down on the notes, but just thinking out loud now a little bit, it's citizenship personified. The believer is a different creature. Each of us should be like Paul, thinking that our sin is the greatest among all sinners.

I think the perspective is what great grace has been extended to me personally. I was exercising this morning and watching the sports center, which I have to do an exercise in. I hear half of it because the equipment I use is so noisy. Anyway, talking about this homosexuality within sports, and that was the conversation here this morning. And I was thinking about this a little bit, in terms of the opinion of a variety of athletes about if there are homosexuals in our locker room, what are they going to do about this? They were relating it to the NFL, of course, you know, who's a guy, Collins, an NBA player announced two months ago that he was a homosexual. Anyway, to cut to the chase, I'm thinking about, gee, the scripture says a lot about homosexuality, right?

And I guess when you look at it, I think back about this woman who said to me and Margaret about seven or eight years ago. I guess you hate me because I'm a lesbian." We had a couple of hour conversation with her about my sin is as great as that sin. We tend to identify certain things. The reason I bring that up is we always can't look at someone else's sin as being greater.

The consequences may be greater, but before God and at the cross, all sin is made equal. The cross is the great equalizer. There's no prejudice at the cross. We're all sinners saved by grace. And even though, again, we identify homosexuality for what it is, biblically it's wrong, but, you know, to lust after a woman in your heart is wrong.

How's everybody doing it? I mean, the point is that all sin is not consistent with the application of position and condition of meekness and wisdom. Yeah, Terry. I don't know. To me that also comes across as How are we coming across to the world when we speak about truth? There was an incident this week when the Supreme Court came with a decision.

It doesn't matter how it was, but there was a Christian leader that sent out an email saying, what was Jesus' response to that? And he said, well, Jesus wept. And then he goes on to, now you need to give money to my pack so that we can fight against it. And other Christians saying, that was extremely poor taste, to use this decision and say, oh, Jesus is now weeping at our country, so now you need to give money to my political organization so I can fight against it.

That is not at all the meekness of wisdom. That is not the conduct that Christ would have. Certainly, like you say, we ought to understand God's view of sin and what he's done for it, but then how do we present that to the world? Are we going to cherry-pick this sin, this sin, and say, how dare you do that, or just understand the wisdom, what has God done for us, and what has God done for sin, and how by the works that God has created for us, how are we going to present that to the world? So many people don't have that wisdom and meekness.

The Supreme Court decision, just like the example I just mentioned, what do we expect out of the world system? Is there anything new under the sun here? Some people act as though this is such a big surprise. It's a logical outcome of the way we move. I think we're all, we have deep hearts about this. To think that we're going to now legislate legal marriages between two men and two women.

It doesn't make it, we don't like it, but the meekness of wisdom is a different way of responding. Whatever the laws of the land may be in whatever area, God has not changed his mind about sin being a sin. The point I want to make here, and we've gone a little bit astray, but I think we haven't gone too far astray, doesn't this reflect an attitude of dependency and belief? This meekness of wisdom? First of all, the wisdom comes from the Lord. Again, His workmanship is ultimately His working through us and that really is our belief. Do we believe we're actually one in Christ and ultimately being conditioned to grow in that great grace?

I think the meekness of wisdom is not something you work at. It's something you believe in. There's no metric here. Like how are you doing today on this? Check marks. And so the question to you, how does this occur? I alluded to that, it's not something you measure with a yardstick about how you're doing. And whose wisdom is this anyway, right?

Earthly wisdom can be applied based on earthly understanding. There's probably plenty of good examples on a day-to-day basis in each of our lives where we use earthly knowledge about something and we apply earthly wisdom to answer it. That's not sinful necessarily, but the point is that God's wisdom is of a whole different nature. Meekness is about fruit of the Spirit, and by the way, against which there is no law. Remember, law and grace, there is no law against the fruit of the Spirit, and meekness is one of the fruits of the Spirit. And fruit, you can look at fruit as singular, look at it as plural, but anyway, meekness is one of the attributes of the Spirit.

Wisdom, let's look at first, now back to wisdom, Roger, I promised this. Let's turn to 1 Corinthians 2, 1-7. From Philippians, he says, Rejoice in the Lord always, again I will say rejoice, let your gentleness be known to all men. There you go, that's meekness. Now that doesn't mean we wallow around and kind of dismiss sin for what it is, but the point is the way we deal with it is wisdom based on our understanding. Okay, let's read 1 Corinthians 2, 1-7. Al, do you have that? We've got a few verses to read here, but I think it's worthy to take a look at that here now just in comparison of the world's wisdom verses. 1 Corinthians 2, 1-7, out of the New King James.

And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom, declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the ages for our glory. Amen, huh? Amen, that's right.

That doesn't really establish the truth of what we're talking about here this morning. How can you add to that? Read the first verse again. When I came to you, I did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom, declaring to you the testimony of God." Yeah, it wasn't another place. He said, I didn't come with good, big theological words, but with a simple message of Jesus Christ and Him crucified, buried, and raised again. Amen. Alright, good.

So, by the way, Paul says it here in 1 Corinthians 2, but this is not addressing the babe. This is the mature. And again, remember James 3, the first verse, we're talking about teachers now. We're talking about people who have responsibility for teaching the Word of God. And again, that doesn't mean it can't be more broadly applicable. But this is to whom the epistle is addressing. My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive the stricter judgment. That's the first verse of chapter 3.

And so all that follows relates to the tongue. And I think it applies to all believers to some extent. We're all kind of teachers in our own environment, in our families, with our spouses. with our friends, and it's not always in a Sunday school class or classroom or a Bible study. We're all put in this position. But this wisdom, this meekness of wisdom, is really dealing with people who are in a position of teaching and sharing the word of the Lord.

James 3.14.

But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. I found this first kind of interesting, particularly the second part. So let's see how that plays out. defined as zeal. By the way, envy can be a positive, not always a negative. So the term means zeal, ardor in embracing or pursuing and defending anything. So we think of envy as really the second definition, envious and contentious rivalry and jealousy. That's how we would colloquially define envy, but in fact it can have a positive interpretation.

I think here the fact that bitter precedes it means the second definition is what we're talking about. Self-seeking. We're going to look at some verses again. Romans 2, 5-8. Jeremy 2 Corinthians 12, 20. Lesley Philippians 1.16 and Philippians 2.3 Romans 2.5-8 But because of your stubbornness and an unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath, in revelation of the righteous judgment of God. Who will render to every man according to his deeds, to those who by perseverance in doing good, seek for glory and honor, and immortality, return alive. But to those who are selfish, ambitious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, wrath, and indignation. OK, that certainly fits that type of self-seeking behavior.

2 Corinthians 12.20 For I fear lest when I come I shall not find you such as I wish, and that I shall be found by you such as you do not wish, unless there be contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, backbiting, whisperings, conceits, tumults. Lots of consequences there related to self-seeking behavior.

Maybe, is it 15 possibly? I thought it was 16, I looked it up again this morning. Okay, well the 16 is, the latter do it out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel. But it's referring to 15, some to be sure are preaching Christ even from envy and strife. Yeah, okay. But some also from goodwill. Okay, my bad. So it's 15. Together, yeah. Okay.

Alright, and Philippians 2.3? Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit. but a lowliness of mind, let each esteem others better than himself. Okay, so there's this atmosphere of self-seeking behavior that's commented on throughout scripture. By the way, there are a lot more. I just picked four that I thought looked pretty good here in terms of defining this. The imperative. By the way, this is an imperative.

So don't boast or glory or lie against the truth. And I guess the question comes up, is this downright lying? Do not glory or boast or lie against the truth. What does it mean we're lying? If you're self-seeking and your conduct is really bringing glory to yourself, is that lying? Well, what is truth? It says we're lying against the truth. What's the truth? Let's go back. What's the truth? Now what's the truth? In chemistry? No, more in biology.

We don't even know that. Truth is an attribute of God that we seek to discover, but that we only partially know. It's just, I think of the end, Paul's exhortation on love. We see in part and know in part, but then we shall know as we are known and so on. Other thoughts?

Truth. Define truth. I would say that truth is the most important thing that there is, beyond grace, faith, and love, because it's all tied up in truth, is it not? So let me go out on a limb maybe, but I came to be saved because of truth, and the truth related the entire Gospel. So truth is wrapped up, let's look at truth.

And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Third John 1, 3 and 4, For I rejoiced greatly when brethren came and testified of the truth that is in you. Just as you walk in the truth, I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth. And just one more. Truth is the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything that is wrapped up in him is truth. And so when we are lying against the truth, what is it? Well, how about this?

1 John 1.6. If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. I think that is really applicable here in terms of self-seeking behavior.

Wrong motives, earthly wisdom. Again, we don't measure this and we don't necessarily judge it in others, but in a sense when we walk in darkness and we make statements and ultimately you are in a position of leading others, we are in fact lying against the truth.

Other thoughts Roger? I was wondering if it didn't kind of focus back on comparing gentleness of wisdom against the arrogant behavior and kind of contrasting those two. And that is actually if you're lying, since that's an attribute of the Lord, you're lying about who you are when you're arrogant. That does kind of relate to this, don't you think?

I do. In terms of we walk in darkness and proclaim the truth and meekness of wisdom and we're in fact lying against the truth. Because that's not godly wisdom. Yeah, Jesus' condemnation of the religious leaders, when he talked about the blind leaving the blind, that he was trying to get them to see that they were not walking in God's wisdom, they were walking in this set of, as you're calling metric measurements here, a checklist of what I need to do to please God. And remember, it's good I think to remind ourselves that the meekness of wisdom applied to our lives is one of dependency and belief.

That's where it shows up. This isn't something I think we measure in ourselves, but it's something that the body in fact perceives and gives glory to the Heavenly Father or its source from the very beginning. Although this in context appears to be related to teachers, is this not true of all of us?

I think this walking in darkness and proclaiming God's wisdom is a potential problem for all believers, I think. But the consequences may be greater in teachers, I said. So you know, people who are expressing the Word of God, who in fact are walking in darkness at times, lying against the truth, in fact the consequences may be somewhat greater. So I'm, this morning, perhaps going to suffer more consequences than Roger Lill sitting in the classroom here today.

Let's look at 15 now. This wisdom does not descend from above. but it's earthly, sensual, and demonic. We're talking about the wisdom of lying against the truth. Earthly wisdom, self-seeking behavior, wrong conduct, all of the above. I think this is kind of neat because notice the three forces that operate to separate all of us from the grace of God here in this very simple verse.

Earthly wisdom, 1 Corinthians 3.19. We'll look at these in a second.

Our own sin nature, Jude 1.17-19. And thirdly, Satan himself, 2 Corinthians 11, 13-15. So we've got time, let's look at these. Everybody pick one of those, I'm not going to assign them, and just read it. I can pull them up here too. I'm a little computer slower than I need to be though.

So whoever gets 1 Corinthians 3.19 first will go ahead and read that.

For the wisdom of this world is foolishness unto God. For it is written, He catches the wise in their own craftiness. Okay, point, well stated. The wisdom of this world is foolishness unto God. Isn't that unbelievable? The world system in which we live is defined as foolishness. Boy, strong, strong language there. Our own sin nature, in other words, sensual, relates to self-centered behavior. Who's got that? Jude 1?

Now go ahead. You, beloved, remember the words which were spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. how they told you that there would be mockers in the last time who would walk according to their own ungodly lusts. These are sensual persons who cause divisions, not having the Spirit. And it can be much more subtle than that too, can't it?

Yeah. Okay, good. So the human sin nature ultimately is also a force that operates to separate us from the grace of God. And Satan himself, 2 Corinthians 11? Yeah, I have it. Okay. For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Therefore it is not surprising if his servants would disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their deeds.

Which of these three is the most powerful, do you think? in terms of our day-to-day experience and existence? Our own sin nature. Okay. You think the sin nature rather than the world system or Satan? That's the one that keeps popping up. Yeah. It's always stuck with you. So you're not drawn by the earthly system at all? You don't think the earthly system has any influence? I mean, I'm not saying there's a right or wrong answer here. I'm just getting people to reflect on this. I think it varies with people, but I've never been tempted to go with the crowd. I've always been a loner. And so the earthly wisdom, I've never, I've always viewed that with a little skepticism. Okay, maybe we could make an analogy that Satan has set the stage, earthly wisdom is the play ultimately enacted, and the sin natures were a participant in it. My oldest daughter is a music director.

I was just thinking if you're in complete solitude, Satan being a limited being is going to focus on his highest return. The world may have less influence on you if you were in solitude, but you're not escaping ever the presence of sin nature until it is eradicated completely. It's a porthole which the other two come through. James talks about how we lure that sin nature out with those other influences, but that's very personal.

Okay, good. I didn't put this down to Hannah, but very quickly, the earthly wisdom we've already defined is foolishness to God, so ultimately when we put that into perspective, we've got that one taken care of. Our own sin nature, we've been co-crucified with Christ. Our sin nature was crucified, buried, dead, and we're risen with Him in newness of life, so we're new creations in Christ Jesus.

And Satan, if you look at Hebrews 2.14, his works are totally taken care of already. It's just time to allow that to play out. So all these things have been conquered by the cross. I would tend to agree the sin nature shows up time and time again but we are not reckoning ourselves to be dead unto sin and alive unto God.

Romans 6.11 I think is where we are reckoning ourselves to be dead unto sin. Going back to what you said before in the opening about understanding versus wisdom. I realize it's not the Bible, but Watchman Nee's comments in his chapters 3 and 4 are very good in talking about it's one thing to know that we are crucified with Christ, but then to go on and reckon ourselves, do that accounting business of reckoning ourselves dead unto Christ, so that we can actually live it out. Because if we just stop with the work that Christ has done, then we don't get any of this outward expression that we're talking about today, and showing that your works show that you have this relationship.

And that again is an atmosphere of dependency and belief, right? Right, absolutely. Do we believe what God has revealed? Absolutely. I mean, we may believe it intellectually, but do we believe it in our walk and our faith life now? There's a big difference. OK, good comments there.

The counter, the counter is James 1.5. If any of you lacks wisdom, and Jim kind of set this up, let him ask of God who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. OK, so I mean, James has already kind of addressed this before, and now in chapter 3, he says, did you forget what I told you before?

And by the way, I don't think this is an intellectual assent, is it? Gee, God, give me wisdom. That's so phony and so fake, charades. The wisdom that comes from above takes on a whole different kind of, what's the term I'm looking for, scenario than in fact the wisdom from the world.

The wisdom of the world can have us make good decisions on a day-to-day basis, right? I mean, we know that the wisdom of the world, there's law, there's consequences. Isn't it interesting also that we start out with count it all joy when you get the trials and testing temptation.

Okay, how do you do that? What does that look like in your life? What's the difference between the way that world wisdom would react versus how God's wisdom would be treated. And that's what's said here. I don't know how to handle this. Well, I need wisdom for it, so I ask of God. It's in that humility of heart that you ask.

And I think putting that into perspective of James and Wirth's position in the New Testament means that the understanding that leads to the wisdom, the applied understanding, is in fact Pauline based. And James gives us the black and white contrast, kind of like John does. I think these later epistles really need to be built and firmly founded on Pauline doctrine. Because if you go about it any other way, you are under a legal system. And I don't know how much James understood that, but at least God has allowed it to be scripture. And we need to rightly interpret the word of God in light of the fact that we are founded in grace and in the Lord Jesus Christ.

So verse 16, for where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. Boy, strong verse. Confusion and every evil thing. Strong language. I mean, this is not subtle. Confusion, instability, a state of disorder or disturbance. Lots of confusion in the world system already, and sometimes in the body too.

1 Corinthians 14.33, for God is not the author of confusion, but of peace as is all the churches of the saints. God doesn't want any confusion, does he? That's not his business. And every evil thing or work. Describe what you think this means, every evil thing, everything.

I wasn't quite sure, I guess you can dance around the roof here a little bit. Well, I don't know if we need to take time to read this, but what's 1 Corinthians 3 all about? Remember the church at Corinth was kind of behind the scenes here a little bit, not quite up to par. And this is all the wood-haste stubble stuff, right? I mean, anything done, I think, that appears to be good on the surface ultimately doesn't last eternally. I don't know whether that's what this relates to or whether works done that are not of the Lord ultimately will be burned. I think it could relate. Anybody have some additional thoughts there? I really had trouble.

The commentators are terrible here. They have no idea. In fact, they don't even address it. That's the only bad thing about those books. I have a nice thick one that says, shedding light on the hard sayings of the Bible, and they only shed light on the ones I know already. And by the way, I guess this sounds a little arrogant, so forgive me for this, but you can read paragraphs and paragraphs on things that seem pretty clear. And the tough things like this, we just don't get much wisdom. How's that one? Tim, your thoughts are every evil thing. It's interesting, I see a little bit of a progression here.

It starts with the location of wisdom and wisdom is preceded by truth which comes from above and doing things God's way and then it lends itself moving down the path to selfish ambition. Selfish ambition results in disorder, disorder results in every evil thing. So take evil thing on the news today. There's a backwards progression that goes to You know, wrong location for truth, wisdom founded in a wrong location, selfish ambition being sought after, disorder being created, an evil thing. Disorder and confusion, right? Disorder and confusion and then an evil thing. So whatever the evil thing is, you have this backward progression to the source.

And it wasn't sourced in the Lord, in His truth, in His revelation. After Romans 1, turning truth for a lie and suppression of unrighteousness and just that degradation. And the scripture that you had here that you didn't have us read, but I don't have that. photographic memory of the Bible.

The verse that struck me was, no other foundation can man lay than that which is laid in Christ Jesus. So anything that takes you away from that foundation, standing on the Lord, is every evil thing. So in terms, that doesn't make a clear definition necessarily, but it's What distracts you may not distract me. But all those things that take us away from that fix your eyes on Jesus.

For the glory that awaited him despised the shame and went to the cross. I think Jim's wisdom showed up today here in terms of predation or gradation or progression, right? I mean the ultimate outcome is evil. So remember truth and ultimately... And the truth is our life, basically. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me. We're one in Christ Jesus. I'm crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, but not I, but Christ who lives with me.

The point is, again, putting James into perspective, wisdom comes from above. It's an atmosphere of dependency and belief, and also we need to see ourselves ingrained and indwelled by the truth. That's where that wisdom ultimately comes from. Something that happened early on when I read James, since a young believer, I saw these checklists and we often do that, James, I think, kind of ran into it. There's a lot to think about trying to do here, or trying to keep up with, but truth is a person. Wisdom is a person. A lack of selfish ambition is wrapped up in a dependency on not-self. So all of these things are quite simply related to trusting the Lord to do the living through us. And these things happen, and it's just so freeing to not have this checklist.

I mean, you try to think about teaching kids these things, like wisdom, truth, no selfish ambition, no disorder, and you're like, oh my gosh. These things come to light as you teach, as you grow in the knowledge of the Word, or you teach one in the Word. It's all founded in the person of the Lord Jesus, and when our focus is there, You know, that's when this life is carried out. That's when this good behavior that James is talking about comes out, because it's his behavior. It's just a freeing thing to rest in the Lord and not be caught up in, oh my gosh, I've got all this stuff I've got to try to think about today.

I mean, I've had checklists in my wallet. Okay, I've got to remember. This is the way that I'm to think about these things. Do you remember that? Could I see that? You've got a different kind of checklist than I'm sure you have at one point. But wisdom being found just simply viewing things the way that the Lord does, and that requires a constant infusion of the Word for it to be made real in our life.

That's an exciting, peaceful, restful place to be. Those sound like contradictory words, but we agree with you. What's that? The adjectives you put before that type of life. They seem contradictory, but they're really not. 1 Peter 3.15 talks about sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts. Always being ready to make a defense for everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence. Fear and trembling is what the King James says, but I like your translation better. Fear and trembling.

All right, well good. Yeah, Al, time to comment? I'm just thankful to whoever mentioned in Titus there, 2.2. Hadn't thought about that verse for a long time, but it talks about the old man. And it talks about how this wisdom looks. It gives me something to think about for a while. Thank you for the verse, whoever said it. Good discussion this morning, that's great.

So Jeremy is going to continue to finish this passage in James 3 next week, and I'll not be with you for a few weeks. We'll be overseas and back at the end of July. I'm here the whole month of August, so that makes any difference. I'm looking forward to being back for a while. So Jeremy, close us in prayer, would you please?

Our Savior, we thank you for the word that you've given us and for the truth that we have access to through your Son. The wisdom that we have access to through faith to be able to understand what you've done for us and what that means for us here on this earth. The wisdom that helps us to interact with the world and share your love and what you've done about our sin. Glory. We just thank you for the fellowship that we have and the times that we have to come together and learn all these things. We just pray that you would help us to continue to learn and to understand your truth and to have your wisdom. We ask this in your name. Amen.