October 22, 2023 | James 3:13-18 | Pastor Chris Baker
Good morning, First Baptist Church!
I’m glad to be back with you this week. Bob Harvey led us well last weekend. I’m thankful for him and the other folks who put in so much work to make our men's dinner a success.
We’re going to be back in James this week. Skyler Barker preached verses 1-12 two weeks ago and we’ll pick up verse 13 today.
Read James 3:13-18
13 Who among you is wise and understanding? By his good conduct he should show that his works are done in the gentleness that comes from wisdom. 14 But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your heart, don’t boast and deny the truth. 15 Such wisdom does not come down from above but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. 16 For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there is disorder and every evil practice. 17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peace-loving, gentle, compliant, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without pretense. 18 And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who cultivate peace.
We all have moments in life where we come to a crossroads. Maybe it’s a midlife crisis, or a quarter-life crisis for those in denial. It could come after your kids are born or you change careers. You might find yourself in a spot where you just don’t know where to go next.
Well, our culture has come up with an answer for you. Enter your new life coach. Just like a football coach will send a play to his quarterback, a life coach can give you the wisdom you need to tackle your personal and professional challenges.
If it sounds like I’m trying to sell you something, that’s the point. Life coaches will share their wisdom with you for between $100-150 per hour and life coaching is a $2.85 billion industry.
(https://www.luisazhou.com/blog/life-coaching-statistics/)
I don’t want to downplay the importance of one Christian providing wise counsel to another. I encourage that. James isn’t interested in life coaches. You need Godly people speaking into your life, but what you need more than that is wisdom that comes from God.
Remember, James has already pointed us to the source of wisdom in this letter. James 1:5, Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God—who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly—and it will be given to him.
Wisdom is one of the themes of James. The big theme is that genuine faith is visible faith. And the point our text today makes is that you show your genuine faith by living with Godly wisdom. James has already argued our faith is revealed by our works and here we see that wisdom is revealed by good conduct and gentleness.
We started chapter 3 dealing with speech. Blessing and cursing come out of the same mouth, James says, these things should not be this way.
We started with controlling the tongue. Now we move to controlling the mind, controlling what we believe in our hearts. Jesus said it Himself in Luke 6:
45 A good person produces good out of the good stored up in his heart. An evil person produces evil out of the evil stored up in his heart, for his mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart.
If you heard Skyler’s sermon two weeks ago, you may have—like me—been convicted about the way you speak sometimes. If you’re still struggling, see how the Bible takes it one step farther. The things we say reflect who we are.
The heart marked by genuine faith speaks from a place of Godly wisdom. Genuine faith reflects God’s own wisdom.
Back in chapter 2 we sawn there’s a faith that is genuine and a faith that is fake. There’s a clear contrast between the two and that idea continues on through the rest of the book.
Chapter 3 began by showing us there’s this speech that is right and good, then there’s this speech that is set on fire by hell.
Now there’s wisdom from heaven and then there’s earthly, unspiritual, demonic wisdom. We’re going to call that wisdom from hell.
James is saying there are two and only two ways to live your life. You will be more or less consistent on one end of those spectrums. Genuine faith is marked by genuine (heavenly) wisdom. That’s the sermon in a sentence. And to see that, James contrasts two types of wisdom for us in the text. There's a wisdom from heaven and a wisdom from hell.
Wisdom From Hell (vv.14-16)
We’re going to start with verse 14. We’ll come back to verse 13 shortly.
14 But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your heart, don’t boast and deny the truth. 15 Such wisdom does not come down from above but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. 16 For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there is disorder and every evil practice.
James begins this section with a question, “Who among you is wise and understanding?” He gives a summary at the end of verse 13 and fuller answer starting in verse 17. But there’s this contrast in the verses we just read.
Theres a kind of wisdom which isn’t truly wisdom at all. It isn’t Godly wisdom. It’s the opposite. It appears to be wisdom, but it isn’t.
James describes someone who is miserable—envious and selfish. Worldly wisdom wants what others have and will do whatever it takes to get it. It reflects the person described by the great American philosopher Toby Keith:
I wanna talk about me, wanna talk about I
Wanna talk about number one, oh my, me my
What I think, what I like, what I know, what I want, what I see
It’s the world’s perversion of the golden rule. He who has the gold makes the rules and I want to be that guy.
James says, “If that is the dominant pattern of your heart, don’t pretend to have genuine faith.” Remember, the goal isn’t perfection. The goal is progress. James isn’t saying if you have an envious thought or a selfish action you’re not a Christian. But you should see growth in selflessness and death to selfishness in your life as you walk with Jesus.
Selfish people, by definition, are boasters. If you’re all about you, you’re all about you all of the time and you want to make sure everybody knows all about you all of the time. And James says if that’ the pattern of your life, you’re just denying the truth you know deep down inside which is, very simply, life is not all about us.
When Remington was a newborn I called him our tiny CEO. Because in a lot of ways he set the agenda and direction of the family. If he didn’t sleep, we didn’t sleep. If he woke up early, we woke up early. Our family life necessarily revolved around him for a season. Now he’s 2 and he’s learning—slowly—that the world doesn’t revolve around him and it’s the cutest little catastrophe you ever did see.
Life is not all about us, and to the degree we buy that it is we are buying the wisdom of hell. James points out a couple of things about that wisdom here. First,
Wisdom from Hell forgets eternity
It is totally concerned with the here and now. It’s earthly, he writes. That means it’s focused on what is here. I am willing to bet the majority of the commercials we saw or heard this past week said to us, and maybe not blatantly but the under-the-radar message that was communicated by all of them was this, “This life is all there is. Live it up.”
The most-seen TV ad today is an Amazon prime ad featuring a laser chest hair remover. (https://www.ispot.tv/ad/top-commercials). That’s about as focused on the here-and-now as you can get, isn’t it?
And that’s not new, is it? Paul talks about it in 1 Corinthians. He said that if the dead are not raised, Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die (15:32b). That’s worldly wisdom. That’s what we hear all around us.
And then James says it’s unspiritual. And he’s using this phrase here in a very particular way. You could actually capitalize the “S.” In other words, what he’s saying is, “This is the ‘wisdom’ that is opposite of the wisdom that the Holy Spirit produces.” Because it’s earth-bound, because it’s from below, it has nothing to do with the Holy Spirit. It’s not focused on spiritual things. It’s focused on itself, this life, and really doesn’t care about spiritual things. It’s apathetic towards them. And church, that may be where you are today. That’s what we see all around us.
And it’s so dangerous because it can sound very right, very wise to our fallen ears. Let me give you one example I know a lot of our parents with kids have wrestled with. Sports are a big deal in Centralia. THat’s probably true of a lot of towns around us. And as parents, we want our kids to succeed. Sports—and a lot of other activities—can be a bottomless pit. They will devour as much time as we’re willing to invest so we come to the point where we have to make a decision. Do we allow a good thing like a basketball team or wrestling team or dance class to take away from time we’d be spending with our church family?
Worldly wisdom tells us that traveling team might help our kids to go college for free. Sure, they practice on Sunday so we’re sacrificing connection to the local church—but we want to do what’s best for our kids, right?
The world’s wisdom looks at what might be best for the next 10 years without considering what is best for eternity.
Wisdom from Hell is demonic
And James tells us it’s from demons. The way that we’re most likely going to see demonic activity in our lives is by our speech and by so many who buy into a self-centered lifestyle, who buy into thinking this is the right way to live your life, that this kind of “wisdom” is the way to go about living. And James says the source of that, when people are bewildered by this when people are taken in by it, the source of that is the very pit of hell itself.
C.S. Lewis summed it up well in The Screwtape Letters. If you’re not familiar that book is a satirical collection of 31 letters in which Screwtape, an experienced demon, instructs his young intern, Wormwood, on effective strategies for tempting the human being assigned to him and making sure he continues on a steady path toward hell.
In one of his letters, Screwtape writes “Prosperity knits a man to the world. He feels that he is finding his place in it, while really it is finding its place in him.
Demonic activity, in other words, does not look like we think it does. It can be subtle. And that’s part of the problem with it.
It’s in the subtle, everyday ways that we live our lives that become so much like the world around us that we don’t even notice it.
Notice what he says. “for where there is envy and selfish ambition, there is disorder and every evil practice.” That word for “disorder” is the opposite word from 1:18 where James talks about somebody being unstable. It’s the same word. It’s this instability that results from this kind of awful wisdom. Disorder and every vile practice. Satan hates order because order was established and creation by God. He wants to do whatever he can to bring chaos and disorder all around our lives and the way he does that is to make life all about us, all about the here and now, all about what we want, what we feel, what we think is best instead of what God tells us.
“It’s all about me. I need to stand up for myself, protect my rights; make sure everybody knows how great I am.” And it seems right. It seems intuitive. And James says that’s the problem!
We are not to be trusted, not even with ourselves. Following Jesus is not about being affirmed of every decision we make, but to be corrected in all of our ways, including our motives.
Jeremiah 17:5, Cursed is the person who trusts in mankind.mHe makes human flesh his strength, and his heart turns from the Lord.
Cursed is the person who trusts in mankind. That means ourselves, too. We trusted in ourselves once and Romans 6:23 tells us that earned us death.
And if we keep doing what we’ve been doing, we’ll always get what we’ve got. And so James says you’ve got to make your choice—keep living the same old way. Keep following your heart. Or if you’re tired of that, if you’re tired of this kind of a lifestyle of disorder and frustration, James says, “Stop, take a breath, look up, let me tell you about something better.” Let’s see the wisdom from heaven.
Wisdom from Heaven (v.13, 17)
13b, By his good conduct he should show that his works are done in the gentleness that comes from wisdom. 17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peace-loving, gentle, compliant, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without pretense. 18 And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who cultivate peace.
James is saying when we have this true heavenly wisdom, it becomes attractive and that goes right back to what he’s been dealing within our innermost being. He’s been dealing with our hearts, hasn’t he? He’s been saying that if you want your speech to change you must start with your heart. You must have a superior affection in your heart. You must love different things. And he says that “If you want to see how that works itself out if you want to have a life that makes a difference in this world for the glory of Jesus, listen to what I’m going to say!” That’s what he says to us. And when we do, we begin to see that Christianity is not just true, it’s beautiful. That’s so important for us to see.
Following Jesus is not boring, sad, and painful. It’s beautiful.
Notice he’s not telling us so much what to do as what it is to “be.” These are character traits. Let’s work through them. He says, “The wisdom that comes from above,” verse 17, “is first pure, then peace-loving, gentle, compliant (or open to reason), full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering (or impartial) and without pretense.”
James is giving us kind of a progressive list here. And when he talks about this purity it’s a very rare word in the New Testament. It stands in contrast to the fake faith James has talked about. There’s no double-mindedness in the purity that comes from God's wisdom. Then he says it’s peaceable. Now we could translate this that it’s “peace-making.” He’s going to return to that in verse 18. But this kind of peaceableness is the opposite of the strife and discord he’s just mentioned.
He goes on to say that this is someone else who is gentle. What does this gentleness mean? Literally, the word means “someone who is not quick to demand anything.”
The person who is gentle is willing to give when he can or she can. It is someone who is not demanding of others; is seeking to bless others rather than demand from them. And then James tells us this kind of meekness leading to wisdom is open to reason. Someone who is willing to listen; someone who is intuitive about others’ needs. Don’t you want friends like that? If you’re married, don’t you want to be a spouse like that? Intuitive of others’ needs.
Someone who lives with Godly wisdom is someone who is willing to get along with others, who works hard at getting along with others.
This is somebody who is not self-protective. In other words, we’ve got our own little kingdoms we’re building all the time and we want to keep everything to our self and make sure that nobody else encroaches on our territory, our little kingdom. And James says that is the opposite of Godly wisdom.
And then he gives this summary statement. It’s “full of mercy and good fruit.” It just shows itself, in other words, in ways that are undeniable. And that leads to the result that it’s without pretense. And this word is only ever used here in the New Testament. It’s the opposite of the hypocritical faith we saw back in chapter 2 where there was partiality shown. James says the person who has this kind of wisdom is the very opposite of what we studied in chapter 2. It’s without hypocrisy, impartial, and sincere.
The Results of Genuine Faith and Wisdom (v.18)
And what’s the result here? Remember earlier we just said with this demonic wisdom the result is “discord and every vile practice.” Look at verse 18. “the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who cultivate peace” Here’s what he’s saying. Genuine faith leading to genuine wisdom always produces results.
And what does he mean by peace? Remember, James comes from a Jewish cbackrou d and the word for peace here in Greek doesn’t capture everything James means. He is after here is the Hebrew concept of “shalom,” which does include peace but it’s more than that.
For us, peace is the absence of war. Hebrew shalom is wholeness, it’s everything right for a second in this fallen world; it’s a life that is full and all things make sense, even if just for a second. Remember what James said about trials and faith? Trials make us mature and complete. At peace.
Have you got those places in your life where you’ve experienced that? Maybe at the birth of a child? Maybe on your wedding day? Maybe when you’re out by yourself? Maybe a walk on the beach? Whatever it is, you’ve experienced that where things are just right for one second and everything is whole. And the whole point of wholeness is that it’s temporary here but there’s a day coming when that shalom will reign throughout the universe. And James says, as Christians who live in this meekness of wisdom, this meekness that produces wisdom, we can have a foretaste of that in our lives.
But did you notice what he did with both of these, this harvest that produces righteousness, which is the wisdom that we receive? That’s what happens! This righteousness sown in peace is the wise, beautiful, peaceful life James has been telling us about.
But did you notice what he did with both, both the hellish wisdom and the heavenly wisdom? He told us that whichever one we follow neither one stays air tight. They’re always worked out in community. Hellish wisdom works itself out in social settings. There are disorder and strife all around us in all of our relationships. And then James turns around and says, “Yes, but if you follow this, if you sow this harvest of righteousness in peace by those who want to make peace,” then he says, “that too will have a communal effect.”
Let me ask it this way! Don’t we want our church to look like this? Don’t we want our church to be a community full of peacemakers? Don’t we want a place where people are willing to listen, intuitive of others’ needs, willing to share the burdens of life together, willing to be a place where we can offer and mean it sincerely the one thing the world offers and can never give? Peace! Wholeness! Where you can come inside these doors or the doors of a church member’s home or the doors of a fellow Christian’s home and know that you can take off the mask or you can shut out the hellish wisdom that surrounds us all week long and come and hear about reality. Isn’t that what we want? How do we get there?
And so what does James tell us to do? He says you need to face the fact that you and I so often live in the first list.
We so often live according to that hellish wisdom. And so he says to take off the mask! No more excuses! Don’t try to medicate it away. Own it!
And then do this, he says—then look and realize that everything he described in that second list was about his older, half-brother Jesus. Did you notice that list echoes almost perfectly the beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5? Peacemakers, pure in heart, meek inheriting the earth—all of that’s right there.
James had listened well to that sermon, but notice what he’s done. He’s shown us this ideal and that will crush us if we don’t look and see who is described here. Paul says in Colossians 2 that in Christ is hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. He is wisdom incarnate who came down and lived among us. Foolish people that we are, He gave us a life of wisdom.
So how do we do it? What can we do? What does it mean for Monday? We do this. We first of all take it. It’s on offer. Not $150 an hour; free. All you have to do to get this wisdom, to get this lovely life, is say, “God, I’m tired of where I am right now.” One of the best things about being a Christian is you can start right where you are. Whatever you’ve done this week, however bad you’ve messed it up, however unwise your choices have been, you can start right now and meet Him and He’ll meet you and promises to make you wise. And one of the ways that that’s going to happen is as we dwell with Him.
What do I mean by that? I mean that as you go through this week, we need to have such a sense of His pleasure, His favor towards us, His delight in us, His willingness to reconcile with us when we sin, His willingness to be near us and to help us and to counsel us that we meditate on that, that we start there, that we begin to look in the pages of this blessed Book and see Him and take Him in and just be infatuated with the loveliness of Jesus.
And that will do some things for us here, for all of us. It means we’ll be less defensive. We’ll be more willing to make peace with others; we’ll stop holding grudges. It means that we will keep extending grace to people even when we know they will let us down. We let a lot of people down, don’t we? I do. And when we get this, what James is talking about here, we keep going after people; we keep extending grace. We stop being so judgmental—that harsh spirit that’s always looking for the wrong in people. We begin to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Genuine faith is marked by genuine wisdom. Let’s pray that God will grow us in wisdom together, amen?
Questions for Further Discussion & Reflection
How does James differentiate between wisdom from heaven and wisdom from hell in this text?
How does the idea of wisdom connect with the overall theme of genuine faith being visible faith, as presented in James?
The sermon discusses the impact of earthly wisdom and its focus on the here and now. How can we shift our perspective to focus more on eternal matters?
What are some practical examples of how to cultivate heavenly wisdom in our daily lives, as described in James 3:17?
The sermon talks about the importance of being gentle and open to reason. How can we apply these qualities in our relationships and interactions with others?
What does it mean to be a "peacemaker" as mentioned in the sermon, and why is it an essential aspect of genuine faith and wisdom?
How can we maintain a spirit of grace and forgiveness, even when we know that others may let us down, as discussed in the sermon?
Proverbs 2:6 tells us that the Lord gives wisdom. How does this verse shape our understanding of where wisdom comes from, and how can we seek God's wisdom in our daily lives?
Proverbs 3:13-18 highlights the benefits of wisdom, including long life, riches, and honor. How do you interpret these verses, and how can we balance the pursuit of wisdom with our daily lives and responsibilities?
In your opinion, what are some practical ways to apply the sermon's teachings and principles in your daily life and within your church community?