18 Sep 9/20/20 James 3:13-18 “The Best Deal Around!”
9/20/20 James 3:13-18 “The Best Deal Around!”
I think that this is the fourth Sunday that we have looked into the book of James. There are a couple of things worth mentioning about the book as a whole before we get into today’s lesson. The first thing I would like to point out is that James is a real practical book on the application of the teachings of Jesus. James probably has more applications than any other of the writings after the Gospel writers. He does this many times without mentioning or quoting Jesus. His readers knew the earlier writings so they would have known that these teachings came from Jesus. The second thing worthy of mention here is that his readers were under severe social and economic pressure. They probably weren’t persecuted yet but there was a lot of pressure from the Jews and the Romans. When people are under a lot of pressure, they will either crack up or they will draw together. James is trying to keep these people together with some practical writing. Our passage today talks about wisdom. Now I know that I cannot be an expert on this subject so let’s see what an ancient expert has to say.
I like the way John Hamby talks of wisdom. He begins by asking if you knew that there were only two people in Saudi Arabia who subscribed to Surfer magazine. Did you know that the brightest man-made place on earth as seen from space is Las Vegas? And did you know that Weird Al Yankovic was valedictorian of his high school class and he holds a Bachelor’s degree in architecture? If you know these things then you have some knowledge and pretty worthless knowledge at that but you do not have wisdom.
A 10-year-old boy tells us to never trust a dog to watch your food. A 14-year-old boy tells us that when your dad is upset and asks you, ‘Do I look stupid?’ don’t answer him. This boy also adds that you should never tell your mom that her diet isn’t working. 9-year-old Randy tells us to stay away from prunes. 9-year-old Lauren tells us that felt markers do not make good lipstick and 10-year-old Joel says, “Don’t pick on your sister when she is holding a baseball bat.” Now these sayings are sayings of wisdom. Knowledge and wisdom do not always go together. Michael Deutsch tells us one of the problems that geniuses have is they know so much that they can tell you all the properties of boiling water or the properties of making toast but that they cannot actually boil water or make toast themselves. This is yet another reason why I praise the Lord that I am not a genius. I love toast.
James begins by asking who is wise among us. Now this is a good question. Last week we mentioned that a person may be considered wise if they talk way less than they listen. It almost seems to me that wise people really don’t have to talk that much. But this is only one little facet of wisdom. Before we can really answer this, we have to know what wisdom is. James will talk of two kinds of wisdom. There is the wisdom that comes from this world and there is the wisdom of God.
I’m going to start today talking about the wisdom that comes from this world. I hope that you have noticed in the sermons that I give that I usually like to start with the bad news or the bad implications of our readings. I do this because I want you to know what is wrong with our world, what is wrong with our lives, what is wrong with your life. We have to know that we are in the wrong or else why bother telling about what is right. If you are always right in all that you do, then you have no use for God’s word. You would be setting yourself up as higher than God and that would be a huge mistake. We need to know this but we also need to know that there is good news and I like to save that for the end of the sermon. Even though we are terrible, blackened, scoundrel sinners, we have Jesus who still loves us.
We begin with finding ourselves full of bitter jealousy by following the ways of this world. I think of a great king of Israel as one who fell victim to this. King Saul became so jealous of David that he tried to kill him many times. He chased him and hunted him. He became totally obsessed with the destruction of David. In the beginning of this, God granted Saul wisdom, but he didn’t use this wisdom in a way that was pleasing to God. He let himself become jealous.
We can all think of people like this. I know of a person who is so jealous of what a former friend of his has that it has consumed his life. He began as a good man and soon he was consumed with having as much if not more than his former friend, notice I said former friend. I think that God gave him wisdom but he misused it. We have all seen how our young people follow worldly wisdom and have boyfriends and girlfriends. This can turn into an endless cycle of breakups as one party gets insanely jealous when the other party looks at someone else. 5th, 6th, 7th or 8th graders do not need boyfriends or girlfriends for dating. This is worldly wisdom and it is leading our young people down the wrong path.
One time, after several sessions in our youth group of hearing of the young people ‘going out’ with someone of the opposite sex in a very obvious dating and sometimes serious dating situation, I asked this question. Are you planning on marrying this person? Because if you are not, then why are you wasting your time getting all serious and emotional over someone who is not going to be a major part of your life? The answer lies in worldly wisdom which as you can see is no wisdom at all. Everywhere we look we see that this kind of behavior is ok. There are many behaviors that the world considers to be wise that we have found out to be very hurtful to people. It just blows me away that just about everyone I meet is perfectly willing to throw this wonderful book out the window and follow the ways of the world like a bunch of lemmings. I think that I could go on with this subject for an hour and not run out of material but we had better move forward.
The next thing that James is talking of here is selfish ambition. This was a problem then and I think that it is just a part of our human ambition from a worldly point of view. If we look at our Bible stories, we find that Solomon was the wisest king who ever lived. However, later in his reign, he tried to look good by collecting wives from many of the pagan nations. He was trying to look good in their eyes. There was a king named Hezekiah who did all the right things for good until the officials from Babylon came and he had to show off all of his treasures. So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the common people in the times of James had similar problems if the kings before them also had these same problems.
We have lots of problems like this today. We talked just a couple of weeks ago about how our corporations are so driven by greed and selfish ambition that they take their factories to third world countries and pay the workers there pennies a day. Then we turn around and call them good business people because we can get an item cheaper. I’m not even going to go into the selfish ambition that drives many of our politicians to lie to us about most if not all things so that they can keep their power. This even extends to the coronavirus! Watch for this in the coming elections.
We don’t even have to look at the national level when we can just look around our community. There are people who live close by who have huge, fancy houses so that they can look good to their friends. However, they are so expensive that they can’t afford furniture so the insides are almost barren. Selfish ambition! There are people in our midst who work so hard at their careers that their families suffer greatly. We have people who will do all things possible to broadcast their griefs and sorrows so that the maximum number of people will feel sorry for them. Selfish ambition is not always trying to make the most of our worldly money or power. It can also be about making our selves look good or bad in a worldly sense.
I am guilty of this like everyone else. I finally was able to buy the car of my dreams and then what? I have been part of a couple of sports championship teams. After we had won, then what? How many of us have finally saved to get into our dream house or we find our dream job or our dream anything else, only to ask ourselves ‘now what?’ This is the question that you ask when you have selfish ambition. This is the question that Satan does not want you to ask because it shows the tremendous weakness of his plan. You can never be satisfied! But God wants you to ask so that you will come to Him to find real fulfillment. This is what God will give you. He will finally give you the real satisfaction that we are all looking to find. God loves you so much that He will give you all that you ask if you just ask. James tells us this in the next chapter. If you want to remain miserable, then remain in the plan that Satan has for you and it is called earthly wisdom.
However, if we keep reading here, we find that God’s plan is infinitely different and better. Heavenly wisdom is pure. The wisdom from God is perfect. When you are touched during your prayer time with the Holy Spirit telling you something, what He says is pure and perfect. Unfortunately, we are not pure and perfect so that often times we fail to enact God’s plan properly. But this is ok as He lets us confess to Him so that we can start again. This is perfect. This is pure. This is wonderful.
Heavenly wisdom is not only pure but it is peace loving. This means that we strive for inner peace. This comes when we take all of our problems to Jesus in prayer. This comes from laying it all on God. We can never have peace in our lives unless we first start with peace in our own hearts. God wants you to be happy and peaceful.
Then he tells us that heavenly wisdom is considerate. This is closely related to peace loving. We are being considerate with this wisdom from God when we don’t abuse it. We are to have all of our relationships with others on this basis. If we start to tell everyone that God told me to tell you this and God told me to tell you that, then we are abusing what God has given us. We are to help others to find Jesus and not order them to do it. Then we are being considerate in a Godly manner.
We are also to be submissive. This word has all sorts of bad connotations in our earthly wisdom. This does not mean that we are wimps or that we are weak. It can mean just the opposite because we are to be submissive to our Lord God. You are to listen and do what He tells you to do. God will only tell you to do things that are good for you. I have never figured it out why I keep on trying to do things on my own when I have a perfect loving God telling me to follow Him. This is a daily struggle for all of us.
You will be full of mercy and good fruit when you have heavenly wisdom. These are the acts of kindness that you do for Jesus. These come naturally when you are in the right way with God.
We will also be impartial and sincere. A couple of weeks ago we talked about favoritism and how it was bad. It is bad because it is of this world. We will be impartial when we demonstrate heavenly, perfect wisdom. And we will be totally sincere in what we do. We will not be hypocrites.
This is a list that is hard to follow. To the casual outsider, they would say that it is impossible and therefore we should just go along with what the world says. But today I am telling you ‘baloney to that!’ Let me ask you a couple of questions. Did Jesus not walk on water? Did Jesus not feed 5000 and then 4000 people with next to nothing? Did God not make the world in 6 days? We know that God did these things so why do we insist, why do you insist on saying that He cannot help you out of your miserable life and help you to have a life full of heavenly wisdom. He can do this. He can do anything. This is what God does because He loves you so much and He wants to share everything that He has with you.
Think of that! He wants to share the world with you. All the wisdom that God has He wants to share with little old you. You are that important to God. All you have to do is open your heart to Jesus and let Him into your life. Ask Jesus in so that He can begin to share everything in the world plus more with you. And for those of us who already have a personal relationship with Jesus, ask Jesus to help you to begin a prayer life so that He can share everything with you. James 4:2 tells us, “You do not have, because you do not ask God.”
My dear friends: We are always going to have ups and downs in our lives in this broken world. It’s a broken world run by Satan. Why not join your hands and partner with someone who is always on the up side-Jesus Christ. He calls you by name to join Him so that He can rain blessings down upon you. You will never find a better deal. And thank you Jesus for first loving us. Let’s pray.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.