9/27/26 James 3:13-18 “Truly Wise!”

10 Sep 9/27/26 James 3:13-18 “Truly Wise!”

9/27/26    James 3:13-18           “Truly Wise!”

Have you ever watched little children play make-believe games or they make up things as they go?  It’s very interesting and it can be a lot of fun.  They get so wrapped up in things that they begin to actually think what they are doing is true.  We are the same way or at least I’m the same way only I do it a little differently.  I watch a movie and I put myself right into the middle of it.  I was a pirate in the Pirates of the Caribbean series.  I was a time traveler in the Back to the Future series.  I have always been a space traveler in Star Trek and Star Wars.  I also do this with some of the books I read.  I try to lose myself so I don’t have to think about this world for a short period of time.  I wouldn’t doubt that there are some of you who do the same thing.  I don’t think that there is anything wrong with this.  It’s kind of like having a bunch of mini vacations.  In the long run we will benefit from this unless of course that is all we do.  Then we have problems of a different sort.  Anyway, today, we are going to look again at wisdom and how to use it.  Let’s see if we can become better stewards for Jesus Christ by following what the brother of Jesus has to say.

Brian Bill tells the true story of a man named Fearless Felix who, a few years back, made a death-defying jump out of a balloon 24 miles above the earth.  Something like this has to be for the real daring.  Anyway, he hit the speed of 844 miles per hour and he broke the sound barrier.  At the beginning he spun out of control but he straightened out and made a perfect landing.  Over the years he had made 2500 jumps and after this one, he was going to quit because there probably was not much else to try.  Of course this opens up another can of worms.  Why are not we ever satisfied?  I will save that for another time. What struck him the most was what he was thinking just before he jumped!  Now remember Felix is looking down from 24 miles up.  He said, “When I was standing there on top of the world, you become so humble, you do not think about breaking records anymore, you do not think about gaining scientific data. The only thing you want is to come back alive. Sometimes we have to get really high in the air to see how small we are.”

Let’s face it.  We are not very big.  Just look around the world today.  There are about 8 billion people on earth.  When we look at it this way, there is really no way that we can really be significant because there are so many people.  That is a world view.  It is common sense.  It is logical.  However, there could not be a statement that is more misleading than this.  We were not made to be in the shape the world.  We were made so that God could use us to shape the person in front of us.  We will save and conquer the world one person at a time.  That is how God works.  When you learn to accept this then you are learning God’s view.

And this is what James is starting us off with today.  Once again we are talking about wisdom.  I think that wisdom is one of the important aspects of being a Christian because the Bible spends a lot of time discussing it.  Proverbs spends a lot to time telling us to be wise and not be foolish.  A Psalmist tells us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.  James tells us in Chapter 1:5 that if you lack wisdom, ask God.  We talked about that a few weeks ago.

Now I think that this should show us that we need some sort of definition of wisdom and I’m not talking about worldly wisdom which is worthless.  Remember, worldly wisdom has no value.  So here is the definition of real wisdom.  Wisdom is knowing God.  All other things we like to call wisdom are just cases of spinning our wheels.  Hopefully, this will help you focus on our discussion.

One of the other things I would like to ask before we start has to do with applied wisdom.  How many of you prayed about patience this past week?  That was your assignment.  If someone got some results, I will take time to hear them.  Please remember that if you want something like patience, then you have to pray about it.  Let’s pray for patience for another week and see what happens.

James begins by saying that we should let a wise person show us his wisdom by his good life and the deeds done in humility.  There are many examples of people like this and some are even from your churches.  I want to tell you a true story about a medical doctor from the area who is very wise and she doesn’t even know it.  Here’s what I mean.  She makes good money being a doctor.  So what does she do?  A few years back, she left her great practice of serving the poor and downtrodden in the area to go to Africa and serve those people for 5 years.  Then she was back here so she could make enough money to go back to Africa.  Now she is back home again.  All during her time in this country, she housed underprivileged people in her home at no charge.  If there was ever something to serve the poor and needy, she was there.  Now if you asked her about this, she would say it was no big deal.  What I’m trying to say here is that this is one of the wisest people I have ever met and she doesn’t even realize it.  To her, she is just doing what the Lord wants her to do; help heal people.

Another person I know of is a little different.  She does all sorts of good things.  She has been honored here and there for various good things she has done.  Unfortunately, her personal life is a shambles.  She doesn’t believe in God or Jesus but instead, all religions are equally good. All she has is earthly wisdom and because most people equate that with real wisdom, they honor her.  In other words, she has nothing.  She doesn’t have Jesus so she has no real wisdom.  She knows no joy when the doctor I just mentioned lives in joy every day.

Do you see the difference?  I know there are people in our online congregation who are just like this.  I’ve never met such a humble group of people on the whole.  There are always a few exceptions.  We have some wise people here and they don’t even know it.  We can tell by watching you do things in the humble fashion of the Lord.  Praise the Lord that He raises up such communities in the midst of a harsh, cruel world.

James tells us that a quick way to spot bad wisdom, unwisdom or worldly wisdom is to see if a person has bitter envy and self-ambition.  This is a statement that will hit many people right between the eyes.  Bitter envy is everywhere because regular envy, which is a sin, is also everywhere.  I believe this comes from a very greedy society.  There are so many things to have in this world that we just can’t keep up.  Many people end up fixating on something or even someone.  Nothing else will do.  Everything else is second place.  The person has very little chance of getting what they want for a variety of reasons one of which might be that they don’t want to do any work for it, but that is another topic.  So they are fixated on something they cannot have.  Soon they become bitter about it and it affects every aspect of their life.  There is no happiness but only bad memories of the past.  Check out some of your acquaintances and you will find someone like this.  These people do not have Jesus.  We have our work cut out.

The unwise are also characterized by their selfish ambition.  This is another bad trait that is runs rampart in our world.  One of the wildest sayings I’ve ever heard is that ‘time is money.’  If that is not about as greedy statement as there can be, I don’t know what is.  We equate money with happiness and satisfaction and there could not be anything farther from the truth.  There is nothing wrong with working for a living trying to earn enough to live or to raise our children or so that we can live in our old age.  These are good things to work towards but even these goals will be much easier, much better if you have God in your life.

James tells us that from these two sins come disorder and every evil practice.  I’ll tell you one thing about James.  He doesn’t pull any punches so I won’t either.  As our society gets bigger and bigger, we are becoming more and more disorganized.  Probably the worst thing that we do is to allow the government to run anything.  They should legislate and enforce laws.  It has gotten so that if you mail a letter to someone across the street, it takes 2 days.  If you go back a few years, you will find that there was much blind, arrogant ambition in the Post Office with no regard for anything but making money and having power.  Now we have a mess.  It’s the same way in any big industry.  Our medical field is in a shambles.

Of course, where there is lots of disorder, we have lots of sin.  The question becomes ‘why is there so much crime as compared to 40 years ago?’  It all traces back to bitter envy and selfish ambition which leads to disorder which leads to every evil practice.  This is why the crime rate is so high.  This goes back to the Old Testament where the authors tell us that people will be condemned as the result of the sin of their fathers and grandfathers.  We have been condemned by the acts of those before us.  They started this turn against Christ and now we are on a downhill slide.  The only way it can be stopped is if we turn back to Christ or else the next generation will suffer also.  This is what the Old Testament talks about and this is what is happening today.  It’s not that we are doomed.  It’s that most people don’t know or want to know the way out or they don’t even think they are doing things wrong.  We aren’t doomed because we can get out of this by loving Jesus.  But our society is in trouble, big trouble!

Now let’s talk about the good stuff, the real wisdom from heaven.  James says that first of all it is pure.  Then it is peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.  Once again, James doesn’t hold back.  Real wisdom is pure because it comes from Jesus Christ.  I think that any of us here today would recognize pure wisdom because we know Christ.  We know that wisdom from Him must be in line with what is in the Scriptures.  It is pure.

It is also peace loving.  In other words wisdom will never take you down the road of conflict.  It will be trying to preserve peace at all costs.  We never saw Jesus bat an eyelash as He was beaten and led to the cross.  It is also considerate which goes right along with peace loving.  We need to be considering others at all times.  Remember this when you are in various projects.  We have to be considerate of others and their opinions even if we disagree with them.  Let’s always try to love our neighbors as ourselves.

We need to be submissive.  Some people hate this word but we need to be submissive to God in all ways, at all times.  These things really are not that hard if you practice them on a daily basis.  We need to be full of mercy.  I remember one time when I ran across a woman out in the middle of the country who had 2 children with her whose front wheel had fallen off her car.  She did not seem very nice but I helped anyway.  Always extend mercy even if it’s a bad situation.  This will show your good fruit.  I know that all of you have good fruit.  I have seen it and I would like to see it some more.

Everything you do will be impartial and sincere.  Real wisdom from God unlocks wonderful things in your life.  You become radiant, both inwardly and outward.  You have a real purpose in life when you have God’s wisdom.  Your love will become deeper and better.  You will be able to have all the fruits of the Spirit like joy, patience and kindness.  God has a wonderful life laid out for you and all you have to do is pick it up.  We can break this downward spiral that we talked about but we can only do it if you have real wisdom inside you.

You see, God doesn’t want us to fail.  He never wanted to have ancient Israel and Judah fail either.  He wants all of us to succeed.  So, He gave us things to do that are not very hard if we were not so stubborn.  What is easier to do, be peace loving or always spoiling for a fight?  What is easier, being kind and considerate or being a jerk all the time where no one likes you?  What is easier, being full of mercy and well-loved or hating anything and everything around you?  I repeat, this is not that hard so lighten up a bit and totally follow Jesus.

Brian Bill tells the strange story of a man named Harry who in 1930 went to bed and stayed there for 7 years with a blindfold over his eyes because he was mad at his wife.  He had been the kind of guy who loved to help his wife around the house until one day she scolded him for the way he did the dishes.  This made Harry so mad that he said, “All right, if that’s the way you feel, I’m going to bed. I’m going to stay there for the rest of my life and I don’t want to see you ever again.”  He stayed in bed with a blindfold around his eyes for seven years. The article concludes by saying that he got up when the bed started to feel uncomfortable.  This man was a fool plus more, who had been eaten up by bitterness.

I don’t want anyone to end up a fool.  Take all the bad things, traits, habits in your life and give them to Jesus.  He will take care of it all if you are truly sincere.  He is waiting to hear from you.  Go to Him today and become a truly wise person, a person who knows Christ.  Thank you, Jesus, for first loving us.  Let’s pray.