(James 3:13-18)
“13 Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. 14 But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. 15 Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic.
16 For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.
17 But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. 18 Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.”
We need people of wisdom from God in today’s society. Who is wise in today’s text? We ask who a wise person is.
Why am I asking this question? At that time, people were teaching false wisdom in the church and taught people that they were wise men.
Especially at that time, there were many people who taught others knowledge and caused problems in the community through false teaching through their own knowledge. When there is no wisdom from heaven, it is a problem. That wisdom is true wisdom, and the wisdom appears as a perfect image resembling God.
What is wisdom form above?
From heaven we are the people who walk with true wisdom, a blessing that definitely benefits others. Those who live life with wise faith are certainly different in this world.
- There is false
Verse 14 says: “14 But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth.” Hear the Bible introduces worldly wisdom and the other type of wisdom from heaven. The best way to understand is by comparing the two. In the world there is wisdom that is worldly, lustful, from the devil, and false wisdom. With that type of wisdom
there is jealousy and strife. Is there a time of intense trouble in the mind? Where does it come from? Such “wisdom” does not come from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic.
What is the biggest characteristic of false wisdom? If you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts.
False wisdom shows envy in life. It is living a life of conflict. Envy means being jealous of others. If someone else succeeds, like a raging rattlesnake, a person with envy raises their head.
John Chrysostom said, “Time is like a little bug eating a garment and eating a person”. A jealous person hates everything that other people gain like getting applause for playing an instrument well or getting their name in the newspaper. Basil of Caesarea said that envy is the most savage form of hatred.
When do people envy others? People envy when they see others succeed.
King Saul in the Old Testament was the king of Israel.
But one day when David returned from killing Goliath on the battlefield, many greeted him as they exalted David.
“And from that time on Saul kept a close eye on David.” (1 Samuel 18:9). This was the beginning of the problem.
“Saul was very angry and this displeased him greatly. “They have credited David with tens of thousands,” he thought, “but me with only thousands. What more can he get but the kingdom?” (1 Samuel 18:8) Saul was jealous and angry towards David.
From this time, the relationship between David and Saul was a relationship of enemies. All the energy in Saul’s life was consumed by Jealousy.
So, he became even more mental. Every day he went after David to kill him, but he wasted his time. Later, as a leader, he lost all his happiness.
Friends, Saul’s happiness that he could have enjoyed as a king was taken away because of his jealousy.
He could live a happy life if he only changed his heart. However, because of jealousy, he eventually self-destructed.
Often, we cannot see the goodness of others in the church.
When someone tries to do volunteer work and clean up the church some other people might put them down by saying something negative. If someone tries to praise God in the choir, someone might say that they look
so cocky. If someone is trying to mature and grow spiritually and want to change, someone negative might say,” She can’t even clean her own house and she is volunteering for church work?” If a child of another family does a great job at something, it is a mistake. But if their child does well it is a blessing from God.
This is not really a person of faith.
But what we should know is that jealousy is not a matter of simple emotions.
In today’s text, jealousy is not wisdom from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, and demonic. The spirit of jealousy is a serious spiritual sin caused by the spirit of the world and the devil. The devil, the spirit of the world who ruled our old self, never praises anyone or blesses others. What if Saul truly blessed David even once?
When people say that David was grateful, and that David was credited with tens of thousands and Saul with a thousand, they should be thankful to God for giving them a great leader. What if he gave thanks to God and blessed David?
Eventually, Saul, could not speak the heart of a blessing and was abandoned.
Some think they have faith, but it is wrong when you are envious and jealous of others.
Therefore, you should not gossip about others in the church. You should not put them down.
The wisdom given by God, the Spirit given by God, is a spirit that makes others happy and blesses others. If there is envy in your heart, this is the domination of the evil spirit.
That is why we are being offered all the turmoil and evil. If that’s how it is for us, then we must choose. We must abandon a jealous mind.
And I believe that you should be reborn as a new person of wisdom who pleases the Lord.
- The person of true wisdom from above shows evidence through
Verse 13 says, ““13 Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom.”
From here on above, it is not a man with good speech who has wisdom. That is not a person of knowledge. The person of true wisdom and the person of understanding are those who have good works in humility.
Aristotle defined humility in this way. “Anybody can become angry – that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way – that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy.” Originally, humble words were used to train wild animals. When training a lion or wolf, the master says, “You are gentle now”. The purpose of using gentle words is to have well controlled strength so they are trained for useful reasons.
God’s wisdom is characterized by humbleness. Jesus was humble.
Jesus showed us good evidence of humbleness, saying, “I am a gentle and humble heart.” The wisdom of humbleness that the Lord gives us is to live a life of helping others in order to be thorough. We serve others with that knowledge, serve others with the body, and live a life of serving others.
Our Lord did. But nowadays, humbleness is not so popular with people. But a really strong thing is humbleness. When you play sports, you can give too much power when swinging a bat in baseball or when punching in boxing. For example, if you pitch with too much power in baseball you can have a wild pitch. In the case of boxing, you can lose quickly. Even in soccer, if you give too much force with your kick, the ball can go too far.
So, strong things can be broken easily. What if our hearts are too powerful? Eventually, too much power will cause problems.
But nowadays, this kind of humbleness in a competitive society seems to lose. So, we do not try to admit it at church. Often we don’t want to lose anything and we have greed. We do not want to give up anything that is ours, and we do not want to lose anything.
But the results are rather damaging. In the Bible, Isaac is a representative of the good fruit of life showing a life of humbleness. Isaac experiences a famine and emigrates to Gerar. Then he farmed there, and God gave him hundredfold fruit. What is strange is that when the fountain spits, Isaac digs out the water and the water come out.
“28 They answered, “We saw clearly that the LORD was with you; so, we said, ‘There ought to be a sworn agreement between us’—between us and you. Let us make a treaty with you” Therefore, “And now you are blessed by the LORD.” (Genesis 26:28, 29)
In the Old Testament Isaac is the best witness of Jesus’ humbleness. How about Jesus in the New Testament?
When He was condemned and climbed up to the cross on Golgotha, He did not use the power to mobilize angels and rule over all things, even though He was suffering and suffered that He could not speak.
Why did it happen? He has love for us. He walked the path of the cross until the end with humbleness to save us. In many cases the church is often full of words and knowledge. There are those who try to prove themselves by words and knowledge rather than showing good evidence to the end with humbleness.
True wisdom does good works with humbleness of the heart. Even though we are in a state of upsets and anger, we do not give up, but we practice our good works on the basis of God’s wisdom.
In the Bible, however, we see that “God blesses those who are humble, for they will inherit the earth.” (Matthew 5: 5)
I pray that you to go into a life of doing the good that God wants with humbleness to the end.
- Wisdom from above brings forth fruit with a balanced
Verse 17 says, “17 But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.”
From here on out, a person of wisdom, is a balanced person with character.
First, of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. This is the outward appearance of those who have the wisdom of God from above.
What we need to know here is that true wisdom is never someone who memorizes math formulas and speaks foreign languages fluently. It is someone who is cleaver.
The person of wisdom here is a person who is like the character of God and has grown into a balanced character.
Are we pure? Is there a clean life away from sin? We are the people of wisdom that God gave us.
What is the most important fruit in the end due to this balanced character? It is peace.
Let’s look, what is the final fruit of our Lord’s final ending through all the ministry on the cross?
It is peace, so that we might be one with God, that the Jews and the
Gentiles be one, and that we should all be one. So when there is someone who dwells in Jesus, there is one who finds peace.
On the contrary, what about the world? Why is the family breaking down and the workplace not becoming one union? Why is there disorder in society?
Why do countries continue to fight against each other? What we need to know is that the devil, who is the ruler of this world, causes conflicts rather than making us peaceful.
A peaceful person is a person who has wisdom from above. The most important external sign is peace.
Those who have faith live their lives with the wisdom God has given them. However, if we live by the wisdom, knowledge and methods of the world, we cannot find peace.