Wisdom from Above

If you would turn with me to James chapter 3, we're looking at verses 13 through 18 as we consider tonight the source, the nature, and the fruit of godly wisdom.

James chapter 3 verses 13 through 18. Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic.

For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray. Lord, thank you that your word is available to us.

We don't have to guess what your will is. We don't have to go searching for some secret knowledge, some evasive wisdom. We have the mind of Christ and the Spirit of God and the word of God right here before us. Lord, may we avail ourselves of these gifts of grace tonight and may we remember and heed your instruction to us. We know that you have inspired and preserved these words for our edification. So may they effectively edify us, your people, tonight. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

You can be seated. Well, before we jump into the text before us tonight, I want to point out a theme in the territory that we've already covered here in James' epistle, a theme that might have gone unnoticed. The theme has to do with self-deception. James has highlighted multiple spheres, multiple arenas of life in which people commonly deceive themselves into thinking that something is true of themselves that is really not true of them. In chapter 1, for example, verses 22 through 25, we see this tendency towards self-deception with regard to the Bible, the word of God. A person thinks he loves the word of God, but he really doesn't unless he obeys it. He's a hearer but not a doer and therefore deceives himself into thinking that somehow he loves God's word. And it's difficult to convince such a person that he really is lacking in his love for the word, but it's true.

He doesn't love the word of God like he should because his actions, his behavior, his habits, his life patterns don't bear that love out. Moving on, in chapter 1, verses 26 and 27, there is a self-deception with regard to religion. A person thinks he is religious, but he really isn't unless he, James says, guards his tongue, visits the helpless, and pursues godliness. Again, the actions of a person verify or deny the claim. In chapter 2, verses 1 through 13, the self-deception has to do with one's treatment of other people. A person thinks of himself as compassionate and merciful, a merciful human being, but in reality he isn't unless he demonstrates impartiality in his dealings with other people.

Again, actions proving character. In chapter 2, verses 14 through 26, a person claims to have faith, but his works fail to verify that claim, and so this self-deceived person's faith is actually a dead faith. In chapter 3, verses 1 through 12, someone has a self-perception of being golden-tongued and therefore qualified and called to be a teacher, an instructor, an authoritative teacher of others, yet he fails to realize the difficulty with which the tongue is tamed.

What he actually does with his mouth proves one way or another if he really is qualified and able to speak as he ought. And so we see this theme in James of self-deceived people claiming or thinking one thing about themselves while their actual behavior confirms the exact opposite. One of my mentors years ago used to say, what you do every day is what you really believe, the rest is just religious talk.

And I think there's a lot of truth to that. In other words, our behavior, our actions, our habits are the real proof of who and what we are despite what we claim and despite what we perceive ourselves to be. Well, we come to our text tonight and James brings up yet another area in which people are easily self-deceived.

And again, he will point out that our actions confirm or deny the reality. In this case, the area of self-deception has to do with wisdom. Who is wise and understanding among you, he asks. In other words, who thinks of himself or herself as a wise person, a person who understands why things are the way they are, a person who perceives how things ought to be and knows how to get things where they ought to be.

And as we will see, the answer to that question of who is wise, just like in every other case of self-deception, comes down to the actions and behaviors and habits that a person demonstrates. I remember reading a book about preaching years ago and the author pointed out that every text in the Bible is about something. In other words, every text has a subject.

It's about something. But he also pointed out that every text in Scripture has a purpose. It has a reason for which it was written and included in Scripture. So Paul or Peter, for example, may have written something about justification that might have been their subject in a letter to some church, but they would have written about justification for some reason, to some end, with some purpose in mind. Perhaps their readers were doubting the doctrine of justification.

Perhaps they were misunderstanding justification. If we are to fully understand a passage in the Bible, we need to not merely look for the subject of the text, the facts and the explanations of a passage. We need to also look for the purpose for which those facts and those explanations were included, were written. Now, 2 Timothy 3.16 and 17, everybody knows this verse. It gives us an overarching purpose or reason for all of Scripture in a general sense.

2 Timothy 3.16 says, All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for, that is, it is written for, given to us for these purposes, teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. The ultimate purpose of the Bible is to complete or perfect sinners. Now, why do we need completing? Well, because evidently we're incomplete. We're imperfect, and so we need perfecting. Why are we incomplete and perfect?

Because we are fallen. We have broken God's law. We are sinners in need of being fixed, in need of being repaired. And so every part of Scripture has as its purpose the goal of fixing or perfecting the fallenness, the sinfulness of God's children. That means every time you pick up your Bible to read it in your devotion time in the mornings, every time you sit down to listen to a sermon, there is a corrective that needs to happen.

There's something wrong with you and me that needs to be fixed. And any given biblical passage before us intends to fix something about us. The author of this preaching book that I was reading went on to point out that this fallen condition, this brokenness that needs fixing, is what connects modern contemporary readers to ancient original readers of any given text in the Word of God. That's what we share in common with those original readers.

We both have the same sin problem that needs perfecting, that needs completing, that needs repair. The Holy Spirit inspired the particulars of what was written to address the fallenness of Christians back then and the fallenness of Christians today. So we come to our text tonight, and we could say that this text is about wisdom. That's the subject that this passage deals with. The subject is false wisdom versus true wisdom.

But then we need to ask, why did James bring up this subject at this point? He brought it up back then, and the Holy Spirit brings it up tonight because evidently we have a problem with rightly assessing the quality and the legitimacy of the wisdom we claim to have. Evidently, Christians, old and new alike, have an inherent tendency to overestimate our own wisdom.

Evidently, there are those who think they are wise, but are not. There are those whose pride leaves them always wanting to be in the know, or always wanting to be the smartest, cleverest person in the room, or whose pride wants the reputation of being a person of discernment and perception, but all of that is false wisdom. James wants us to know what real wisdom is, true wisdom. And he wants us to know how we can overcome our own self-deception, how we can overcome our own pride-driven blind spots. He wants to perfect our imperfect ability to recognize the difference between wisdom that is from above, from God, and wisdom that is earthly, unspiritual, and demonic.

And here's what James tells us in these verses. James tells us that we can know whether wisdom is true wisdom or not by considering these three things with regard to wisdom. Number one, where it has come from. Number two, the heart in which it grows. And number three, the fruit that it produces. Or we could say it like this, it's seed, it's soil, and it's fruit. And we do well to evaluate any claim to wisdom in light of these three tests, the seed, the soil, and the fruit, where it comes from, the heart in which it grows, and the effects it produces.

Now, our text tonight is a contrast of real wisdom and fake wisdom, pretend wisdom. And it highlights the seed, the soil, and the fruit of each of these. It tells us where wisdom from below comes from. It tells us the sort of heart that wisdom from below grows in. And it tells us what kind of fruit is produced from the wisdom from below. The text also tells us these same things with regard to wisdom from above.

So let's walk through the passage tonight and look at each of these in turn. First of all, we'll consider the seed, the soil, and the fruit of wisdom from below. Let's think first about its seed, where this fake, pretentious wisdom comes from, its source.

Verse 15 tells us, in no uncertain terms, where this wisdom from below originates. It says, this is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. Theologians often refer to three enemies of the soul, the world, the flesh, and the devil. Enemies of the soul. These three enemies stand in opposition to God.

They stand in opposition to His moral law. And it's these three enemies that give fuel to temptation, the world, the flesh, and the devil. First there's the world.

This fallen place in which we live, along with all of its misplaced affections and idolatries. Worldliness in Scripture is the sin of loving the passing pleasures of the here and now, while neglecting God's will and instruction. John tells us not to love the world, nor the things in the world, because they're temporary. They'll soon pass away. James is going to warn us in the very next chapter here in this epistle that making friends with the world will put us in enmity with God, because God and this world system are at odds with each other.

They're incompatible, like oil and water. It's the world. It's an enemy of the soul. The next enemy of the soul is called the flesh.

The term flesh in the New Testament can refer generally to the physical body, morally neutral, but it often refers particularly to the physical body as it is held captive by its senses to sin. Our own inherent bent towards sin, a bent that springs internally from our very sin nature, is at odds with God and His will. And it is this fallen flesh of ours that so often causes us to stumble and sometimes to run headlong into temptation and sin. That's the enemy of the flesh. And then the last enemy of the soul is the devil, the devil himself, that accuser of old who stands ready with his minions to bring accusation and guilt and temptation and confusion and doubt.

The world, the flesh, and the devil all gang up together to make sin a very easy option because these enemies of the soul stand in opposition to God and His will. Now in light of that summary of these three enemies of the soul, notice where James says false wisdom comes from. First he says it is earthly. That is of this world, this world system. Next he says it is unspiritual, a word that refers to that part of us that is comprised of our natural body along with its affections and desires.

In other words, our flesh. And then finally he says this wisdom from below is demonic. It's of the devil. Fake wisdom, wisdom that is not from above. Foolishness that masquerades as wisdom and understanding but is in actuality nothing of the sort comes from the world, the flesh, and the devil, the very enemies of the soul that stand in opposition to God.

This is the seed. This is the source from which false wisdom comes. You know, church, that alone ought to make us want to run from it, run in the other direction from this false wisdom. But notice secondly it's soil, or we might say the heart in which this false wisdom grows. Verse 14 says, If you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth.

This is not the wisdom that comes down from above. So this false wisdom that originates from wicked demonic places takes root and grows in a certain kind of heart. It grows in a heart that is full of first bitter jealousy. Now I suppose we all know that there is a good kind of jealousy and there is a bad kind of jealousy. God is jealous, Scripture says, in a good way.

A husband is jealous for his wife in a good way. But there is also a very wicked jealousy, a jealousy that is full of envy and bitterness over the achievements and successes of other people. This kind of bitter jealousy cannot bear to be upstaged or outdone. And so whenever this sort of bitterly jealous heart encounters someone who is better or more successful or has greater respect, it begins to stoop to criticism and denigration like the child who can't stand to be beaten in the game so he takes his ball and goes home.

If he can't win the game, then nobody gets to play the game. It's the bitterly jealous heart. The second quality that defines the heart in which this false wisdom grows is called selfish ambition. Selfish ambition, and just like the previous character quality, it's the adjective, not the noun, that makes it so devilish. Ambition isn't necessarily wrong, but selfish ambition is.

Selfish ambition is a partisan spirit, an attitude that fosters rivalry. And it is the telltale sign that a person's wisdom is not really wisdom at all. Now I think it's interesting that James doesn't say that the sign of false wisdom and understanding is foolishness and ignorance.

It is. It's the opposite of wisdom and understanding. But James doesn't simply identify the opposites of wisdom and understanding.

That would be too vague, I think. Instead, he puts his finger on the very observable character qualities of jealousy and selfish ambition. If a person demonstrates these traits, then everybody knows that their claim to wisdom is an empty claim. The foolish wise man is so wise in his own eyes that he perceives himself to be qualified to criticize everyone else. He feeds his self-deception by downplaying the wisdom and understanding of others. John Calvin said, it is usual with hypocrites to exalt and show off themselves by criminating all others.

They're quick to censor everyone else, but at the same time, spare themselves. This is the kind of heart soil that false wisdom grows best in. But thirdly, notice the fruit that this false wisdom produces. We see it in verse 16. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder in every vile practice. That word disorder is the same word used in James 1-8 and James 3-8 to describe the double-minded man and the double-tongued mouth.

This word describes a state of restlessness and unsettledness. The same word is in fact used in 1 Corinthians 14-33. It says, for God is not a God of confusion, of restlessness, of disorder, but rather of peace. How do you know if a person's claim to wisdom is true? You know it by its fruit, and one of its fruits is disorder, confusion. A phony sort of wisdom just keeps the pot agitated with confusion. But James then broadens the description of the fruit of pretend wisdom by including every vile practice.

And that means exactly what it sounds like it means. False wisdom, earthly, fleshly, demonic wisdom is known by its fruit. And folks, the sky is the limit when it comes to what this self-centered jealousy masquerading as wisdom is capable of doing. Church, there are those who pretend to be wise and pretend to have understanding, people who have perhaps even convinced themselves that their viewpoint and their counsel is from God, from the Lord, but in reality their wisdom is not from God. It grows in a heart that is consumed with jealousy and selfishness and envy, and it will eventually expose itself for the wickedness that it is by the fruit that it bears. If that sort of danger is lurking out there, shouldn't that make us all at the very least self-skeptical?

Shouldn't it give us pause in sharing our opinions and thoughts with the world? I don't think it's accidental that sandwiching this paragraph on the potential of self-deception when it comes to wisdom are two paragraphs that address respectively the problem of talking too much and the problem of being quarrelsome. Right in the middle is this paragraph we're looking at tonight on false wisdom. So I hate to break it to you, but James is telling us in so many words you might just not be God's gift to the world. You might not know what you think you know. Your insights and your secret knowledge and uncanny perceptions of how things really are might not be so much wisdom from the Lord as they are merely reflections of your own need for recognition and respect.

If it causes disorder and confusion and springs from a heart that is jealously ambitious in all the wrong ways, then it is not wisdom from God and it should be repented of. But there is a wisdom that is from God, a wisdom from above, and we can know that wisdom from its seed, its soil, and its fruit. First let's look at the seed of the wisdom from above.

Where does it come from? Well, it comes from above, James says. And what exactly does above mean? Evidently it means the exact opposite of those other sources mentioned in verse 15, earthly, unspiritual, demonic. Wisdom from above then, rather than being earthly, is heavenly. Earthly is bad, heavenly is good, at least in the sense in which James is using these terms. Heavenly wisdom is God's wisdom. It's that above the sun perspective that the preacher of Ecclesiastes just couldn't seem to understand. It's a wisdom that's driven not by the passing pleasures of this world, but one that takes into account eternity. It's wisdom that lays up treasure in a place where moth and rust cannot destroy or where thieves cannot break in and steal.

It's heavenly. Secondly, wisdom from above is not unspiritual. It's not of the flesh, but rather it is spiritual. Theologians have noted the clear parallels between James' discussion of wisdom here and Paul's discussion of the fruit of the spirit in Galatians 5. A lot of parallels between James 3 and Galatians 5. Both James and Paul describe the same kind of fruit, but what Paul says the spirit produces, James says wisdom produces. In other words, there is a correlation between this wisdom that is from above and the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer. God's wisdom is spiritual in nature, and it is spiritual in its point of origin. It is the product of the very spirit of God indwelling the regenerate Christian.

We could say it another way. We could say the wise man is the spirit-filled man. It's spiritual. And then thirdly, the wisdom from above is not demonic. That is, it's not from the devil and his demons. Rather, it is godly because God is its source. There's nothing sinister or accusatory or embittered about this wisdom because it is from God, not from the devil. So that's the source, that's the seed from which this wisdom from above comes.

What then is the soil in which it grows? What kind of heart nurtures and fosters this godly wisdom? James gives us two qualities that characterize the heart of the truly wise person. First of all, the wise heart is full of meekness.

Verse 13. Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct, let him show his works in the meekness. Meekness of wisdom. Meekness has been described as power under control, like the strength of a horse that has been reined in and trained. There's nothing weak about it. It's very strong, but it is a strength that is under control. The meek heart is one that is strong and courageous, but not for its own sake.

It can show its good works, but not in a showy way. Meekness is, in fact, the opposite of the bitterly jealous and selfishly ambitious heart of the pretender. You see, the truly wise man wants to be wise.

The pretender merely wants to be known as wise. One is selfless in heart and motive. The other is self-serving in heart and motive. So the wise heart is, first of all, a meek heart. The wise heart is also full of purity, verse 17. The wisdom from above is, first, pure. This is the chief character quality of the heart of a wise person. We think of this word purity in terms of sincerity.

If someone has pure motives, he is sincere, he's genuine. But we also think of the word purity in terms of moral innocence. Someone who is pure in heart is undefiled, without moral blemishes.

Well, the Greek word here carries the second meaning. It refers to that moral innocence, guiltlessness. The heart of the wise person, then, is a heart that is chaste and innocent. And James says this moral purity is the overarching, or the first quality of a wise heart. So we know genuine wisdom because it comes from God. As his spirit indwells the believer and makes them wise. We know this wisdom because it grows in hearts that are meek and pure.

The very opposite of the self-orientation of the pretender. But finally, we know this wisdom from above because of its fruit. And verse 17 lists several descriptions of the fruit of wisdom. Descriptions that tell us not so much what wisdom is, but rather what wisdom does. You see, this wisdom is not about knowing the right things as much as it is about doing the right things. It isn't a series of correct propositional statements. But it is rather a quality that motivates a certain kind of behavior. And what does that behavior look like?

Several things. First of all, it is peaceable. If false wisdom's chief effect is contention, then true wisdom's chief effect is the making of peace. Wisdom from God bears the fruit of reconciliation.

It fixes broken relationships. And this is one of the ways we can know it is the real thing. This wisdom from above is also gentle. Now, gentleness is not a particularly American quality.

But it is a Christian quality. Gentleness is the trait of not insisting on my rights, my customs, my preferences. It is a willingness to yield.

It is an attempt to show courtesy. Next, we see that wisdom from above is open to reason. This literally means easily persuaded. Of course, not in the sense of being gullible or lacking in discernment, but in the sense of willingly showing deference to others, hearing them out, not in order to argue their opinion away, but in order to better understand and learn from them. It's a fruit, a behavior, a proof of true wisdom. Next, wisdom from above is full of mercy and good fruits. Now, James has already defined mercy for us back in chapter 2. Mercy is that love for neighbor that shows itself in action. Then true wisdom produces impartiality.

And we looked at that quality extensively back in chapter 2. Impartiality has to do with not being unnecessarily divisive or prejudiced towards others. Finally, wisdom from above produces sincerity.

There's no show. There's no pretense. There's no play-acting or hamming it up for effect.

It's simply transparent and genuine and sincere. I realize that these verses tonight are really just lists of multiple character qualities. I've tried to organize these traits into categories that will help us think with greater clarity about the differences between true wisdom and feigned wisdom, pretend wisdom.

And I also realize that if you've been walking with the Lord for any length of time, what James is saying in these verses is rather obvious, isn't it? We know that bitter jealousy is bad. We know that pretending to be wise when we're really just selfish is bad. We know that meekness and purity and being a peacemaker and being sincere are good qualities. And so I'm afraid that if we're not careful, we can read through a passage like this and think to ourselves, yeah, I need to do those good things and not do those bad things.

I'm going to be one of those Christians that has the wisdom from above rather than the wisdom from the devil, duh. And it's obvious to us and we just kind of don't think about it. We go home and we never change the seed that's being planted into our lives. And we never improve the soil that influences our hearts and shapes our affections and attitudes.

And we ignore the bad fruit that our lives are just spewing out day after day after day. James didn't write these words. The Holy Spirit didn't inspire and preserve these words for us just to go home and say, yeah, I knew all that. These words are given to us for our reproof, for our correction, for our training in righteousness. These truths are spelled out specifically for us because evidently there is a tendency for sons and daughters of Adam to forget these things.

Let's not be forgetful hearers. Let's be doers of the word. Let's conscientiously pursue the very traits these verses commend.

Let's repent of those traits it condemns. Are you driven by jealousy? Do you find yourself stewing over someone else's talent or good name or opportunity? Then stop it, repent of it, and learn to rejoice with those who outdo, outshine, and upstage you. By the same token, do you see in your own life the fruit of the Spirit, the fruit that only God's wisdom can produce? If so, then rejoice in that glorious fruit. Who cares if the world fails to admire you for your meekness and your purity and your gentleness?

Who cares if they mock your openness to reason or overlook your impartiality or question your sincerity? If God is producing this godly fruit in the soil of a heart that has been miraculously resurrected using seed that will not and cannot return void, then rejoice that God has spared you from this pretentious, destructive stuff that the world so admires and praises and has instead given you the riches of that wisdom that is from above. Let's pray. Lord, you said that if we lack wisdom, we have but to ask in faith, and you will give it liberally and without reproach. Lord, we lack wisdom.

And in its place, we find all sorts of attitudes and behaviors that are an offense to you. Please, Lord, make us wise. Give us your wisdom. Not so that we can boast about how wise we are, but so that your glory will be seen and so that our joy may be full.

Lord, we can't even be sure that our motives in asking are pure. Lord, you have saved us with the blood of your son. You have promised to sanctify and glorify us. So we ask tonight that you would make us wise through your spirit in us. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.