1017. Who is a Wise Person?

Welcome to The Daily Platform from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. The school was founded in 1927 by the evangelist Dr. Bob Jones Sr. His intent was to make a school where the focus would be on Christ, so he established daily chapel services.

Today, that tradition continues with fervent biblical preaching from The University Chapel Platform. Today on The Daily Platform, Dr. Steve Pettit, President of Bob Jones University, is continuing a study series entitled Wisdom from Above, which is a study of the book of James. There's a study booklet available for this series, and if you'd like to follow along, you can order a printed copy from the website thedailyplatform.com. Would you please take your Bibles this morning and turn with me to the book of James, James chapter 3 this morning. We are in the second chapter in your book. I'd encourage you to bring your book to chapel on Mondays.

That way you can follow the message, take notes during the outline. Let me begin by asking you a question. Have you ever been sitting on an airplane and over the intercom system comes the flight attendant, and the attendant asks the question, is there a doctor on the plane? How many of you have ever experienced that before?

Okay, a few of you. So if that happens, what's your first thought? Is the flight attendant really wanting to meet a doctor like she's dying to see a doctor?

Well, I think we all understand that the nature of the question presupposes a very serious need. In James chapter 3 and verse 13, we really are, if I could call it the thematic peak or maybe the top of the mountain of the whole book of James and understanding it. And it is all centered around a question, a question that presupposes a very urgent need. And this morning I'd like to take that question and try to ask and answer the question that James puts before us. For notice what he says in verse 13. He asks the question, who is a wise man and endued with knowledge amongst you?

That is within your group, who would be viewed as a wise person? And as he asks the question, it's a rhetorical question. In other words, he's not looking for you to give him an answer, but he actually gives an answer. And what is his answer?

It's the rest of the verse. He says, let him show out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom. In other words, a wise person demonstrates that wisdom by the answer that he gave. So this morning I'd like to speak to you on the theme of who is it that is a wise person with the idea that this presupposes a very urgent and serious need.

So let me back up just for a moment and go back to a few things that I said last week. And that is that the book of James, the author, James the brother of Jesus, was the pastor of the church of Jerusalem. And when we read in the book of Acts chapter eight and verse one, it tells us that a persecution came to Jerusalem where the Jewish Christians were driven out of Jerusalem and they were driven out of Israel and they became refugees. And when we come to James chapter one and verse one, he tells us to whom he is writing. Look at what it says in chapter one, verse one. James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ to the 12 tribes, watch this, which are scattered abroad.

Acts eight one says they were scattered abroad. So now this is the group to whom he's writing. So who is he writing to? He is writing to people who are under a very severe trial.

They are refugees. And so what is James' goal in writing them? Well, assuredly, he wants to comfort them, but he wants to do far more than that. He wants them to understand or see or have the wisdom in comprehending what God is doing in their life. What is wisdom? It's seeing life from God's perspective.

It's you being able to see things differently than a normal person would see them. And so beginning in verse two of James one, he tells us that when you fall into trials, what's your first response? You're to count it all joy. Why do you count it all joy?

Because that's not your first response. It's a response of faith. It's believing God. And in verse three, he tells us that there's a reason why we're going through the trial. Here's the perspective, your faith is being put to the test. You're finding out if your faith is really real. And that faith has to keep on believing.

That's called endurance. And he says, here's the goal. And that's what verse four is all about. When he says these words, but let patience, that is this endurance, have its perfect work or literally mature. So what's his point?

What's he trying to say? He's trying to help God's people mature. And when you read all of the letters of the New Testament written by Paul and James and John and Peter, they all have the same goal for the Christian life, maturity.

But they use different words to describe it. Paul uses the idea of becoming like Christ. Peter uses the idea of being holy. John uses the idea of being perfected in love.

Think about it. God's likeness, holiness, love, all of those things are emphasis. And James, what is his primary emphasis?

How do we know when we're becoming mature? And he tells us in verse five. He says, if any of you lack what? You lack what? All right, how many of you would say I lack wisdom?

Let's be honest. Okay. If any of you, by the way, you do. If any of you lack wisdom, wisdom in what?

In the middle of these trials. Why do you need wisdom? To understand life through God's perspective.

Why? Because God's trying to grow you up. Man, I don't know any group of people in the world today that are in this, what I would call James chapter one stage than college students. Because your faith is being tested. Because you're going through things and God is wanting to mature you. And He wants you to become a wise person.

Now, we jump to chapter three, verse 13. He asked the question, here's the point, here's the peak. Who is it among you that is a wise person? So three very simple questions I like to ask. First of all, why is it that we really need wise people? Why do we need maturity?

I mean, let's be honest. If you've accepted Jesus as your savior, you're going to go to heaven. So what's the big deal about maturity? And of course, we understand that maturing in Christ's likeness is God's goal. It's God's purpose.

The greatest way you and I can glorify God is to become more like Jesus Christ. We are maturing and we're growing and yet we're on a highway of maturity that is filled with detours and dead-end streets and ditches. In other words, there are lots of people who are Christians but for various reasons they got off, if I could say it this way, the road to maturity. Things have happened in their life. And so what's the need? The need is wise people who are travelers.

Have you ever traveled to someplace you've never been and you were a little nervous about traveling? Why is it that when we take a tour to a foreign country, we often do it with somebody who is a guide? Because we need to have somebody who has experience and knowledge and information and they know what to do and they know what to avoid. And here we are on this journey and we're growing in the Lord and we need mature people to go before us. Wise people who avoid these hazards and how to — and know how to stay on the pathway.

Is there a wise person in the house? That's the question James is asking. And what were some of the issues that they were facing in James' day?

It's very interesting when you read the book of James, they were facing the same issues we face today. For example, many of the believers were emotionally immature and they were struggling with spiritual maturity. I've said it before, I'll say it again through this whole semester, you cannot be spiritually mature and be emotionally immature.

Your emotions need to grow. Some were struggling with the reality of their faith in the midst of their trials. God, are you really real? How do you handle the sense that God is absent from you? Some were falling into sin and blaming God for their temptations. Some were growing in resentment over financial problems. Some were very inconsistent to worshiping in the house of God and they were not really committed to the Lord. Some were in the church were vulnerable, widows and orphans, and being neglected by the church. Some were allowing the world to affect them.

They were worldly. They were really not totally committed to the Lord. And there was growing in the church some strife and some disagreements and some conflicts. So here's the question, is there any wise people among you who are skillful enough to give real answers to real problems? Let me tell you something, one of the most important things in the student body here at Bob Jones are mature Christians who can help those who are immature. Man, I just pray that our student body will mature, that you won't be like in your junior and senior year and spiritually you haven't even gotten out of diapers yet. That we really need mature believers.

I was helped spiritually my sophomore year of college by a junior who was much more mature than I was and he really helped me along. Are there any among you who are perceptive enough not only to see problems but are able to work towards peaceful resolutions? Because anybody can see a problem but very few people can solve problems. Are there any who are able, for example, who can connect the issues and struggles you're facing with the character and purpose of God?

Here's the problem, can you see what it is that God is doing? This is why we need wise people to lead and guide the people of God to resolve the issues of life and move forward in spiritual maturity. That leads me to the second question then and this is probably one that is core to the whole semester and that is what is wisdom? What does it mean to be wise? Well, wisdom's kind of one of those words that you think you know what it means until somebody says what is it? And then you sort of kind of stumble along trying to explain what it is because you know that being wise is not necessarily being smart.

How many of you have ever met a smart person who did something really stupid? Yeah, so obviously that's not wise so what is wisdom? It's not necessarily being smart, it's not necessarily being experienced or having a lot of knowledge. You can have a PhD and not necessarily be all that wise.

So what is wisdom? Well let me give you a simple practical illustration. My family and I traveled for 29 years in the ministry of evangelism and during all that time we lived in a fifth wheel trailer. That's a trailer that hooks up to the back of a pickup truck. The first trailer I bought, 1985, I bought it down in Richmond, Indiana and when I bought it I got a three quarter ton GMC truck and it was a 35 foot trailer and back in those days and you don't even need it today, you don't have to have a special license.

So all you got to do is pay the cash and hook it up and take off. So I took off driving up the highway, never had driven a trailer in my life and I began to notice some things very quickly. Number one, that the trailer is heavier than the truck because the truck was about 6,000 pounds and the trailer was about 15 to 18,000 pounds at that time. So when I was going up a hill, it actually slowed the truck down. But that wasn't really a big issue. The bigger issue was going down the hill.

Because when the trailer weighs three times more than the truck, you actually feel this pressure on you. And that's not so bad because you can kind of work it, you kind of learn how to not, you know, fly down the hill and then stamp on the brakes. I mean, that's something stupid.

I mean, so you figure it out. But there are always things that happen that you're not prepared for. And one of them is when some smart engineer decided to put a traffic light at the bottom of the hill. No problem in a car.

Big problem in a truck and trailer. And when you're coming down that hill, you have three possible options based on three colors. Red, yellow, and green.

So here's my question. Let's see how wise you are. What is the absolute worst color to have to face? Okay, let me tell you the best color.

The best color is red. Because red, you know exactly what to do. You're supposed to what? You're supposed to stop. So hey, it doesn't take rocket scientists to figure that out.

Stop. Yellow is sort of number two because you know when it turns yellow, you're going to have to stop. So again, you have to decide do I go through, do I go through the yellow light or do I slow down? Well, it depends on where you are on the road. And of course in South Carolina, it doesn't really matter. You know, I used to think the problem in the world today is world hunger. It's not.

It's South Carolina drivers to be honest with you. So, but the worst, the worst color is green. Why green? Because you have options. See, wisdom is basically oftentimes having options and decisions you have to make and you're not sure what to do. And of course, the decisions you make have consequences.

For example, if it's green and you decide to go for it because it's green, what happens if it turns yellow and red and you're going through a red light with a truck and trailer? And so what is wisdom? Wisdom is the ability to navigate well. Wisdom is the ability to navigate life well.

And in the matter of our spiritual life, it is becoming skillful in righteous living. For example, the Bible says a wise person foresees the problem and they hide themselves. They avoid things instead of going forward and ending up in trouble.

How many of you got in trouble when you didn't see it coming and you went, oops? I didn't think about that. Well, that's the point. Wisdom is learning how to make right choices right now. And so that leads me to the third question and that is going back to the text, who is a wise man and to do with knowledge among you, what does a wise person then look like? How can we determine if a person's wise or not? And James answers the question and this is basically foundational for the rest of the semester because these are the qualities of a wise person and then he sort of, if I could say beginning in verse 14 all the way through to chapter four and verse 10, he goes down into the weeds and he begins to sort of unfold it in a very clear way. So what are the two qualities of a wise person? Number one, the first quality is that they demonstrate their wisdom by the way that they live their life. When we think of a wise person, we're talking about the way they live their life.

Notice what he says, let him show out of a good conversation. The word show means to put on display. The word good is something that is beautiful. So I have here in my notes an illustration that I'm not going to use because I'm going to use one that is very palpable. We can feel it because we just heard it and that is David Kim. How many of you would say he's pretty good?

Okay. You know, you can play a note and you can play a note. And the song that he played was actually quite simple.

It wasn't complicated but oh, how he played the note. What is wisdom? Wisdom is a person who demonstrates their wisdom in the way that they live their life. He says out of a good conversation. And oftentimes we'll translate the word conversation as your conduct or your lifestyle and I get that and that's the basic way to translate it. But I actually like the word conversation because the idea is your life says something. Every time we get with somebody where our life is speaking, it's saying something. Your talk talks and your walk walks but your walk talks louder than your talk talks. You are saying something. And what he is saying is a wise person demonstrates their wisdom because of the way their life speaks.

And what is it saying? Well let's go back and just look at the characters of the Bible. What does their life say to us?

Abraham. What does the Bible say about us? He was a man of God. We go back and look at Abraham and Moses and Noah and David and Isaiah and the prophets. What do we see in their life? We see a life that demonstrates faith and demonstrates faithfulness and demonstrates godliness. We look at the life of Moses who chose to suffer affliction with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. God contrasted him. He wasn't worldly.

He was godly. That's what we see in the lives of the women in the Bible like Sarah and Esther and Ruth and others. They demonstrate their wisdom by the way they make their choices, by the way they speak, by the relationships they build, by the way they handle their relationships with people. And the Bible says wisdom is demonstrated in a beautiful life.

I hope it's your goal to live a beautiful life. Because as we all know, beauty is vain, but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised. And then there's a second quality of what demonstrates wisdom. And that is it's not only demonstrated by the life that we live, but secondly by the way we handle the issues of life.

For notice what the text says. Let him show out of a good conversation his works, that's the way he lives, with meekness of wisdom. Remember this, people do not judge you based on what you say, people judge you based on what you do. I know that's a, that's a proverbial statement. We do get judged by what we say, but people, people put more stock in your actions than they do in the words. Let him demonstrate out of a beautiful life his works, his actions with meekness of wisdom.

So, here's the point I want to make. What does he mean by meekness of wisdom? Well let me say it this way, the most demonstrable quality of wisdom is meekness. In other words, a wise person, if you say what is a wise person like in order to give qualities, the most important quality of a wise person is that they are meek. Now we know that because meekness is the cardinal virtue of the greatest leaders that have ever lived. For example, Moses. Numbers 12 verse 3, now the man Moses was very meek above all the men which were upon the face of the earth. Jesus. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me because I am meek and lowly in spirit.

Paul. Second Corinthians 10 one, now I Paul myself beseech you by the meekness and the gentleness of Christ. To be a meek person is one who's demonstrating their wisdom. So what does it mean to be meek? Well, it doesn't mean to be weak. You say why do we say that?

Because it rhymes? No, because that's sometimes what people think. Because a meek person often feels like a person you sort of can run over. Jesus said it this way, the rulers of this world rule by power. But he said my children, my servants will not be that way. They will actually be servants because the greatest among you is somebody that serves.

So what does it mean to be a meek person? Well, let's go back and think through what he says in James 1 when he says count it all joy when you fall into various trials. Now let me ask you a question. Is counting it all joy the natural thing to do? Yes or no?

No, it's not. So what's the natural thing to do? Whatever comes out of your heart. It's called reacting. I get mad, I get upset, I get angry, I blame people, I become bitter, I become resentful, I become rebellious. So those reactions that are coming out of my heart are what we call emotional immaturity. And what is God trying to do?

Grow us up to overcome those emotionally immature areas of our life and become spiritual people. So what does it mean to be meek? It's the opposite of that. It is not being reactionary. It is not being rebellious. It is bringing my will under control of the Holy Spirit. We could say it this way, it is me being broken over myself in surrender to God.

And what's the best illustration of that? I think 1 is a horse that's been broken. I mean here's a big powerful horse. What could a horse do to you if it wanted to do it?

I mean it could kill you. You ride on it, it bucks you off, it stomps you. But a horse that's like that is really of little value so what does the trainer do? It breaks the horse in the sense that its will becomes submissive. And that's the idea of being meek. It's the idea of strength that is brought under control. Who is a wise person?

It is somebody who demonstrates wisdom by the fact that they're not rebellious, they're not reactionary, they are not retaliatory. Have you ever seen a fight on a basketball court? I saw one recently. And you know what? It never ends up good even if you get to punch the guy. I mean my human nature, I actually like to punch people.

I'm serious, I really do. I mean if I'm going to play against you, I'm going to take you out. And I actually by my human nature like that. That's by the way is not meekness. Meekness is the opposite.

It's not reactionary, it's not retaliatory. And we always respect the person on the court who doesn't react even when they're mistreated. But we submit, we submit to the authority, we submit to the referees. And the point I'm trying to make is that what James is doing is trying to get us to maturity and that maturity is a wise person and that wisdom is demonstrated in a spirit of meekness. Man, do we have a lot to pray for. Because if you've listened very carefully this morning, we should all be convicted of the fact that actually we're not that meek. And so Lord, help us to grow.

The rest of the semester now what we're going to do is unfold that. To try to see what a wise person unfolded really looks like in contrast to a person that's not wise and may God grant us the grace to be wise. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. Help us Lord to be wise and walk humbly with you in Jesus' name. Amen. You've been listening to a sermon from the book of James by Dr. Steve Pettit, president of Bob Jones University. For more information on Dr. Pettit's series, visit our website at thedailyplatform.com where you can get a copy of Steve's study booklet entitled Wisdom from Above. Thanks for listening. Join us again tomorrow as we study God's word together on The Daily Platform.