1019. Wisdom from Above

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. Let's listen to today's message from the study series from the book of James called Wisdom from Above.

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. I'd like to ask you to take your Bibles and turn with me please to the book of James chapter 3. If you are guests with us this morning, we have on our Monday morning chapels our discipleship theme, and this semester we're working through the theme of Wisdom from Above, from the book of James chapter 3 verse 13 all the way to chapter 4 and verse 10. So we have been laying that foundation, the importance of maturing into wise people.

How does God get us there? And we looked in James 3.13 as the peak verse, who is a wise man and to do with knowledge among you. We talked about what a wise person looks like. And then last week we talked about how the writer James contrasts wisdom from below and wisdom from above. And so last week we asked the question why would he call the wisdom from a below wisdom because of the negative aspects and essentially it's a worldly form of wisdom. And so this morning we're going to begin by looking in James 3 verses 16 and 17 where now James contrasts the wisdom from below with heavenly wisdom, the kind of wisdom that we should pursue after. So let's read this morning beginning in James 3 and verse 16, excuse me, I'm sorry verse 17. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits without partiality and without hypocrisy.

And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace. In the 18th century something radically happened that transformed Western culture. It was a transition that took place that was so dramatic that there is not a subject today that is taught in high school or in college that hasn't been influenced by this movement that is characteristically known as the Enlightenment. This was a period where in the Christianized culture of the Western world the basic principles of God's revelation in the Bible were laid aside and man became the center or the measure of all things.

It corresponded in time to many of the scientific discoveries of that period and what is interesting is that many of the scientists were real believers who understood that if we listen to the word of God to hear what God said that we should listen to the book of nature to hear how it was that God has put nature together. And in or during this Enlightenment period the belief was that truth was discovered by the power of human reason in contrast to divine revelation. The movement started with intellectuals but it has pervaded all education today in its worldly wisdom. However, the Enlightenment or what we call modernity is now passed and is issued into what we know as post-modernism. This is where there is really no singular truth, no real absolutes except only as I personally experience it.

The only thing that is authentic or genuine or true is my own experience. And the postmodern wants both license and approval. License to live as they please and approval in the sense of the right to not be criticized for the way that they live. And the outgrowth of postmodernism on society is that the cardinal virtue or their cardinal virtue is the virtue of tolerance. And the sins of postmodernism is trying to enforce your values on someone else.

Now I think we would all agree that that is the mindset of the day. And in the day of the Apostle James, his teaching was just his counterculture to the teaching or the pervading culture of his own day. For James taught believers in a pagan society how they were to live their lives to please God and how to make a mark on society by being models of spiritual maturity and having wisdom from above. And what was the wisdom from above that distinguished them that made them different and is what James said in chapter 3 and verse 13. He says, wisdom is demonstrated in the way that we live our lives and the way that we do what we do and we live our lives with the meekness of wisdom. Or I could say it this way, the chief characteristic of a wise person is that they are meek.

And that's the difference. And so James contrasts wisdom from below, wisdom from above. One is bad, the other is good. One kind of wisdom is destructive, the other kind is constructive. One wisdom tears people down, the other wisdom builds people up.

One is clearly from God above, the other is clearly from Satan below. And so this morning I'd like us to look at the wisdom that is from above. And James has already told us about the quality of meekness and now we dive deeper into the weeds and he unfolds in a clearer way what it means to have wisdom from above. So notice first of all the source of this wisdom. He says, but the wisdom that is from above. That is, he's referring to the divine source of wisdom. Wisdom is a gift that comes from God. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above. And this wisdom is actually a gift of God's goodness.

A number of years ago I was preaching in a church down in the state of Florida and the pastor was one of those pastors that once you meet him, you never forget him. He was very unusual and extremely generous. And during the week he came to me and he said, Steve, I would like to buy you the nicest pair of shoes you have ever owned.

And I said, okay. He said, what's your size? I told him, he said, well, what kind of style of shoes do you want?

This was probably, I don't know, 25 years ago or so. And I was thinking, well, you know, dress shoes, preacher shoes. So I said, wing tips. Do you know what wing tips are?

Well, you can go online and figure it out. So he bought me a pair of Florsheim Imperial, their top line wing tips. I love those shoes. I wore them till I wore them out. I resold them and I put on the new soles and I wore those out.

And finally I just said, I can't take it anymore. The shoes aren't going to survive. And so I put them up in my hall of fame of shoes. But what I remember the most about the gift was not so much the shoes themselves, but what my pastor friend said to me.

Because he handed me the shoes for the intention of making a point. And he said, Steve, never underestimate the generosity of God. Thou art coming to a king with the large petitions bring. For his grace and power are such that none could ever ask too much. Wisdom is a gift that God gives. Do you need wisdom for your life? Do you need his direction? Do you need his ability to overcome, to go forward?

Well, what does he say? If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God to give it to all men liberally, generously. That our God is a good God and he is generous in his giving and he does not reprimand us for asking. Therefore it should be quite clear to us that wise people are people who pray. If we don't pray, then we are not wise. Do you remember when Solomon received the daunting task of being the king of Israel? And God gave him the opportunity to make a request and what did he pray for? Well, God said to Solomon, Solomon, you did not ask for riches.

You did not ask for honor, but you asked for the wisdom to rule in such a way that you understand the people's needs and the ability to perceive what decisions will be good and what decisions will be bad. And because you chose the right thing, I will give you riches in honor. Wisdom is something the Bible says we should pursue, like we would pursue gold or pursue silver. What is your life's pursuit?

Is your life's pursuit money, wealth? The wisest thing you could do is to pursue wisdom and the Bible says the Lord gives wisdom. It's very interesting that one of the early New Testament Christian historians, or they called him a chronicler, was a man named Hegisippus. And he wrote in 110 AD, well he was born in 110 AD, but he wrote a statement about the apostle James. Listen to what he says, after the apostles, James the brother of the Lord, surnamed the just, was made head of the church at Jerusalem. He went alone into the temple and prayed in behalf of the people, insomuch that his knees were reputed to have acquired the hardness of camel's knees. Want wisdom?

Pray. God is a source of all true wisdom. Then that leads me to the second thing, and that is what are the characteristics of wisdom?

What does it look like? And James sets forth here a catalog, a list of virtues that describes meekness. I think it's very interesting that the qualities of wisdom that we see here in the book of James actually resembles the fruit of the Spirit. I mentioned earlier that every New Testament writer had the same goal for the Christian life, that is to be mature, but they used different words to describe it. So Paul said Christ's likeness, and Peter said holiness, and James said love.

I think I've concluded that the book of Hebrews who does not, we don't know the author, and that is that the goal of the Christian life is to be faithful. And James tells us the goal is of course to be wise. And yet, where we see the qualities of wisdom, we also can compare them to the qualities of the Spirit in the book of Galatians, and they're very similar.

So what are those qualities? Notice he begins when he says, but the wisdom that is from above is first pure. That word first actually separates this one quality from all the others, because he says first pure and then he says then. So the word first means first in order of importance.

You could say this is the root and the rest are the fruit. And what he's writing and saying is that purity is a fundamental quality of wisdom. If meekness is the visible, what we see, then purity is the internal or the invisible. So what does he mean by pure? Well literally the word means to be chaste.

You've heard that word before. And typically we would apply that to sexual purity. But I think in the book of James it actually means more than that. It is the idea of one's commitment to another person. You could call it this, a wholehearted, resolute, complete, and absolute commitment to one person and one person only. So it's like what you decide when you get married. You need to become a one woman man.

A one man woman. It is a complete devotion to that person in your marriage relationship. So listen to what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 11, 2. He says, I'm jealous over you Corinthians with a godly jealousy, for I've espoused you to one husband that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Jesus Christ. He was concerned about the church because they were worldly. And he wanted them to be single minded and wholeheartedly committed to Christ.

And what is James' burden for us? He doesn't want us to be double minded. That we have a desire for the world and a desire for God and we're back and forth all the time and we're tossed to and fro.

He wants us to make up our minds. That we follow Jesus Christ. I think this is inclusive of devotional and moral purity. Devotional purity. An unmixed, passionate devotion towards Christ.

There's nothing in the world that I want more than Jesus Christ. My wife and I went on our first date at Bob Jones University. That was back in the days when dating opportunities were extremely limited. You have two places to go. The dating parlor or the alumni stadium.

That was it. We couldn't hang out and talk to each other because that was against the rule. We got demerits.

That's called loitering. So we could go to two places. And the first date I had with my wife was in the alumni stadium. There were two soccer matches going on. All society matches.

Who played? I don't know. Didn't care. But at the end of our two to three hour date, we both concluded in our life that we'd come to a point where we could say sincerely in Psalm 73, who do I have in heaven but thee and there is none upon earth I desire besides thee. When we talk about devotional purity, we talk about a purity of your commitment to Jesus Christ and your love for him is greater than your love for any thing else.

That's wisdom. And then he's talking about moral purity. Free from all vices and defilements of any kind. It is a delicate sensitivity to the polluting nature of immorality. Where we should turn from or run away from putting ourselves in those kinds of positions where we are being tempted to ignite our lusts. And what he's saying is that the first evidence of genuine meekness, surrender, humility, dedication to God is found in purity. And then notice the qualities that follow then he says. And he gives six qualities.

These qualities are primarily in our relationships with people. Notice he says the wisdom that is from above is first pure then peaceable. Proverbs tells us of wisdom, her ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace. The Hebrew word for peace is the word shalom. It means stability, security, solid, whole, healthy. It's healthy relationships.

Heavenly wisdom longs for peace. Do you want to go fishing in a boat during a hurricane? Of course not. Do you want your home to face a tornado?

Of course not. It is human nature to want to avoid storms if possible. Therefore, wise people are peacemakers, they are not strife causers. They seek to settle disputes rather than to provoke them. They are not eager or quick to argue, to fight or quarrel.

They don't spend their time with sarcastic and caustic conversation. This is the opposite of what we saw in verse 16 and verse 14 where he talked about envy and strife. And is this not what God wants? Is God not the God of peace? So Paul tells us in Ephesians that through the blood of Christ, he has become our peace. By his death, he has brought together two groups of people who were the greatest antagonists, Jews and Gentiles, the ultimate racists, the ultimate prejudice, the ultimate tension.

And if he can bring peace between these two opposing people, then should not we seek peace in our life? And then notice the second word, the word gentle. Probably the best way to illustrate the word gentle, we won't take the time to turn there because we're limited, but in Matthew 18, Jesus talks about a servant of the king who owed the king 10,000 talents. Did a little study and back in Bible days, one day's wage was called a denarii. And in order to earn one talent, it took you 20 years of earning denarii to get one talent. This guy owes 10,000 talents. And do the math, he has to work like 72 million days to pay off his debt.

In other words, it's impossible. And he goes to the king and he says, king, I'll pay you back, which was like haha, it's not going to happen. So what does the king do? He shows him compassion and he forgives him. And the very same guy who owed 10,000 talents had a friend of his who owed him 100 talents, that's a third of a year's salary. And instead of forgiving that man of the debt, he went and grabbed the man through the throat and threatened to punish him.

And of course the point is that you read the story and you go, this guy's like a total loser. Because this king has been so compassionate and that's the way you respond. And actually gentleness is understanding how much God has forgiven you and so you're able to be that way towards others.

When I meet people that are really hard and harsh on people because of one bad thing they've done to them so that they're very reactionary, I wonder how much do you know how much you've been forgiven? To be gentle is to be considerate of others, to respect their feelings, to make allowances for their weaknesses. The Bible says speak evil of no man but be gentle. And then notice thirdly he says he's easy to be entreated. What does it mean to be entreated? It means to be approachable. Bob Jones Sr. said beware of unreasonable people because good men are always reasonable. They're willing to listen. They're approachable.

You can go and talk to them without feeling like somehow you're going to be condemned because they're willing to listen to you. They're not stubborn. They're open-minded.

They're persuadable. They're good listeners. And then notice number four, he said the wisdom from above is full of mercy and good fruits. The picture here is just someone who is abundantly compassionate. They are generous. They want to do good to others.

Their desire in life is to be a blessing. And then number five, without partiality. What does it mean to be without partiality? Bob Jones Sr. said it this way. He said beware of the man who kowtows to his superiors and he's rude to his inferiors. Without partiality means you treat people the same. You try to be consistent.

You don't play favorites. You're straightforward. You're consistent in the way you handle people.

People pretty much know what you're going to do because of your consistency. And then notice finally, without hypocrisy. The idea here is a wise person is free from hidden agendas.

The idea of a hypocrite is somebody who wears a mask. A person who is wise is open, forthright. What you see is what you get. When people come to work at Bob Jones, I'm very clear. Don't bring your hidden agendas here. Don't come here to try to manipulate, to get your way.

But you're open, you're honest, you're forthright. You're here to serve. There's no self-centered purpose.

You're here for the betterment of others. So what is James saying? Here are the qualities of people who are wise. Let me finish this morning with the last point and that is what is the effect of wisdom? And I want you to go back and look at what he says in verse 18.

It's really interesting to me. He says, The fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace. It's a sowing and reaping here. You sow this, you get this. So what do you sow? What does he say you sow? The fruit of righteousness is sown in what? What do you sow? You sow what? Peace. What's the fruit of it? Righteousness.

I used to think it was the opposite. You do right and you get peace. But here he says sow peace and you get righteousness. And it tells us something that in all of my relationships with people, I'm not looking to make moral compromises, but I'm looking to work towards peaceful resolution.

And when I do that, then what's the result? There's righteousness. Let me finish with one illustration. On June 17th, 2015, in Charleston, South Carolina, at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, a historic church in Charleston, they were having a Wednesday night Bible study. In that Bible study, there were seven ladies and two men. One of the men was the pastor of the church, and he was also a South Carolina state senator. As they were having their Bible study, a young white man from Columbia, South Carolina, named Dylan Roof came in and sat down and they welcomed him to be a part of the Bible study.

At the end of the Bible study, Dylan stood up with a nine millimeter pistol and shot all nine people and killed them. I remember the news when it came. I was here as the president.

It's my second summer. And it was so shocking. We could hardly believe it. But with that was an underlying fear because this young man was a racist. And he had killed nine African American people.

And of course, what's the natural fear? The fear is going to be a riot. But something happened that was amazing. As broken hearted as the families were, the families of the people that were slain over time rose up and publicly acknowledged that though the young man deserves to be punished by society, they were willing to be forgiving in their heart.

What they did was way beyond, everybody was tense because they were fearful of what could have happened and what made the difference is they manifested wisdom and that they pursued peace and righteousness came. Should the young man be punished? Absolutely.

Should he get the death penalty in my estimation? Without a doubt. But that's why you have law and that's why you have government. And the greatest thing that they could do was to pursue peace and forever South Carolinians will be thankful for the people of that church as they sought wisdom from above. Father, we thank you that you are shaping us to become wise people. Help us, Lord.

Oh, Lord, we need this today. Help our students to learn and become wise people. Give them a heart and a pursuit for wisdom. 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.