Good morning. You'd like to open
your Bibles with me to James, the third chapter of James. Let's let's go. to the Lord together
in prayer and ask his blessings on our time together. Our merciful
Heavenly Father, we come before thy holy presence
thanking you that we have thy dear son, the Lord Jesus Christ,
for all our acceptance before thee. We pray that you would
be pleased to exalt him among us this morning, that your word
would be alive and powerful, and Lord, that you would speak
to our hearts, that you would cause us to find our hope in
Christ. We thank you, Lord, for the fellowship
of the saints and for the encouragement that you give one to the other. And Lord, we thank you for the
the hymns of praise that we're able to join our hearts together
and lifting to you in worship. And Lord, we pray that our worship
would be done this day in the power of your spirit. We pray
that you would give us the grace to worship you from the heart,
that it would not be feigned or or pretended, Lord, that that
it would be a work that you do, causing us to bow in thy presence
and to worship you in truth. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. We've been looking in the book
of Proverbs, and it's impossible to read Proverbs without
being impressed with the subject of wisdom. Wisdom. The wisdom of God is the truth
of God. The wisdom of God is the word
of God. Wisdom as in contrast to the
foolishness of man. Wisdom as in contrast to the
lies of man-made religion and the lies of this world. It's the hope that the child
of God has in believing the word of God. And not just being blessed
by his written word, but being pointed by the written word to
the living word. For Christ Jesus, the Lord himself,
is our wisdom. God has made him to be that for
us. And in James chapter 3, the Lord
speaks of that wisdom that is from above. and he contrasted
it to the wisdom of this world. Notice with me, if you will,
we begin reading in verse 13. Who is a wise man and endued
with knowledge among you? Let him show out of good conversation
his works with meekness of wisdom. The wise are called on by God
to demonstrate the reality of their wisdom in their conversation. And this is not just speaking
of the way that we talk, but it's the way that we walk. Our
Lord, speaking to the Pharisees, he said, He said, John, speaking
of John the Baptist came, neither eating meat nor drinking wine
and you said that he had the devil. And now the son of man
comes eating and drinking and you say that he is a gluttonous
man and a wine beaver and a friend of publicans and sinners. But I say unto you, that wisdom
shall be justified by her children. You see, the world hasn't changed. The accusations that the unbeliever
makes against Christ, against the gospel, against the people
of God is still the same as it was 2,000 years ago. Either they
will accuse us of having a devilish doctrine, This is not of God,
this is not consistent with what we believe, or they will accuse
us of being lawless and licentious libertines. They will accuse
us of having a life that, and the reason they come to that
conclusion is because they say, well, if you're not under the
law, then you've got no, you've got no, no direction. You've got nothing to motivate
you or to monitor you to live your life right. And so they
will say, well, they're gluttonous men or they are winebibbers or
they are of the devil. You see that the accusations
are the same, aren't they? And our Lord said, no, Wisdom
will be justified by her children. Now, who are the children of
wisdom? You are, I am, we are, the church is. And what our Lord
was saying to those Pharisees, he said, the accusations you're
making against the children of God are not true. They're not
true. And you'll see, you just listen
to what they say and compare it to the word of God and you
will find out that what they believe is true. And yes, even
watch the way they live. Their life is not licentious.
Their life is not some sort of unlimited libertine life where
they just indulge themselves in fleshly pleasures. That's
not true. They're not lawless people. Wisdom, the wisdom of
God, the truth of the gospel, the Lord Jesus Christ, the word
of God will be justified by her children. That's exactly what
our Lord's saying here in James chapter three. Let's read this
verse again. Who's a wise man and dude with
knowledge among you? Let him show out of a good conversation
his works. wisdom. Turn with me over just
a page or so to the second chapter of 1 Peter. Jeff read this in
the study this morning with the men. Look at verse 11. 1 Peter 2, verse 11, Dearly beloved,
I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, your You don't belong
to this world. You belong to Christ. You're the pilgrims of the faith,
walking in a strange land. I know you get distracted. I
know you stumble and fall, but this is not the pattern of your
life. The pattern of your life is that you follow Christ. Liquiti
goes on to say, dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and
pilgrim, abstain from fleshly lust, which war against the soul. Having your conversation honest
among the Gentiles, that whereas they speak evil against you as
evil doers, they may by your good works, which they shall
behold, glorify God in the day of visitation. Now that doesn't
mean that every believer is going to look at your life and glorify
God. That means that those who are the elect of God are going
to see that the accusations that are made against Christ and against
his church of either being devilish or being licentious are just
simply not true. And that the Lord's going to
convince them of that and bring them also in the day of their
visitation The day when the Spirit of God visits them and makes
them willing in the day of His power to see that the accusations
that are made against Christ, against the wisdom of God, against
the gospel, are not true. They're just not true. The wisdom that is from above. Look, go back with me to our
text in James chapter 3. Who is a wise man? Who is it
that knows Christ, that believes the gospel of God's free grace,
that knows that left to themselves they're nothing but sin, but
that they have a Savior who has satisfied all the demands of
God's justice stands as their righteousness before God and
they look to him and they follow after him. Verse 14, but, but in contrast
to this conversation that comes from wisdom and it comes from
God, you see, it's God that works in you, causing you to will and
to do after his good pleasure. And when your wisdom and your
life is not consistent with what you believe, you have the spirit
of God to bring you under the conviction of his word and of
his spirit and bring you again and again and again back to Christ,
don't you? Look what he says. But if you have bitter envying
and strife in your hearts, glory not and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from
above, but is earthly, sensual and devilish. So now the Lord's
going to contrast the wisdom that is from above, the wisdom
that comes from God. Every good and perfect gift comes
from our Father above. with whom there is no variableness. There's no inconsistency. He
doesn't change. He's not one way one day and
another way another day. Neither is there any shadow of
turning. He doesn't take his eyes off his children. He's always
there. So he's going to talk to us now
about this wisdom that comes from God. It's not like the worldly
wisdom. It's not devilish wisdom. It's not sensual wisdom. For where envying and strife
is, there is confusion and every evil work. You've seen that,
haven't you? You've tasted enough of that
in your own life, in your own experience to know that this
is exactly true. Where there's vain glory, there's
contention. Somebody doesn't feel like they've
gotten the attention that they deserve, or they feel like they've
gotten the bad end of the stick, they're going to jump to their
own defense, and there's going to be contention. And that's
what the Lord's saying. He said this wisdom that comes
of man, that comes of the world. It produces nothing but strife
and confusion and every evil work. And the child of God right
now is saying, Lord, I've seen enough of that in my own life.
I don't want any part of that. Lord, forgive me. Lord, save
me. Save me from myself. Save me
from the vain glory of my own pride. You know, I mentioned
to you all the other day, I don't know if it was Wednesday or Sunday,
that a real good simple definition for sin is the middle letter
in the word sin, and it's also the middle letter in the word
pride. You know, that letter doesn't exist in the word grace.
It doesn't exist. There's no I in grace. We glory
in ourselves and we create strife and envy and God is saying to
us, this is not consistent with the wisdom that is from above.
This is not who you are. This is not who you are. It's devilish. Don't justify
it. Don't pretend that it doesn't
exist. Don't pretend that you're not guilty. Admit it for what
it is. That's what he's saying. He's
saying no. Look, look. Lie not again. You see that in
verse 14. Lie not against the truth. Lord, you're right. I'm wrong. Lord, I can be so
full of I. I can be so full of self. I can
be so full of envy and strife and contention and evil works. Lord, save me from myself. Save me from my sin. This wisdom
is not from above. It's not from God. It's from
the devil. That's what the Lord's saying. It's clear. And God's
people say, amen. I've got no justification, no
defense. But the wisdom that is from above, you see that in verse 17? This
is what the book of Proverbs is speaking of. How many times
the word wisdom is in the book of Proverbs? I don't know, hundreds
of times. What is wisdom? It's the gift
of God. It's what comes from above. It's from God and it reveals
the glory of God. It's by the grace of God. And
it stands in contrast to the things of this world. And the
Lord's telling us the wisdom that is from above is first pure.
Remember in Philippians chapter three, where the Lord says, whatsoever
things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things
are of good report, if there be any virtue in them, think
on these things. Who is the one, this word, this
word pure means to be chaste. It means to be clean. It means
to be pure from carnality, faultless, immaculate, holy. That's what
this word means. And we have that before God. in the Lord Jesus Christ. For
He is the one that's immaculate. He's the one who's holy. He's
the one who's pure. And we're looking to and following
after Him for all our righteousness before God. Does that mean that
we just, you know, if my If my new man is perfect before God,
then it doesn't matter how my old man lives. No, you know that's
not true. Matter of fact, turn with me
to 1 John 3. We quote from this a lot, but
turn with me just over a few pages to 1 John 3. Verse 1. Behold, what manner of love the
Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the
sons of God. Here's where it all begins. It's the first cause
of our salvation. I have loved you with an everlasting
love. It's the love of Christ that
constraineth us. It's the goodness of God that
leadeth to repentance. It's the first cause of our salvation. You say, well, why would God
choose some and not others? Because he loved Jacob and he
saw he hated. He chose to put his love on a
particular people. He doesn't love everybody. But it's the love of God that
starts everything. Election is from the love of
God. Redemption is from the love of God. Regeneration is from
the love of God. Sanctification is from the love
of God. It all flows from that pure fountain
of life, the love of God. And if anything will constrain
us, it'll be God's love. Amen. It'll be the love of God. And so our Lord begins by saying,
behold, oh, look at this. That word behold means look.
Look, don't be distracted. This is a glorious truth. Behold what manner of love the
Father bestowed upon us that we of all people. Lord, when
I look at my own heart, I think, why would you love me? We should
be called the sons of God. Therefore the world knoweth us
not because it knew him not. They don't understand. They can
make the false accusations against us. They can say what the Pharisee
said. Well, you said of John, who neither
ate nor drank, that he had a devil. Or you can say of me, who come
eating and drinking, that I'm a gluttonous and a wine-bibber
and a friend of publicans and sinners. But the accusations
you make are not true. Wisdom, the wisdom of God, will
be justified by her children. Beloved, verse two, now we are
the sons of God. We are the sons of God. By the
grace of God, we are the sons of God, but it doth not yet appear
what we shall be. Oh, what we long to be, we're
not now. One of the glorious truths of
the gospel is that when we're translated from this world into
our Lord's glorious presence, We're going to leave everything
of this world behind, all sin, all flesh, everything. But we
know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him for we shall
see him as he is. What a glorious hope. You mean
I'm going to be rid of this envy and strife and contention and
sin and all the devilish things that are of the flesh and of
this world. I'm going to be rid of that one day? Completely? Yep. Yep. And the believer's
heart longs for that experience. We long for that experience because
this is the plague of our pilgrimage here in this world. And every
man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself even as he
is pure." You see, this is the motivation, isn't it? This is the thing that causes
us to say, Lord, save me from myself. Give me Christ. Give
me that wisdom that is from above, that wisdom that is pure. sinless,
perfect in Christ. Philippians chapter four, finally,
brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest,
whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever
things are of good report, think on these things. Think on these
things in the peace of God, which path of understanding will keep
your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus. Go back with me to James
chapter three, this wisdom that is from above. It's from above brethren. It's
not of you. It's not of me. It's not a matter
of, okay, you know, you, we just need to, we just need to try
harder. We need to work harder. We need to, you know, turn over
a new leaf and be more committed and more dedicated. No, Lord,
if I'm gonna have this wisdom, you're gonna have to give it
to me. It comes from above. It's first pure and then it's
peaceable. Peaceable. How can we think about peace
without considering the peace that we have with God through
our Lord Jesus Christ? reconciled, no longer at enmity
with God. The false prophets will say,
peace, peace. They will say, well, you can
have peace with God if you will do this or do that. Any Jesus, and I say that name
with a small J, that requires anything from anybody in order
for him to accomplish his will and purpose is not God. It's not God. What does the free
will religion say? What does works religion say?
Well, you know, if you'll do this, then God will reward you
with that. Oh no, Lord, this wisdom that is from above has
got to come from you as a free gift of grace. and it's first
pure and then it's peaceable. Lord, I need to have peace with
God. If I'm gonna be reconciled to
God, it's going to be through the shed blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ alone. My only hope of reconciliation. Turn back with me to the book
of Colossians chapter one. Colossians chapter one. Verse 19, for it pleased the
Father that in him, in Christ Jesus, should all fullness dwell. the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Everything that God requires
and everything that we need comes from above, comes in the person
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And having made peace through
the blood of his cross by him to reconcile all things unto
himself, for by him I say whether they be things in earth or things
in heaven, and you, that were sometime alienated and enemies
in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled. You were enemies with God because
you were looking to your works as the hope of your salvation,
and God says your works are filthy rags. And now you've come to
understand that. You've come to believe that.
You've come to understand that The wisdom that is from you and
from this world and from your sin is devilish. It's full of
strife and contention, and the only way to have peace with God
is through the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse
22, who in the body of his flesh through death presents you to
God, holy, unblameable, and unreprovable. And don't miss those last three
words, in his sight. Oh, we look at ourselves, brethren,
we don't see ourselves as holy. We don't see ourselves as unreprovable
or unblameable. There's a lot of things to blame,
isn't there? And we blame ourselves. We hold ourselves suspect and
we take sides with God against ourselves. We say, Lord, truth,
truth, I am contentious and selfish and proud. Lord, give me that
wisdom that is from above, that is first pure, perfect, holy. Give me that hope in Christ that
would cause me to purify myself. to follow after Christ and not
be guilty of the accusations that the unbeliever makes against
the gospel and against the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. This
peace, this wisdom that is from above is the opposite of envy
and strife. Lord, how easily offended I can
be. How quick I can jump to my own
defense. Or that wisdom is not from God. It's not from above. It's contentious. It's sinful. It's devilish. It's
fleshly. And the unbeliever will justify
that sort of thing. They will say, well, I have a
right to be angry or to treat you the way I did. And the believer
just grieves over how how their fleshly wisdom is not from above. See the difference? Where do
you stand? Where do you stand? When the Lord gives the qualifications
of an elder or pastor and these are not qualifications that every
child of God does not strive for. Every child of God strives
for these things. It's not that there's an elite
group of men that have qualified themselves to be pastors. No,
it's that they've grown in grace to where the scripture says if
he's a brawler, if he likes a fight, he's looking to pick a fight
and he's easily offended and engages in conflict all the time,
he's not qualified. A child of God said, Lord, I
don't want to be a brawler. I don't want to be that kind
of contentious. That's devilish. That wisdom is not from God.
It's not from above. It's really just an attempt on
our part to control our circumstances, isn't it? That's what anger is.
We feel like we're losing control and we become full of strife
and contention and anger because we're trying to take control
of our circumstances. That's just unbelief, isn't it?
You're not in control. never in control. God's in control. The wisdom that is from above
is first pure, then peaceable. Peaceable. Blessed are the peacemakers for
they shall be called the children of God. Lord, I want to be a
peacemaker. Don't you? Don't you? Somebody come start talking to
you about somebody else. You know, that's not really in
my business. I don't need to be involved in that conversation. That's not going to tend to peace.
That's just going to create conflict and division. God hates it. I hate it. You hate it. If you're a child of God, you
hate it. Look back with me, tar text.
The wisdom that is from above is first pure. Let me state this
again. I'm not standing here telling
you, you know, you all need to do better, you need to work harder,
you need to try harder. We're exposing ourselves for
what we are by nature. Lie not against yourself. Lie
not against the truth. Admit it for what it is and cry
out to God for his grace and his mercy in Christ to give you
that wisdom that is from above. Is that clear? Isn't that the
walk of faith that we're on? It's gentle. You see that? It's mild-mannered. It's moderate. It's not given
to extremes. It's not, you know, it doesn't
have extreme emotional responses one way or the other. Let your
moderation be known unto all men. Why? Because the Lord is
at hand. We've all done it. We've all
had knee-jerk reactions or over-emotional responses to a situation. And
what the Lord's saying is, lie not against the truth. That's
not right. That's not from God. That's not from God. The wisdom
that is from above is gentle. And God gives you his wisdom
and he gives you Christ and all that's in Christ. There's a gentle
spirit that comes with that wisdom. And every child of God says,
that's what I want to be. I want to be a gentle, I want
to be a moderate person. I don't want to be given over
to my emotions and to the extremes. The Lord Jesus Christ was certainly
that way. The scriptures liken him to a
mother with a newborn babe. What more gentle experience can
we see in this life and in this world than a mother with an infant
child? How gentle she is with that child. And then he likens himself to
the to the good shepherd who cares for the sheep and for the
little lambs and carries them in his bosom. How gentle he is. Aren't you glad the Lord's gentle
to you? Aren't you glad he's not a brawler?
Aren't you glad he's not angry? He remembers that we're made
of dust. He doesn't beat his sheep. He doesn't threaten them. He doesn't have to raise his
voice. He doesn't have to do that. No. We're going to look at this
in the next hour about when God speaks to his people. But he doesn't have to try to
desperately get control of things like we do. He is in control. And when he's ready to make his
people willing, he's gonna make them willing. We cannot change one another's
hearts. We cannot even change our own hearts, can we? You know, that's what he's in
the business of doing. I hope that didn't sound, but that's
what God does. He changes hearts. And the child of God said, Lord,
change my heart. Lord, change my heart. Give me
a new heart. He's God. He doesn't have to
threaten. He doesn't have to holler. He
doesn't have to raise his voice in the streets. I mean, I'm all for passionate
preaching. I think it ought to come from
the heart. The old timey hellfire and brimstone hollering kind
of preaching, I've never been a big fan of it. It just seems like it just, the
Lord speaks gently to us. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people. Speak ye comfortably to them.
Speak to their hearts. Don't browbeat them. Don't abuse
the sheep. That's not my spirit. That's
not the wisdom that comes from above. The wisdom that comes
from above is gentle. And what an effect that gentle
spirit has. Aren't you glad the Lord was
gentle to Peter? Tell Peter that I have risen. And then when the Lord speaks
to Peter there on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, he says
to him, Peter, do you love me? Feed my sheep. Peter, now you
know from your own fall what it is to be broken and wounded
over sin and the people that you're going to be preaching
the gospel to are the same way as you. Don't be gentle to the
sheep. Feed my sheep, feed my sheep,
feed my sheep. Laurel was gentle to David, wasn't
he, when he sent Nathan to David. Nathan spoke to David that parable
about a man who had a bunch of sheep and a visitor came to visit
him and he took his neighbor's one ewe lamb and slew it. And
David was enraged. And I used to think that Nathan,
with fire and brimstone, put his finger in David's chest and
said, David, thou art the man. I don't believe that. I don't
believe that. I believe Nathan gave that parable
to David with a broken heart. And Nathan, after giving the
parable, said to David, David, don't you see, David, you're
the man? David, thou art the man. And
David said, oh, I've sinned? And Nathan said, yes, you have,
and God has put away your sin. He's already put it away. What
gentleness, what love, what grace. The Lord dealt with that woman
at the well. He was gentle with her, wasn't he? Oh, if you knew
who it is that saith unto thee, give me to drink, you would ask
of him and he would give it to you. He would give it to you
liberally. He'd give you living water. Oh, come meet a man that told
me everything I ever did. She went up there ashamed. Ashamed
to meet with the other women in the early of the morning.
She'd been married Five men, the man she lived with wasn't
her husband. And most of the people in town
just, you know, you can imagine how they would have treated such
a person. Our Lord didn't, I must needs
go through Samaria. There's a poor, broken, sinful
woman that's going to be at the well in the middle of the day.
And I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to minister to her
the grace of God. I'm going to reveal myself to
her, and I'm going to do it so gently that she's going to go
back into Sychar and say, oh, come meet a man who told me everything
I ever did. Our Lord's gentle, and God's
people won't. You see, we want to be like Christ,
don't we? We just want to be like him.
If we're looking to him and following after him, we want to be like
him. That woman caught in adultery
in the very act, and those Pharisees were wanting to stone her. Our Lord was so gentle with her.
He was so gentle. Let him without sin pick up the
first stone. Where art thou accusers? Lord,
there are none. Neither do I accuse thee. Go
and sin no more. This is the wisdom that is from
above. Man, this is God's wisdom. This
is the wisdom that's found in Christ. Look at, we don't have
time to spend as much time as I want. Maybe we'll just come
back to this. Look at the next one, gentle. And the next one,
easy to be entreated. It doesn't object to correction. And that's especially true in
preaching. I've been doing this for many,
many years and I've had many people get offended at me because
I said something that was true about them and they didn't want
to admit it. They weren't easy to be entreated
and they got mad at me because of something God said. I get
it. But those who have the wisdom
that's from above, when God says something that's true, and I
don't care how deep it cuts or how close to the bullseye it
is, they are easily entreated. Truth, Lord. That's me. Oh, Lord,
save me. They're not quick to defend themselves.
They don't make excuses. They don't justify themselves.
They bow. This is the wisdom that is from
above, easily entreated. Amen? Amen. All right, let's
take a break. Thank you.