All right, James chapter three. Titled the lesson this morning,
who is a wise person? A wise person is a man or a woman
whose actions show that they have knowledge. Wisdom is the
right use of knowledge. Knowledge is knowing the facts.
Wisdom is the right use of that. You know, knowledge is knowing
how hot the stovetop can get. Wisdom is not resting your hand
on it. Knowledge is knowing that Christ is the savior of sinners.
Wisdom is to live our life coming to Christ and trusting him and
following him. The true wisdom is seen in our
actions, both what we say and what we do. And that's the subject
of these verses this morning. James chapter three, beginning
in verse eight. But the tongue can no man tame. It's an unruly
evil, full of deadly poison. Therewith, bless we God, even
the Father, and therewith curse we men, which are made after
the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceedeth
blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought
not so to be. Now the tongue can't be tamed
by anybody. We looked at this last week.
You know, men can tame wild animals. But no man can tame the tongue.
We can't tame our tongue. The problem is not the tongue.
The problem is the heart it's connected to. We can't tame the
tongue because we can't change our sinful heart out of the abundance
of the heart, the mouth speaking. We can't stop that nature of
sin. And that's why we can't stop our tongue from spreading
evil, the evil that's in our heart. But believers also use
that very same tongue to bless God. to worship God, to praise
Him. And believers, now they do use
that tongue to bless the Lord, but they also can get so full
of themselves that we become critical of others, judgmental
of others. We begin to think that we're
more religious than our brethren, we're better Christians than
them. So we use that same tongue to curse them. And it's not to
curse them or pronounce a curse on them, it's to be critical
of them, to be critical of other believers. Those are the people
who've been made after the similitude of God. Those are believers who've
been born again with the nature of Christ. And we use our tongue
to curse them, to be critical of them? That same tongue that
curses our brethren, is critical of them, blesses God? James says,
that ought not so to be. He doesn't say it's not. It happens,
doesn't it? But he said, it ought not be.
Think of Michael, the archangel. The archangel. He uses his tongue
to praise the Lord. He's one of those angels that
cry, holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty. And he dared not use
that same tongue to bring a railing accusation against the devil.
So a believer will say those evil things, but it ought not
be. That critical attitude is in our heart, but it ought not
be. And those critical words ought not be on the tongue. Have
you ever heard a child say something, you know, the four letter word
or something, you know, and you say, you kiss your mother with
that mouth. That's what James is saying.
You use that tongue, that same mouth to praise the Lord. That
study in contrast ought not be in a believer. And he gives us
two illustrations of that. The first one in verse 11 is
a fountain. Doth the fountain send forth at the same place,
sweet water and bitter Now fountains, one or the other, it's either
saltwater or freshwater. It's either sweet water or bitter
water. Both do not come from the same fountain. Two different
kinds of water can't come from the same fountain because of
the source of the water, the nature of the fountain. So both
blessing and cursing ought not come from the same person who
believes Christ. The second example he uses is
a fruit tree, fig tree, verse 12. Can the fig tree, my brethren,
bear olive berries? Either a vine, figs? So can no
fountain. Both yield salt water and fresh. You know, the fig tree is going
to bear figs. It's never going to bear olives.
It's impossible for the fig tree to bear olives because of the
nature of the tree. It can only produce after it's
kind. Now the problem a believer has is this. We do have two opposite
natures in us. We don't just have one. We've
got two opposite natures in us. We've got a sin nature that can
only produce bitter water. They can only produce bitter
fruit, deadly fruit. But the believer has also been
given a holy nature in the new birth and that nature can only
produce sweet water. It can only produce sweet fruit,
the fruit of the spirit. It's impossible for it to produce
any other kind. So the believer both can and
does produce. both salt water and fresh water,
sweet water and bitter water from the same mouth. Because
that one mouth is tied to two different natures, a sin nature
and a holy nature. And when we curse others and
we are critical of them, you know what we're doing? We're
just spewing forth bitter water that comes from our sin nature.
And when we worship God and we praise God, we're sending out
sweet water. That's the mouth speaking out
of the abundance of the new heart. So the wise man, the wise woman
lives following Christ and controlling that tongue. Now we're not, we
won't do it perfectly. We can never do anything perfectly
in this body of sin, but you'll recognize the general tenor of
their life is to follow Christ. The general tenor of their life
is to demonstrate wisdom by talking about the things of Christ. Wisdom
is living like you really do believe what you say you believe.
That's wisdom. Wisdom is demonstrating that
what you say you believe affects your everyday life. In verse
13, James tells us, now here's how wisdom is put on display.
Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? Let
him show out of a good conversation his words with meekness of wisdom. Now, who among you is wise? Well,
all of us would like to think that's us. All of us would like
to think, I'm a wise man. I'm a wise woman. I've been around
long enough to have learned something. All right, that's fine if you
claim to have that kind of wisdom. Well, if somebody claims to have
that wisdom, James says, let him show it by his conversation.
Let him show it by his conduct. Wisdom is justified over children.
What that means is wisdom is justified over actions, the actions
that wisdom produces. Now this must be important, our
conversation, our conduct. The word conversation is used
18 times in the New Testament. So it must be important. And
a person is wise if they conduct themselves with meekness. The
first evidence of wisdom is what James calls here the meekness
of wisdom. Matthew Henry said that meekness
is a good friend to wisdom, good friend. You always find good
friends together. Wherever you find wisdom, I promise
you, you're going to find his friend, meekness. And the word
means mildness or humility. Meekness means to have a low
opinion of self. Now, let me ask you, what is
more wise than to have a low opinion of self and a high opinion
of God? That's wisdom. That's the beginning
of wisdom. And so a wise person will conduct
himself with meekness, imitating our Savior, who was a meek man,
meek and lowly. A wise person, a truly wise person,
does not always have to show off his knowledge and be recognized,
demand to be recognized as the best, most wise person in the
room. A meek person is a wise person who will not always demand
his way or his rights. And a meek person knows this.
Now this is wisdom, brethren. A meek person knows whatever
God does with me is right. I have such a low opinion of
myself. I don't deserve any mercies from God. A meek person is not
going to be envious when somebody else is blessed instead of them.
Because a truly meek person is not going to think, well, that
should be me. No. A meek person will know that
shouldn't be me. It should be them. That's a meek
person. They have a low opinion of themselves.
And they'll want others to be blessed instead of them. They'll
be glad to see others are blessed because they're happy. And the
best example I can think of is parents. Parents, unless something's
wrong with them, are not jealous when their children are blessed.
Not at all. We want our children to be blessed
because we love them. So we're not gonna be jealous
of them. So James here gives us a description. Now, would
you be a wise person? James gives us a description
here of what a wise person does not look like. And then he gives
us a description of what the wise person does look like. First,
verse 14, here's what a wise man or woman does not look like.
Verse 14, he says, but if we have better envying and strife
in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. This
wisdom descendeth not from above, but it's earthly, it's sensual,
it's natural, it's devilish. For where envying and strife
is, there's confusion in every evil work. Now, every religious
person is not wise. You know, someone, just because
they're merely religious, that doesn't make them wise. Merely
knowing religious truths. I'm not just talking now about
false religion. I'm talking about us right here.
Knowing religious truths, the truth of the scripture. Knowing
those things are so doesn't make a person wise. Here's what James
is saying, verse 14. If you say that God's given you
this religious wisdom and you're very public about saying, I got
it, then show it. Let the rubber meet the road.
Where the rubber meets the road, you show it. Here you are, you
say you got all this wisdom. You never miss a service. You
make sure everybody sees you. You always know when somebody's
wrong on a doctrinal point. You pick it up, you recognize
it. You read the scriptures publicly. You pray publicly. You teach
and preach publicly. Everybody, you think this, everybody
should know I got some wisdom. Look at all the responsibility
I have. Look at me, how I am in public. But, Then you go home and you
speak to your wife or your husband so horribly. You're just angry
with them all the time. You make them walk on eggshells
around you all the time. Because of your actions, because
of your harsh tongue, there's never any peace in your home.
Brother, let me tell you something. If that's you, you don't have
wisdom. And don't be glorying in your religion and your wisdom.
And don't lie and say you got something that God didn't give
you. That's not wisdom. Is that so too harsh to say a
man's a liar? What does the word God say? A man who says he loves God and
hates his brother is a liar. So if I say I've got wisdom,
but I cause turmoil constantly in my home, I don't have any
wisdom. So don't lie and say you've got
wisdom from above. Your so-called wisdom is not
from above. It's from Satan. That's what
James says here. It's devilish. It's from Satan. True wisdom always builds peace. True wisdom always builds a solid
foundation. Somebody's not walking on eggshells
around you. True wisdom builds a solid foundation. And where
bitterness and strife are in the heart, there's always going
to be confusion. There's always going to be tumult.
Strife and bitterness can't produce peace, can't produce quietness.
It's always going to produce a tumult. Now that applies to
how we conduct ourselves in the home. That applies to how we
treat people at work. Something's wrong with somebody
who has to yell and scream and intimidate people to get them
to do something at work. Something's wrong with that,
very wrong with that. Same thing applies to how you
treat people in public. If the waitress hates to see
you coming, she just doesn't want to wait on you. She knows
you're going to be a pain in her day. Something's wrong. She ought to be happy to wait
on us. That's wisdom. If everything in our life is
turmoil, if every relationship we have is just tumult and difficulty,
It's obvious. We don't have wisdom. We don't
have the wisdom to conduct our life, to manage our life, to
avoid these things. Eventually, I know there's times
you're going to have difficult relationships with people and
things. I understand that. But if it's all the time, eventually
we got to say the problem is me, not everybody else. Isn't
that so? The word strife that James uses
here, it means electioneering. People that are running for office,
they're causing a division. Vote for me instead of this guy.
I'm good, this guy's bad. I'm wise, this guy's stupid.
Somebody who's electioneering is on purpose causing a division. They're causing factions. And
when we do that in the church, we're trying to get a place for
me instead of getting all the attention on Christ. That man's
a fool. That woman's a fool if that's
their goal. And the same thing applies in
the home. If we're trying to, it breaks my heart. I see parents do this. They compete
with one another for the affection of their children. They compete
with one another for who's going to have the say in the direction
of the home. Brethren, that's not wise. That's not wise. That's
causing factions in the home instead of peace in the home,
unity in the home. A wise man, a wise woman don't
look like that. But second here, James gives
us, here's what a wise man or woman does look like, verse 17. But the wisdom that's from above
is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated,
full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness
is sown in peace of them that make peace. Boy, just reading
those two verses, doesn't that sound sweet? I want that. That's what I want. And when
you read these verses, first thing you have to see is a description
of Christ our Savior. This is a description of Christ
who is wisdom. His name is wisdom. He is from
above. He is God come down in human
flesh. He's the God man. And in him,
we see God's wisdom. God can save sinners, still be
holy, still be just. in the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ, the God-man who satisfies both God and men. Then Christ
is pure. He's pure God, and he's pure
man. He's as much God as if he were
not man, and as much man as if he were not God. Christ is pure. He's sinless. He's spotless.
He's pure righteousness, pure holiness. And that's what makes
him the suitable sacrifice for sin, because he had no sin of
his own. He can be made sin for his people,
since he had no sin of his own. His pure, sinless blood makes
him a suitable sacrifice. His blood can cleanse. His blood
can atone. He's pure. And Christ is peaceable. He made peace with God through
the blood of his cross. It's man who declared war on
God. It's man who started this war. Christ came putting into
it by making peace between God and men. And Christ is gentle. The word means mild and patient. Isn't he mild? Now he's harsh. He's mild with the sinner. He's
harsh to the self-righteous. But he's mild with his people.
He's so patient with sinners. He's so patient with his erring
children. The Lord Jesus was so mild that sinners Publicans
and sinners, harlots, were comfortable in his presence. And the same
thing's true today. Sinners are comfortable where
Christ is preached. They're comfortable around him.
They don't feel like they're being judged by him, like they
do when they're with the self-righteous, with the scribes and the Pharisees.
And God forbid if they'd be uncomfortable with us because we've got that
critical attitude. Sometimes that could be true. I mean, I
wish I could say that wasn't so, but it is. But never with
Christ. Never where he's preached. Sinners
are comfortable in his presence because he's so gentle. And he's
easy to be entreated. I love this one. He's easy to
be entreated. He's easily persuaded. Put him
to the test. I challenge you. Put him to the
test. Go beg him for mercy. I promise
you He'll show up. He's easy to be entreated. He's
ready to show mercy. He's more ready to show mercy
than I am to beg for it. He's ready, easily entreated.
He's not going to make you work for it. Just ask Him for it.
Just beg Him for it. He's easily entreated. He'll
give it. He'll give mercy because He's full of mercy. Christ is
the fountain of mercy. All mercy comes from Him. God
can be merciful to sinners like you and me. because of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Because he stood as the substitute
for his people. He took the punishment his people
deserved. So in justice, God can be merciful
to his people. All mercy comes from Christ.
And he's full of good fruits. He's full of all the fruits of
the Spirit. He's full of love, joy, peace,
and long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, kindness, meekness,
temperance. He's full of those things. Christ
doesn't just have those things. He is those things. He is love.
He is joy. He is peace. He is goodness.
He is meekness. He is temperance. That's why
He's full of them, because He is those things. Christ is all
those fruits personified. And Christ is without partiality. That word has two meanings. Number
one, it means wrangling, bargaining. Janet likes to go to these shops,
you know, consignment shops and junk shops. She can bargain with
people. She just loves it. But you don't come to God that
way, with this wrangling, with this bargaining. No, He'll accept
His people freely, without making them pay a thing for it. He's
free. And He doesn't discriminate.
He will save any sinner, without exception. Any sinner who needs
Him, without partiality. Christ is without hypocrisy.
It means He's unfamed. He really is who He says He is.
He really is the Savior of sinners. He said, come unto Me and be
saved freely. Come to Me. And He means it. He's without hypocrisy. He's
not going to do a switch on you, you know, a bait and switch.
You come to Him. He's without hypocrisy. He'll
save you without charge. And it's Christ who sows the
fruit of this righteousness in His people. He has made unto
us wisdom, and because He's made unto us wisdom, this is the wise
man. This is in the heart of the wise man and woman. Now,
that's perfect in Christ. That's not going to be perfect
in us, but you'll recognize these things in God's people, because
their wisdom is from above. You have wisdom, if you're a
wise man, a wise woman, that came to you from above when you
were born again in the new birth. They didn't come to you naturally.
They came to you in the new birth. And wisdom is pure. Believers
are pure. God's people are sinless in Christ. And they love pure grace, pure
mercy, pure Christ. They love Christ alone, a pure
gospel. And wisdom is peaceable. God's
people are peaceable people. They enjoy peace with God. They
don't strive with one another. They strive to have peace with
one another. And why wouldn't we? Why wouldn't
we have peace with one another? We're part of the same family.
We've got the same nature given in the new birth. We ought to
be at peace with one another. And wisdom is gentle. A believer
has got a mild, patient attitude and spirit. We're not going to
hold our brethren's feet to the fire and make them feel judged
by us. But we're going to be patient
and wait for God to teach us and them. Don't think, oh,
I'm just going to be patient and wait until God teaches them.
We've all got enough to learn and work by ourselves. Wait for
God to teach both us and them. Be patient. You know, we can
be and must be bending in defending the truth. Unbending. But in
doing that and having that spine of steel just unbending, at the
same time, you can be gentle and patient with the unbeliever.
And we ought to be. We ought to be. Because we understand
them. Because we've been there, right
where they're at. We're just, as you were saying,
we're born just like them. We ought to be patient with them,
shouldn't we? We ought to be able to understand them. And wisdom is easily entreated. A wise man, a wise woman, is
easily persuaded. They're ready to accept somebody's
explanation of what happened. They're ready to believe their
explanation of something happened and think, you know, that's not
as bad as I thought. I thought they were doing this
to really hurt me. And they weren't. They explained
it. They apologized. A wise person is easily entreated,
and it's easy. They forgive easily. Have you
ever had to go ask forgiveness from somebody? You think, I've
got to go tell them I'm sorry. And you dread it. Because you
know what they're going to say, yeah, I forgive you. But boy,
they're still just sticking that knife in you. Or have you ever
had to go ask forgiveness for somebody, and you know what they're
going to say before you get there? I forgive you. It's all forgiven. It's all forgotten. That's wisdom. That's wisdom. Let's conduct
ourselves in prayer that God will enable us to conduct ourselves
in wisdom. Wisdom is full of mercy, full
of mercy. A wise person will be merciful
to others. Yeah, they don't deserve it,
but four people don't deserve it, isn't it? They're merciful
to others because I consider God's mercy to me. What good
is it going to do me to be unmerciful anyway? What good is it gonna
be for me to try to punish them, make them miserable so I can
feel better? That's not wisdom. No, wisdom is full of mercy. And wisdom is full of good fruits.
Now, every believer, without exception, every believer has
all of the fruits of the Spirit, to one degree or another. Now,
these things are in different degrees, but every believer has
them to one degree or another. Believers genuinely, love Christ. That's not fake. They love him. They had genuine joy in hearing
their sin is forgiven under his blood. Believers are long suffering. They're patient because God's
been so long suffering with them. They're gentle with others, gentle
with the feelings of others. I don't want to throw my weight
around and get my way, not be gentle with your feelings. Believers
are gentle. They have genuine faith in Christ. I don't believe him. I don't
trust him like I wish I would. I don't believe him. I don't
trust him like he deserves to be believed and deserves to be
trusted. But God is my witness. I believe him. All of my salvation
is cast upon him. That's genuine faith. And believers
are meek. Every one of them, they're meek.
They genuinely have a low opinion of themselves. That's why they
need Christ. They know they need Christ. I
got such a low opinion of myself. True wisdom is knowing I need
Christ and running to him, running after him. And wisdom is without
partiality. Wisdom is not going to discriminate. Now certainly that's true racially,
isn't it? We're not going to discriminate against somebody
because of the color of their skin. The skin is not the problem. The heart's the problem. I don't
care what color skin you got, we all got the same heart. We're
not going to discriminate racially. And wisdom won't discriminate
in the Word of God. We're not going to say, well,
I like this part of the Word of God, but I don't like this
part. I like God's mercy, but I don't like His justice. I like
the blood, but I don't like election. No, we're not going to discriminate
against God's word. We're going to believe it all
just as God said it. Without partiality also means
wrangling. I'm not going to go to the gospel with wrangling,
trying to make a bargain with God and argue against it and
try to, no, I'm just going to accept it and believe it as God
said it without any discrimination. And then wisdom is without hypocrisy.
It's unfeigned. Unfeigned. Now, we all got a
public faith, don't we? We just all got a public faith.
So how can we say I don't have any hypocrisy? Well, you know,
the new man doesn't. Has no hypocrisy whatsoever.
I really do believe. I am totally depraved. I really
believe that. I really believe that God's electing
love is the only way salvation is possible. I believe that.
Without hypocrisy, I believe salvation is by grace alone.
It's of the Lord alone. I really do believe Christ died
and he died only for God's elect. I really believe in the irresistible
call of the Holy Spirit. I believe that with all of my
heart. That's why I never have an altar
call. Just preach the gospel. The spirit will call you to Christ.
I can't do it. Even if I did try to do it, I
wouldn't do any good. I really believe that. I really believe
that every saint will persevere to the end. Now we're going to
stumble. We're going to bumble and we're going to have bad attitudes.
But I believe they're going to persevere to the end because
I really believe salvation is a grace. It's God's calling grace,
His electing grace, His saving grace, His keeping grace. I believe
that's not just words. That's what I must have if a
sinner like me is going to be saved. And then believers, they're
wise, a wise man, wise woman is a peaceable person. They have
real peace. It's easy to get along with their
peace, their peace around them. They do things to promote peace.
They have real peace when the world is just in a wild storm
around them. There's real peace in knowing
God's in control. See, God's sovereignty is not
just something that differentiates us from the Armenian, no. I have
real peace in knowing God's in control. He's at the helm of
this thing. And they sow peace. A wise person sows peace. They do things to promote peace.
They sow it. I might not have it right now.
Somebody's doing something that may not give me peace with them
right now, but I'm gonna sow it. And I'll harvest it later. They
sow peace. As much as life in you, live
peaceably with all men. That's a wise man, a wise woman.
Now, as I was studying this, I thought, huh, I'm not near
as wise as I thought I was. I don't have much wisdom. Do
you go through this? Do you think that? I know that's
in me. I see that wisdom's in me. I
see that new nature's in me. By God's grace, I see that that's
in me. But it shames me how little I
show it. It shames me how often. I got
those two fountains in me. It shames me how often I show
that bitter water, that salt water. I don't show that sweet
water near as much as I should. You feel that way? I need wisdom. I'm not wise at all. I hope so,
because that would be an accurate picture of us. Well, I got some
words of comfort for you. And they're close by. Look back
at James chapter one. Here's an answer to that worry.
James gives it to us. Right at the head of the fountain.
James one verse five. Now we see what wisdom is, what
a wise man, what a wise woman looks like. If any of you lack
wisdom, let him ask of God. that giveth to all men liberally
and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him." Huh. If I humble myself before God
and beg Him, come to Him, trust Him, I could have some wisdom,
couldn't I? Oh, I'd hope that'd be a blessing
too.