James 3:13-17
Let’s give our attention to God’s
word, James chapter three, beginning at verse 13. And James asked
a question to begin. He says, who is wise and understanding
among you? By his good conduct, let him
show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter
jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast
and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes
down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, and demonic. For
where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder
and every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is
first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason. full of mercy
and good fruits, impartial and sincere, and a harvest of righteousness
is sown in peace by those who make peace. Amen. This is the wisdom of God for
us. As you read through this passage,
you probably have to be thinking in your head, what in the world
was going on? in the community of the saints
that James is writing to. This sounds a little bit like
Paul’s letter to the Galatians. He basically says to a portion
of the church, you’re demonic. Try pulling that off as a pastor. You think of where many churches
are today and they’re either healthy and growing or they’re
in strife and declining. And I think what James is giving
us a picture of, you’ve got two sorts of people in the church.
There are those who source their behavior from heaven. There are
those who source their characteristic traits. They source their behaviors
in the life of the church through wisdom that comes from heaven.
But on the other hand, there are those who serve in the church
in an earthly, unspiritual, And yes, James uses the word a demonic
fashion. So we wanna think through what
both sides of this coin look like. We’re gonna sort out the
two sides, if you will. This is a very small passage,
just what four or five verses, but there are probably in this
passage about 18 words that we ought to know their meaning.
Not gonna, don’t worry, go through and give you a, no, this word
means that, and in the Greek it means that. That’s really
boring and tedious and not helpful. But I do think we need to understand
there is a way to have an unhealthy church. And it’s to have what
pops up in verse 14, bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in our hearts.
If you want to have a rotten church, an unhealthy church,
a faction church, just be a people full of bitter jealousy and a
people full of selfish ambition. But if you want to have a church
that is a place of peace, and that’s what every congregation
ought to be. It ought to be an outpost of heaven. It ought to
be the precincts of Zion. It ought to be a taste of heaven.
Not going to be perfect in this life, but it ought to be a place
where wisdom from above, that kind of living sows peace. So when I think through James
question there in verse 13, who is wise and understanding among
you? Now, who is he speaking to here?
Is he talking to the whole church? You know, our Southernism, when
you read the Bible, it’s a y’all, right? When you see Y-O-U in
the Bible, it’s often you plural, or good Southernese, y’all, y’all
pick that up now from moving over this way, and we’re trying
to train Andre, our New Yorker, what the phrase y’all means.
He’s not here tonight to receive further training, but this is
really an aim at the teachers. Remember in our last study from
James, in the early part of chapter three, he said, not many of you
should become teachers. There is a stricter judgment.
Your words matter. You’ll speak more words, say
more words, give more words, and you’ll receive a stricter
judgment. So I think we carry on in verses 13 through 18, as
about to say Paul, and this is James speaking to the teachers
in the church. So, teachers in the church, who
is wise and understanding among you. Who has wisdom? Who has
the skill to see life and to pick it apart and to understand
it? Well, how do you know what the
answer to that question is? Well, it’s by his answer there,
by his good conduct. So you want to know if the teachers
in your church are demonic, unspiritual, earthly, or are they from above? Wisdom from above is that sourcing
their ministry. You can tell by their conduct,
by their good conduct, let him show his works in the meekness
of wisdom. Now, in this passage, James is
using all kinds of unique words, all kinds of unique phrases that
aren’t very often or at all used elsewhere in the New Testament. And so we could go on and on
tonight by definition, but you get the idea, uh, who should
be teachers in the church, who should be elders in the church,
who should be, uh, leading a place of peace. It’s those whose conduct
show their meekness, uh, their humility, their submission to
the wisdom and the work in the ministry of God. Um, they will
carry on a ministry that is attractive, that is, light bearing, but also
a fragrance. So many ministers today are caught
up in their platform. You look at so many ministers
today, they have their own website by their own name usually. And
then if they publish a book, they usually put their face on
it. And there’s not always something wrong with that, but They get
your Twitter followers, their Facebook followers, their Instagram
followers. They have basically a social media promotion of themselves. And it, I think, detracts from
a minister quietly pointing people to the Lord Jesus Christ, who
is wise and understanding among you. By his social media presence,
let him prove it to you. That may be the case these days.
but let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. So he
goes on in verse 14, he’s going to deal with the dirty stuff
first. But if you have bitter jealousy,
if you have selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast
and be false to the truth. And I think it was about eight
years ago, um, that I interviewed for the call here and, and, um,
was kind of snooping around the church to see what was what.
And I remember when I first got here, I had this group of people,
they came to me with their little list and they said, preacher,
we’re so glad you’re here. If you’ll get rid of these people,
we’ll have us a church. I’m not exaggerating. And there
were about 20 of you on the list and we still hadn’t gotten rid
of Bill yet. He was on one of the list. Um,
And then I had another person, they came to me and they said,
now preacher, glad you’re here. We got this list. And if you’ll
just get rid of these people, we’ll have us a church. Well,
this list and this list corresponded with each other. These people
wanted to get rid of these people and these people wanted to get
rid of these people. And then we had, um, you think it’s funny,
don’t you? Um, it was painful, right? It’s
still got the wounds. Um, but And there were other
factions. We gotta do women’s ministry
this way, men’s ministry that way. We gotta keep the building
up this way. People can’t scratch the walls and live. I mean, it
went on and on and on. So-and-so’s allowed to cook.
So-and-so’s not allowed to cook. So-and-so can sing a solo. So-and-so
can’t sing a solo. I mean, on and on it went, and
it was chaos. And if you zip down to verse
16, you see the result of bitter jealousy and selfish
ambition. For where jealousy and selfish
ambition exist, he’s summarizing, he’s taking those same two words
that were in verse 14, where they exist, there will be disorder. Boy, that’s fun, chaos, conflict,
confusion, restlessness, and then every vile practice. How about that on your church
sign out front? You know, the so-and-so church.
We have every vile practice. Boy, that’ll draw the crowd,
won’t it? We have disorder. We have chaos. We have confusion. We have restlessness. Boy, that would really draw people. Well, I think I want to go there.
I’ll need an extra dose of chaos and disorder in my life. No,
that’s not what we need, but that’s what happens when you
have a church. with people who have bitter jealousy and selfish
ambition. So back to verse 14, if you have
bitter jealousy and you have selfish ambition or party spirit
in your hearts, he says, do not boast about it. Isn’t it sort of uncanny when
you have people like this in the church, it slips out of their
mouth. I think of one of the most infamous
people in my ministry, this would go back 20 years ago to Charlotte
area, Um, I probably shouldn’t say his name to protect the innocent,
but his name was Charles. And Charles told me one time,
he said, God has given me the spirit of discontentment. And
I said, Oh, he has. Um, I didn’t know he dished that
out. I thought Satan did, but Charles
told me, I have the gift of, discontentment. God has given
me a discontentment with things so that we’ll make things better.
And he and this other fellow literally went around the church
pointing out people’s faults and the faults with the church.
And I was the assistant pastor. There was a head pastor and they,
boy, they love to pick him apart. He could do nothing right in
their eyes. And so there was this party spirit,
selfish ambition. I think if this guy could have,
he would have become a pastor. Well, he gathered a group of
people around him, and within about a year or two, it wore
all of us out, and we finally, as a group of elders, said to
him and his group, y’all got to go. And they said, well, it
just so happens we want to plant a church. And we said, oh, wonderful,
go. Well, we want your blessing. No, you don’t have it, because
y’all are gonna kill each other within about six weeks. Well,
sure enough, they went off, they started the church, and within
six months, They were done with each other. And it’s sad when
that’s the witness that the world sees. Why don’t you go to church?
It’s a bunch of hypocrites. Why don’t you go to church? Too
much fighting. Why don’t you go to church? There’s
chaos. There’s factions. And James is saying that’s earthy. He’s saying that’s unspiritual.
That’s demonic. I don’t know how much more clear
you could be. We said a minute ago, we wouldn’t
want to have on our side, you know, the so-and-so church. We
love disorder. We love chaos. We love every
vow practice. You also wouldn’t want the descriptors
there in verse 15. We’re earthy, we’re unspiritual
and we’re demonic. That would not attract customers
as it were. And so James here gives a picture
by asking a question, what’s wrong with you people, right?
What’s wrong with you church? Well, you’re selfish and you
are jealous. And this is not from heaven. This is actually from below. This is earthly, unspiritual,
demonic. It’s chaotic. and it makes for
no place that we ought to call the house of God, the household
of faith. And notice in verse 17, there’s
that great little three-letter English word in the Bible that
means so much, but the wisdom from above, but, instead of,
in place of, leave that mess behind, but the wisdom from above. And he gives seven or eight descriptors
here, and each one is worthy of our thought. You wanna have
a healthy church? Get rid of the selfish people. If you wanna have a healthy church,
get rid of the ambitious people. Maybe don’t get rid of them.
I mean, maybe they gotta go. Church discipline, who knows?
Hopefully you convert them and convince them of Christ and life
by the Holy Spirit. But how do you have a healthy
church? Well, a healthy church is made up of people who are
new creations in Jesus Christ. A healthy church is made up of
people who have new hearts that beat for the kingdom values that
Jesus teaches. A healthy church is full of people
who are full of the Holy Spirit. A healthy church And this is
where James, you’ll see, connects his teaching back to the other
things we’ve learned. A healthy church will be full
of people who pray to God and ask that they would be wise and
not foolish. That’s something to think about,
isn’t it? When is the last time I prayed to God for wisdom? Remember
the early chapter of James, if anyone lacks wisdom, where does
he get it? He gets it from God who gives
abundantly. And so a healthy church is a
church from above. It is from God. It is an outpost
of heaven. It is rooted in Christ Jesus,
who is wisdom. And he gives these descriptors,
it’s pure, it’s peaceable, it’s gentle, it’s open to reason,
it’s full of mercy and good fruits, it’s impartial and sincere. Well, that sounds a little like
the fruit of the spirit, doesn’t it? Only a company of believers
who have faith in Jesus, who are yielding to the work of the
spirit, letting the word and the spirit do its work, seeking
God daily for wisdom and his blessings will fulfill this calling. So what does it mean to be pure?
Well, the root of this word is connected to holiness. And so
the church needs to be a holy people, a pure people that only
comes from being washed by the blood of Jesus Christ and exchanging
our filthy rags for his righteous robes and then peaceable. The church ought to be full of
peacemakers, not, oh, what’s his name? Milquetoast. Oh, okay,
okay, okay, okay. That’s okay. Just, you know,
seeking to put wool on everything and grease it up. No, but peacemakers,
that’s a negotiation, right? This is truth. This is false. James has given us a very good
example. Have you ever had to walk up to somebody and say,
your wisdom is from below. Your wisdom is unspiritual, demonic,
and earthly. You ever had to say that? We
were talking today about, as elders in the church, sometimes
we got to say hard things to people. You’re demonic. That’s not popular, right? You
won’t get reelected elder after your term, but it’s sometimes
necessary to say what is true. You should pray to God for wisdom.
You’re not living a righteous life. You’re not living a holy
life, a pure life. So the wisdom that is from above
is first pure or holy. It is peaceable, it’s peacemakers,
it’s negotiating peace. This is right, this is wrong,
this is true, this is false. As Christians, we should live
this way. As God’s people, we should put this behind us. We
should repent of it, turn from it. And so peacemakers. What
did Jesus say? Blessed are the peacemakers. And so pure, peaceable. And then
it says gentle. This is a phrase or a word that
really describes someone’s character. This person is considerate in
all that they do, all that they are, they’re gentle. You know,
we say about people sometimes, well, they’re rough around the
edges, or they’re gruff, right? Or they’re grouchy, or they’re
sharp, right? We use those words as if they’re
a porcupine. And sometimes they are, it’s their personality,
but it’s really coming out of them. The person who lives with
wisdom from above is gentle. Next it says they’re open to
reason. They listen, they evaluate, they
look at all the facts and the figures and then make a godly
choice. They are full of mercy and good
fruits. You have to combine those, I
think. They minister out of their heart. They minister out of their
love for God and their love for their neighbors. And so the good
fruits, we might connect back to the good works. You show me
your faith, I’ll show you my good works. Remember James chapter
two. So a person, a congregation is
full of mercy and good fruits. It’s impartial, no favoritism. I think James spent, A mouthful
of verses a couple of Sunday nights ago when we looked at
it saying, y’all don’t need to walk in the church and say, you
can sit here and you can sit there. You can sit up front,
you can sit in the back. A Christian man, a Christian
woman is impartial and shows no favoritism. And the last little
word there is that interesting word sincere. The person is without
hypocrisy. What’s the example? They have
no wax in nose. What happened when the sculptor
took the piece of marble and he got all the way finished with
it? Masterpiece was beautiful. Somebody dropped it off the hand
truck and the nose broke off. Well, instead of starting all
over or trying to glue it back on, they just took some wax,
right, and fixed it. What happens in the heat of the
day? The nose melts off and you see that this was an insincere
or a hypocrisy or a masked sculpture. And we don’t want to be like
that. We always want to be who we are, wherever we are. And
so James is painting a picture of the church or the people of
God who are living out of wisdom from above. And notice the result,
verse 18. You’ll get a harvest of righteousness
when you sow peace. by those who make peace. That’s
the central theme of this passage, is peacemakers make peace. And when they sow peace, a harvest
of righteousness is sown. Now, no church on earth will
be perfect. I’ve been a part of a handful
of churches in my lifetime, and not a one of them were perfect.
They all had their own features and characteristics and qualities
and traits, but there were always people that rubbed you wrong.
There were always things done that were hurtful and painful
and that sort of thing. But as far as it is possible
with us, we ought to live a Christ-like, God-like life before others,
especially within the household of faith. And it seems to me
the major theme of this passage is to be a peacemaker. It’s to
sow peace and not discord. It’s to sow the peace of Almighty
God and not our own jealousy or our own ambitions. That can
only be done through faith in Jesus. It can only be done in
a new heart. It can only be done by the power
of the Holy Spirit. Doesn’t this parallel so well
with the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy? What’s that third
one? Peace. And God can give that
to us if we ask. So let’s ask him for that now,
pray with me. Lord, we pray that you would
give us wisdom from above, give it in abundance so that we will
not look like the world. We will not look like we are
secular or humanistic or even really well-educated, but have
no light from heaven, no peace to sow. Lord, may that be true
of each of us, may be true of our congregation, and may we
be a bright spot everywhere we go in the world as you by your
grace and your spirit work in our lives to make these things
so. Hear us and help us, we pray
in the name of Jesus our Savior, amen.