Text: James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a
Focus: Wisdom
Function: showing divine wisdom
James 3:13-4:3
13Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom. 14But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth. 15Such wisdom does not come down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish. 16For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind. 17But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. 18And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.
4:1Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? 2You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask. 3You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures.
7Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.
Today we are looking at Godly wisdom versus the wisdom that the world has to offer us.
Our wisdom, I mean, the one we possess through the power of the Holy Spirit inside of us is different from the wisdom that the world has to offer. And, according to James, it is going to be shown in our lives by the fruit or actions that are prevalent, or obvious, in our lives.
I can think of one of my favorite saints, she was a faithful Christian and to me, she represented everything that it meant for us to be Church of the Brethren in the way she loved and cared for others. It isn’t fair to mention her name, but I am sure Kathy knows who I mean when I say that she was always had the right kind of word to say at the ladies gossip table, I mean, the ladies quilting table. We had one dear believer who was one of the hardest working saints in the church who was a real blessing to us, but she had this problem with gossip. And this other saint, the one I am referring to would always speak a nice and kind word about the person who was being attacked in gossip.
She was careful not to engage in that behavior, even though it was modeled to her by other believers because she knew that God loved the person they were talking about.
I use her and gossip because James talks a lot about controlling the tongue and as we saw last week, not one of us is perfect at it, but we try because we believe in our heavenly reward and we don’t want our lack of love and forgiveness to get in the way of our eternal salvation.
Perhaps that is what he is speaking of when he is speaking of the heavenly wisdom producing this kind of fruit in our lives.
We are forgiven by God even though we did not earn it by our works. It is an act of grace, a divine act of Love, from God to us to forgive us of our sins before we even ask it of God.
God is love and therefore, when we act in love, we are acting Godly. We are using God’s wisdom.
I contrast earthy wisdom with Godly wisdom in the whole idea of taking revenge. The Bible says: “Revenge is mine, I will repay.” and it also commands us not to repay evil with evil but to repay evil with blessings, even going as far as giving our enemy a cup of cold water.
It is God’s wisdom at work and it is demonstrated not by our wrath, but by God’s love for people shown through us.
The world tells us to take revenge and to get even. God tells us to forgive and to love our enemies. And we know this, our eternal souls are at stake with the way that we forgive our enemies. So, the wisdom from above constrains our actions and gives to us the power to forgive in the face of evil.
Forgiveness sets us free and it also places us in a position where God indeed may just decide to act in love for us and vindicate us. If not here on earth, then we as believers know that God will reward us in heaven for loving without condition, even our enemies.
Chapter four then segues into what my translators call “Friendship with the world.”
It is like he is reminding us that our reward is in heaven and not on earth. He talks about prayer, our prayer life, and whether or not our prayers get answered. He warns us not to pray for selfish desires but for, well he doesn’t say what we are to pray for, I assume that we take it from the Lord’s prayer, especially the line in the prayer: “Thy Kingdom Come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
I have seen some tremendous answers to prayer and I have had some incredible disappointments in my prayers. I think I am beginning to see the reason for the difference. Jesus commanded us to seek first His Kingdom and His peace and then all the necessities of life will be given to us. We don’t always understand the mysteries of God’s Kingdom and what God is doing.
His warning to us is to place us in a position where we are praying for Kingdom things instead of the things that we need. He describes it as a war, at times, within us, a war of submitting to God’s will over our own.
But that doesn’t mean we don’t pray. He says, you have not because you ask not.
It seemed to me that the healing of my sister in law was a necessary thing for my and Kathy’s peace. We were not ready to let her go so young, but we don’t see things from God’s perspective.
I find that living by faith is important at times like this. We trust God’s sovereignty and we experience God’s grace.
My favorite bible verse is the shortest: “Jesus wept.” Jesus, who had the power of life and death in His fingertips grieved with Mary and Martha at their loss. God grieves with us in our losses and comforts us with God’s own empathy in our lives. God’s kingdom stretches to heaven and we are still connected, by faith, to those who have gone to heaven before us.
And when I think of what it means then, to possess this godly wisdom and to live this peaceable kind of life, I realize that we are living lives whereby we rest, or bask, in the love of God.
So the action goes along with the way I introduce the Lord’s prayer every week, “Lord, we submit to you praying as you taught us to pray…”
And finally, our text tells us, “therefore,” we must submit to God. Resist the incarnation of evil and it will leave us, and constantly draw near to God.
How do we draw near to God?
By reading God’s word, praying, worshiping together and living the life of a believer.
And remember the promise, seek first God’s kingdom and God’s peace and what we need will be given to us. We, as believers, can rest in God.
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