Wisdom from Below

Our scripture reading this morning is found in James chapter three, verses thirteen through eighteen.

And it's found on page one thousand and twelve in your Bible in the pew in front of you.

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, 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.

For we who are sinners.

We have read or had read a portion of your word.

These are your words.

And Father, as I try to help help explain and apply what you have said, we don't need my words, we need yours.

So I pray through the foolishness of the preaching that you would accomplish something which only you can do, and that's to cause this to be alive within us and to transform us from within.

And to that end I pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.

The passage that we're looking at this week and next week is uh a new section, a short section in this book of James.

James, who speaks so practically, who doesn't just talk theory, he he takes the truth and he presses it in into our lives.

And he's talking now about something that is of incredible importance to God.

Wisdom.

Wisdom.

He's talking about a character trait.

God himself is characterized with the idea of wisdom.

And he is working, desiring to work deeply and truly in our lives to produce character traits that are like his and are like Christ's.

And it's my desire that as we look at this concept of wisdom this week and next week, that somehow or another that which God desires to do in your life and in mine, to take these words and allow them to take roots and to express themselves, that we might wrestle with this character quality of wisdom.

In this passage, we're going to look primarily at verses 13 to 16 today.

But is also God's word for us.

And he will unpack this concept of wisdom.

And he will show that there are two aspects to it.

Really, there's one, and that's the wisdom from above, God's kind of wisdom.

But he'll also explain what we might call wisdom from below, so-called wisdom, a counterfeit wisdom, the kind of wisdom that we know of from the world around us.

And he will compare and contrast these.

And the whole direction he is going with this is to impress upon us this character trait of wisdom that is part of who God is, and it's part of who we are intended to be.

And what I want to start out by underscoring, because it underlies this whole passage in today's message and next week's message, is that character counts.

Real simple, character counts.

It's highly valued by God, and it is to be highly valued by us, and this character trait of wisdom.

It's a description of a part of who God is, and it's to be a description of a part of who we are.

And the real question that I would have us wrestle with, I wrestle with, I hope you wrestle with, is do we value truly the things that God values?

If we do, we will value wisdom far more than I fear that we do.

As I look in our society, the things that we run after, the things that we make a big deal about are not the characteristics of wisdom.

The people, the people that we look to are not necessarily characterized as wise and understanding people.

And if we're not careful, the things that we value are the same things that the world values.

The character traits.

And what I believe God wants to do through this passage, through the writings of James, is to help us wrestle with the question: do we reflect and do we value wisdom in our society, in our church, and in our own personal lives?

I want to start out by just thinking for a moment, coming at wisdom in a bit of a different way.

When James is writing, he is always pressing in and seeking to show that while there are things that we are supposed to be doing, it's growing out of, it must be growing out of a transformed and transforming heart.

But a lot of what he has to say is this is the way it is supposed to express itself.

And in chapter two, when we were looking at this at one point, we noticed that he said, now, if we're not careful, we value people for all of the wrong things.

We're impressed by all of the wrong things.

And he gave the example of somebody came in that was attractive, that was an impressive kind of a person, that we tend to be impressed with impressive kinds of people.

But if someone came into the sanctuary, into the service who didn't look right and didn't smell right, we'd probably tend to look down on them.

That's just the way we are.

Because we value the externals and God values the things of the heart.

At that point, I quoted, and I want to quote again because it is so worth repeating, a snippet out of one of the greatest pieces of public speaking that exists in the last, has existed in the last 50 years or so.

It was an address, a challenge given by someone who was completely influenced by the scriptures.

In fact, he was a black preacher boy.

His name was Martin Luther King.

Now he did a lot of other things.

But his thoughts, his values, his crusade, his passion was shaped and formed by Scripture.

And in 1963, standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, he gave some words that are endued with Scripture.

They are shaped by Scripture, they reflect the values of Scripture.

And part of the point that he makes is character is what is needed.

He said the following: I have a dream.

I will not try to recreate his wonderful cadence, but the words are powerful.

I have a dream that one day, and he's speaking in biblical prophetic terms from the prophets in the scriptures, that one day every valley will be exalted, every hill and mountain will be made low, that the rough places will be made plain, that the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

Oh, for the day that someone would stand in a public place in Washington, D.C., on the steps of the Washington Monument, and speak biblical words without being called down.

On the contrary, he spoke words of truth.

But here's, he went on and said, and this is what's particularly pertinent for this week and next week.

I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

I have a dream that one day we will view each other and we will value the things that God values.

That's the content of character.

I have a dream that all God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholic, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, free at last, free at last.

Thank God Almighty.

I'm free at last.

And that Negro spiritual was not just talking about the civil rights movement.

It was talking in biblical terms about the freedom from just living at the horizontal level, living the way the world lives, and freed, ultimately freed, to be who God wants us to be, to reflect who God is, where our children would be valued for the content of their character rather than the color of their skin, that people would be valued for the character that they have, not the cars to drive, the houses they live in, the great accomplishments that they have, the education they have, but for the character that God is developing within.

Now, if those words of Martin Luther King don't resonate somehow deeply within us, if it doesn't cause us to well up with a longing for something more than who we are now and what we see now, then we're not going to understand what James has to say to us.

I wonder if we really value what God values.

What is God seeking to accomplish in the Christian life?

What is it really all about?

Well, there's a whole bunch of things that are secondary that it's not about.

The core of our Christian faith is not, now hear me out on this, it is not doctrinal purity.

That is not the core.

That is important.

Truth is important.

But what he cares about is truth embodied in our lives.

And if we just know the truth and we're not living it out, then we are fools.

The core of our Christianity is not some particular way we go about doing worship or doing church.

Those aren't unimportant things, but that's not at the core.

The core of Christianity is an inner transformation of our hearts, of our being, of our nature, of our character.

And it begins when we come to faith in Christ, based on the work of Christ on the cross.

There is a fundamental change when we come to God through faith, through the work of Jesus Christ.

But that work is not past tense, that work is continual and it moves to the forward.

We have been changed, we are being changed, and we look forward to that glorious day as Martin Luther King was speaking, when things will not be as they should not be, but will be as they should be.

And that involves an inner transformation.

And that inner transformation goes to character, to our values, to our hearts, to our world view.

We can get it all right, but if we don't live right, we've got nothing right, is what it boils down to.

The content of their character.

What God cares about is character.

It's character that counts.

And that comes about in its initial form through the regeneration, the being born again, having new life, that continues as that life manifests itself more and more.

And one grand day it will come to completion.

But if we're focused on all of these other things, as important as they are, and miss this central matter of the transformation of our heart and of our character, we are missing what the gospel is all about.

Jesus did not come to teach us truth.

He came that the truth would set us free.

There'd be a new kind of life, his life in us.

I've come that you might have life and have it abundantly.

So he then in this particular passage calls us to wisdom.

Bringing the truth to light.

The truth in this passage has to do with wisdom.

Wisdom.

And in verse 13, he gives an explanation of it.

It's an explanation that may not be super transparent to you.

The ESV says, who is wise and understanding among us, and wise and understanding.

Those are synonyms.

Those are synonyms.

And when the churches that he was speaking to heard him talk about this kind of thing, they would immediately think of the Old Testament and the wisdom literature, wise and understanding.

That was a phrase that you find throughout the scriptures, but particularly in the wisdom literature of the Old Testament.

Job filled with wisdom.

Psalms, some of it would be clarified or defined as wisdom literature.

Proverbs throughout, just throughout.

I would, if there's one thing I would encourage you to do, if you don't quite know what to do in your devotional life this week, I would just meditate on Proverbs 1 to 9.

It's just filled with a focus on wisdom.

And this passage reflects a great deal of that.

And he what he does as he starts out is to show the great importance that God places on wisdom.

Who is there who is wise in understanding among you?

Now, that's a question that doesn't evoke an answer.

It's a rhetorical question.

It evokes thought.

He is intending us to start reflecting who is and what is?

Who is wise in understanding among you?

And that's to cause us to start asking ourselves questions.

He wasn't looking for somebody to raise their hand and say, oh, he is or I am.

He was asking people to start thinking about what's going on within.

And immediately the hearers of these words would begin to think of things like Proverbs.

I won't take the time to look at Proverbs 4, 1 to 15.

But basically, what he says, what he says there is, this is what you need, folks.

It's wisdom.

I am offering you wisdom.

You can reject it if you will, but you will be the fool and you will suffer the consequences.

Receive the wisdom that I, your God, give you, and it will give you the good life, the truly good life.

They would think of Proverbs, and they would think and they would understand the incredible importance placed on godly wisdom, very different from the wisdom that is from below, but godly wisdom.

It's very interesting that in the Old Testament times in particular that the wisdom of God is exhorted and needed was in the selection of leaders for the people of God.

Deuteronomy chapter 1, verses 13 and 15.

Deuteronomy 1:13

Moses was appointing leaders among his people, among the nation Israel.

And the instructions that he gives is choose for your tribes wise, understanding, and experienced men.

What is needed is wisdom and understanding, and that comes through life, life experience, a life that is lived God's way.

Choose for your tribes, wise, understanding, and experienced men.

Verse 15.

So I took the head of your tribes, wise and experienced men, and set them as heads over you.

You will find this repeatedly in Scripture, when you're looking for people to lead, you don't need people just with great skills, just with knowledge.

You need people who are wise and understanding.

That's what he puts the focus on here.

He does the same thing in 1 Samuel chapter 16, verse 7, where the people of Israel were demanding a king.

1 Samuel 16:7

They had been instructed not to seek a king, but they demanded a king.

They wanted to be just like the world around them, and yet they were supposed to be different.

So they demand and they demand, and finally God says, Okay, I'll give you a king, but you better find the right one.

And he revealed to Samuel, who would be the one who would anoint the king, that it would be a son of Jesse.

The particular tribe, a particular family, the son of Jesse.

So Samuel goes out and he uh he looks.

And Samuel first saw Jesse's son Eliab.

And this is what he said.

He said to himself, surely, surely, this is the Lord's anointed.

He stands here before, you know anointed.

He stands before me.

But God said, Samuel, do not consider his appearance or his height.

Don't just look at the outward things.

Don't just be impressed with the things that the world is impressed with.

The Lord does not look at the things as man looks at them.

Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.

In this day, in our culture, in our society, at this moment in history, as we look and we're involved in a selection process of a national leader, what is needed is wisdom and understanding.

We are going into a highly politicized few months, as though the last few months haven't been, right?

I want you to understand, I will not use this pulpit for political purposes.

I regularly have people who, for all kinds of good reasons, want me to marshal the forces of the people of God for this or that cause.

I will not do that.

What I want to do is say, what is it that God values, and then challenge you to make decisions based upon what God cares most about.

And God is not impressed.

He is not impressed with successful people who do not have wisdom.

He is not impressed with people who are politically astute but do not have wisdom.

What God wants for leaders is that they have wisdom and understanding.

Just knowledge and skills is never enough.

It's always necessary, but it's never enough.

And the outward things that we see are rarely the things that show the reality of a wise and understanding heart.

But these are the things that will make or break a nation.

We're involved in a process, we've just begun, of looking for a new pastor for the church.

What we need is not just someone with certain objective qualities.

We're needing someone who has a heart of wisdom and understanding that comes from God.

Other qualities are necessary, but character counts.

And it leads to success or failure in ministry just as it leads to success or failure at a national level.

So these things apply nationally, they apply to our church, but they also apply to our personal lives.

What are we running after?

What are we trying to accomplish?

What are we trying to achieve?

What are we impressed with ourselves about?

Are we impressed with the fact that God in His grace gives us wisdom and understanding?

It doesn't come from us, it doesn't come from our training, it doesn't come, it comes from God.

That is the most important thing for you and for your life.

What do we really value?

Do we see wisdom with the same importance that God gives to it?

So he goes on in this verse of James chapter 3, verse 13, in the second part of this verse, and he starts to explain what wisdom is.

James 3:13

The ESV says, in answer to the question, who's wise in understanding among you?

James says, By his good conduct, let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom.

Now, that is not the way James expresses it is a little bit hard for us, I think, to grasp.

In this case, I find the translation of the New International Version a little bit more clear for my understanding.

It says, Let them show by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom.

So wisdom and understanding has to do with a good life, and a good life has to do with humility or meekness or gentleness that comes from wisdom.

That's how God is instructing us here.

So let's try to take a look at this for a moment.

In the Greek world, wisdom was equated with intellect.

And if we're not careful, we're impressed with intellectual people.

The problem is, and that Paul made that clear in 1 Corinthians, that the knowledge, just information, puffs up.

It leads to arrogance and pride.

Well, I'm Dr.

Professor So-and-so.

Well, the question is, do you know how to live?

I have an earned doctorate.

The difficulty is, not infrequently do I go to the refrigerator and I can't find the mustard.

And my wife, filled with words of wisdom, says, Walt, I'm really not impressed with advanced degrees.

And she's right.

What good does information accomplish if it doesn't give us help in living?

And it's far more than just finding the mustard, it's finding how life really works.

And no amount of education will teach you how life works.

And wisdom is not a matter of intellectual skills.

We speak multiple languages.

Sometimes people are very impressed with that.

Most Americans say, oh, if you've learned a lot of languages, it has nothing to do with intellect.

Learning languages is a behavioral skill.

If you're around people that speak other languages and you need to learn other languages, you learn them.

There's nothing impressive about it.

You see, we we understand wisdom and knowledge in the wrong way.

God instructed his people that wisdom is not just information, it's knowledge that is skillfully applied to life.

It's knowledge about how life works, what causes our lives to be effective and successful and satisfying, and the kind of lives for which we were created.

We were made for much more than this.

We were not meant just to survive, we were meant to thrive.

And the only way we thrive is when we understand how life was intended to work, and we learn that from listening to God.

We did a whole series on the Ten Commandments, and the whole point of it is this is the way life was meant to work.

It's not just you got to do this, you gotta do that, but if you do this, that's the way life works.

That's how you find the mustard in life.

Okay?

So the real question is not knowledge, but do we know how to skillfully apply what we know about life to our lives?

God is a God of truth.

And reality, we talk about reality shows.

Those are not, that is not reality.

Reality is what we find in the scriptures.

Reality is the world that God has made.

And learning to live life God's way in God's world, according to how He said that works, that gets us wisdom.

So it's it's knowledge skillfully applied to life.

It's learning, for example, to listen before we answer.

You don't learn that in school.

You learn that from God.

Learning to stifle your anger.

You don't learn that in school.

You learn that from God.

It's learning to accept feedback and counsel and criticism.

We don't learn that in school.

We learn that from God if we're wise.

If we reject it.

It's the biblical definition of foolishness of a fool.

We learn to respect parents and respect authority.

That's wisdom.

That's the way life was meant to work.

Do we gain that lesson and apply it skillfully in life?

To value a good name more than riches?

To not wink at evil.

And the list goes on and on.

Read Proverbs.

Study this week, Proverbs 1 through 9.

You'll get a whole new perspective on what really counts in life.

And wisdom is living life God's way in God's world.

And I'm afraid that we give lip service to that, but sometimes I don't think we truly value that.

Now, the good life, and that's the way it says, by deeds done in humility, show it by their good life, by his good conduct, the good life.

That means living the way that is good.

Jesus said, I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly.

Abundant and rich and true, and it works, and it's a joy, and it satisfies.

And it begins as we come to know Christ at the cross.

It continues as we grow, and one glorious day it will be life full and only abundant and rich and free.

That's the good life.

Living in accordance with reality, the way God has made the world and organizing our lives accordingly.

Is that what we value?

Is that what we chase after?

Is that what our nation chases after?

Is that what we as a church chase after?

Is that what you and I chase after?

Do we really understand what God is saying to us about the importance of wisdom, which is skill in right living?

A good life, the life that God intends for us.

That's what Jesus was talking about, life, real life, full, abundant, and real.

That doesn't describe the things that we tend to be so impressed with.

Why is it that we're impressed with mostly the wrong things about people?

This doesn't describe the idols of American society.

This doesn't picture the rich and the beautiful and the famous and the impressive and the successful.

Yet those are the things that if we're not careful, we too begin to chase after.

It doesn't talk about somebody who has athletic ability so that they can throw a football, but they have the maturity of an eight-year-old.

It's not what it's talking about.

There's nothing wrong with throwing a football.

There's nothing wrong with material success.

But those aren't the things that lead to fulfillment in life.

What's wrong with us when we are drawn to a spectacularly beautiful woman who is addicted, addicted, maybe not to drugs, maybe to drugs, but addicted to her beauty and wants to constantly show it off and is driven from some kind of an inner need to be accepted because she's a beautiful woman.

And then we glorify that and we chase after that and we highly value that.

And that is nothing in God's value system.

There's nothing wrong with beauty.

That's something that God gave.

But the way we view that, why do we spend so much time making ourselves look good?

I mean, literally making ourselves look good every morning.

The problem is for some of us it doesn't work very well.

But don't we want to look good?

Don't we want to be well thought of?

Don't we want to seem like we're competent?

Don't we want to seem like, you know, we're we're driven, are we driven by the things that God values or just the externals?

So he goes on and he describes wisdom as strength under control.

Look at the last phrase of verse 13.

In the NIV, it's humility or meekness that comes from wisdom.

The ESV works in the meekness of wisdom.

This is an interesting phrase.

This is not what you would suggest normally is strength.

Meekness, gentleness, humility.

You see, our culture doesn't help us very much because it really doesn't affirm and value those things, which is precisely what God values and desires within us.

We look at those as weakness, meekness, gentleness, humility.

If we're not careful, it's just kind of a naive simplicity.

Oh, for naivete of the right sort.

Meekness, if we're not careful, we equate that with weakness.

Moses was the meekest man in his generation.

I heard somebody once say the problem is we think that's weakness, but if you think meekness is weakness, try being meek for a week.

Good thought.

Try being meek for a week.

Try being gentle for a week.

Try being humble for a week.

It takes great strength.

Great strength.

Wisdom is great strength brought under control.

The picture that this word portrays, and it's often used to describe a powerful horse.

We saw an illustration of a horse last time, this war machine, a powerful, powerful horse that is brought under control of the master.

And the strength of the horse is channeled for the will of the master.

And that's good, that's not bad.

It's brought under control.

And in the matter of bridling your tongue, it takes more strength to bridle your tongue than to say whatever comes out of your mouth.

It takes more strength to hold your tongue instead of to lash out.

That's strength.

That's meekness, that's gentleness, that's humility.

That's an act of God.

When that truly happens in your life, then God is at work.

It takes great strength to work diligently long and hard and to save for the future rather than to squander whatever we get on their passing toys.

It takes great strength to do that.

These are the kinds of things that Proverbs is talking about.

It takes great strength to resist temptation rather than chasing the passing pleasures of sin for a season.

It takes great strength to be a man of character, a woman of character, a young person of character, characterized by wisdom.

It takes more strength to speak well of people than it does to gossip about them or tell tales about them.

It takes more strength to not defend yourself, but allow God to defend you should that be necessary.

It takes great strength to willingly submit to authority rather than chafing against it.

And yet all of those, just read Proverbs, just the first nine chapters, read it this week and reread it, and you'll get a totally different picture of what it is that we should highly value.

This picture of strength under control is found most predominantly or most exquisitely in the person of Christ.

Christ is called the power of God and the wisdom of God.

Christ is described as the one in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are held.

And when we see Christ, particularly associated with the cross, we see incredible strength under great control, and it is wise and godly and good.

I was thinking this week about the Garden of Gethsemane.

That's such a rich passage to reflect on.

But what I was thinking about was when the soldiers come to take Jesus, to take him captive, and I think it was Peter, I've forgotten right now, drew out his sword and cut off the ear of one of the servants there.

And Jesus looked at him and he said, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, what's going on through your little pea brain?

What are you thinking about?

I could have called 10,000 angels.

But I'm doing exactly and I'm submitting precisely to what God wants.

Strength under control.

Or on the cross itself, Father, forgive them.

They know not what they do.

He who knew no sin became sin for us.

Strength.

By God's grace, may we like Jesus find that we care more about the things of the Father than the things of the world, the values that God holds and holds out for us, and the values of our own wayward heart or the values of the society around him.

We're going to look just very briefly at the so-called wisdom.

It's wisdom from below.

Next week we'll look at the wisdom from above, but the counterpoint to that is just human wisdom around us.

Now, he tells us where it comes from and where it leads us to, and we'll just briefly touch on this.

He's using irony when he talks about the wisdom from below.

Some of the translations put wisdom in quotation marks, the so-called wisdom.

This is not the real thing.

This is a counterfeit.

But the more we understand about that, the more it will help us value the real thing and recognize it when we see it.

So just a couple of descriptions that he gives.

Verse 15, this is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, and demonic.

Powerful phrases there.

Earthly.

That very simply means it's just looking at life around us and the here and now.

You see, we were not meant to get our cues about life from what we see around us.

We were not meant to see this life as what life is all about.

This life is but a prelude of real life.

We've tasted it in seed form, the tip of the tongue and the spoon we get when we come to faith in Christ as God begins to transform us.

But this, what we're seeing around us, and this that we are now, this is not the real life.

We are not the real people yet.

And yet we see just the horizontal, the earthly, and the here and now.

This life does not last.

The psalmist said the length of our days is 70 years, or if we're really strong, 80.

That used to seem like a long ways away.

Believe me, it doesn't seem like a long ways away now.

Life goes like this.

And what he says is 70, or if you're strong, 80 years, and then we fly away.

That's what he says in Psalm 90, verse 10.

Psalms 90:10

Then we just fly away.

It's all gone, it's a vapor, it's a mist, it's over, just like that.

This is not what it's about.

And worldly so-called wisdom puts all of the emphasis on the here and now and the horizontal and misses that which is most true and most certain and brings the greatest ultimate joy and satisfaction.

He calls it not only earthly, he calls it unspiritual.

And what that means, we think of all kinds of things when we think of unspiritual, all it really means is not connected to God.

In 1 Corinthians, he talked about the natural or the carnal man, the unspiritual man who doesn't have the things of God, is just not connected with God, doesn't have the most important thing, which is that vertical relationship with God, and doesn't see every aspect of life as connected Godward.

So we just go about our normal life and we don't bring every aspect of our life and we see it in response and in connection with God.

So we do our work life and we do our financial life and we do our sex life and we build relationships as though those are not fundamentally connected with God.

Every aspect of us is to be related to God.

And worldly wisdom doesn't value that Godward dimension of every aspect of life.

And ultimately he says, and this is powerful language, he says, this is demonic.

This is where the origin of this worldly wisdom comes from.

He just got done in last week's passage talking about destructive speech, that's words that set a forest on fire, and those words are set on fire by hell itself.

And now he's Saying worldly wisdom, it's not just wrong, it is demonic.

It's just as though God doesn't exist.

You thumb your nose at God, you live the way you want to live, and you expect to find what you were meant for.

It doesn't work that way.

It's got to be connected to God.

And where it leads to, real simple, it leads to what is called bitter jealousy.

What this really means is harshness of spirit, hard-heartedness.

Maybe at work, maybe at school, maybe at the church, maybe in the mirror, just basically hard-hearted.

It basically means there's a callousness where ultimately nobody else counts except me.

What I want is what I want, and that's the most important thing.

It can lead us to harm other people.

Sometimes we we do pain to cause good, and sometimes we cause people pain just because they've gotten in our way.

What it's talking about here of harshness, mean-spiritedness, is when we deal with people and yet we're totally preoccupied with ourselves in the process.

In its most vile and ugly forms, it can be sadistic or murderous.

Someone who is so focused on what they want in their own little world, they'll walk into a schoolroom and starts shooting indiscriminately.

Someone who enslaves another.

Someone who abuses one another and could really care less.

That's not wisdom from above.

That's where worldly wisdom leads us.

Selfish ambition, stepping on others to achieve what we want.

Fascinating word.

In its original sense, it was a positive term of someone who was a spinner of wool, and that's they were industrious.

And then it became a word that just had to do with feverish activities that didn't have anything to do with sustaining themselves or meeting our needs.

It eventually was, interestingly enough, used for politicians.

And it became a very negative, very ugly word.

People were really, they make a pretense of wanting to help, and yet, if we have any sense at all, so much of it, so much of it just has to do with themselves and their power and their influence.

And then we look to people.

We look to people who step all over people and we think they're wonderful because they're successful.

That's worldly thinking.

Another word, second to the last, disorder.

Just tumultuous, restless, confused instability.

It's the description that Jesus gave in Luke 21 of the end of the age, when our society will just be tumultuous and coming apart at the seams.

And then he uses a horrible phrase, I guess I didn't get it there, vile practices, vile practices, what flows from the unregenerate heart, where the restraining influence of God is taken off, and it's just dirty living is what it boils down to.

Well, there's that's a pretty sad list, actually.

Wisdom from below.

We don't really need a lot of instruction in it, that comes normal.

We just need to understand that what we value really matters.

A couple of very simple thoughts.

Very simple thoughts by way of personal reflection.

He's talking about character traits, the qualities, character traits of wisdom.

He's shown something of what we shouldn't be choosing, and he'll be showing what we should be choosing.

At its core, wisdom from below results, and find this in Proverbs 1.

Again, please feed your soul on Proverbs this week.

Wisdom from below results in calamity.

Calamity like a whirlwind.

Wisdom from below results in distress.

Wisdom from below results in anguish.

That's not what you want.

That's not what we want.

We were made for more than that.

We were made to thrive.

That's not thriving.

A calamity like a whirlwind, a distress and anguish.

This plays itself out in the three areas, among others that we've been talking about for us as a nation.

If we don't choose wisdom, we can be sure that we will reap calamity like a whirlwind, distress, and anguish.

If you read that passage in Proverbs, you will find that if you do not choose wisdom, God will scoff and he will give you this because you are rejecting what he wants.

So we run the risk as a nation of calamity like a whirlwind, of distress, and of anguish.

We will reap what we sow.

This applies as we select leaders, but it applies with how we live our lives in society.

The second of all, this applies in the church.

We're in the process of saying, who are we looking for for the next senior pastor?

We've pulled together a pastoral search team, and the difficulty with the pastoral search is that the things that matter most are the least easy, are the most difficult to see and discern and understand.

As I've been working with the pastoral search committee, I think I've got them all depressed.

They want to go do something else, because the things that matter most won't appear on a resume.

The things that matter most are character issues.

And those are the things that we are completely dependent upon God to be able to discern.

What will make or break any leader, what will make or break any church, is the presence or absence of godly wisdom.

And we better be in prayer, my friends, that God in His grace protects us from foolishness, because we will then reap calamity like a whirlwind as a church, distress as a church, anguish as a church.

And this church cannot survive if that is our near future.

It just won't.

It applies to our nation, it applies to the church, it applies far more broadly, but it applies to you and me in our own personal lives.

Do we seek wisdom?

Do we seek wisdom from above?

Is that what we really value?

Really?

If not, read what Proverbs says.

God will give us what we're looking for and he will scoff at us.

He will give us personally calamity like a whirlwind.

Now, not all of the calamity that comes to our lives is a result of that.

But he will give us calamity like a whirlwind, distress and anguish in our lives.

There's lots of reasons why we experience those things.

But read the book of Proverbs, first nine chapters, and you will see He's calling out and offering us wisdom.

Are we reaching out and accepting and embracing that?

That's really what we need, my friends.

That's what James wants for us.

More importantly, that's what God wants for us.

And if that's going to happen, that's going to be a mighty working of God in your life and in mine, in our nation, in our church, and in our personal lives.

So this matter of wisdom, character counts.

It really, really does.

The character trait among others of godly wisdom.

Shall we pray?

Heavenly Father, we don't live this out, any of us, perfectly.

Foolishness is not only bound up in the heart of a child, it's bound up in all of our hearts.

Father, by your grace, we would seek wisdom, understanding, discretion, godly knowledge.

Heavenly Father, I pray that as a result of this looking at James this week and looking at James next week, that you would give us a deep desire to value that which you value most.

If that doesn't happen, Lord, then we're in deep trouble.

But you are alive, you are well, you're on the throne, and we trust you.

And so we pray for that in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Let me ask you to stand for the benediction, and then we'll be dismissed.

Despite all that we have said, and this is a bit of a downer of a passage, despite that, there's hope.

So we go into the world in peace, have courage, hold on to that which is good, and honor all men.

Strengthen the faint-hearted, support the weak, help the suffering, restore the wandering, comfort the grieving, and share the gospel.

Love and serve the Lord in the power of the Holy Spirit, and may the grace and the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with us all.

God bless and amen.