The War Within

All right, we're going to read from James chapter 3, verses 13 through James chapter 4, verse 1.

James 3:13 James 4:1

This is God's holy word.

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 in 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.

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you?

Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?

This is God's holy word.

We're walking through the letter of James, piece by piece, week by week.

And Philip Melanchthon, the great reformer, Lutheran reformer,

he gives us a really great summary, a helpful summary,

of everything that we've said so far in the book of James,

so we don't have to walk back through it all.

He says,

Faith alone saves, but saving faith never remains alone.

So James has told us that faith alone saves you.

You're justified by faith alone, but your faith never remains alone.

Instead, a life of faith always shows up.

It always becomes visible through good works, through conduct,

through the way you live life.

And so last time we were in James 3, we talked about words.

So when you become a Christian, your speech patterns should change.

And James talked to us about something so scary, really,

and that's that our words have such power,

power to give life, power to break people's lives.

And so we have this power made in God's image.

And he said that you will know someone's faith.

You will know that they're growing in faith by the way they speak.

Our patterns of speech have to change.

And so here today, he carries on the same logic,

but turns towards a broader concept of wisdom.

So you'll know wisdom by conduct.

You'll be able to see wisdom.

So if you walk up to somebody, you can't just say,

you can't just look at somebody you've never met before and say,

I think that this is a person of great faith, of great wisdom,

of really healthy speech patterns.

No, that's not something you can see.

It's an invisible quality that has to come out.

So James says here, who is wise?

Who is understanding among you?

Well, they will be known by their good conduct,

by the way they live their life.

Wisdom shows up.

Our faith shows up in the way we speak and the way we live.

And so that's the big question today.

Verse 13, who is wise?

And then he says, and understanding among you.

So that word understanding, who is knowledgeable among you?

One of the, some of the commentators, I should say,

think that that little phrase, wise and understanding among you,

is a way of saying who is able to be a teacher in the church.

They must have both wisdom and knowledge, wisdom and understanding.

So he's saying knowledge is not enough.

The person in the room who has great theological knowledge,

it's not sufficient that they become a teacher in the church.

Instead, there also has to be wisdom.

And he tells us what that is.

It's when faith actually manifests in your visible life,

what you actually do and how you actually live.

Talk is not enough.

Knowledge is not enough.

But wisdom shows up in good works and the way we live.

Now, that's the same thing that he said in chapter 1.

So I've said most weeks that everything in this book shows up in chapter 1.

So I'm probably being very repetitive.

So sorry about that.

But what is wisdom?

Wisdom is just maturity.

And what is maturity?

Maturity is just what James means in James 1-4,

that when you come to faith and you follow Jesus,

you start to become like him.

And he says, and you become perfect, James 1-4, teleos, perfected,

or really the word is maturing, mature.

And so wisdom is just maturity.

It's just that you've been growing in Christ-like maturity.

You follow Jesus, you become like him.

And it shows up in the way you live your life.

So let's think about that very carefully

so that we can grow into it this morning.

Number one, what is wisdom from above?

Wisdom from above, that's what he calls it.

Secondly, the war within, the problem we have.

And then finally, wisdom from above revisited.

So first, wisdom from above.

Now he gives us here in this passage a real portrait of a wise person.

And you can see the list down in verse 17.

But wisdom from above, and then he gives you these virtues,

visible virtues, pure, peaceable, gentle, open to reason,

full of mercy, full of good fruits, impartial, and sincere.

Every one of those deserves for us to linger for a while.

But we won't do that today.

But there's a logic to it.

There's an order to it.

The first thing he says is the wise life shows up as pure.

And that is being contrasted with selfish ambition and envy or jealousy

that he just talked about in the verse before.

And he's saying that purity is when you are uncontaminated by self-interest.

You are not curved in on yourself, pointing at yourself all the time.

Instead, you are other-centric, ecclesiocentric, church-centered, and other-centered.

He said that's a pure heart.

That's a heart that's like Christ.

And that's the first thing.

If you have that, if you have a heart that is turned away from self,

then everything else can follow.

So that's why it's first.

And so he gives this list, peaceable.

The Greek word there carries the weight of the Hebrew shalom.

So not just a person who avoids conflict, but actually makes peace between people.

So a wise person is a peacemaker.

You are bringing people together when they're in conflict,

especially in the local church, and you're producing shalom,

flourishing for people in a culture.

And then gentle, willing not to insist on your own rights.

That's the Greek word that's used here for gentle.

You're choosing grace instead of revenge.

That's the word gentle.

And then open to reason.

A wise person is genuinely persuadable.

So you don't come into a conversation with an agenda.

Instead, you're truth-driven.

So you are genuinely able to change your mind when you're wise.

You're open to reason.

And then sincere, impartial.

Sincere means not hypocritical.

What's true on the outside in your life is actually manifesting your heart.

So you don't live one way on the outside,

but there's something very different going on on the inside.

So that's wisdom.

All the commentators basically say that when James talks about wisdom,

there's a single word you can use, wholeness.

Wisdom is just wholeness.

It's where your outer life matches your inner life.

You're whole.

You're complete.

You're lacking in nothing, as James says.

Wholeness.

It's knowledge of God lived out.

It's understanding and wisdom.

Wisdom is actually living out the knowledge of God you have in your heart.

It's a selfless heart united with a selfless life.

It's interested in good relationships.

It's your relationship maker.

Not in the sense of dating necessarily,

but in the sense of you bring people together,

and you want to seek peace,

and you want to create a great community.

That's this idea of wholeness.

You care about the whole body, the church, the whole body.

You're ecclesiocentric in that way.

I spend a decent amount of time in my life right now

watching kids and young teens play football.

And one of the things I've noticed

that many of you who are better football knowledge people than me

already know is that you can have a really great player,

the best player, an academy player,

a 13-year-old academy player that's already been recruited

by Hibs and Harts and Rangers and so on.

But they get out on the pitch,

and they become the worst player.

And the way that they are the worst player is they don't pass.

They're not interested in assists.

They are only interested in owning the ball.

They have great understanding and knowledge with their feet.

And you watch it, and it's beautiful.

But they don't have any wisdom.

See, wisdom is wholeness.

Wisdom brings people together.

And on the pitch, if you're going to be a wise footballer,

you have to be a team baller.

You have to play team ball.

You have to be interested in assists more than scoring.

That's what he means by wisdom.

It brings people together.

It's holistic.

It's concerned about the whole group,

every single one of us in this room,

all together at the same time.

Wise people reconcile with others.

They make peace.

They say the right things at the right time.

They build community.

They're driven by truth and by gentleness and grace

at the same time.

Now, James gives us a summary word here

to summarize this whole person.

And he says it's called the meekness of wisdom.

So the one word he gives you in this passage

to say what does this look like,

it's the word meekness.

I looked up in our modern dictionaries,

Oxford, Cambridge, dictionary.com,

the way that people use the word meekness.

Modern English has, in the dictionary writers,

have ruined the word.

They've made a terrible mess of it.

So what some of the descriptions in the dictionaries are,

meekness is docile, spiritless, submissive.

One dictionary even said,

when you let others run over you.

And that's not at all what the biblical word meekness means.

And so the modern word has really messed it up.

This word pruitas, meekness,

it shows up in Socrates and Aristotle.

What they meant by it was a person

who argues their case without losing their temper.

That's how Socrates used it.

Or Aristotle said,

one who cares about justice but never seeks revenge.

So the Bible here says that meekness

is the great single word that captures

the whole of what a wise person is like.

And we could say it like this,

meekness is not the absence of strength.

It's a strength that is found somewhere else to rest

besides revenge, besides violence,

besides harsh words of insult.

And instead, it's found a place to rest

its convictions in God for everything.

So a meek person is a person who's so secure

in all that God says about them

and all that God's given them

that they are able to be gentle on the outside.

So meekness is when you are lion-like

with your convictions in your heart,

yet you look like a lamb

in the way you relate to everyone.

Lion-like on the inside,

so gentle, lamb-like on the outside.

It's when you have understanding,

knowledge of God,

and security in God.

Therefore, you become wise.

You become lion-like, yet so gentle.

I remember back in my high school years,

and I wonder if it was the same here,

there was always in every year,

every class,

that one guy,

that one girl

who everybody was afraid to cross.

Some of those people,

everybody was afraid of

because they were bullies.

And so you were afraid of getting beat up by them.

But there was always that other person.

I wonder if you had that other person.

Maybe you were that other person.

The person that you don't cross,

you don't,

nobody ever insults.

Why?

And it's because

they were so secure in themselves

that anything,

any darts that had ever been thrown at them

in the past just never stuck.

And so people stopped trying to rile them up.

People stopped trying to mess with them.

They never needed to win.

Their gentleness was so real,

but you knew that on the inside,

if there was an issue of injustice,

the bully was the one person

who was scared of them.

That's meekness.

Meekness is when you've got such security

that the darts don't stick.

And so you're able to be

so strong on the inside

that you can actually be

incredibly gentle on the outside,

incredibly lamb-like on the outside.

We, Christians in this room,

we've got so much knowledge about God,

but when we look at this list,

pure, peaceable, gentle,

able to be persuaded,

sincere, impartial,

we can look at ourselves

and see the gap

between the knowledge of God

that we have

and the people we actually want to be.

And this is the person we want to be,

but we feel,

we recognize in our lives

that we're not there yet.

And so often that's because

we look up and we say,

I know,

I can say I'm a sinner.

I can say Jesus Christ died for my sins,

but it's not helping me in this moment.

We feel that gap in our lives.

And the difference here

is the difference between

knowledge and experiential knowledge,

tacit knowledge and experiential knowledge.

You know, we can say,

I know I'm a sinner,

but have you yet come to a place

where you experience that reality?

I'm a sinner.

It brings you to tears.

It moves you.

It destroys you.

Have you come to a place

where you can move from mere knowledge

to experiential knowledge,

where you say,

I know I can say Jesus died for me,

and there's a difference

in coming and saying,

I know Jesus died for me.

That's how you move

from mere understanding

to meekness,

to wisdom.

You see here,

the way it really works,

Aristotle said,

you've got to train yourself

into this through discipline.

But here in this passage,

you'll see what James writes.

He says,

seek the meekness of wisdom.

And then later on,

he calls it the wisdom

that comes from above.

That's a language from the gospels.

Wisdom from above,

from above,

wisdom of heaven.

That's how Jesus talks

to Nicodemus in John 3

and says,

what do you need

to change in your life?

What do you need?

You need the spirit.

This is a subtle reference

to the Holy Spirit.

Wisdom from above.

Who is the Sophia from above?

It's the Holy Spirit.

And Aristotle said,

you've got to train yourself

into this,

but the truth is,

you need the Holy Spirit.

It's a gift.

It has to be given to you.

The Spirit gives it to you

by grace,

and then you seek it simultaneously.

It's both and.

It's never one or the other.

You really can become

a lion on the inside

and lamb-like on the outside,

as gentle as Jesus Christ,

and it's a gift of the Spirit.

Now, secondly,

why haven't we become

this person so far?

And we're told here,

this is why I wanted to read

just one verse of chapter 4.

It seemed like an odd place to end,

but pretend that

there are no chapter divisions.

There aren't in the original text.

There's no headings in your Bible.

You've got to take that,

cover that up with your finger.

And see, notice in verse 13,

there's a question,

who is wise and understanding among you?

Then down in chapter 4, verse 1,

there's a question,

well, what causes quarrels

and fights among you?

See, that's a frame.

On one hand,

who is wise among you?

On the other,

who amongst you are causing fights?

So he's saying,

we will know by good conduct

who is growing in wisdom.

He's talking to Christians.

And then on the other hand,

we'll know by conduct

who is not growing in wisdom,

who is foolish,

who's causing the fights

and the quarrels among you.

You see, these two questions

are the bookends

between wisdom and foolishness

in this passage.

And he tells us really plainly

the difference.

And he tells it in chapter 4, verse 1,

is the answer not this,

that your passions

are at war within you.

So what's the answer?

The answer is,

if you're a believer today

in this room,

there is a war raging

inside of you.

And the war is between

life and the Spirit,

the Spirit who is with you right now,

present with you,

and the reality that you are born

into this world fleshly.

What does he say?

Unspiritual, earthly, demonic.

And he said,

that is the war

that is raging in your life

at this very moment

in this room

as we sit here.

I just have a question for you

as we think about it.

Are you engaging in that war?

Are you aware of that war?

One of the things Paul tells us

is if you're not actively

in that war,

in that fight,

listening to the Spirit

versus listening to your flesh,

you're losing.

If you're not aware,

if you're passive,

you're losing.

And so that's why he says,

who is wise among you,

we can see.

We can see who's growing.

Who is causing fights

and quarrels among you?

It's because you're letting

your passions,

you're a believer,

but you're letting your passions

win the war

when the Spirit's gently

whispering to you

all the time

to kill those desires.

And so he's telling us here,

you really do have to engage

the fight

to put on wisdom

by fighting,

by putting away your desires.

You've got to do things

you don't want to do

because your desires

are earthly,

unspiritual,

demonic,

he says.

And so he gives you

two qualities

of what it looks like

to not be growing,

to be walking

instead of foolishness,

and they are bitter jealousy,

he lists them,

and selfish ambition.

The Greek word there

is bitter zeal,

but the word bitter

makes it into

the word jealousy

or envy

or covetousness.

And so he says

the opposite

of growing in wisdom

is to embrace

envy and covetousness,

which is in us all.

It's to let it grow.

It's to let it take hold.

There's a good kind of jealousy

when you are jealous

for a spouse

that they would be faithful.

That's a good kind of jealousy.

That's the jealousy

God has for the church.

But there is an evil

kind of jealousy,

and it's really discontentment.

It's feeling resentful

about the advantages,

the possessions,

the life that other people have.

So bitter jealousy

or envy

or covetousness

is when you say

effectively,

I just want my life

to be different

than the providence

God has given me.

And I really want

the life of the other person.

And it's a quiet reality

that rots the soul

from the inside out.

It sucks away all joy

when you're walking

through a season

of bitter jealousy

and envy

and covetousness.

And so he's telling us here,

we all,

it's not that some of us,

he's saying,

we all have this in us.

And if we're not

listening to the Spirit

and fighting bitter jealousy

and envy,

it will be growing.

Covetousness will be growing.

The second one he says

is really just a clarification

of the first,

selfish ambition.

This is what Aristotle said

about this word

that's used.

It's one word

in the original text.

Aristotle said,

selfish ambition

is the self-seeking pursuit

of political office

by unfair means.

What it means

in the Bible

is when you say,

quietly maybe,

not too loud,

but my life is about me,

my pursuits are for me.

Every relationship you have

is what am I getting

from this?

So it's a life

that's curved in on itself,

self-centric

instead of theocentric,

God-centered,

or church-centered,

other-centered.

And it's exactly the thing

that life in the Spirit

is meant to free us from.

So you know

you're becoming wise

when you can feel

that you are forgetting

about yourself more often

and more concerned

with other people

and their problems

and their issues

and the things

that are going on

in their lives.

And so James

pulls no punches.

He tells us what this is.

He says it's earthly,

meaning it's living life

as if there is nothing

above the sun.

There is no God above you.

Then he says

it's unspiritual,

living according

to the mere human reasons,

human desires.

It's actually a word

that says it's living

like an animal,

merely with animalistic desires.

And then the third thing

he says is it's demonic.

Now he's not saying

that believer

you are demon possessed.

He's saying

our natural desires

are demon like.

He's saying Satan

taught us to be like this.

This comes from

the corruption

of the Garden of Eden.

This is who we've been

ever since.

And he's calling us today

to see that

if you're not,

if you're in a place

where you're not growing,

it's not because

you're not justified

by faith.

It's because you're not

walking in step

with the Spirit.

You're not listening

to the Holy Spirit.

When you feel

the prompt

of the Spirit

saying don't go there,

don't do that,

don't look at that,

you're losing those battles

and so you're not growing,

you're diminishing,

you're becoming

more self-centered,

more curved in on self

instead of growing

in quote,

good conduct.

I'll move on

to the final point

but the word

good conduct,

he says wisdom

will show up

in good conduct,

verse 13 and 14.

We've got two words

for good

in the New Testament

and this is not the one

that is the opposite

of bad.

This is not the one

that is the opposite

of evil.

This is the one

that is opposite

of ugly.

And so the word

he uses,

you will be known,

the life of meekness

and wisdom,

you will be known

by your beautiful conduct,

not your ugly conduct.

So he's saying

that when you put

on the Spirit

and you seek the Spirit,

your life grows

into a life of beauty.

Beautiful conduct,

beautiful wisdom

is because of how

it all comes out.

The meek person

is the most dangerous person

in the room in a way.

Not because they will hurt you,

no they won't.

Not because they'll seek revenge,

they won't.

But because they do not

need anything from anybody.

And in that,

that kind of freedom

is almost incomprehensible

to a world

that is run

on selfish ambition.

almost incomprehensible.

How to change,

lastly.

How do we change?

How do we grow

into this person?

Paul says,

our natural instincts

are demon-like.

You do not need

an exorcist.

You need a Savior.

You need a Redeemer.

And so,

the wisdom from above,

thirdly and finally,

revisited once more.

Let's look at it once more.

How do we change?

Now,

we've already been told

about meekness

in the beginning of the book,

chapter 1,

verse 21.

And here's what James says,

therefore,

put away all filthiness

and rampant wickedness.

Sounds almost identical

to this passage.

And receive with meekness

the implanted word,

which will save your soul.

So,

Paul,

James gave us

exactly what we're supposed

to do back in chapter 1.

Put away

the desires of the flesh

and instead receive

with meekness,

gentleness of spirit,

the implanted word.

And so,

he tells you,

how do you change?

You've got to receive

the implanted word today.

And receiving

the implanted word

means that either

the word has already

been implanted in you

and you need to re-receive it

over and over again.

Or today,

you might sit here today

and you need to receive

the word.

What is the word?

What is the word

that you need to receive?

And when you read this list

in verse 17,

just think about it

for a second.

What is the word?

One who is pure,

peaceable,

gentle,

open to reason,

full of mercy

and good fruits,

impartial and sincere.

The word is Jesus Christ.

You need to receive

the one who is this list.

This list is a person

and that person

is Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ,

we read it

in our call to worship.

He has one moment

in the Gospels

where he gives

an autobiography,

one moment

where he talks

about himself

so clearly

in his own virtues

and it's in Matthew 11.

It was our call

to worship today.

He says,

come to me,

all you today

who are weary,

I will give you rest

for I am meek

and lowly in heart

and in me

you can find rest

for your souls.

On the night

that he was betrayed,

Jesus was standing

before Pontius Pilate,

you'll remember this,

and he says to Pilate,

if I desired,

I could call down

twelve legions

of angels

right now

to do away

with all of this,

to do away

with the cross,

to do away

with my being

brutally beaten

and murdered

by my own creation.

He said that to Pilate

and he was telling

Pilate that

but he didn't do it.

That is not weakness.

That is the most astonishing

kind of restraint

in world history.

It is meekness.

It is the lion

of the tribe of Judah

choosing to become

the lamb of God

who took away

the sins of the world.

And when he was

on the cross,

you'll remember,

he looked up

and he did something

unbelievable.

He said,

Father,

forgive them

for they do not know

what they are doing.

Father,

my murderers

do not understand

what they are doing.

That is not weakness.

That is unbelievable.

meekness.

Such restraint.

Such gentleness.

Such tenderness

to the person

that has hung him

upon the cross

to every single one

of us in this room today.

And so,

the cross of Christ

does two things

for you this morning.

First,

it shows you

when Jesus hung on the cross,

you can look at him

and realize

how sinful you are.

How full of selfish ambition

and envy

and jealousy

every one of us

really is.

How much fleshliness,

demonic-like longings

we have.

But then secondly,

when he looked up

at the cross

and said,

Father,

forgive them.

They do not know

what they are doing.

That tells you something.

He came to rescue you

from yourself.

He came to forgive you.

He came to turn you

outside of yourself

and focus you

in the way you were made

on others

and on him

and on the local church

and on the body.

He rescues you

from yourself

and he can today

gift you

with the meekness

of wisdom,

with peace

and purity

and impartiality

and sincerity.

He can do that.

Let me finish

by giving you

three things to do

to grow in this way.

Number one,

it's straight out

of the text.

He tells us first,

receive the implanted

word this morning.

So if you're a Christian,

you already have

the word of Christ

in you,

the Holy Spirit.

Today,

you need to come

and receive that word again

and look for the spirit

in your life

and re-receive

the implanted word.

Look to Christ

through the word.

Let me read this sentence

because I want to say it correctly.

Meekness is the fruit

of a particular

kind of security.

If you do not

trust God today,

you need to fight.

You have to fight

for everything

in your life

for yourself.

Your reputation,

your comfort,

your place

in the pecking order.

But if you are

genuinely convinced

that the God

of the universe

is your father,

is your defender,

and your deepest satisfaction,

you today can afford

to be gentle.

You don't have to fight

for everything

in your life anymore.

You don't have to

climb up the pecking order.

If you are in Christ,

you can afford

to be gentle.

You can afford

not to treat conversations

as transactional.

I got a letter

in the post yesterday

from an elder

in Mississippi

from where we're from.

And he had mailed it

on January 2nd.

And I got it

on March 20th.

Now that's because

he mailed it

to our old house

in Murrayfield

and it went back to him.

And then I think

from I'm looking

at all the stamps

on the envelope,

it looks like he tried it

twice and then

it came back again.

And then he mailed it

to my parents

and then they mailed it.

So I finally got it.

So it was all

about the new year.

So he wrote me

a new year letter.

But I was prepping

this passage yesterday

at the house

and got the letter.

And this is what

the letter said.

As you enter a new year,

take heart.

The same God

is with you

and goes before you

to demonstrate

his redemptive power

in your life.

The instructions

are still the same.

You must keep your focus

on the word of God.

You must believe it.

You must obey it.

The surging,

swirling waters of doubt,

the impregnable fortresses

of satanic distraction,

the dismays

of sudden unexpected trials,

the fears wrought

by past failure

and present danger,

they are very real.

But if you have been

redeemed by grace

and seated

with the presence

of the Spirit,

sorry, excuse me,

sealed with the presence

of the Spirit,

so the Lord your God

comes with and before you.

Keep your eyes

this year on his word.

Read it.

Obey it.

Follow it.

In 2026,

you have never been

this way before.

You will need it.

Signed out.

Listen to the Spirit.

Receive the implanted word

day by day.

You have never been

this way before.

Tomorrow is a new day

and you've never been

to tomorrow yet.

You need the word.

It's the only way

to grow in the meekness

of wisdom.

Secondly,

verse 14,

if you have bitter jealousy

and selfish ambition,

don't boast.

What is he telling us there?

He's saying,

remember last time

was all about words.

He's saying,

if you know that you're

in a place right now

where you are particularly

walking in the flesh,

not the Spirit,

he says,

don't boast.

In other words,

practice silence

with your speech,

which is a way of saying

that you have to make

a conscious decision

to step forward

with new disciplines,

new practices

to address the sins

of the flesh

that you are walking in

at the minute.

So he's saying,

in order to practice weakness,

you have to decide today

to put away

the sins of the flesh

and to make practical steps.

So he's saying,

if you struggle with boasting,

then be silent.

Just say,

this week I'm going to talk,

not very much at all,

because every time

I open my mouth,

I tend to brag.

You see,

he's saying habits matter,

disciplines matter,

taking steps matter.

Let me paint a quick picture

for you between two people.

Person A,

someone struggling

like we all have,

like I certainly have,

with selfish ambition.

every conversation

is subtly about

establishing where we stand.

When we listen

to somebody talk,

we're actually just

waiting to talk.

When we praise somebody,

it's in order to get

something back.

When we're talking to people,

we're calculating

what it is that we can

get from them,

and if this conversation

will provide anything

of fruit at all.

People are background noise.

When we feel threatened,

our words get sharper

and colder.

We need something

from every person we meet

because life is about me.

Person B,

walking in the meekness

of wisdom.

They're genuinely curious

about the person

in front of them,

and so they truly listen.

They're not running

an internal calculation

of what they're getting

from this conversation.

When someone else wins,

they celebrate it

because they're truly glad.

They're truly happy about it.

Their identity

is not built on being right.

It's not built

on being better.

Their words build up others

because they don't need

to tear people down.

They don't need anything

from the people they meet.

They have everything

they need in Christ.

The difference is not personality.

The difference is not the past.

The difference is simply

what source are you running

to day after day.

That's the difference.

Thirdly and finally,

at the very end

of this passage,

verse 18,

when you put on

the meekness of wisdom,

a harvest of righteousness

is sown in peace

by those who make peace.

So here at the very end,

he turns this to the community

and says a harvest of shalom,

a harvest of peace,

a harvest of flourishing

is sown by all of us

when we together

seek this kind of life,

seek this kind of peace.

What is he saying?

He's saying that the farmer

does not reap

on the same day that he sows.

And to build a community of peace,

purity, sincerity,

impartiality, wisdom,

wisdom takes a long time.

That's what he's saying.

And in other words,

it's that a community,

a beautiful church,

a beautiful community

is built on the thousands

of small moments,

thousands, millions

of small moments

of years of interactions

with one another

where we're seeking

to genuinely be for each other.

Ecclesiocentric,

theocentric,

not self-centered,

the meekness of wisdom.

With Christ,

you can afford

to be other-centered.

Let us pray.

Father,

we want to get away

from our self-interest

and we struggle so much

with selfish ambition

and bitter jealousy

and envy

and we are curved in on ourself

as it's been said

throughout church history

so often.

Turn us around,

flip us upside down,

give us a different sense

of what we were made for.

Lord, renew us

to be the people

you made us to be.

Imago Dei,

the image of God

in the world.

So teach us today

as we sing

in this final hymn

to be other-centered

all because we are putting

on the meekness of Christ

through the implanted word.

So speak the implanted word,

O Lord,

into our hearts.

I pray for those

in this room

who may need

to meet with you

the word himself

for the first time,

the logos,

the word who gives life.

Lord,

by the Spirit,

would you give life

to someone here today

who does not yet know hope

through the word,

through Jesus.

So I pray for that.

And then I pray

for the rest of us

that are believers today

that you would teach us

wisdom,

meekness,

through the word sung.

And so we pray for that.

In Christ's name,

Amen.