Wisdom That Is From Above - Joel Schrock

Good morning. I also want to greet you all in

the name of Jesus this morning. Welcome here, Thank you

all for being here. Looks like got some WFTI people

showing up, so that's good. I do have one announcement

that may affect some of you more, just from lodging

and information standpoint. Normally WFTI goes through Friday noon, and

at this point it's planning to be over Thursday evening.

The Thursday evening open sessions a little bit up in

the air. What's happening that evening yet it is the

evening of the viewing. So but if that makes yeah, informational,

it may make some difference on some lodging things between

WFTI and the funerals to just so you're where that

I enjoyed the service so far this morning, and I

wanted to just look at that song really briefly, that

Earl led if I can remember the yeah, three hundred

and twenty nine. A few pertinent things in that song.

I thought verse four, well, all of all of the

verses start with a wonderful, wonderful word of the Lord,

and verse four the hope of our friends in the past.

I thought that was a fitting for this morning, but

also the first verse fits quite well with what we're

going to talk about this morning. A wonderful, wonderful word

of the Lord, true wisdom. Its page is unfold, So

that's kind of a I thought a good connector between

Sunday School and the message. I would like to read

right away here the primary text for the message this morning,

and that's in James three. You can turn there if

you like. James three, verses thirteen to eighteen. I'll read

that right away, and then we will we talk about

some other things that come back to this James three,

starting in verse thirteen, who is a wise man and

endued with knowledge among you, let him show out of

a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom. But

if you have bitter enving and strife in your hearts,

glory not, and lie not against the truth. This wisdom

descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For

where enving and strife is, there is confusion and every

evil work. But the wisdom that is from above is

first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated,

full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy,

and the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of

them that make peace. Now there's an old story, a fable.

As many fables go, there's many versions of them, and

I couldn't actually find the version I wanted, But the

essence of the story is there was a man and

a boy and a donkey. They were heading to a market,

and as they're walking down the road, they happy whistling

a tune visiting. The father and the son walking side

by side, leading the donkey behind them, and a couple

old men sitting by the side of the road having

their morning coffee said, what fools, what is a donkey

good for except to ride? And the father thought, well,

there's some truth to that. Son, get on the donkey,

I'll lead you into town. So the son gets on

the donkey and they're riding along, and pretty soon they

passed a couple old women by the side of the road,

and they said, what a shame that lazy, spoiled brat

sitting on that donkey while his poor dad trudges through

the hot sunshine. So the father, not wanting people to

think ill of his son, said why don't we switch

places here for a walk? So the father hopped on

the donkey and the son walked along, and pretty soon

they round a corner and there's a group of school

aged girls tittering around like they do, and they said,

what a mean old man making that poor young boy

walk while he writes. Well, So the man calls his

son over and they both get on the donkey and

away they go. As they get into town, you notice

people pointing at them and jeering, and some people kind

of upset and some people laughing. One man calls out,

what do you think you're doing making that poor old

tired donkey carry you and your hulking son. Looks like

you should be carrying that poor tired donkey. So they

hop off the donkey and scratch their heads and find

a pole and tie the feet of the donkey to

the pole and sling it over their shoulders, and away

they go. And they get to the bridge heading into

the market, and they're crossing the bridge and people on

the bank begin to jeer and laugh loudly, and the

donkey kicks his feet and the boy dropped his end

of the pole, and the donkey, with his feet still

tied it together, slid off the pole over the bridge

into the water and drowned father in the son look

over the bridge at where the donkey splushed into the

river and at the bank of the river where the

jeering people stood, and they turned around. They head home,

and the dad says, son, we have tried to please everyone,

and we have pleased no one. And besides, we lost

our donkey. So they went home a little bit wiser

than when they left that morning. So what is what

is wisdom? What was learned? What there was some truth?

And everything that was said there was knowledge there? What

is wisdom? What does it look like? Yeah, the last

message I had here use about what we think about,

what goes on in our mind, think on these things,

and this message is not necessarily an extension of that message,

but I did notice some parallels, some similarities. And this morning,

what I would like to think about is taken from

the verses I read, and that is wisdom, that is

from above, what happens inside of us, and how does

that affect who we are and what we do, the

way we act and how we interact with people. So

this message is taken from James three or the verses

we read, with a list of words that help to

describe what this is. What is wisdom that is from above?

What is wisdom? True wisdom. Now, when you think of

James chapter three, what's the first thing that pops in

to your mind anybody? The tongue, the use of the tongue,

the power of the tongue, the dangers of the tongue.

So it's really fitting, and that's whole. You could have

multiple messages about the earlier parts of James Chapter three,

but I believe it is fitting that this section on

wisdom comes right on the heels of the tongue, speaking

about the tongue, dangers of the tongue. James. A little

bit about James. There's a lot of James is in

the New Testament. This James, James wrote this book is

believed to be the oldest half brother of Jesus, who

witnessed Jesus following the resurrection. At one time, he didn't

believe that Jesus was God. He was, I believe, part

of the family that wasn't so sure what went on

was going on with his brother. He was with the

group of believers in Jerusalem when the Holy Spirit came

upon them, and he became a leader of the believers.

In Jerusalem. Jerusalem Council Paul would have visited him a

couple of times that have taken advice from him. The UH.

There's letters letters sent out James with James's advice on

how to deal with gentile believers, even though he himself

focused primarily at the time early there in converting the Jews.

And then when you think of wisdom, who's the first

person that pops into your mind? Any buddy Solomon? Right,

you just think Solomon. Now, the Book of James is

called by called by some the New Testament Book of Proverbs.

There's a lot of wisdom in this book. Now, the

author of the Book of Proverbs, mostly in the Old Testament,

is Solomon, who we call the wisest man that ever lived. Now,

I don't think that we call him that because there's

a lot of wise sayings with the name Solomon. Afterwards,

I think we say that because Solomon made a very

wise decision early in his UH when he was king,

that God himself had commentary on and we'll read that

here in a minute. And we know that later in

his life Solomon, well, he had much wisdom, often didn't

live with much wisdom in his personal life. Spiritually, and

we'll get to some of that later here, but we

see in First Kings chapter three the beginning of wisdom

in Solomon's life and his reign is king. Later, Solomon

would write in Proverbs nine that the fear of the

Lord is the beginning of wisdom. I believe when this

story takes place, Solomon had a healthy fear and respect

and love for the Lord. Solomon, it says, love the Lord,

and walked in the statutes of David his father, and

he went up to Gibeon. And you can just slide

right over this little piece here. He went up to

Gibeon and he sacrificed one thousand burnt offerings. I think

that really boggles the mind if you kind of work

through what that would have been like. Only one was

specified for voluntary burnt offering in the law. But Solomon,

I believe, was making a statement about his allegiance and

who he was following. And God was pleased with us,

and he comes to Solomon in a dream, and I'd

like to read this back and forth between God and

Solomon in First Kings chapter three. Can also find this

account in Second Chronicles one, but there's a little more

detail here. In first Kings, so first Kings, three ye,

starting in verse five in Gibeon, the Lord appeared to

Solomon in a dream by night, and God said, ask

what I shall give THEE That sounds kind of like

a blank check. And Solomon said, so listen to what

Solomon said. Solomon has a few verses worth of things

to say. Thou hast showed unto thy servant, David my father,

great mercy, according as he walked before THEE in truth

and in rightel busness and an uprightness of heart with THEE.

And thou hast kept for him this great kindness, that

thou hast given him a son to sit on the

throne as it is this day. And now, o, Lord,

my God, thou hast made thy servant king instead of

David my father. I am but a little child. I

know not how to go out or come in. Remember

two kings earlier we had Saul, and Saul, he was

told later in his life, when you are little, small

in your own eyes, that's what we see here, but

a little child, Solomon says verse eight. And thy servant

is in the midst of thy people, which thou hast chosen,

a great people that cannot be numbered nor counted for multitude.

Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people,

that I may desern between good and bad, for who

is able to judge this thy so great a people?

And the speech pleased the Lord, And that Solomon had

asked this thing. Now In the account in Second Chronicles,

it specifically states Solomon asks for wisdom, but an understanding heart.

That's what he's asking for here verse leven. And God said,

so here's God talking to Solomon. Now, said unto him,

because thou hast asked this thing, and hast not asked

for thyself long life. Neither has asked riches for thyself,

nor hast asked the life of thine enemies, but hast

asked for thyself understanding to desern judgment. Behold, I have

done according to thy words. Lo I have given thee

a wise and an understanding heart. God gives Solomon wisdom here,

so that there was none like THEE before THEE. Neither

after THEE shall any arise like unto THEE. And that's

where we get Solomon the wisest man. And if thou

wilt walk in my ways, to keep my statutes and

my commandments, as thy father David did, walk, then I

will lengthen thy days, and then we see it Solomon did.

He had just one thousand burnt offerings. And Solomon awoke

and behold it was a dream. And he came to

Jerusalem and stood before the ark of the Covenant of

the Lord, and offered up burnt offerings, and offered peace offerings,

and made a feast to all his servants. If God

came to you in a dream in the night and

he said, ask what I shall give thee, what would

you say. God was pleased with Solomon's request for wisdom,

and Solomon had great way wisdom. He communicated here with

the source of wisdom, and yet in much of his

life he failed to live his personal life with wisdom.

We do see many times in Solomon's life where he

acted and spoke, did things in a wise manner, and

it seems like his reflections later in life there's a

lot of wisdom in his reflections and conclusions. Now back

to James, James recommends this request. If you look in

the first chapter of James James one, verse five, James says,

if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of

God that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not,

and it shall be given him. How many times do

we want wisdom, wish for wisdom, and we fail to

simply ask God for whims and instead we reach out

to you know, we research, we read, we reason, and

those are all good things. But remember that God and

his word the source of wisdom. And God does not

get upset or withhold that request from us, but insteady

joyfully gives us more than we could imagine liberally gives it.

I believe God is waiting for that request from us.

He wants to give it to us. Now, the next verse,

verse six, gives a qualify our faith. We must ask

believing that God is a source of wisdom and that

He will give us that wisdom. Now, wisdom and knowledge

are often conflated. Knowledge, we could say, is accumulation of information.

And there is probably not a time in the history

of the world that you could get more information faster

than you can get it now. Might not all be accurate,

but you can get a lot of information. We're in

a time of information saturation. I mean, Google is sort

of an old, clunky thing at this point, and you

have all these different ais that throw all sorts of

stuff at you. Knowledge, at least, information has never come

easy easier, but possibly wisdom has never been rarer. Wisdom,

I believe, is applying understanding to knowledge wisdom. Wisdom without

knowledge is improbable. You do have to know things to

be able to understand them to some degree. But knowledge

without wisdom is dangerous. You know, very intelligent men can

understand everything there is to know about nuclear reactions and

nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons and how they detonate. You

would hope that somebody in that project has some wisdom,

not just knowledge. Often in the Bible you find knowledge

and wisdom together. A couple verses from Proverbs Proverbs two

verse six, for the Lord giveth wisdom, out of his

mouth cometh knowledge and understanding, and Proverbs nine verse ten.

I alluded to this verse before the fear of the

Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of

the Holy is understanding. So now back to wisdom more

specifically Proverbs again four verse seven. Wisdom is the principal thing.

Therefore get wisdom, and with all thy getting, get understanding.

You know. Solomon, in the Book of Proverbs different places,

he says that wisdom is better than silver. He says,

wisdom is better than gold, Wisdom is better than rubies,

Wisdom is better than riches. And if anyone should have known,

Solomon should have known. I don't know how this is estimated,

but it has been estimated by some of the trading,

and the taxes and the tributes and all these things.

It has been estimated that in today's US dollars, Solomon's

peak wealth would have been somewhere between two and three

trillion dollars. I can't like I didn't independently verify that,

but he was likely more wealthy than Elon Musk is today,

and more powerful in his sphere, and for longer time

than Donald Trump. And yet what did he say was

the principal thing? Was it power? Was it riches? Was

it fame? The principal thing, he says, is wisdom. So

back to James James three, verse thirteen. Again, who is

a wise man? Who is a wise man and undudith

knowledge among you? Let him show out of a good

conversation his works with meekness of wisdom. Now Here again

we have wisdom and knowledge. In the same verse, a

wise man has knowledge. But notice you're what James is saying,

who is wise and knowledgeable among you? Let does he say,

let him show how intelligent he is by philosophizing about

difficult subjects. It's not what James says. James says, let

him show that he's wise and knowledgeable by it's let

him show out of a good conversation. My understanding is

this conversation is an old English word for lifestyle. Let

him show out of a good lifestyle his works. That's

how you can tell if somebody's wise. And how should

he show his works? What does that look like? Two

words are given here. It's meekness in meekness of wisdom,

meekness probably over here at least that winging at least

sort of shies away from the word meek. I think

you know the English word meek, and if you look

it up, you might depend which dictionary one of the synonyms.

You start running down synonyms, and you know weak is

in there somewhere, okay, and we kind of equate meek

and weak a little bit, so we don't really want

to do that. But this word meek, from what I understand,

the original words a little tough to translate into an

English word, and it's more like power restrained power under control.

Example is given of a powerful stallion that has been bridal,

boundless potential energy and power checked by restraint and gentleness,

not weak power. Restrain and wisdom meekness of wisdom. A

wise man, it turns out, should act in a wise manner.

Some simple wisdom. Wisdom is an inner quality like faith

or love, that has lived out in the real world

by the way we live, by the way we work,

by the way we present ourselves, by the way we speak.

Coming after the tongue, and then we see there are

two wisdoms that James talks about, two sources of wisdom,

one true wisdom, one I would say counterfeit or perversion

of wisdom. You could think about the two kingdoms. You

have two kings, God and Satan. You have the two kingdoms,

and you have two very different versions of wisdom. Verses

fourteen to sixteen talk about the first one here that

James is talking about. But if you have bitter, enving

and strife in your hearts, glory not and lie not

against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but

is earthly sensual devilish, For where envy and strife is

there is confusion in every evil work. So if you

have bitter envying and strife, or as NIV puts it,

if you harbor bitter envy and listen to this one

selfish ambitions in your heart, do not boast about it

or deny the truth. Now we may be able to

doctor up our envy and selfishness at times with a

cloak of self righteousness. We can aggressively speak the truth

without love, because, after all, it's the truth, James says,

don't fool yourself, don't lie against the truth, don't deny

the truth. Envy and strife are the polar opposite of

meekness of wisdom. You think about that stallion, that powerful

horse who has never learned to keep it power constrained.

The damage that can be inflicted by that is real.

It's big, and James has harsh words to describe this.

First of all, he calls it this wisdom. It's not wisdom.

It's this wisdom, and it descendeth not from above wherever

this wisdom comes from. It's not from above. Okay, he

starts us out with a negative. This wisdom is not

from above. Let's he gets that out there right, away.

There's nothing godly or heavenly or divine about this wisdom.

But here is what it is. He gives some words,

and I'm going to I thought Adam Clark's descriptions were

kind of interesting, and I have some comments on them too.

Earthly is the first one. So this wisdom is not

from above. It's earthly. And Clark's description that is having

this life only in view, and I think that's a

good one. I think that's a good descriptor. It certainly

isn't wise with any in any eternal sense. And whenever,

whenever we come to a time and and someone comes

to the end of their life, we think about that,

we think about that more earthly wisdom. Wisdom that is

earthly with earth only view doesn't mean very much anymore.

Earth is where we live, but we won't be here

for long. Another thing, this wisdom is issensual. And here's

what he has to say about this having for its

object the gratification of the passions and animal propensities. So

my interpreting of that is living for pleasure for pleasure's sake.

We live in a time where people say, if it

feels good, do it. And I'm looking out for number one,

and I'm sure there's a lot of updated ones, but

I think we soon see how this mindset, this earthly

central mindset. We think, well, surely that's not devilish. Many

the next one is devilish, and I think, well, that

might be kind of a harsh word. Well, a lot

of versions have translated it as demonic, So there you go.

Clark says, inspired by demons and maintained in the soul

by their indwelling influence. That's pretty direct, this word devilish.

It's a pretty direct word. And so how does Earthly

Central devilish? Earthly Central culture, I believe is or becomes

devilish awfully quickly. And I think we can see that

in maybe a really clear example of that is abortion.

Somehow people have become desensitized to the fact that a

baby in the wound is a human with a life

and a soul. If somebody is too busy with their career,

they think they don't have enough money or what it

takes to be a parent, or they're just simply too

busy parting living life, many people those situations choose to

end the baby's life. And this is by any measure

earthly sensual and devilish. God spent much of the Old

Testament telling his people not to kill babies, and we

can see it here. This is maybe clear to us,

but maybe it's harder to pick up in our own

lives and day to day interactions. But James gives us

an if then scenario. If there is enving and strife,

if there's selfish ambition in our hearts, you know what

the fruit will be, he says. You can guarantee the

result here. It will be confusion and every evil work,

or you could say disorder and every evil practice, as

another version says. And we know that God is not

the author of confusion. But these things are the fruit

of a life lived without true wisdom. You know, we

can all see how earthly wisdom can be rationalized in

the mind. After all, if I don't look out for myself,

who will. But now let's look at true wisdom. We

get to true wisdom, wisdom from the source of all wisdom.

Going to read verse seventeen again. But the wisdom that

is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle and

easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits,

without partiality and without hypocrisy, And the first thing we

see about this about true wisdom is that it is

from above. He makes that distinction he talked before about

this wisdom is not from above, but the wisdom that

is from above, it's divine. It's wisdom from God. And

we like to make things practical. And I'm going to

ask ourselves, how do I know if I'm living in wisdom,

if I'm wise? How do I get this withdom? What

does this wisdom look like? Well? James gives some answers

to that. Here and here Here are the answers that

James gives. First, he says, first, it is pure. Why

pure is listed as first, I don't know for sure,

but something that is pure is not defiled, it's not counterfeit.

Things that are pure are given in the list of

things we should think about. Think about these things. Pure

is clean and true and right. Gave the example last

time about pure milk without manure. Right, yesterday we had

blackberries at breakfast, and they were delicious and fresh blackberries.

And our children noticed these little things jumping around on

the plate, and they weren't blackberries. They came from the blackberries,

and they didn't think that these blackberries were pure. I

don't know why, ah, but these things Pure is without defilement.

This word has been described as the absence of any

sinful attitude or motive. The wisdom that is from above

is pure. First pure, then we have a less then peaceable.

The NIV says peace loving. As I understand it, there's

some parallels here with the meaning of meekness that we

talked about, where you know, it could be justifiable not

to be peaceful in a situation, but we do it anyway,

because that's the wisdom's from above, that power restrain, that

power under control. Notice peace peace has the exact opposite

meaning or connotation of strife and envy, which we read

about earlier. If we love peace, we will look out

for each other, and not just the selfish ambitions of

our heart. The wisdom that is from above is peaceable.

It is gentle. I'd like to read what Barclay has

to say about this word gentle. The man who is

gentle is the man who knows when it is actually

wrong to apply the strict letter of the law. He

knows how to forgive when strict justice gives him a

perfect right to condemn. It is impossible, impossible to find

an English word to translate this quality. Matthew Arnold called

it sweet reasonableness. Now, sometimes we're talking with someone and

we have being a disagreement, Come on, be reasonable, right, Well,

this is not reluctant reasonableness. This is sweet reasonableness, and

it is the ability to extend to others the kindly

consideration we would wish to receive ourselves. The wisdom that

is from above is gentle, even when justice might suggests otherwise.

It is easy to be entreated. Other versions use words

like submissive, obedient, willing to yield. Again, we may shy

away from some of those words, but this is not

what you would see from someone focus on himself. The

thought here is easy to be persuaded, not in a gullible,

easy to be led astray manner, but rather you're willing

to listen to reason and wisely determine when you should

give way you should yield. Wisdom that is from above

is easy to be intreated. It is full of mercy,

not somewhat merciful, but full of mercy. You know, you

think about this example has been given in different scenarios,

but you think about a cup that is full of

crystal clear cold water, full to the brim. You bump

into that cut, you bump that cup. What will come out?

It is crystal clear, cold water. Right, clean up whatever

it spills on, it'll dry just fine. It'll be fine.

You have a cup, same cup, full to the brim

of dirty car oil on a nice white cloth. You

bump that, What will come out It will be dirty

car oil, leaf stains. You got problems, right, and so

you have this idea full of mercy, for full of mercy.

What will come out of us is mercy, and we

will be shown mercy as we show mercy. Matthew seven

Verse two says, for with what judgment you judge, you

shall be judged, and with what measure you meet, it

shall be measured to you. Again, wisdom that is from

above is full of mercy and good fruits. It's full

of good fruits. So I have that idea of fullness

here again, not only fullness of fruits, fullness of fruits

that are good. Now, yesterday I walked out to our

fig trees. I thought a good fig would be in order,

and I got to looking around, and I was disappointed.

And it wasn't for lack of fruit. There was plenty

of fruit there. Much of the fruit was not right,

and if any of you have experience with not right figs,

you're not going to be chomping into them. So that

didn't do much good. But there were some right figs

up there. But I noticed as I kept trying to

pick them that everyone that I found had something chomped

out of it. And I don't think that our children

made it up to all those branches, but something was

eating those figs, and I could not find good fruit.

It was disappointing. There's plenty of fruit there. Our lives

should be full of good fruits, and I believe it

looks something like at least includes the fruit the fruit

of the spirit, love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness,

and temperance. If you notice some of the same words

and thoughts that we get here overlap and wisdom from above.

Wisdom that is from above is full of good fruits.

It is without partiality, it is impartial, it is fair,

it is without favoritism, without judging. Jesus says in Matthew seven,

judge not that you be not judged. Make sure that

you take care of the beam in your eye before

you help your brother with the mote in his wisdom

that is from above is without partiality, it is without hypocrisy,

It is sincere, It is not two faced. Think of

complete honesty, think of being pure in our intentions and motives.

Wisdom that is from above is without hypocrisy. These two

at the end here, partiality and hypocrisy. We can put

on a pretty good front and have partiality and hypocrisy

in our hearts. We can have those selfish ambitions in

our hearts if we take care of this. If we're

without partiality, we're with our hypocrisy purity, we don't have

those selfish ambitions hidden in there. Verse eighteen says and

the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them

that make peace. I think this is just. This is

a beautiful way to wrap up this section of verses

end of the chapter on the Tongue and wisdom, and

as echoes of James's brother and God and Lord Jesus

who said on the Sermon on the Mount, blessed are

the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.

And if we have, if we live with the wisdom

that is from above that's listed out here and described

in James chapter three. We will sew in peace, and

we will reap a harvest of righteousness. God bless you.