Wisdom of God

Welcome to this week's message from the church at Chelsea Westover.

Our core values are vibrant worship, intimate fellowship, fulfilling service, and clear biblical truth.

We pray that this message changes your life.

Let's tune in to today's message and see what God has in store for you.

I want you to turn with me in your Bibles this morning to James chapter 3.

James 3 · chapter mention

And boy, has this been a study.

What a study.

And if you're here this morning, you need a worship guide.

We'll make sure everyone has a worship guide.

The outline's on the back.

Would you raise your hand if you do not have one?

You need one.

Make sure everyone's got one.

And thank you for taking them home.

And many of you tell me, you take it home, you study it, you share it, and that is the purpose of it.

And we believe in teaching the Word of God here.

We believe.

In fact, we've got a little saying here.

And most of our people know it.

Let me say it to you, and then we'll say it together.

We say, first of all, we love it.

Secondly, we learn it.

And then thirdly, we live it.

Amen.

So let's say that together.

Ready?

We what?

Love it, we learn it, we live it.

And that's what changes our lives, is the word of the living God.

So, and we're excited.

We got so much.

It's been such a great summer already, and it's just beginning.

And uh at the end of the service, Marquita's going to just share a little bit.

Ladies, we're ready to really try to get an unbelievable ladies' ministry going here, especially for our young mothers.

We really are.

I mean, we've got a lot of young mothers in this congregation and in our community.

And uh we've uh Marquita's been leading a Bible study on Tuesday mornings, which has been fabulous.

And we have about 25 ladies that regularly show up, and about only about four or five of those are really actually members in our church, I think.

Am I close or being right?

And uh, but we want to get our ladies, our ladies, our young mothers, especially if you're home mothers and babies, getting uh, you know, a weekly Bible study so you can grow in the Word, get to know each other in our church.

Young couples, we're starting a, hey, this fall, we're gonna have a young couples class at 845 uh with David and uh Christy.

They're gonna kind of, what I say are young couples, I said I wasn't gonna use the word young couples.

Couples with children of early age and up through like fifth, sixth grade.

And uh so we can uh unbelievably get those young couples together.

There I go, yeah.

Those couples together.

And I well, the reason I can't get away from young couples, we saw the tremendous uh benefit that it did in our church at Open Door uh all those years.

We had a hey, listen, we had a young couples class of about 90 to 100 people, about 40 to 50 young couples, and it really changed our whole church, it built our church, and we see that same demographics here in this area.

So we're excited about that.

Then Susan uh is looking, uh Sylvester's gonna be teaching a men's class.

We're excited about that, and Susan's gonna be teaching a ladies' class.

So uh, and then we're looking at another class or two if we can find some more room.

So it's gonna be exciting as we start our our Sunday school, our Bible study on campus.

We're already looking for some modulars that we can expand that on the campus.

So uh it won't be long.

We'd love to you know what we'd love.

My goal is see two or three hundred people here uh at 8 45 in the morning studying the word of God right before church.

And we'll be using, and here's how we're gonna coordinate everything.

We'll be using, for example, this fall, we're starting the new series, is a country in crisis.

I mean, it's fitting, folks.

I'm telling you, we're in trouble.

When when 50 plus people or 48 plus 50 people can be gunned down, I know they ought not to have been in a nightclub, I understand that, but that doesn't make two wrongs right.

Amen.

For somebody to be able to go in there and just gun them down like animals.

That's that's just unheard of in America.

God help us.

We have a country in crisis.

But let me remind you: the crisis has not just started, it's been a crisis ever since the beginning when Joshua faced the crisis of his country in Israel.

So we're going to the book of Joshua, a country in crisis.

And our Sunday school classes, our Bible study classes, will be doing Warren Wearsby's study on the book of Joshua.

So it's gonna be exciting.

And as you're studying, you all be preaching.

And uh through the book of Joshua, it's gonna be exciting.

And I'm gonna tell you, you're gonna see so much application.

But let me just say this: it's time that we start praying and fasting for our country.

Amen.

We're in, guys.

I know you keep hearing this, but you better listen.

We're in trouble.

And that's why we're doing our wake up in the last week in August.

You start inviting people.

We'll have cards uh out in July to invite everybody.

We're gonna have the mayors here.

We're gonna have from uh hopefully Harpersville, uh Vincent, uh, Westover, Chelsea.

We don't know who uh whoever the mayor is in Chelsea.

Uh we know who the mayor is gonna be here.

But uh anyway, just to talk.

Just thought.

But anyway, uh, we really want to just, I mean, take a time of 6:30 to 8.30, you know, praying together.

We're gonna have special prayer, gonna have fantastic.

The Stevens are gonna be here.

Jessica's gonna be some of the best preaching you've ever heard.

Dr.

Randy Spencer, Dr.

Eddie Cole, and Terrence Jones from Montgomery, my my black African American brother.

Oh, can he preach?

He's he and his team's gonna be here on Sunday night, Tuesday night.

It's gonna be a wake up to remember.

We're gonna be out inside under the pavilion.

Well, kids are gonna have stuff going on.

It's gonna be awesome.

It's gonna be awesome.

But we've got to pray for America.

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, forgive their sins and heal their land?

2 Chronicles 7, 14.

We've got to see revival.

And let me tell you what we're fighting.

You know what we're fighting?

We're fighting against Satan.

Hey, hey, don't don't blame the president.

Don't don't blame Hillary.

I have to pause here a minute.

Don't blame Trump.

Don't blame our Senate.

Don't blame our God.

I mean, have you ever I mean in every Alabama, we don't have a whole lot to say.

If you know you listen to the news about what we got going on in our political system around here, I call it Peyton Place, Alabama, huh?

Just a thought.

But hey, we're in trouble.

But let me tell you who the corporate is.

Hey, hey, it's not the people, it's Satan, it's demonic.

We are following worldly wisdom, which is from, hey, the right out of the pits of hell, and it's demonic.

And that's what the title of the message is today.

You're gonna see it verse by verse today.

The last part of James chapter 13.

Title of the message Hey, the world's wisdom versus God's wisdom.

So let's begin and let's look at it.

There's an overabundance of how to be wise today.

We see it in books and videos on how to be a leader, how to be a wealth builder.

Everybody wants wealth, how to be good parents.

Isn't it amazing we have more books written on parenthood and how to have a great home today in America that's ever been written, more on leadership that's ever been written, and we have more divorces and more failures in leadership and more scandals than in the history of our country.

Something's wrong.

Something is wrong.

But what is the source of all this supposedly good information?

If it's not from God, it is from man.

And we know that the wisdom of the world is at best nothing more than a passing folly, a passing junk.

Amen.

Listen to what Jesus said.

Well, Paul said through the leadership of the Holy Spirit as he's writing Corinthians.

He said, the wisdom of this world, now watch, is foolishness with God.

1 Corinthians 3.19.

And then verse 20 he says, and the thoughts of the wisdom of the men of this world is vain.

Verse 20.

So that's where we are, and that's what he says.

So today we're gonna be looking at what, hey, the difference is between worldly wisdom and heavenly wisdom.

It's gonna be unbelievable.

It seems like the United States has become a country dependent on psychology.

Really, it really is.

Listen to some statistics.

Even though America claims less than 10% of the world's population.

Now this is good.

Hey, it houses over a third of the world's psychiatrists and over half the world's clinical psychologists.

Millions of America rely on the insights of two guys that form these two thoughts: fraud and john.

I grew up on fraud to deal with the reality of their everyday life.

While the message is not a triad now against psychiatry or psychology today, it is a message that shows you where the world's psychology has come from versus the, hey, hey, God's wisdom and it, hey, it's foundation from the word of God and the difference that they have.

And what's sad in America, most of us turn to psychiatry and psychology of the world to help us with our problems and troubles when in reality, guess what?

That's what's causing it.

Satan's got us.

Because there's only one thing that's going to change your life and change you: the word of the living God.

Can I get an amen?

The wisdom of God.

Nothing more, nothing less.

So, as we saw, James right here wants to make the point very clear that wisdom, God's wisdom, is necessary for a solid life foundation and not the world's wisdom.

In fact, in the previous message last week, which many of you talked to me, you texted me and said how God spoke to your heart about loose lips sink ships.

In fact, during the whole week of vacation bible school, people start, and we we had a little saying, bridle, bridle it, bridle it, bridle that tongue, bridle that tongue.

And we saw last week that, hey, what we talk about and what we say through our loose lips is really what we are.

It shows us our maturity.

Amen.

Those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart, and they defile the man, Matthew 15, 18.

So we really dealt in detail.

Well, this is a follow-up.

Now, James is just continuing, and he says, not only do your lips, by what you speak and what you say, is an indication of who you really are, he says, now I'm going to show you that that presentation of what you speak and what you are comes from one or two areas of wisdom.

Either the world's philosophy or God's philosophy.

Wow.

And he just continues.

So we see that it's very important, and look where he starts.

Look at your Bibles again and notice what he says at the beginning of the text in verse 13.

Who is wise and understandeth among you?

Let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom.

Man, let him show out of a good conversation, behavior, his works with meekness of wisdom.

Here's what he's saying.

If you and I are living according to God's wisdom and not the world's wisdom, we're gonna show good behavior.

We're gonna show, hey, humility.

And we are going to show great understanding of what true godly wisdom really is.

That's what it says.

Now, with that said, let's look at your outline.

The first thing I want us to look at in verses 13 through 16 is worldly wisdom.

And first of all, let me give you a definition of the word wisdom.

I looked it up.

And here's one of the definitions: accumulated knowledge or enlightenment.

That's just, by the way, that one's off Siri.

That's what she said.

Accumulated knowledge or enlightenment.

Now, dictionary, one of the dictionary's definitions, the ability to apply knowledge or experience or understanding or common sense.

So the question though, when I saw that, and after really exegetically going through the word of God, common sense can either be common sense from the world's standpoint or common sense from God's standpoint.

So just don't hang on to that common sense.

You can have common sense and still be wrong.

Hello.

Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt.

Amen?

So don't fall for that.

Here's another one.

I thought you'd enjoy this one.

Pretty simple.

The quality of being prudent and sensible.

Not bad.

And then here's a theologian's definition.

Wisdom consists of having insight and experience in order to draw conclusions that are correct.

So he is applying that to God's wisdom.

So let's put that in that quotation and see how it reads.

God's wisdom consists of having insight and experience in order to draw conclusions that are correct.

Is that not good?

That's the definition of a theologian of God's wisdom.

Now let me give you mine.

After 35 years of studying the book, studying the word knowledge, studying the word wisdom, because throughout the book of Proverbs, and by the way, let me give you the would you like to know the diction, I mean the library of wisdom in the Bible?

Amen.

That's a good time to say yes, amen.

Alright, five books.

Write it down.

Five books.

They're all in order.

It's easy for us.

Starts with Job.

Job tells us how to handle our problems.

Wisdom on how to handle problems and tough times.

Psalms.

Psalms written by David and a few other authors tells us how to praise him in our life situations and how to thank him for the good times and bad times and still praise him.

Wisdom.

Job, Psalms, and then we know.

Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon.

Those five books, and by the way, the last three were written by the wisest man that ever lived, Solomon.

Those that would be the library of the book of wisdom, the books plural of wisdom in the Bible.

So that's why you notice over a year ago, what did we preach through the book of Ecclesiastes?

Remember that study?

Boy, was that an unbelievable study.

And if you remember a lot of it, you go back and watch it online.

Or the parallelism with the book of James is just phenomenal because the book of James is the proverb book in the New Testament.

Practical Christian living.

Powerful.

Powerful.

So, with that said, let's begin.

And here's my definition.

Wisdom, godly wisdom, is the application of God's knowledge and understanding in our lives.

Let me repeat that.

I don't think you can have godly wisdom without God's understanding and God's knowledge.

And you take God's knowledge and understanding and you apply those two in your life, then you have godly wisdom.

In other words, you take God's principles out of his word, you understand it, and then you live it, then you are living your life by godly wisdom.

Does that make sense?

That's Pastor Danny's definition.

By living your appliance.

That's right.

And you actually remember James 1.22, what?

We are being doers of the word, not hearers only.

So, let's go.

That's the introduction.

Worldly wisdom.

Here we go.

Number one, underworldly wisdom, the origin of worldly wisdom.

Where does it come from?

Look at verse 15.

Here's what it says This wisdom does not descend from above, but is what?

What does it say?

But it is what?

Earthly, sensual, and demonic.

Wow.

Wow.

You know, an old proverb sums it up like this.

Foresight is better than hindsight.

Remember that?

Foresight's better than hindsight.

But the real answer is, but the best insight is the best, not foresight.

Hey, not hindsight, but insight is the best.

Insight into what God's word says.

And we see right here that James describes worldly wisdom as earthly, sensual, and demonic.

Wow, I'll rest my case.

And yet we are eager to put our kids and us under earthly wisdom.

Most of our secular universities, and even now, it's gotten to the point, even our high schools and our they're teaching earthly wisdom.

I'm telling you, folks, when we in public school can start teaching our kindergartners and our first and second, third graders that it's okay to decide who, hey, your partner wants to be, or it's okay to decide whether or not you want to be a girl or whether or not you want to be a boy.

I got news for you.

God decided that.

You don't decide that.

Can I get an amen?

Oh me.

I know you don't hear this kind of preaching, but bless God you're gonna hear it here.

And for my sake, don't you dare, when my little granddaughter, hey, think you're gonna walk in a bathroom, a guy's gonna walk in a girl's bathroom if I'm standing there.

Give me a break.

Where's this foolish thinking, this ungodly thinking come from?

It's come from earthly, sensual, demonic thinking.

It's come from worldly wisdom.

It's thinking thinking.

So hey, there it is, right there.

Number one.

Hey, it it's origin.

Earthly wisdom.

First of all, James says the origin of worldly wisdom is earthly.

Look at it.

1 Corinthians 1 20.

Listen to what Paul says when he writes, has not God made foolish?

Watch, foolish the wisdom of this world.

From the very beginning, man has been trying to reach up to God by his own wisdom.

But as Paul explains in the book of Romans, look at what he says in Romans 1, 21 and 22.

Boy, this is good.

This is good.

The homosexuals don't like this chapter.

They don't like Paul's writings.

They say he's just a man.

Worldly wisdom does not like Paul's writings.

Notice what he said.

Let me get to Romans.

Here we go.

Look at Romans 1.

Unbelievable.

Verse 21, 22.

Because that which they knew, hey, because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God.

Neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations.

Did you hear me?

Vain.

And their foolish heart was darkened.

See, that's why I can love the homosexual and hate the sin.

They don't understand their thinking.

They're thinking it's blinded by Satan.

Amen.

That's why, yes, it might have been a homosexual bar, but that was a tragedy.

That should not have happened.

And if you said, well, they deserve that, then something's wrong with you.

Nobody deserves that.

We love all people.

Can I get an amen?

We want to see God change their lives.

And I know I have, I've had some dealings with that in my own family.

So I know what I'm talking about.

And I know they don't like to hear this, but it's the truth.

We love, hey, we love the sinner and hate the sin.

Whether you're homosexual, whether you're heterosexual, or whatever it is, if you're a sinner, we love you.

God loves you, God died for you, and God wants to change you.

But He changes you through godly wisdom, not worldly wisdom.

That's why I can love everybody and anybody, and really, in my own heart, have no vindictiveness toward them.

Because I understand here, look, because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, and neither were they thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

Satan has darkened their thinking through worldly, earthly wisdom that is divided.

Do you see that?

If you see that, you're gonna understand it.

Can I get an amen?

Do you see that?

Isn't that good?

Now watch.

Now watch.

Look at verse 22.

Professing themselves now look to be wise.

Now why do they think that?

I can answer that for you.

Let me tell you why they think that.

Because they have a philosophy that is worldly and is earthly.

Amen?

You got that?

So that is why we see their thinking is warped.

Now watch, in verse 23 says, and they changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man and hey, to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things.

And you wonder why people in India believe that cows are gods.

There it is.

Their imaginations are warped.

Casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.

Why?

Why to the obedience of Christ and your thinking?

Because you want godly wisdom.

Makes sense, doesn't it?

Absolutely, it makes sense.

Think back to the beginning of biblical history.

And take note of the consistent pattern that was taking place.

Starting with the Tower of Babel.

Remember that?

All trying to be one.

Then Lot's choice.

Remember Lot's choice?

And then what about the Garden of Eden?

The very two first people.

The garden was the birthplace of man's wisdom.

Oh yeah, look.

Look, Genesis chapter 3, look at verse 5.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

Genesis chapter 3 provides the first mention of the world's wisdom.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

Look at verse 5.

Satan tells Eve, look at what Satan tells Eve.

That she will, uh-oh, look at it, verse 5, be like God, knowing good and evil.

Now watch, verse 6.

And in verse 6, she saw that the tree was, whoo, huh, desirable.

To make one wise.

Thus we see the wisdom Adam and Eve received when they disobeyed God in favor of Satan's promise was the earthly wisdom of the world.

It started right then, and they swallowed hook, line, and sinker, Satan's lie.

See, when you and I take the world's ideology, when we take the world's philosophy, when we take the world's wisdom, we are taking hook, line, and sinker.

Sinker.

I'm trying to learn to finish.

I'm not doing too well at it.

Sinker.

Demonic wisdom straight from the pits of hell.

And what does the thief come to do?

Kill.

Steal.

What does he want to steal from you?

God's wisdom.

He stole from Adam and Eve God's wisdom.

And it cost them paradise.

Wow.

Wow.

Notice the second thing.

Natural wisdom.

The Greek word there.

The wisdom is also it's really the word there means natural, it means sensual.

It's a Greek word, the Greek word is suke.

Suke.

This word is suke kos.

Suke kos.

But the root of suki kos is suke.

It means natural, soulish.

And it is translated, watch this.

In 1 Corinthians 2, 14, notice what it says.

But the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God.

Watch.

For they are foolish unto him, neither can he know them.

There it is.

The word natural.

Suke.

Found right there.

The natural man.

So when suke is used to describe the world's wisdom, it means natural in opposition to spiritual.

So what he's saying is the world's wisdom is natural in comparison to God's spiritual wisdom.

There's a major difference.

Does that make sense, church?

Say amen with me.

Thanks again for tuning into this week's message.

We pray that your life has been changed.

If you would like to find out more about us, visit us on our webpage at thechurch at cw.com.

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Send us an email at office at the church at CW.com.

We hope you have a wonderful day and again, God bless you.