James | Wisdom Brings Peace (June 30th, 2019) - Mike Armstrong

If you would grab your Bible and turn in it to James chapter 3.

James 3 · chapter mention

Now, one of the most, I think, uncomfortable things in life for most of us, I would say, is when we experience conflict with another person.

Right?

You probably have experienced that before, right?

It's when you you know you don't see eye to eye with someone.

You have some kind of a disagreement, and maybe there's even, you know, it escalates, and there's a there's a fight, even, and you know, perhaps it is even led before to some kind of hatred or bitterness.

Whenever we experience something like that, it's always it's always painful, isn't it?

It can be so awkward and confusing and and disappointing as well.

Now, on one hand, you know, trying desperately to avoid all relational conflict and discord in this life, it's I mean, that's a losing battle, right?

Trying to just stay away from it as best as possible and and and never going near any any of it, because the truth is, you know, on this side of eternity, in you know, in a in a sin-tainted world in which we all live, we will come up against it from time to time.

It's unavoidable.

That being said, let's be honest here, sometimes we ourselves cause or contribute to conflict because of our own spiritual immaturity.

Have you ever sensed that before in your life where you know you pressed too hard and and and you expressed anger and it was unrighteous anger, or you carved somebody up, or you were mean or cruel?

I mean, we can play a part in this sometimes, or or we can make a problem worse.

And it comes down to the fact that it's because we we don't really know how to handle ourselves properly, right?

We don't we don't know how to handle our our own sinful hearts and our own flesh that just wants to sin and wants to lash out and wants to cause problems.

It's those those those sinful attitudes that we have and and our and our words, right?

We just talked last week about the tongue and how the tongue is a fire and how it can cause and wreak havoc.

Our actions, I mean, these are all things that we just don't quite handle well, right?

Sometimes we're the problem when there's conflict, and maybe um maybe we don't even really realize it.

You know, it's amazing how quick we are in our minds and in our hearts to automatically assume that person's in the wrong.

Right?

But maybe the reality is we are and we just can't quite see it.

Okay, well, the last section of James chapter three here shows us that peace with each other.

Now I'm just kind of gonna go ahead and assume that that's what we all want in our relationships here, right?

We want peace, we want harmony, we want to, you know, get along and all of that.

Okay, well, peace with each other comes as you and I exercise godly wisdom in our relationships.

Right?

There's an inextricable link and connection between wisdom that translates into peace, right?

That's what the Bible makes really clear here.

That if you and I are truly wise, then the evidence of that wisdom will be that we foster peaceful relationships with others.

Okay?

It's just true.

The more truly wise we become, the more truly peaceful our relationships and our communities become.

Where that self, you know, self-centered and combative and tumultuous atmosphere that our relationships and and let's be honest, churches too can become, all that gets radically transformed as we grow in wisdom and seek to apply that in various contexts.

All right, so where are we at with this?

Where are you at?

Are you truly wise?

Do you see the fruit of biblical peace in your relationships?

I don't mean like ignoring problems and pretending they're not there and sweeping things under the rug and calling that peace.

I mean true biblical peace.

Are you a biblical peacemaker?

Are we working towards that, you know, in our homes?

I think of our marriages, I think of as you know, as parents and with our with our kids.

Are we seeking to be at peace with them and seeking to, you know, especially when our kids are young, it's hard, you know, forging peace between them.

Right?

Are we doing this in our with our neighbors in our on our streets?

Are we doing this in the church?

I mean, the church is really the context, of course, that James is thinking of when he writes this.

And so let's just read this now.

Um, it's in uh James 3, starting in verse 13, just reading to the end of the chapter there.

Follow along.

This is what he says.

It says, 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 from uh 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.

Father, we bring ourselves uh before you, and even in the first couple of minutes here of us, you know, kind of getting into this scripture, I'm sure there are many of us who can kind of point to at least one relationship in our lives that uh lack this peace that uh your word talks about.

Father, I pray that your Holy Spirit would move powerfully today in our minds, in our hearts.

Lord, if we are part of the problem, if we are the problem in whatever scenario we find ourselves in, Lord, I pray that we would confess.

Lord, I pray that we would repent of these things, bring these things before you and seek reconciliation with these, with these people, these ones that are made in your image.

Lord, I pray that whether it's in our marriages, our homes, in our different relationships that we have, certainly in our church, Lord, I pray that you would be building us strong in this, Lord.

Lord, it doesn't take much to look out into the world and see that relationships are fracture everywhere.

Relationships are marked by chaos and marked by extreme difficulty and people slandering each other and hating on each other.

And Lord, I pray that our church would be different.

Lord, I pray that this would be a safe haven, a place where there is grace and truth expressed.

Lord, I pray that there would be deep peace as we grow in wisdom here, Lord.

Would you give us wisdom?

Lord, not so that we could be, you know, just feel more comfortable, or not so that we could pat ourselves on the back about how wise we are, Lord.

That's not it at all, as we're gonna see.

But Lord, so that you would be glorified, you would be honored, so that we would be able to point to you and the work that you are doing here in us.

And so, God, help us.

I pray in Christ's name, amen.

Amen.

Well, three uh three points here uh this morning.

Uh, here's the first one.

True wisdom brings peace to my relationships.

First thing, as I demonstrate good works in a spirit of humility.

Now take a look at verse 13 with me here.

James just says, he says, Who is wise and understanding among you?

All right, so he just straight up asks the question.

He's like, Are you wise?

You know, do we have any wise people here?

Now you might be thinking, well, how can you tell?

It's easy for me to say yes, but how can you actually tell?

Well, he provides the answer here.

He says this in the first verse, he says, by his good conduct.

His good conduct, meaning authentically moral, you know, behavior and action.

He's talking about good works here.

He says, by his good conduct, let him show, reveal his works in the meekness of wisdom.

Now we're no strangers to this.

You know, uh important to James really all along through this letter is that if you and I, if we're gonna claim to be Christ followers, uh, we better genuinely act like it.

Right?

If we say we're Christians, but we actually act the opposite, it suggests that we're not truly saved.

Right?

And so James, we know this.

He just kind of goes after it, right?

He's a real, he's a real no-nonsense kind of guy.

He's a real, he's a real straight shooter, right?

He's just like, you know, put your money where your mouth is.

If you're gonna say this, you're gonna claim this, are you actually doing it?

Right?

He says, he says, be doers of the word, not hearers only.

It is not okay, it is not even good to just, you know, sit under teaching or read the Bible if we're not actually living it out.

He says, just a couple weeks ago we looked at faith without works is dead.

Right?

If your faith isn't developing works that are consistent with your faith claim, uh you don't have faith.

You have a dead faith.

And so he says this type of thing over and over.

And here again, he he continues down this line here when he asks, Who is wise and understanding among you?

He says, Let him show it, right?

Let him prove, let him demonstrate his works in the in the meekness of wisdom.

Now, now, meekness there, it just literally means humility.

Okay, that that's the word that he's stressing.

Okay, so so you prove to be truly wise as you demonstrate good works of wisdom in a spirit of humility.

Right?

That that's it.

The thing is, though, a lot of people, and we've discussed this a little bit over over time, but a lot of people would define wisdom in in kind of a like a surfacey, kind of incomplete type way.

Right?

Many times when we think about wisdom, what tends to come to mind for us is we define wisdom as as intellectual prowess, right?

Like having a high IQ.

Somebody who you know has strong problem-solving abilities, right?

That person's wise because you know they're smart and they they give good answers in small group, or or or they seem to know what to do in tricky situations.

Now, while those things are certainly vital components of wisdom, they don't quite tell the whole story.

And just a couple summers ago, actually, we did a short series in the book of Proverbs, which is all about wisdom.

And we stressed during that time that wisdom is not just knowledge.

It's not, it's it's actually knowledge applied.

Like that's what it is.

Meaning that that wisdom isn't merely about you know accumulating more information and more know-how and more more facts, it's uh it's about actually implementing the the knowledge that we do have uh into our lives.

Right?

That that's what it is.

It's it's putting into practice what I know.

That's that's true wisdom.

Like if a child knows that it's important to like look both ways before you know crossing the street, all right, they become wise only when they actually look both ways before crossing the street.

Right?

Does that make sense?

Right, you've got to put your knowledge into action.

Then it's wisdom.

Okay, hopefully that's clear.

I mean, Proverbs 2 verse 20, when describing what wisdom looks like in a person's life, it says this.

Proverbs 2:20

It says, So you will walk in the way of the good and keep to the paths of the righteous.

Okay, so you won't just you won't just know the way of the good or the paths of the righteous, you'll actually walk that way.

Right?

You you'll you'll keep to those paths.

Okay, likewise here, James is saying that if you're wise, you'll show it.

You'll show it, and namely through your works of humble wisdom.

Okay, so for yourself, as you as you kind of assess whether or not you have this true wisdom, this wisdom from above, James calls it, you know, and you think about that in the context of your various relationships, okay, you'll know that you're legitimately wise if you're actually demonstrating good works towards others in a spirit of humility.

Okay, so listen, are you are you wise and understanding in that you know reveal a heart of humble service to others, knowing that Christ came to humbly serve you?

You know, where the gospel has so gripped your heart in such a way that it, you know, you see the humility of Christ, and you you know you think about Philippians chapter 2, and you're like, that's the humility I want to express in my you know good works, in my godly action, specifically in this case, through wisdom.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

You know, when someone seeks you out for wisdom and counsel in your life, do you give them biblical guidance that you're actually following yourself?

Right?

Do you do that?

As you experience friction, let's say, in your relationships, again, you can't avoid all of it, have you learned to properly handle yourself in such a way where you're able to express a growing meekness or humility as the you know the temperature of those uh of those conflicts starts to rise, right?

As the intensity of that starts to get ratcheted up, are you able to handle yourself in a godly, humble, wise way?

Or do you tend to let your flesh take over?

And do you know use the biblical knowledge that you've acquired as a weapon to deliver truth harshly and angrily or or arrogantly?

Never a struggle in marriage at all, right?

You know, what about you know, what about this verse?

And you come at them, right?

Is that what we're doing?

As we do that, and again, that kind of that harsh, angry, arrogant kind of mentality, it just destroys peace, doesn't it?

Between you and that and that other person.

If that's you, then really I mean I mean the hard word here is that we have to consider that maybe we're just not as humble or as as wise as we thought.

Right?

There's there's work to be done there, right?

It's it's a work of repentance that's needed.

Right?

And that's really our go-to move here.

As you're kind of thinking about even your last week and and the words that you expressed and and and your action, as you're thinking about the wisdom and and the humility or lack thereof in those in those circumstances and situations, really just bring that to God.

Say, listen, that that that I got work to do here, Lord.

Would you transform me?

Would you make me new?

Would you forgive me of my sin?

Listen, I would even challenge you, encourage you, go talk to the person and and and repent before them, ask for their forgiveness in all of this.

Right?

You'll notice that's always the go-to move.

When we sense weakness, we just we we throw ourselves at the foot of the cross.

Lord, would you continue to transform me and make me new?

It's not trying to, it's not about trying to improve yourself and make yourself more wise.

It's with the Lord doing that work in you by grace.

Keep going here, second thing.

True wisdom brings peace to my relationships rather than relational chaos generated by pride.

Verse 14, we start to see this.

Look what he says.

He says, But, but if you have bitter jealousy, some translations there say envy, that's a good word too.

If you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, notice where the problem resides there.

It's always a heart problem, right?

If you have this residing in your hearts, do not boast, he says.

Boasting means what we think it means.

It means to take pride in, right?

To put too much overconfidence in.

He says, do not be boast and be false to the truth.

The idea that James is getting at is, again, you can't claim to possess true, biblical, godly wisdom, which again has humility baked right into its DNA if you're actually expressing and displaying the opposite of humility, which of course is pride.

Right?

It's bitter jealousy, as he says, bitter jealousy towards others' abilities.

Do you have that going on?

Maybe it's selfish ambition in the sense that you just want to elevate yourself over that person and you want to look good.

Maybe for you, it's boasting, right?

We're just using the words right out of the text here.

Boasting about how wise you are, how much knowledge you've accumulated.

James says, listen, if you're boasting about any of this stuff, if you've got this going on, you're being false to the truth.

This is a this is a lie.

You're not wise at all.

Not truly.

If anything, it's uh it's actually a false wisdom.

And so what James is doing here is actually showing us, if you want to look at it this way, two kinds of two kinds of wisdom in this passage: true wisdom versus false wisdom.

That false wisdom there, he's he's just describing in in these verses that we're looking at here, and he continues in verse 15.

Take a look.

He says, this is not the wisdom that comes down from above, so from God, but is earthly, it's unspiritual, it's demonic.

And you you got to appreciate just the punchiness of James in his language, right?

Right?

He's so strong in that.

He's like, I'm not gonna like soft pedal this for you.

I'm just gonna like straight up level you with it here, right?

It's it's strong, right?

And he's saying, like, if you're if your wisdom, so to speak, now now understand, if you got that NIV translation in front of you, it actually puts quotations around that word wisdom there in their arrangement of that sentence.

If your wisdom reeks of you know pride and is more about you know puffing yourself up and how great you feel about yourself, and it's about you know tearing other people down, perhaps this is evident in obvious and in outward ways, or maybe this is just kind of going on inwardly inside you, where your heart and your mind and in that you've got that that you know that inner dialogue kind of going on with yourself.

Have you ever had this before?

Where you're like, man, I'm I'm far more knowledgeable uh than that guy.

Right?

I I know way more than than he does.

My intellect is superior to hers, right?

And and on the surface though, you got the mask on, right?

And it's it's the painted on smile, and everything's good, and God bless you, brother.

It's all of that.

But inside you're you know, you're you're you're churning, right?

And you can't stand that person, maybe even.

If that's the attitude behind you know, the wisdom that you possess, it's straight up not from above.

It's not from God.

It's not stop labeling it that way.

Again, notice how how how James, in in the language that he used here, he just kind of gets progressively more intense as he uses those three words.

He says it's it's it's it's not from above.

If it's if it's not from above, what you've got going on is it's earthly, right?

Let's it's it's of this world, it's not from from the Lord.

And and then he again he kind of strings it.

He says, it's it's unspiritual.

Stop thinking you're super spiritual with the the knowledge that you have when it's really just connected to pride and and all of that.

And then and then he goes even further.

He says, It's actually demonic.

It's from Satan.

It's similar to what we looked at last week in verse 6 when he says there, that if we don't watch our mouths, our tongues are set on fire by hell.

Do not be deceived into thinking that just because you've been a Christian for a long time, because you've got an impressive bookshelf at home, or you've been given certain smart or abilities or gifts from God, and maybe it's that you're good with words and people you know kind of seek your advice and your opinions and maybe even somewhat look up to you.

Don't assume that therefore you're a picture of true godly wisdom.

You might actually think be the opposite.

I may be thinking, well, okay, how do I know?

How do I know if How can I tell?

Okay, well, we're gonna go through these things.

We got eight signs here that I have false wisdom.

Okay, eight signs that the wisdom I have is not godly, it's not biblical, it's actually earthly, it's unspiritual, it's demonic.

Again, these things aren't outwardly obvious necessarily.

You may be kind of hiding these things and pressing these things down, and it may not be something that's obvious to other people.

It might be, might be more than you realize it is, but they can definitely be swirling around in our hearts and in our minds and occupying our thoughts, and and and we're expressing them under the pretense of that being true wisdom.

All right, so what's the first time?

We're gonna go pretty quickly through this.

You can jot these down or snap a picture of the screen with your phone if you want.

Here's the first one.

I play the comparison game.

Right?

False wisdom, if that's what you've got, you play the comparison game.

I think that kind of comes naturally out of the idea of bitter jealousy that we see right there in the text.

Right?

And maybe if that's for you, you you know, as someone talks in small group, you're kind of you're assessing them and you're assessing their wisdom and you're assessing what they know, and really you're assessing yourself compared to them.

And you're constantly saying, well, okay, I think I'm a I'm a little above them because I seem to know more, I've been in the game a little bit longer, or you know, they're above me, and so now I'm I'm below them, and and but for you, there's like this desire, this this sinful kind of ambition, selfish ambition, desire to want to one up them, right?

And that's what happens in the comparison game there.

That's that's false wisdom.

It's not godly wisdom.

Here's the second one sign that I have false wisdom.

I'm insecure when God uses others.

Right?

When you see someone grow in the church, you see the Lord use somebody powerfully, how does that make you feel instinctively?

Are you like, man, that's amazing?

I've heard their story, and it's just so amazing to see what the Lord has done in their life and how they've he's poured grace out on them, and they, you know, they they had some dark days, and now look, look, look, look, God's done.

This is amazing.

Or when you see the Lord use somebody in your life, you automatically feel insecure about all of that.

And you're, you know, you kind of look down on them, and you know, I want to be the wise one, and I wish it was me that said that clever line and in that conversation.

Right?

You can play the comparison game, you can be insecure when the Lord uses others.

The third one sign that I've had false wisdom, I've mastered the humble brag.

Right?

People do this sometimes, and it's where you kind of carefully, you've learned how to do it, but you kind of carefully, you know, somewhat subtly, but it's there, coming from your heart, kind of show off just how wise you really are.

Right?

Talking about it, and yeah, you know, just people, people often come and talk to me and they just want to they just always ask me to kind of help them work through their issues.

You know, glory to God though.

Right?

It's it's the it's the humble brag, right?

And really we do it because we want to we want to impress people.

We want people to think that we're wise, we want people to think that we're that we're sharp and that we're godly and all that.

That's not true wisdom, you see that?

It's it's a false wisdom.

Fourth sign that I have false wisdom.

I desire power, prestige, glory, and just to look good.

Again, there's some connection between all of these here, certainly, and trying to pull them apart a little bit, but again, this is selfish ambition that James talks about.

I try to show off how wise I am because I just want I want positions of power.

Right?

I want to be in a place where people respect me.

I want to be in positions of leadership, and so I'm gonna position myself a certain way and say the right thing to the right people and show my wisdom so that you know so that they give me glory, so that they make me feel good about myself, so that people respect me, so that I look good to them.

Selfish.

It's not true wisdom.

Fifth one sign I have false wisdom is I just can't turn off that critical spirit.

I can't turn it off.

Some of us are kind of wired this way, right?

And you know, you walk into a room and you spot like everything that's wrong.

Right?

And it served you really well, maybe in business or in the workforce, and and you just have that critical eye, and it can be so good, it can be so helpful, and it can be great.

I've noticed though that you know, in when it comes to you know, in the church, that that critical spirit is really hard for people to rein in.

It's it's really people have a hard time growing in this area.

People that can't turn off the critical spirit are mostly constantly seeing the negative in things.

And they're just compelled because they they don't have the maturity really to they gotta critique.

Right?

I gotta tell somebody I'm not happy about this.

I've got to tell somebody this isn't good, and they've done that to you.

And what they do is they they kind of carry themselves as as people who have all the answers.

Right?

I I know a thing or two, I've got the solutions here, but it just lacks humility.

Right?

And there's there's no true godly wisdom in that.

It's false.

Sixth one here.

I tend to push people away.

Right?

When you've got false wisdom, people ultimately begin to distance themselves from you.

And perhaps it's because it's you're you're you're kind of boasting.

Maybe it's the more subtle, humble brag style of things, but they just kind of realize this guy thinks he's all that, he's got a fat head.

Right?

Why would I want to you know connect with that?

Right would why would I want to build a relationship there?

They just come across as a know-it-all all the time with the things that they know, but are they even living it?

Like, right?

And so you end up pushing people away intentionally or unintentionally, if you have false wisdom.

Seventh one, these are the last three are really connected here, but I have few, if any, close relationships.

And if we have true wisdom, we're looking to build peace with people and deep relationships and encourage one another and grow in Christ together, and and and we desire a strength in our community there.

So if you claim to be wise, but you have few, if any, relationships, guess what?

You're not that wise.

You're not.

Because in your wisdom that you think you have, you've somewhat maybe become like an elitist.

And you know, I'm I don't I don't need these people.

They're there they're a little or sometimes a lot beneath me.

And so you carry yourself as hot stuff, thinking that you know it all again, but you don't have any real close relationships.

Last thing here, I leave a trail of damaged relationships behind me.

Right?

And this is often because, you know, people who, again, it's like I said, it's all connected to all eight feet eight of these things are kind of connected to each other.

But sometimes it's you know a critical spirit and and kind of a boasting, and you push people away, and and and over time there just develops this pattern of of damaged relationships.

There's just bodies strewn about all behind you, and you keep, you know, moving forward, and it's their problem, it's their fault, they couldn't hack it.

No, listen, you're harsh, man.

You're actually you're you're cruel.

You think you're wise, but you're really a weapon, and you're unhelpful and it's it's ungodly.

These types of things describe the kind of, again, quote unquote wisdom that I have, then it's coming from a place of pride.

Right?

It is, and and inevitably it just generates relational chaos in all of my relationships, all around me.

I mean, take a look at verse 18 or 16 here.

He says this, for where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, so again, he reiterates those two things that he just used in verse 15.

He says, where they exist under the the guise of true wisdom, he says, there will be disorder and every vile practice.

That's what is produced if you've got false wisdom.

You can't hide that.

You can't pretend that that's not gonna happen, right?

Be disorder, all kinds of issues.

I think sometimes, though, we believe that, you know, if we've got some of that, you know, pride-driven, you know, kind of false wisdom brewing in our hearts, you know, maybe you're e you you start to sense that and you know that it's that it that it's not it's not great.

Sometimes though we think we can control it.

It's not that big of a deal.

I've got other things that I need to work on, or other people have it worse than I do.

And and so we think that we can control this or or manage it and kind of keep it hidden, maybe.

This isn't gonna affect me.

It's certainly not gonna affect any other person.

Listen, that's that's so foolish.

You can you can't control pride in this area any more than you can control it in any other area.

Who we actually are always leaks out of us at some point.

Probably more often than we realize.

If we're truly wise people, our relationships, again, will be will be marked by peace.

And we got false wisdom going on though, maybe disorder and again, every vile practice, we got chaos, right?

Relational discord, conflict, problems, right, in in our families?

I mean, I don't want to get people's people to raise their hands, but you know, how many of us have you know complicated family relationships because of this kind of thing?

Probably all of us.

The church.

Chaos kills churches.

I I've seen it happen.

Some of you have seen it happen as well.

And Christ is committed to the holiness and the health and the vitality of the church.

Are we committed to that?

Nelson, as I kind of preach this passage here, I I do so because it just happens to be next up, right?

We you know, we believe in in, you know, for the most part, our steady diet is just you know picking a uh a book of the Bible and just and preaching through it, you know, verse by verse.

And and we do that so that we we kind of get an idea over time of the entire council of God's word, right?

We want to know what he says.

We don't want to skip over areas that are challenging and tricky and and all of that.

I mean, we do some other kinds of series as well that are a little bit more topical because those can be helpful, but those are more rare than this.

Now, I I just happen to be preaching a passage about this, but I can only imagine that some people are like, oh man, he's thinking about something, somebody right now.

Right?

Someone's causing chaos, and maybe this is just a passive aggressive way of using God's word as a weapon to slay somebody.

That's not it.

Actually, I would honestly say that I think as our church, when I think about our church, I think we got a a pretty thing, a pretty good thing kind of going on here.

Pretty good thing happening in in terms of the health of our relationships and in general and and and the culture that we're trying to build here.

Now we're we're sinful people, right?

So it's not perfect.

No one's saying that.

And I and I believe there's there's work to be done in growing in in love for each other and the peace that we want to see exist throughout all of us here in the depth of all of that, and the heart for each other.

We want to we want to grow in all of that.

I think I think we're we're doing well.

I think it's important that you hear that from your pastor.

I'm not like, these are the worst people ever and they just need to be hammered.

Right?

That's not what I'm saying.

But I also know that things can really get out of hand in this area that we're talking about here if we're not diligent and we're not careful.

So listen, even if things are you know pretty good or even great today, in a week or two, in a month, in a couple of years, it could be a tire fire.

Right?

If we're not careful, if we you know start to get kind of you know a little bit proud of how great we're doing, listen, that's a recipe for you know a sinking ship.

That's a recipe for for problems.

You know, I believe that God's word is timely, even though you know this specific message was put on the preaching calendar a long time ago.

I would imagine that there are some people here today that need to hear this.

Because you've got this this boasting, this false pride kind of swirling under the surface.

And maybe it's even kind of bubbling up in a way that, listen, it's only gonna cause relational chaos for for you and the rest of us here.

So if this is you, allow the conviction of the Holy Spirit again to lead you to repentance and deeper, committed, focused prayer about these things and more humility.

We're like, I gotta bring this to the Lord.

Right?

This is this is not okay that I'm sensing this going on in my heart and I need to bring this before him because I don't want to do damage to the community that God is building here.

Right?

By grace, don't allow, don't allow your pride to just generate problems in our church.

Because God is working to create the exact opposite of that.

Right?

He's working to generate peace among us.

So again, we we have to take, we must take these things so, so seriously.

Let's keep going here.

Last thing.

True wisdom brings peace to my relationships, leading to a harmonious and flourishing community.

Okay, so again, he's just kind of finished describing what false wisdom looks like, and now he gets into what true wisdom really looks like and what it does, what it accomplishes, the kind of benefits and value uh that it has on a church and our community.

We're of course applying it to us here.

Verse 17, look.

He says, but but the wisdom from above, so again from God, again, he's talking about true wisdom, is first pure.

It's innocent, it's it's it's blameless.

Okay, so he says first pure, then peaceable, which is again kind of the theme throughout this here.

It's it's it's it's peace loving.

If you're truly wise, you will you will love peace.

True wisdom, wisdom from above is is gentle, he says.

Right?

It's not harsh, you're not just trying to win an argument, you're trying, not trying to look better and and and put somebody down and show how smart and wise you are.

No, you're gentle.

That's what true wisdom creates.

True wisdom is is open to reason, he says.

Where you know you're you're you're willing to defer in conversations and you want to hear the person out, and and you're even submissive to them in the ways that you can be.

Wisdom that's from above is he says, is full of mercy.

Right?

Mercy and good fruits.

He says that it's impartial.

He talked about that a lot, actually, in the first 13 verses of chapter two.

It's talking about no favoritism.

If you show favoritism and you like certain people over and above another person or certain people, you're you're not wise.

Right?

It's impartial.

It says there that it's sincere.

It's real.

You're not you're not faking it, you're not putting on a show, it's not, it's not hypocritical.

People with true wisdom from above are stable in their character.

They're not flip-flopping all over the place, they're not showing themselves to be, you know, wise and they they kind of look godly to one person, but to another person, they're you know, they're kind of flaky or or they're they're sinful and they're all over the place.

No, you're sincere.

But there's consistency in your in your character, you're trustworthy.

Each of these words describe what a wise person's relationships will be characterized.

If you put these, you know, this all together, you know, what you really see here is that as we demonstrate true works of wisdom, it creates harmonious relationships with each other.

I mean, I think that's fairly, fairly straightforward.

I don't know about you, but like I want that so badly for us.

I would love us to be a church that is just so healthy.

People walk in and like, wow, there's something amazing that's going on here, and there's a there's a healthy community here.

Man, I want that.

Now, verse 18, final verse, he says, and a harvest, okay, so think crop, okay, crops, fruits, right?

A harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

Okay, those is literally to say here that those who are peacemakers will yield a crop of abundant righteousness.

That's pretty cool, right?

Where our community is is not only harmonious and that we love each other well, but also flourishes in greater and greater holiness and righteousness, which just means God gets more and more glory through us.

Okay, sign me up for that.

Listen though, I understand that some of us here have been through difficult church situations before.

Right?

And you've seen the ugly side of how Christians behave, how Christians treat each other, and that can infect a church culture and cause uh major problems.

Or perhaps you've even caused some of that ugliness yourself.

And through that experience, kind of regardless of what your involvement might be, perhaps you've even lost hope as to this harmonious, flourishing community uh even being possible at all.

Right?

For you, you're you've you've gotten kind of jaded through all of it, and you're like, I've been to a few churches in my day, and they all seem to be the same, and they all seem to be a problem here.

And you're like, I honestly, I just want to go to a church where it's like it resembles something like a little less than World War II.

Like, I'd be real happy if it was just that.

Maybe that's more where your head is at here today.

But listen, harmonious, flourishing, peaceful, godly wisdom, that is what God is working to create here.

He is.

I love the promise of God that he will build his church.

He will do it.

He builds true wisdom in into each of us.

And as he does that, that will, as his spirit works, as he moves by grace, that will foster peaceful, God-honoring relationships.

Will you get on board with that?

I guess is a really good question.

Are you willing to commit to that?

Are you willing to put the hard work into that?

Are you willing to humble yourself in that?

I read somewhere just a short time ago that everyone wants a healthy, harmonious, peaceful church until we're held accountable for it.

We all want to grow in wisdom.

We all want our small groups to be the best.

But as soon as we're kind of held to a high standard of humbling ourselves and putting in the hard work and working through our sin and being gracious with others who sin against us, then we're like, no, I'm out.

Right?

So I think there's a strong challenge here to us.

Are we willing to submit ourselves before God and even the fear that you might have in all of that?

Especially if you just come out of a bad situation.

You're like, I don't know if I can trust, and I don't know if if this whole kind of thing is even possible, Pastor.

It takes a lot of prayer, doesn't it?

It takes a lot of the Lord.

It takes a lot of crying out to him for all of this, but this is absolutely what he wants to build here.

I believe that's what he is doing.

Is that we're gonna continue to work towards as a church?

We invite you to join us in that.

It's not just an elder board or pastors or a staff or certain leaders that make that happen.

It's literally everybody in a chair here.

We all work in this together.

So will we do it?

Will we get on board?

Will we let God do it in us and through us?