also to their class time. Yeah, songs, great songs of the faith here this morning. Great special, uh, praise the Lord for that. Um, Go ahead and find James 3 again if you would. If you didn't hold your place there, James chapter 3. We'll be looking at just one of the shorter passages we'll look at here in our series here through the book of James. And James, again, is just a book about practical daily Christian faith. It's a book that's been referred to, and I've told you this practically every week, that it's been referred to as the Proverbs of the New Testament because it just addresses areas of the Christian life that are just bottom shelf issues. I mean, things that are just daily and accessible and practical in their nature, just day after day, week after week kinds of things that we're dealing with. been dealing with here recently, the words of our mouth, right? The tongue, it spins the chapter before this and right here in chapter three, the passage before this deals with the tongue. The passage right before that in chapter two deals with how that works show our faith and that works grow out of our faith and faith that is not producing works is not a real and a genuine faith that we have in our hearts. It's just dealing with practical things like that. And so we've been looking here over the last few weeks at this. This passage here is going to, I believe, really tie that together, the words of our mouth and the works of our hands into the faith and how that really is going to come out and how that living by faith truly demands that we live with wisdom. Speaks here of a very practical kind of wisdom also. One of the reasons why James is called the Proverbs of the New Testament is because it does address the great need that we have for wisdom, for wisdom in our daily lives, for wisdom in the words that we speak, for wisdom in the works that we do with our hands. The text here reveals that not just any wisdom will suffice, but it makes a very clear distinction here of the wisdom that the world gives and the wisdom that is from above. And there's two different options that we have. Again, look at what it says there. 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 envying and strife in your hearts, glory not and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above. but as earthly, sensual, devilish." So there's a wisdom that is not from above. There's a wisdom or an imitation of wisdom, if you would, that is earthly and sensual and devilish. And we can be deceived into thinking that because we are wise by some worldly standard that we're wise in God's eyes also. But that kind of wisdom has a different product. We're going to look at that here. But then it says, where envy and strife is, there is confusion in every work. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace and so there's a clear distinction here that there is a wisdom or maybe many forms of wisdom that the world has to offer. but there's only one wisdom from above and there's different characteristics and there's different products of these preached on this passage back in January. And so it's a different message, I promise. I studied a new message all over again here, but it wasn't too long ago that we looked at this and we were looking at the wisdom that the world gives versus the wisdom that is from above. But we see here that for us, if we're going to speak with wisdom, if we're going to walk with wisdom in this world, not any wisdom will suffice. Not just any philosophy will suffice. Not just any ideology will suffice. But we have to have the wisdom that is from above. A world does have a form of wisdom or maybe many forms of wisdom by way of ideologies, by way of philosophies that are out there, by way of different systems of ethics and beliefs, by different religions maybe even that would exist, however you may quantify that and qualify that. The world has ways of living and ways of viewing the world. I guess kind of one of the jargon terms for it is worldview. There's different worldviews that are out there. many different ones. And if we fall into the trap of saying, well, they're all equal, well, then it doesn't matter which one we choose, does it? So there's many forms of wisdom that the world has, many different philosophies, many different ideologies the world has to offer to us. And we have to look at them, we have to look at the fruit of them to determine whether they are according to the wisdom that is from above or if they are just another version of the same thing, wisdom of the world, earthly, sensual, devilish. Not everything that comes out of these worldly philosophies is just completely corrupt. And that's one of the things that can make it sometimes hard to distinguish. Because some of the things that certain philosophies and certain ideologies promote are essentially correct. Correct in the sense that they kind of fall into alignment with biblical principles to some degree. any philosophy that has withstood the test of time has some kernel of truth in it. And sometimes we latch onto that one little kernel of truth and say, well, it's true because of this one thing that I agree with. And then we accept the whole package that's full of lies. It's a dangerous thing. We have to look at the bigger picture always. In some instances, the reason why they, sometimes the world's philosophies, the world's ideologies can seem correct is because they do have a little bit of biblical truth in them, a little bit of eternal truth, universal truth buried inside of them somewhere. They're based in that and they have a facade of that. We have to be careful and we have to look at the whole picture. Even the best of the world's philosophies can only address the things of this world and the things of this life and the things of here and the now. You think, well, I just live my life by common sense. Well, okay, that's good for today and that might be good for tomorrow. What's that going to do for you in eternity? And so I'm all about common sense. Let's work smarter, not harder, right? I like things like that, but that's not a wholesale philosophy. That's not what we base our faith in. We have to go to something that is higher and better and deeper and longer lasting, something that's eternal, something that is absolutely true and not just mostly true and not just partly true and not just sometimes true, but always true. We need the wisdom that is from above. And so the best of the world's philosophies, even the good parts of them, can only address something that is in immediate need. It's something that only addresses that which is physical and that which is tangible and that which is present tense. And yet the wisdom that is from above speaks of things that are eternal, things that are spiritual, things that are unseen, things that are enduring, things that have been around far longer than us and will be around far longer than we're here. And that's the kind of wisdom that we're called to seek after, the wisdom that is from above. And this wisdom can only come from God. Back in James 1, a verse that we've referenced back to many, many times there, in verse 17, it says, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the Father of lights with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. And one of those gifts, one of those graces of God, one of those works that only the Lord can do in the life of a believer is to give this wisdom that's from above. And this true wisdom, this enduring wisdom, this eternal wisdom, this spiritual wisdom James 1.5, before earlier in that same chapter, says, if any of you lack wisdom, let him, what? Ask of God. Let him ask of God, which giveth to all men liberally and abradeth not. A great, great verse, and a verse that reminds us of the fact that the wisdom that we truly need is wisdom that we can only get from one source, that's from God. If we're not going to the Lord, if we're not finding this wisdom in a personal walk with the Lord and walking through the scriptures and seeking it in prayer and by the leadership of the Holy Spirit, then what we have is just some lesser version. It's something that the world has to offer. Wisdom from above is a blessing from God on the Christian, enabling him to discern and accomplish the will of God. By contrast, again, the best that the world's wisdom can produce is perhaps a successful pursuit of your own personal goals and ambitions, but in that you will miss, perhaps, and potentially miss the ultimate will of God for your life. The world might be able to teach you how to make a lot of money. The world might be able to teach you how to be really good at some temporal skill or some world might be really good at being able to teach you how to do some type of thinking or learning or productivity, whatever it may be. The wisdom of the world can't lead you into the will of God. It can't help you find it. It can't help you see it when it's not. It can't help you see the door that's open to walk through. The world's wisdom can't lead you to the will of God, the place of God's blessing, the place where God has created you to be and created to use you. The world's wisdom can't offer you that. The world's wisdom doesn't account for the collateral costs and the unintended consequences that will come along the way. Again, the world might be able to teach you how to make a lot of money, but it doesn't tell you what the cost of that's gonna be. And there is a right way to make a lot of money, and thank God for that. God can bless, and wouldn't we all love it if God blessed us all with great wealth and riches and all of that? And God could, if He so chose. And if God leads that direction, if that's God's will for your life, He will get you there without leaving a wake of destruction in your path. But if you follow the world pattern for making a lot of money and if it's something that is outside of God's will but it is just your personal ambition and that is your goal and you're going to get there no matter what, you're going to get there no matter what, you'll lose everything in the process. The world's wisdom doesn't say, oh, well, you can be rich, but it'll cost you your family. It'll cost you your marriage. It'll cost you a relationship with your children when they're grown. It'll cost you friendships and it'll cost you having a relationship with God or doing anything with your life that is important that will leave a legacy behind you when you go. They don't tell you that. They just tell you how to get rich. They just tell you how to be the best at whatever it is you do. They tell you how to get where you think you want to go. And when you get there, you might find out it's not really what you wanted. Because the world's wisdom can't lead us to the will of God. The will of God might not have a super abundance of wealth there, but you'll have joy. You'll have peace. And you'll have companionship. You'll have the people that God has intended for you to live your life with around you. You'll have a marriage that endures. You'll have kids who want to talk to you when they're grown. You'll have friends and brothers and sisters in Christ who love serving the Lord with you. You'll have all that because it's the will of God. Only by God's wisdom can we find that. Only by the wisdom that's from above can we find those things. Granted, it's sometimes hard to know if we are employing this wisdom that's from above, or if we're employing a worldly form of wisdom, again, because the world's wisdom is disguised pretty well. Sometimes it looks very, in some ways on the surface, looks very similar. In some ways it has some kernels of truth that make us think that maybe we're thinking the right way or applying the right kind of wisdom It can be very easy for us to spiritualize our carnal ideas, and it's much easier to do that, to spiritualize our carnal ideas, than it is for us to submit to the principles of God's word and the leadership of the Holy Spirit. It's funny, Jesus condemned this in the Gospels. He was making the comparison, he was asking some questions and people were talking to Jesus about his views on John the Baptist. And there was a lot of debate about who John the Baptist was and they asked Jesus who he thought John the Baptist was and Jesus, of course, gave a a glowing report of him. But then Jesus used that as a way to bring a comparison to kind of point out that there was just a whole lot of hypocrisy in the question they were asking because they said, you know, John came on the scene and he didn't socialize with the publicans and sinners and he didn't eat and drink and he didn't go to social events, and he wasn't around people, he was kind of out there in the wilderness, and he was preaching righteousness, and he was dressed in camels here, and he was eating locusts and wild honey, and he was living a very austere and very different and very distinctive life, and you said, man, that guy's got a devil. There's something wrong with that guy, he's crazy. He says, now, and then the Son of Man, speaking of Himself, the Son of Man comes and I will talk to the publicans and sinners and I will go to your weddings and I will attend the feast days and I will be in and around the people. Same message, but I'm not secluding myself out in the wilderness. You don't have to come out and find me. I'm coming to find you. And you say, look at that guy. He's a glutton and a winebibber. He can't make you people happy. And it's not that we were really any different at all. This is how you were seeing it. And you could basically justify, it says, wisdom is justified over children. Yes, true wisdom is justified over children, but false wisdom is also. We figure out a way to justify any ideology we want to and spiritualize it. You know who's doing that? They're saying, ah, well, I'm selectively taking some principles from the word of God, and I'm going to say, well, that's why I don't like that. And then you take the opposite thing that should make you happy, and you go, oh, I'm going to find some reason to dislike that, too. It's very easy for us to spiritualize our own preferences and our own carnal ideas and our own philosophies. And it's very easy for us to say, well, you know, I could find something in the Bible to prove I'm right. You try hard enough, and you strain hard enough, and you twist hard enough, and you can. I remember being in a Bible college, I was in a doctrines class, and I probably told this story recently, but I'll tell it again. I was in a doctrines class and our doctrines teacher came in and he says, I'm going to convince you that you need to be baptized to be saved. And he did it on purpose, and he says, I want you, I want you to use the Bible to challenge me and to prove I'm wrong. And he goes to all of the places in the Bible where, taken out of context and misused and abused and twisted and perverted, you can take about seven or eight. This is a test for you to apply to yourself, first and foremost. When we go to the word of God, we're not looking to test somebody else's faith first, we're looking to test our own, right? And so the Bible says, the Bible gives us a test here. about what's going on. Before I get to that, I remind you what happened in the church at Corinth. Your faith would not be based on the wisdom of man's words, but on the power of the Holy Spirit. And powerful, powerful Holy Spirit, powerful truth is not always the most eloquent and impressive, but it is impactful. And we can be led astray by things that sound nice and sound good, and the Bible warns us that in the last days they'll call for teachers to soothe their ears and tickle their itching ears. And we can be attracted by that which sounds good, but it's not true. And the proof of that is, it leads to divisions and strife and disunity and it leads to carnality and it leads to confusion and every evil work. This is what our passage says here this morning. Concerned with glorifying themselves, and this was in the church corner, they were concerned with glorifying themselves rather than seeking the glory of God most of all and truly exclusively the glory of God and not their own. And so with that, our passage here gives us a challenge, a challenge to investigate what kind of wisdom we're walking in. It says, who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? And so he says, if you think yourself to be a wise man, or if you aspire to be a wise man, and I hope that we all aspire to be a wise man, A wise Christian, ladies, you too. Generic sense of the word, man. Who thinks themselves to have gained some wisdom along the way? Who would like to? 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. The verses in this chapter immediately before were started out by addressing those who would aspire to be teachers, masters. It says, be not many masters, it meant teachers, those who would have authority to teach inside of the church. It says, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation. There's a great high accountability to stand and to speak and to teach and to preach the word of God. something that one should not enter into lightly because it was a very important position of influence and one in which the Lord was going to have a high, high level of accountability for. And this seems to continue that also someone who is going to be a quote unquote master, someone who's going to be a teacher or a preacher in the church should be also someone