The Test of Wisdom

Well, it’s been quite some time since we were able to partake in the Lord’s Supper. And so I want us to turn, if you have your Bibles, to 1 Corinthians 11, where Paul directs us how to approach the Lord’s Supper. See, Paul was coming into a church that was not a healthy church. That’s who he was writing to. A church that was very, very not united, had lots of disunity. And so in verse 17, he explains a little bit about this disunity, and he says,

But in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse. For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you. And I believe it in part, for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized.

1 Corinthians 11:17–19

What Paul’s saying here is that whenever there’s division in the church, or at least in this situation, there were the righteous, those who were actually born again, those who had real faith, and those who were competing against the non-genuine, is what he’s saying. Those who were either in sin or never even born again to begin with. And he’s saying that division, though you don’t want that in a church, sometimes that’s what that is reflective of.

And so when this comes to division, Paul is saying, try to avoid it. Try to keep away from it. Try to do what you can, whatever is on your part, to live peaceably, as he says in Romans, with all those among you. Not taking your opinions, not taking your preferences and asserting those on others, even if those are strongly held preferences. There’s a lot that we can relate to this past week there, isn’t there? We can be very passionate on either side of this whole issue, but our unity is a command. God hates one who sows discord. One of the things he hates, it’s a distaste in his mouth, is those who sow discord among the brethren. And so we need to pause here and reflect on this and see, have I been sowing discord? Am I causing disunity in the church?

Paul goes on then to talk about this with a warning down in verse 27. And he says, when you come together to do the Lord’s Supper, if you have sin in your life, unconfessed sin, sin that you are harboring, that you’re not willing to turn back from, it’s a very serious matter. And remember, the context here is disunity. And so it’s a very serious matter when he writes in verse 27, “Whoever therefore eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and the blood of the Lord.” And so in verse 28, he says, here’s what we should do. “Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.”

What that means, to examine yourself, is to stop and say, not am I sinless, for we all sin daily, but to say, is there unconfessed sin in my life that I’m unwilling to turn from? That I’m holding on to, that I’m harboring and saying, nope, not going to let this go, God. This is my thing. And so Paul’s saying we need to examine ourselves and let go of that. And if we don’t, look at verse 29. “For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.” Without doing that examination, without discerning the body, what happens? They eat and drink judgment upon themselves. And there’s consequences to this, which is why in verse 30, he goes on to say, “That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.”

Now, that’s not a promise that if anybody gets weak, ill, or dies, it’s because they have unconfessed sin. That’s surely not the case. But sometimes, Paul tells us, that is the case. God does discipline his children, those who come to the Lord’s Supper wrongly and refuse to turn from their sin. And he does it because he loves them. And the reason for it, look at verse 31. He says, “But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged.” But when God does judge us, in verse 32, “But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined.” Why? Because God’s angry? Because God’s mad at us? No. “So that we may not be condemned along with the world.” God’s children are protected forever by him. We are in his hand. And sometimes when we turn to sin, that may cause God to have to discipline us more severely than others. But ultimately, this is a warning, but it’s also ultimately a blessing.

Look at verse 23. Paul writes,

For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

1 Corinthians 11:23–25

“For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup,” what happens? You proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. And what a blessing that is, to be able to proclaim the Lord’s death. What’s so exciting about the Lord’s death? Well, it’s that death that paid for my sins, that paid for your sins, that makes it so that we can go before the Lord and confess our sins in the first place and turn from them and repent, which is what Paul’s calling us to do here. And that is a blessing. And that message, we are proclaiming to the entire world around us. And that is a blessing.

So, yes, this passage does have a warning. It is a very serious warning, but ultimately, we approach the Lord’s Supper with joy and with hope. For we look at it as an opportunity to examine ourselves and say, Lord, show me any sin within me that I have not turned from. Help me to become more like Christ. Not to entrench ourselves in our sin and to say, nope, I don’t care. I’m going to be how I want to be. And if anyone else doesn’t like it, oh well. Well, that’s disunity. And as we read, that’s a very serious matter.

Father, I just thank you again for this text, for the wonderful truth of Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection, which brings us righteousness before you. So, Father, even though right now we still sin, we know that our standing before you, if we have real faith, is righteous. It is perfect. But also, God, we know that you ask us to turn from our sin. And so, we ask you to help us do that through the power of your Spirit. Change our affections, change our hearts’ desire to love you above all other things. We pray these things in Christ’s name.

Would you pray with me and for me as we approach this text this morning? Father, help us to understand this text. Give us your Spirit working here, Lord, to enlighten our minds, to change the affections of our hearts. There are so many glorious truths in this text that we desperately need. So help me, Lord, to communicate it clearly, to point people to Christ and not to ourselves in this beautiful passage. And we’ll praise you for it. We pray these things in Christ’s name. Amen.

If you were given a magical lamp with one wish, not three, one wish, what would you wish for? Can’t wish for more wishes. If you had one wish and you couldn’t wish for more wishes, I like that. What would you wish for? Think about it. Don’t rush into that answer. Let’s walk through this together. The genie pops out, says, What do you want? Now you’ve got to think. Would you wish to be a billionaire? One of the richest people on the planet? No, why not? Why not be the richest on the planet? Let’s go for that. Would you wish to be the richest person alive? You would never have to work a day again in your life. You’d be so rich, you could have all of your friends never have to work again a day in their life. You’d be able to travel, have numerous homes. It’d be a glamorous, wonderful life.

Now, maybe for you, you don’t really care too much about material things. You’re not a materialistic girl in a materialistic world. And so, for you, you care more about being back in your twenties again. You want to be drop-dead gorgeous. You want to be the most handsome man there is. And so, maybe that’s what you would wish for. Or maybe none of that matters to you. And you would wish for strength, not just being jacked and having muscles. I’m talking about power, authority to rule over all the nations. Or maybe just a great nation, to be a king. Or maybe you don’t have dreams of world domination, which is good. And you would rather be extremely intelligent. That’s where it’s at for you. You want to be the smartest person in the room always when you walk in. So you would wish for intelligence. You want to be a modern-day Albert Einstein. So, with all that said, hopefully that helped get you thinking a little bit. Answer this to yourself: what would you wish for? It’s a serious question.

Did you know there’s a man who actually got that one wish? Like, not talking about Aladdin, that’s all make-believe. I’m talking about one person. He had three wishes. But this person had one wish, and it was from God. See, in 2 Chronicles 1, we find King Solomon. And King Solomon, as we know, is the son of King David. And God shows up and he says, Hey, Solomon, what do you want from me? Tell me what I should give you. I don’t know about you, but that would be kind of nice right now, to have one wish. Anything that we wanted. But in verse 10, Solomon answers God with a request that’s kind of surprising. He says, Give me wisdom, Lord. That’s his response. And God smiled and said, Good choice. And he gave it to him.

And the Bible tells us that Solomon was the wisest man to ever live. And because Solomon asked for wisdom, he got everything else that people might foolishly jump and ask for. He had the richest kingdom, I believe, in all of existence at this point. He’s the richest man ever. He was the wisest man ever, which we know. He had everything. He had it all. And so let me ask you, though, what is the difference between wisdom and knowledge? Why didn’t he just ask for knowledge to know everything? Why did he ask for wisdom? I searched this question this last week on the internet, and here are a few explanations I found of the difference between wisdom and knowledge. Let’s look at these.

All right. Here’s one. It says, intelligence is knowing the ingredients. Wisdom is knowing the recipe. And the one I found after that actually fits with that, because it says, intelligence is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad. That would be almost as gross as Tater Tot Hot Dish. That’d be gross. How about this one? When your wife tells you, fine, do whatever you want. Intelligence is doing what you want because she told you to. Wisdom, men, is not doing what you want. If you don’t understand that, you need to talk to me later.

All right, here’s another one. You might have to, I’m going to warn you, you might have to think about this one for a minute. This one is obvious. Intelligence is knowing that Frankenstein was the doctor. Wisdom is knowing that Frankenstein was the monster. Get it? Dr. Frankenstein, the monster he made, was also named Frankenstein. Think about it.

All right, basically, though, the point that all of these are getting at is that wisdom is the ability to apply knowledge, to be useful with it, to know how it works. And to some degree, that’s true. Clearly, that is true. To some degree, that is what wisdom is. But to another degree, biblically, that’s not true. See, all of the things I just mentioned can be taught. All right? I can teach you, men, to not answer your wife that way and go do whatever you want. Those are things that can be taught. However, true wisdom cannot be taught. It must be caught. Did you catch that? I’m going to say it again. True wisdom cannot be taught. It must be caught.

What do I mean by that? Okay, well, here’s what I mean by that. Wisdom isn’t experience. See, it’s not just the accumulation of learning through mistakes or through victory and success. Have you ever heard the expression, practice makes perfect? Many of us have, and it’s actually not true. Now, why wouldn’t that be true? Because if you practice the wrong thing for five days a week, you’re going to lose the game on Friday night. You’ve got to have perfect practice, or at least aim for perfect practice, for only perfect practice makes perfect. So if you practice the wrong thing, it’s going to make you worse off. It’s not going to help you. And it’s the same thing for wisdom. It’s not like when you turn 90, because you’ve lived until you’re 90 means you automatically are very wise. Sometimes that’s the case. But age does not just automatically give us wisdom, because experience is not where wisdom primarily comes from.

King Solomon realized this, and that is exactly why he asked the Lord for the one thing that he couldn’t learn. He asked God for wisdom. And remarkably enough, God granted it to him. And that’s actually a perfect picture of what we saw when we were in James chapter 1. You remember what it said in verse 5 of James chapter 1? James writes, If any of you lacks wisdom, go to the library, read a bunch of books, get knowledgeable, and then you’ll have it after a few years from your experience. No. He says, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given. Solomon’s example is a picture of that for us. That’s exactly what that is. Because true wisdom is not found on this earth. That’s not where it comes from. It only comes from above. In other words, we should make a distinction between earthly wisdom and heavenly wisdom. Heavenly wisdom is God-given wisdom. Do you realize that wisdom is the most valuable possession there is?

In James 3, which is our text this morning, in verse 13, James asks the congregation that he’s writing to, Who is wise and understanding among you? Now let’s use our imaginations here for a minute. I think it’s okay to do this. Pretend you’re sitting here in James’s congregation, and he just asked that question. He says, All right, which one of you are wise? Let’s see some hands. And in response, you hear crickets. People are thinking, I think I’m kind of wise. I mean, I’m not super wise, but I’m wiser than some of these yahoos around me. Right? Like, maybe you’d be thinking that. And then you start to look around, and you see somebody who starts to stand up and say, I’m wise, but James cuts him off. And he says, Prove it. You’re wise. Show me your wisdom. Don’t tell me how you’re wise. Show me it. Prove it with your life.

Look at verse 13. James says in verse 13, Who is wise and understanding among you? This is the prove it part. By his good conduct, let him show his works how? Not with words, in the meekness of wisdom. James is saying, If you think you have wisdom, prove it by your works. Show me, he says, which sounds awfully familiar to what James already told us before when it comes to works, in chapter 2. In verse 18 of chapter 2, James writes,

But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.

James 2:18

Why is James talking this way? James is talking this way because he’s more concerned about the possession of faith rather than the profession of faith. Let me say that again. James is more concerned about the possession of saving faith than he is of mere worthless profession. Profession doesn’t mean anything, only possession does. Now, profession is a part of coming to possession, but on its own, it’s not the same thing. So, how do we know whether or not we have possessed saving faith? Possessed real faith? Well, that’s the big question of the book of James. It’s got lots of wisdom in here for us, but ultimately, what I believe James is getting at is a series of tests that we can measure our lives by to learn wisdom of how we should live, but also test our faith.

You see, we went through numerous tests, and so for instance, the tests of the tongue. Here’s how this works: Christians must tame the tongue, and Christians will tame the tongue. It’s kind of a paradox, isn’t it? On one hand, God says, if you are a follower of me, you will tame the tongue. And on the next breath, he says, and you must do it. It’s telling us what will happen and then calling us to an imperative to make it happen, which leaves me scratching my head. I don’t know if that does that for you, but it does. And so, James is coming to us, giving us these series of tests to, on one hand, give us godly wisdom for how to live our lives as Christians, but on the other hand, to say, do I really have saving faith? Because if I’m not doing these things, if I’m not even coming close to passing these tests, and I actually don’t even care to pass these tests, that’s a huge warning light.

These last two Sundays, we looked at the tests of the tongue, and we saw how true faith manifests itself in controlled speech. Because the tongue is controlled by the what? The heart. Okay? And when the heart changes, so does the tongue. The heart is like the hand that moves the puppet. The puppet’s the tongue. So how do we change the heart? If I want to control my tongue, I need to control the heart. So how do I control the heart? Well, by having a heart that is filled with wisdom. Do you see James’s line of reasoning here? True religion controls the tongue, and the tongue is controlled by the heart. So if you want to control the tongue, you need a new heart. And so how do we get a new heart? By having a heart. That process involves getting wisdom. All right? That’s how you change the heart, getting it filled with wisdom. And not just any old wisdom’s going to do here. For James tells us in this passage that there are two kinds of wisdom: there’s earthly wisdom, which comes from below, which actually is connected more to hell than anything. It’s demonic, he says. And there’s a wisdom that comes from above, from God.

And so in our passage this morning, James explains for us what these two different types of wisdom look like. He doesn’t get into a clinical analysis more like Paul does. He just says, if you’re out in the real world, that’s what that looks like. This is what this one looks like. And so that’s what he’s doing. And so this morning, we come to the test of wisdom, which actually is kind of a part three for the test of the tongue since they’re so connected. So in James 3:13–18, and I would encourage you to open your Bibles if you have them and follow along here, we’re going to see that to pass the test of wisdom, our wisdom must have three things: our wisdom must be humble, our wisdom must be heavenly, and third, our wisdom must be holy.

1. Humble Wisdom

Let’s look at the first one here this morning. Why is godly wisdom humble? We must have humble wisdom. So why is godly wisdom humble? Because it knows where it comes from. Where does it come from? Myself? No. What do I have that I have not been given from God, the Father of lights, who gives out every perfect gift? It comes from God. And when James uses the word humble, he means a word actually called meekness. All right, remember that was in the text a little bit ago? It’s meekness. Okay, what is meekness? Is that just a synonym for humility? Kind of, but it’s different.

Meekness is not going around like a little, whiny little Eeyore on Winnie the Pooh, saying, I’m so worthless. Everybody stay clear. I’ll probably bring you down with me. That was not a very good Eeyore impression. But you get the idea, right? That’s not what meekness is. Because meekness isn’t thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less often. It’s not thinking less of yourself. It’s not beating yourself up. It’s just, I’m so busy thinking about everybody else and about God and others, I don’t have time for my eyes to look down at myself. Meekness isn’t self-deprecating. Meekness also isn’t weakness. Meekness isn’t weakness. Meekness is power that is under control.

How do we know that? Well, the Bible tells us that. And Jesus gives an example of that. Jesus Himself, the Bible tells us, was humble and meek. In Matthew 11:28–29, Jesus says this:

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

Matthew 11:28–29

Though Jesus is the sovereign Lord of the entire universe, who will one day conquer and rule, and in front of whom every knee will bow and confess that he is Lord, he is meek. He is gentle. He is lowly in heart, as Matthew says, and he calls all of his followers to be as well. In Matthew 5:5, Jesus said, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” That’s not talking about ruling and reigning right now. That’s talking about the kingdom that’s coming. They will inherit it. Meekness is then a sign of wisdom. It’s not a sign of weakness. Meekness is a sign of wisdom. And godly wisdom is a sign of a godly heart.

So that’s the question: Are you meek? If people were going to give an anonymous survey about your personality and your character, would they say you are gentle? That you are soft-spoken? That even when you are discussing controversial things with people that you think are buffoons on the matter, do they still walk away saying, Wow, that person is so loving and gracious? And then, when you are that way, does that make them want to learn?

In verses 14 through 16, James shows us what meek wisdom looks like by showing us what it doesn’t look like. Well, first, what doesn’t humble wisdom from God look like? It doesn’t look like bitter jealousy. Look at verse 14. James says,

But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth.

James 3:14

What does it mean to be boastful and bitterly jealous? What does that person look like? This November, there’s a big thing coming up in the United States. It’s called the elections. And I love this time of the year every four years. Well, actually, every two years we have them, but the four-year one’s the big one. Because the thing I love about elections the most is just how much unity and bringing together of people that does, regardless of their strong opinions. It’s just a beautiful thing. That doesn’t happen.

Now, let me ask you this. During this time, do you ever see politicians running smear ads against themselves? No. Do you ever see them giving out flyers and pamphlets that have their strengths and their weaknesses listed there? I’m really, really good at this, but when it comes to this, we better get some people around me because I’m going to drop the ball probably if it’s on my own. No, they don’t do that. They never do that. They blast their political rivals in any way they can in order to make themselves look better. They are entirely self-focused instead of others-focused because they want to beat their enemy and win the election.

And Church, James is telling us that’s what it looks like if you don’t have godly wisdom. That’s what your relationships with one another look like. You are so self-focused. You go irate when somebody disagrees with you. Why? Because you’re prideful. You think you have all the answers. And you know that you don’t, but you still act like you do and convince yourself that you do. The mark of godly wisdom involves a humble recognition of just how ignorant we all are. Ignorant is a term that means lacking knowledge. We are all extremely, hopelessly ignorant. Even in areas where we think we know a ton, compared to God’s wisdom and his knowledge, it’s microscopic. None of us has all the facts. And yet we act in our arrogance and our unmeek-like pride as if we do. We don’t have a teachable spirit. We know it all.

In fact, I like how a lot of commentators describe this. They said it’s a party spirit, which kind of makes me think about the parties with the elections and stuff. We get a party spirit. Are you on the right? Are you on the left? Let’s fight. Let me show you why you’re wrong. James is telling us that’s what it looks like when we don’t have godly wisdom. We become self-focused. We have a party spirit. And that party spirit is not talking about dancing, okay? That’s talking, as we just said, about factions, divisions, drawing a line in the sand, saying the good guys are on this side and the bad guys are on that side. I like what the Greek philosopher Socrates once said. He said, The only true wisdom is this: knowing you know nothing. That has some truth to it, doesn’t it? Because the more we know, if we’re truly wise, the more we should realize how little we actually know.

Verse 16 says,

For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice.

James 3:16

Every vile practice. Do you realize we live in a Burger King culture? What do I mean by that? Well, have you heard the Burger King’s motto? Have it your way. That’s our culture’s motto, which is actually, you know, ironically, the same model as hell itself. Have it your way. There’s no questions about it. We live in a bitterly jealous culture that has become obsessed with conceited, selfish ambition, and the result is exactly what James said the result would be. Every vile practice. This is a culture that worships and glorifies what? Being true to yourself. The most important thing that matters is if you’re true to your own feelings and your heart and your desires. You can’t go against that, because if you do, you’re going to cause a lot of damage to yourself. That’s what our culture preaches. That’s what it believes. It’s a culture that worships and glorifies the self, which is satanic.

In verse 15, it says,

This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic.

James 3:15

That’s satanic. That’s Satanism. It’s exactly what Satan did. Notice how James describes this worldly wisdom, and this actually echoes Ephesians 2 a little bit, which talks about our enemies being the world, the flesh, and the devil. He says it is earthly. He says it is fleshly, and it is demonic.

What does James mean by earthly? Well, he means that this kind of earthly thinking is very, very narrow-minded. It doesn’t think outside of the box in light of eternity. It’s focused on materialism, on this life, the here and now. Earthly wisdom forgets that life is but a vapor that appears quickly and then vanishes away. It forgets that our days are numbered. And so those with the earthly wisdom spend all of their time and energy accumulating stuff, building things for this world that are going to shortly perish and burn up. They’re going to be gone. It’s like we’ve used this illustration before. It’s like the person who spends all of their time building a sandcastle at the ocean, knowing the tides come in and it’s going to be gone in a few hours. But nevertheless, they’re obsessed with it. That’s what they put all their effort into.

Secondly, James says it’s fleshly. He says it’s unspiritual, is how he defines it. As we just said, it’s the Burger King’s motto: have it your way. It’s humanity embracing all of their physical appetites unrestrained, whether those be sexual or the drive to win or the drive to control others. This fleshly drive is driven by our fallen flesh, which on its own is sin-filled and hell-bound.

Speaking of hell-bound, that’s the third way James describes worldly wisdom. In Genesis 3, do you remember what Satan, the chief of the demons, chief of the demonic, said to Eve, what he offered Eve? He offered her exactly what James is describing here: he offered her worldly wisdom. He offered her a trade, and it was a really bad trade. He offered her worldly wisdom in exchange for godly wisdom, and she took it. And boy, did she get ripped off, because, yes, even though her eyes were opened and did, in one sense, make her wise, it only gave her earthly, unspiritual, and demonic wisdom and forfeited the godly wisdom that she had been given. And the effects of that bad trade have left our world exactly as James describes it in verse 16, where he says, There will be disorder and every vile practice. And if you don’t believe that’s the case or you’re not sure, just look around this world.

This is why secular psychologists can’t solve the world’s problems. Their wisdom is based on earthly, fleshly, and demonic wisdom. The wisdom of this world does not fear or respect God. And as Proverbs 9:10 says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the holy is understanding. So it’s no wonder that they are fools compared to God, is because they don’t have God’s wisdom, because most of our world, many of our world, do not accept God as the Lord, the sovereign Lord of the universe. And so the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Philippians 2:3 says this:

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

Philippians 2:3

Does our world say that that’s a good way to live? Absolutely not. You’ve got to follow your arrow. You’ve got to be true to yourself. Who is wise among you, James says? Prove it. Show it. Show it by having a wisdom that is humble.

2. Heavenly Wisdom

But secondly, in our outline, show it by having a wisdom that is heavenly. In verse 17, James says,

But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.

James 3:17

James is telling us here that godly wisdom is eight things: it’s pure, sincere, peaceable, gentle, open to reason, merciful, impartial, and bears good fruits. For those of us with real faith, our lives are marked by godly wisdom in that we are pure. Does that mean we never sin? Obviously not, for none of us could even attain this. Yes, we still sin, but because our purified hearts desperately want to serve and please God, the problem is our obnoxious flesh keeps getting in the way of things, which is why the Bible calls us to wage war against the flesh, to walk in the Spirit, which is another way of saying to walk in the power of God.

James describes this wisdom as also being sincere. We desperately and sincerely want to live like Christ, even though our flesh desperately wants to not live like Christ. We don’t just continually walk in the flesh and give lip service to Jesus. In fact, because of our new hearts, the new desire of our hearts is Jesus. It’s a desire to be pure for Jesus. And so we have two natures within us which are constantly at war, the flesh and the Spirit.

James also says that wisdom is peaceable, which is why Jesus said, Blessed are the peacemakers, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Why is this godly wisdom peaceable? It’s because it is gentle and open to reason. A harsh word stirs up anger, but a gentle word turneth away wrath, says Proverbs. The word gentle is considered to be one of the most difficult words to translate from Greek to English. But the closest understanding is sweet reasonableness. Did you catch that? It is sweet reasonableness. We are to be reasonable people, not obstinate, not unteachable, not to dig our heels in the sand and say no on secondary issues. We are to be teachable. We are not to act like we have all the answers.

When we talk to a person whose views or answers differ from ours, we don’t get haughty. We don’t get this attitude of, oh, you little thing, let me set you straight. You don’t know. I read a book on this. Come on over. We don’t get like that. When we talk to people who may be in the wrong, they don’t walk away frustrated by our bitter, unteachable, and argumentative words. They walk away with a smile. They might still disagree with what we said, but our gentleness, our courteousness, our kindness, and our patience was unforgettable to them. People who have sweet reasonableness do not insist on their own way. They’re not constantly commanding others to give them their rights. They don’t go around demanding their rights. They yield to others willingly, with meekness and humility, and they do so without showing partiality. They don’t do that just to strangers and then treat their family like trash, or they don’t just do that to their family and treat others outside of their family like trash. They are gentle and loving towards all, even their enemies, for they are merciful, James says.

I like how Jesus talks about this in Matthew 5:38–45. But there Jesus says,

You have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.

You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,

Matthew 5:38–44

Why? Verse 45. “So that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.” That’s what it looks like to be a son of God, to be a daughter of God.

Heavenly, humble wisdom couldn’t be any more different than earthly wisdom, could it? Well, earthly wisdom focuses on being clever, it focuses on the accumulation of knowledge and increasing your intelligence. This church is not our way. Our way is spiritual. It is living in the wisdom of God, not according to the wisdom of man. And this has a ton of application for our church and how we function as a church and how we do church, doesn’t it? The most important thing we can do as a church then is to measure our success by the wisdom of God. And how do we measure our success by the wisdom of God? We look to God’s Word. We compare what we’re doing with what God’s Word says we ought to be doing. And we go to God asking Him for wisdom so that we can have the know-how to do it, the how to implement it. We evaluate everything we do by godly wisdom then.

And today in our culture, we are surrounded by churches who do not do this across our country. Churches and ministries that run off of earthly focused vision statements, man-centered ideas, churches that use worship to emotionally manipulate their hearers into having a feel-good experience, which is followed up by a feel-good message that is packed full of worldly wisdom. And there might be a Bible verse sprinkled in there somewhere. Why do they do that? Because they measure their success by worldly wisdom instead of heavenly wisdom. From the outside, all of that can actually look pretty good too. From the here and now, when we’re on the outside looking in, that can look impressive, it can draw crowds. All right? But we need to remember that man looks upon the outward appearance, but the Lord looks upon the heart. The Lord doesn’t care about earthly wisdom, about earthly metrics at all. And one day, all of this will be laid bare before him, and the works done in earthly wisdom will burn up, as Paul tells us.

But for those who have real faith and demonstrate this real faith by a life that is lived in godly wisdom, James tells us what the end looks like. He tells us the result in verse 18, where he says,

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

James 3:18

A harvest of righteousness. James is saying that those who have the peace of God spread the peace of God. They’re peace sowers. This is why Jesus calls his followers peacemakers, for they follow in the footsteps of Jesus, who is the Prince of what? Peace.

3. Holy Wisdom

To pass the test of wisdom, our wisdom must be humble, our wisdom must be heavenly, and our wisdom must be holy. That’s our third point. The word holy means to be without sin. So are you without sin? Put your hand up. Anybody? Of course not. None of us are without sin. And so if that is the standard for passing the test of wisdom, then we’re all going to fail. None of us then would have holy wisdom. However, in the Bible, wisdom isn’t just some impersonal force, but it’s a person. And in John 1, we find this person, who is introduced to us as the Logos, which is wisdom itself. And we find that the Logos came down from heaven in order to bring God’s wisdom to us. So, who is this Logos? Philippians 1:9–11 says,

And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ,

Philippians 1:9–10

And look at verse 11:

and be filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

Philippians 1:11

Jesus is the Logos. Wisdom comes from God, but it does not come to us merely abstractly, it doesn’t come to us merely in propositions that we give vocal agreement to. It comes to us in a person. In 1 Corinthians 1:24, Paul says that Christ is both the power of God and the wisdom of God. I would absolutely love to spend the next seven hours looking at 1 Corinthians 1–3, because in that text, it contrasts earthly wisdom with the wisdom of God. It’s a beautiful few chapters. I would encourage you to read it, but that’s not the wisest choice for me to spend the next seven hours to do that.

But for now, I will just say this: What Paul goes on to explain in those first few chapters of 1 Corinthians is that through Christ, God demonstrated his power and wisdom by bringing us salvation through the humility of the cross. On the cross, justice and mercy met. Wisdom itself embodied in the God-man, Jesus Christ. Why? So that we might be filled with that same wisdom and become peacemakers who sow peace and reap a harvest of righteousness. How do you come to know the wisdom of God? Well, you come to know the person who is Jesus Christ, wisdom in flesh. Have you come to know the wisdom of God, which is Jesus Christ? If so, as James says, prove it. Show me your wisdom. And show it by a life that is marked by the wisdom of God.

Would you pray with me? Father, we know that true wisdom cannot be taught, but must be caught. And we know that that comes first off through the power of the gospel, through saving, real faith, which comes completely by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. So, Father, you tell us if any of us lacks wisdom, to ask you of it, and you will give it. So, Father, if there’s anyone here who has not come to know wisdom personified, which is Christ Jesus, I ask that they would, for the first time, go to you by grace through faith and ask you for that wisdom, to be introduced to Christ, who is wisdom, who came down from above to die for us. And so, Father, we praise you for the salvation you give us. We ask that you would help us to do these things, not in our flesh, but in the Spirit of Christ and through your power. We praise you now, Lord, for the day we’ve had. We pray these things in Christ’s name.