Greg said I wasn't allowed to rant all morning,
so I'm going to set a timer. So when I was a
kid, I was frequently confused by figures of
speech. So one time, Mom, I'm going to call you
out. She stopped my mom and said, I spent like
an hour wondering, like, wait, people could live
in a barn? Oh, that would be cool to live in
a barn. Are we going to move? Are we going to
move and go live in a barn? But what does all
this have to do with me trying to go to school
without combing my hair? Because I tried to go
to school without combing my hair, and mom said,
people are going to think you were raised in
a barn. So then I asked her about it, and she
explained, no, no. I think I do literally again,
Jake. Obviously, if you've heard that figure
of speech before, what she was getting at was
my behavior was going to reflect on me, my upbringing
by extension, her, so she wanted me to go comb
my hair. Way simpler than I was making it. Thank
you. We have lots of ideas. It's something we
kind of naturally intuit, that the way you act
reflects on deeper values. It's a little judgmental,
but I'm sure we've all been there. Every so often
somebody makes the news for a particularly heinous
crime, and they're saying, but I'm a good person.
Like, maybe a little judgmental, but sometimes
we kind of, like, really? Or the opposite happens.
You know, somebody is known for all the great
things they did to help society. And then, you
know, somebody will put out a video about like,
but really deep down inside. You know, and that
kind of tickles the side of our brain that wants
to hear all the drama. But like, they need a
strong case to convince us of that. Now, a person's
value isn't determined by what they do. But we
just have this natural intuition that the things
we do come out of things deeper. What we feel,
what we believe. Common saying that we say all
the time about this, actions speak louder than
words. And we normally mean this in terms of
relationships. If you really love someone, you'll
act like it. You won't just... say it uh similar
with moral values if you really believe in some
big moral value you'll do something about it
you won't just preach about it but i think this
applies to other internal qualities as well so
please open with me to the book of james chapter
three um in your bible on your app Or there should
also be Bibles on every table. So now, we've
been in James for a few weeks. But in case you
weren't here, it's in the New Testament, pretty
near the back. So it comes right after Hebrews.
But then if you start hitting other names like
Peter, John, Jude, you've gone too far. I'll
be reading out of the NIV. It's our tradition
here at the house to give the reading of scripture
our full attention. So if you desire and are
able, one way we can do that is to stand as we
read. James 3, 13 through 18. Who is wise and
understanding among you? Let them show it by
their good life, by deeds done in the humility
that comes with it. from wisdom. But if you harbor
bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts,
do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such
wisdom does not come down from heaven, but is
earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where you
have envy and selfish ambition, there you find
disorder and every evil practice. But the wisdom
that comes from heaven is first of all pure,
then peace -loving, considerate, submissive,
full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.
Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of
righteousness. Oh, yes, please be seated. So
I promise I'm not going to rant about Greek the
whole time. But there's an interesting word here.
Probably translated good behavior, might be translated
good deeds in some versions that you're reading.
In the Greek, that's anastrophes. Literally means
to turn up. It refers to the way people act in
society, the way they treat other people. what
they do in public, that sort of thing. But it
has connotations of coming from inside. We talk
about our values being inside and our actions
being outside. In Greek, it's more our values
come up into our actions. So that's kind of a
clue that... is confirmed as he goes on to talk
about what wisdom is and isn't, that James here
isn't talking about wisdom as this big abstract
concept. He's not getting as philosophical as,
like a couple months ago we had a series on wisdom
literature. He's getting even more down to brass
tacks than that did. He's not... talking about
the kind of wisdom we mean that somebody needs
in order to write a philosophical treatise that
you need multiple advanced degrees to understand.
That's not what James is messing with. Much like
a couple weeks ago when Greg was talking about
James talking about salvation. He wasn't into
the whole theological what causes salvation to
happen, how is it conferred, all of these complicated
things. He was like, no. You have your salvation,
now go live it out. That is James' focus consistently.
And we see it here as well. He starts out talking
about what wisdom isn't. It's not bitter jealousy.
Obviously, how wise can you be if you're just
sitting around? It's not self -interest. This
phrase translated as self -interest, it's another
interesting one. It shows up in other places
throughout the Bible talking about similar...
Sorry, blanked out for a second. In similar context,
talking about social behavior, either your behavior
like out in society or sometimes social interactions
within the church. But before the Bible in Greek,
it was mostly used to talk about politics. You
know, if you look it up in a fancy Greek lexicon,
you'll probably see this word factiousness, which
isn't very helpful, but it's fun to say. Kind
of means like party spirit. We want our team
to win. Has very negative connotations. It's
like, okay, we're going to do this really sneaky
underhanded thing. But then our team will win.
We'll get our way. Our guy will be voted in.
Whatever. It reminds me of the thing that I saw.
I used to be part of an organization that had
a serious ongoing issue. People would leave,
either they moved away, or they would just be
going to a different group for the same function,
and they wouldn't be participating anymore. They
wouldn't be part of our community. They wouldn't
be doing anything with our events. But they would
show up every six months on the dot, so that
they were technically still active members. So
that when it was time for us to vote on something,
they could show up and still have a vote to make
sure their friends and family who were still
here could get their way. Not exactly above board.
Technically allowed by the bylaws, though. In
a kind of less severe way, it reminds me of...
So I'm sure we've all seen... Everybody likes
posting videos of their kids doing something
cute, right? The kids doing something clever.
And I like watching those videos, because kids
are pretty cool. But every so often, it'll be
a video of mom or dad saying, look how smart
my child is, and it's their kid just parroting
something that they hear mom and dad say a lot.
Now, nothing wrong with the kid. The kid wants
to be on mom and dad's team. That's good. That's
right. That's appropriate. Nothing wrong with
mom and dad. Mom and dad are trying to confer
their values on their children. That's good.
That's right. That's appropriate. But a child
parenting something that they hear frequently
in the home but that they don't really understand
isn't what James would call wisdom. That's not...
harmful. But it's not wisdom. Give them a few
years to grow up and really understand it. Start
expressing their own opinions. Then we can talk
about that. But we see this all over the place
in modern life. Very often we want to make sure
that our team wins. We want to do what it takes
to make sure that our side, what we think would
be best, what would be best for us, is what happens.
We see this in the workplace, in the community,
in the home, out in society in bigger ways. Very
often, what we're trying to do is this self -interest,
this team spirit, this, okay, we gotta win attitude.
And what James is saying here is that that is
not wisdom. Doesn't mean that you can't ever
want things that will benefit you, but just that
investment in your team winning isn't the wisdom
that James is talking about here. So, if all
of that is what wisdom is not, what is wisdom?
Notice, he gives special attention to it being
pure, or some translations might say holy. First
of all, it is pure, then these other things.
That suggests a place of importance, a place
of primacy. wisdom is going to also be all of
these other things, but it must, it has to be
pure. You could also say unadulterated, clean,
not mixed up with anything else. We could see
from the context that this likely includes that
earthly, unspiritual, false wisdom above. bitter
jealousy and self -interest. If our supposed
wisdom is mixed up with those things, then it
is not pure. It is not the wisdom James is talking
about here. I would argue that it would also
include other distortions, other deviations from
the wisdom that James is telling us about. One
example that we see a lot today is kind of the
ends justify the means thinking. If we compromise
our values just a little bit, just this once,
just for a little while, then we can fix everything.
If we compromise our values just this one time,
then we'll make everything better. If we compromise
our values then, maybe, our team will win and
then everything will be great. We see that in
lots of ways. We see that economically. Like,
well, you know, I just need this one thing to
happen so then that way I can get ahead. We see
that with politics. Well, we need to do this
so that this party or that party will win this
position and then they'll fix all the things.
We see that just out in the community. Well,
I just need to get my way on this one thing and
then everything will be okay. So it's okay that
I'm a little underhanded just this once. But
though that would be not purity in our wisdom.
That would be mixing it up with other things.
That would make it not the wisdom James is talking
about here. But then he goes on to explain what
other things this wisdom from heaven is. This
wisdom is peace -loving. This wisdom is considerate.
This wisdom is submissive, or that word in the
Greek could also be translated reasonable, not
being pushy about having your own way all the
time. This wisdom is full of mercy, full of good
fruit, impartial. sincere. This list is very
reminiscent of other lists we see in the New
Testament. It's not a one -to -one copy, but
there's overlap and similarity. It reminds me
of the fruits of the Spirit we see in Galatians
5 .22. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy,
peace, patience, kindness. goodness, faithfulness,
and self -control. It also reminds me of the
definition of love given in 1 Corinthians 13,
4 -8. Love is patient. Love is kind. It does
not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud.
It does not dishonor others. It is not self -seeking.
It is not easily angered. It keeps no record
of wrong. Love does not delight in evil, but
rejoices with the truth. It always protects,
always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Now, these lists, notice they're not complicated,
difficult to understand rules. There are some
rules. that are lists. A notoriously complicated
example is the tax code. The tax code is essentially
long lists of what is and isn't taxed, when and
why, and you have to cross -reference it. There's
a particularly notorious case, Nix versus Hedden,
often called the tomato case. Has anyone heard
of it? It's fun. So it's way back in 1893. So
it was referencing a tax law that, you know,
they've changed it so often it's not really relevant
anymore, but it's still funny. A few years before,
they had passed a law on taxing imports that
was meant to put a certain tax on fruits and
vegetables. But the way it was phrased, because
of a straight comma, a bunch of people were arguing,
Well, technically, according to the way it's
written, it's only taxing vegetables, not fruit.
Like, technically. Like, yes, they intended to
tax them both, but technically. And so this guy,
who made a lot of money importing tomatoes, guess
we weren't growing a lot of tomatoes in the U
.S. in the 1890s, so he had to import them, argued
that, well, since technically there isn't a tax
on fruit, Technically, you know, tomatoes are
a fruit. We eat them like a vegetable, but botanically
speaking, tomatoes are a fruit. So you shouldn't
be taxing my tomatoes, because technically there's
no tax on fruit, and technically tomatoes are
a fruit, but technically you shouldn't be charging
me a tax. They had to argue in the court's days
about this. He wound up winning. So legally,
tomatoes are a fruit. Technically. That's not
the sort of thing we're dealing with here. We're
not dealing with, well, technically you should
do this in this situation, but not in that situation.
And technically, no. James is way more grounded
and practical than all of that. These are broad
values that are easy to understand, that I believe
are best understood if we don't try to overthink
it too much. I think most of us here know what
it means to love peace, what it means to be sincere,
what it means to be considerate. These aren't
complicated technicalities. What's hard isn't
understanding what these traits of wisdom are.
What's hard is Actually living it out. Actually
going out into our community and consistently
doing all of these things. Acting in a way that
reflects all of these inward virtues every day.
James concludes, peacemakers who sow in peace.
a harvest of righteousness. Now, this is largely
a transition to what we'll be reading about next
week, but it also serves as a conclusion to the
wisdom here. It suggests the end result of this
wisdom. If we were to all go out and behave in
a way that reflects this wisdom, we would be
peacemakers. we would sow peace and we would
reap righteousness in our whole community. We
would see righteousness. So that brings us to
the hard part. How can you love peace in your
community today? How can you be considerate in
your community? How can you be reasonable in
your community today? How can you be full of
mercy? How can you be full of good fruit? How
can you be impartial? And how can you be sincere?
Please join me in prayer. Dear Lord, we thank
you for bringing us here together this morning.
We thank you for our neighbors, for our communities,
for our friends and loved ones. We ask that you
would guide us. Live out.