Pastor Thanael Certa-Werner
Scripture | James 3:13-4:8 (NIV)
13 Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. 14 But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. 15 Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. 16 For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. 17 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. 18 Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness. 4 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. 4 You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us? 6 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.” 7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
When I was in college, I took a class called Organizational Behavior which focused on how people work within organizations. It focused a lot on leadership, what it means to be a leader, and what it means to work with others. My professor, Dr. Alisha Vincent loved to play a game which demonstrated an important aspect of leadership. The class was split into two teams and both teams would be in separate rooms. Each would send a delegate to the middle and choose a color – either blue or red. If both chose blue, then they would both receive 5 points. If both chose red, then they would both lose 10 points. If one chose red while the other blue, the one choosing red would receive 5 points and the one which chose blue would lose 5 points. Both before and after each team submitted their color choice, the delegates would get to speak together and make a plan.
Dr. Vincent told the class that the goal of the game was to get as many points as you could. By the end of the game both teams were in the negative. Both continually chose red, even when both promised blue. At the end, Dr. Vincent pointed out that the goal was just to get as many points as you can – not to get more points that the other team. There was no reason for them to ever choose red! No one had ever told them it was a competition, both teams decided to make it one because they wanted to have so many more points than the other team.
One of the lessons this teaches us is that we, as people, have a great compacity to look out for number one: ourselves. We look after ourselves to the point where it is foolishness. In fact, in our reading for today, that’s exactly what James calls it. He then lays out a new way for living. James says, “Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes 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.”
James starts off by asking, who here thinks they’re wise? If you’re so wise, prove it by the way you live. Real wisdom looks like a life that is full of humility and goodness. Yet, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of wisdom around. James says that we’re surrounded by fake wisdom which comes from human thoughts and the understandings made up by people – not God. This made-up wisdom isn’t very wise because it’s full of envy and selfishness. It’s the kind of wisdom which says that you need to look out for yourself first. It says you can sacrifice your relationships and those around you if they’re not helping you be the person you want to be. As Disney might put it, if they’re not letting you follow your heart, leave them and follow where it leads you.
James says, if this is the wisdom you’re using, don’t be proud of it. This wisdom doesn’t come from heaven but comes from the complete opposite place! In fact, all this so-called wisdom can do for you is create disorder and chaos. But there is another wisdom that comes from God. He says, “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.”
Real wisdom comes from God alone and it has some tell-tale signs. With real wisdom comes purity, peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartiality, and sincerity. Notice how all of these signs are focused on others and not about the person who is wise. Real wisdom relies on the purity of God. Real wisdom is concerned enough with others to be focused on peace, thinking of them when acting, submitting ourselves to them, being merciful towards them, being impartial whether we like them or agree with them, and always being sincere to them. The only one which is focused on us is full of good fruit and this fruit, or the fruits of the Spirit, are also always focused on God or others.
All this is to say that real wisdom is demonstrated by a deference to God and to others. This all leads to a peace-filled and a peace-seeking life. When we are wise, we work towards peace, and when we work towards peace, we live in the wisdom of righteousness.
The reality of our lives is that we do not live in this way of peace. We really are living often without the wisdom of God guiding our paths. James says, “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.”
Why is it that we get into fights and arguments often as a people? We can’t talk about religion or politics at the dinner table, right? Why is it that there is the unspoken rule that we can’t talk about those subjects? Because they always lead to fights. Why? Because we are always focused on us. We focus on what we do wrong, what we do not have, what the others have forced upon us.
We get upset with our current situation because we don’t ever ask God for what we need – and when we do come to God, it’s only for our own selfish desires. It’s clear that what keeps us from the wisdom and peace of God is the fact that we live in order to get what we want. We pray so that what we want happens, we pretend to discern so that we can claim God has called us to some course of action, and we take the blessings that God has openly out poured upon us and us them for ourselves only. Essentially, our selfishness has blinded us.
Part of our blindness is to see ourselves as the faithful people in every story of the Bible. When we talk about David and Goliath, we are always the faithful David and never the faithless Saul. When we talk about the twelve disciples, we are always one of the eleven and never Judas. We’re always the criminal who recognized Jesus on the cross and never the one who cursed Him. Yet, I know that more often than not, when I am truthful about my situation, I know that I do not have the faith of David or the grit of the Apostles. But this is the power of seeing things as they are. When we see all the problems around us, our lack of faith, our selfishness, and the selfishness and fake wisdom of the world – only then can we do something about them!
I do not want to pretend that all is lost or that there is no way for us to become better people! James makes it clear that God is already at work helping us to become better people. He says, “do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us? 6 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: ‘God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.’”
God wants to help us become more like Him – He’s jealous for us and wants us all to Himself. What it takes from us is to be humble enough to see that we need God. It can be hard to let go of the pride which tells us that we’re doing okay and that we’re living a good enough life. But when we humble ourselves before Him and are honest about our situation, only then can we start to become more like Him.
James says, “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.” This is our call this week. We all know of areas in our lives which we have kept from God. Whether it be something we do we know we shouldn’t, something we say when we shouldn’t, or something we believe when we know we shouldn’t. Our call this week is let our pride down. To concede that we need help in our lives and ask God to provide that help. Part of this kind of praying – the kind of praying that can really transform you – entails listening. Part of real prayer is spending time listening to what God has to say in our lives and where He is leading us to. When we do these things – when we reduce our pride to humility and seek to live in peace with one another, then we will know the purity, peace, consideration, submission, mercy, spiritual fruit, impartiality, and sincerity of the wisdom of God.