Sermon Tone Analysis

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Tonight’s passage is a compare and contrast passage.

James brings up the idea of wisdom - which if you remember from our study of back in May - Godly Wisdom is humbly hearing and doing God’s will found in Scripture and applying Scripture to the circumstances of the moment.

So tonight is about True vs. False wisdom.

I’ve scoured the webs and it is not easy to find a self-professed foolish person.

Honestly, most of us elevate our abilities and think relatively high of ourself.

We think we are wise.

We think we are relatively learned, relatively skilled, relatively fast, relatively beautiful.

Our opinion of ourself is high.

So tonight James puts us our wisdom to task - he tests our wisdom.

And so my hope would be that throughout our message tonight you would evaluate yourself and our ministry to see if you have and we have true wisdom from God or we have false, earthly wisdom.

Pray

Pray

The Test of Wisdom

In (v.13) we see the Test of Wisdom, “Who is wise and understanding among you?

By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom (v13).”

The bottom line of wisdom - how it is evaluated is not based on education, theological prowess, how many Greek verbs you can parse, experience or position - it is based on our day to day action.

So first wisdom is revealed by:

(1) His works - what that means is each and every day does our life - our thoughts, words, feelings and actions - demonstrate a godliness or a Christlikeness.

James isn’t interested and Christ isn’t interested in what we have to say about our wisdom, “hey, buddy I’m really wise, listen to me sing the books of the bible to you.”

That’s great and all, but James insisted in “I will show you my faith by my works.”

We therefore think that James invites any of his readers who might pride themselves on their wisdom to consider seriously what he is about to say.

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Wisdom - humbly hearing and doing God’s will found in Scripture and applying Scripture to the circumstances of the moment - manifests itself daily.

Peter knew this too:

For James assesses these people’s claim to wisdom not in theological terms—how much doctrine do they know, how many Greek verbs can they parse—but in practical terms: Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom.

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So if our day to day conduct is honorable we prove that we possess wisdom and the opposite is true too.

The “let him show”26 challenge reminds us of James’s challenge in 2:18 to the “believer” who thinks works and faith can be separated: “Show me your faith without deeds.”

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“Good conduct,” James insists, is the basis on which one can demonstrate wisdom.

This phrase, or similar ones, occurs several times in the letters of Peter in a general way to denote a lifestyle that pleases God.

See especially 1 Pet.

2:12: “Live such good lives [lit., ‘have good conduct’] among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.”

And then secondly, wisdom is revealed by:

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(2) Look back at (v.13) “in the meekness of wisdom.”

This means that our good works that we are to be living out on the day-to-day should be done in humility.

True wisdom produces true humility.

The idea that “good deeds” are to be shown on the basis of good conduct is a little unusual, but clear enough: it is our acts of obedience to God, performed consistently day after day, that make up the “good conduct” of the wise person.

If I toot my horn and say “look at me I’m helping my neighbors granny across the street, I’m a really good guy” that is not a good deed.

That is not a life lived in humility under the grace of Christ.

So after you do something nice for someone in the name of Christ and you feel that itching urge to share it with someone so they will think better of you: remember that’s not wise.

Those who truly possess the wisdom of God don’t love others for gain or strategically to be seen and noticed, rather they love others and do good works because they are wise.

Christ said it this way in

What James appears to mean, however, is that the good works are to be done in a spirit of humility—a humility that itself is the product, or result, of wisdom (taking the genitive sophias as a genitive of source).

James is clearly trying to say two things here: true wisdom produces good works and true wisdom produces humility.

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When we get our position in relation to Christ and we recognize how unable we are to be satisfied without God and that we can’t chart or captain our life without him and then we embrace Christ to do this for us - that’s what humility looks like.

So the test for possessing true wisdom is (1) does my life produce good works for Christ?

and (2) are those works done in humility?

After laying out the true test for wisdom we see a picture of False Wisdom in (v.14-16)

Humility, or “meekness” (Gk.

praütēs) was not usually prized by the Greeks.

They thought it signaled a servility unworthy of a strong and confident person.

But a different picture emerges in the NT.

Jesus himself claimed to be “meek” (Matt.

11:29; cf.

Matt.

21:5) and blessed those who were meek (Matt.

5:5).

This Christian meekness, or humility, comes from understanding our position as sinful creatures in relationship to the glorious and majestic God (note James’s elaboration of this point in 4:7).

It recognizes how unable we are in and of ourselves to achieve spiritual fulfillment or to chart our own course in the world.

And this humility before God should then translate into humility toward others

False Wisdom

Then we see in (v.14-16)

If a person harbors bitter envy and selfish ambition in the heart, that person is, in effect, living a lie: claiming to be wise but conducting himself in a way that denies that claim.

The reason that James can draw this conclusion is that bitter envy and selfish ambition are contrary to humility.

If, then, humility marks the wise person, these negative qualities exclude a person from being considered wise.

The Motivation

So what motivates this false wisdom?

Well, we know it comes from the heart - where all motives come from.

And from the heart James says here that two things motivate false wisdom:

(1) Bitter Jealousy

If you live your life on human, worldly wisdom you will inevitably be self-centered.

You will live in a fantasy world in which your own ideas, desires and judgments or standards are the measure of everything.

If someone serves to help along your idea of the “good life” well they are a friend and whoever threatens that, well they are an enemy.

Application: Sports - let’s say you have spent a few years starting at a particular position, but one day your coach comes to you and says “hey I’d like to move you to another position, because so-and-so would do better here and it would be better for the team.”

How would you respond?

It would be better for the team for that switch to happen, but now instead of playing PG or QB you are playing SG or wide-out.

How would you take it?

Would you become bitter and jealousy or more directly would you have bitter jealousy toward that person?

Worldly, false wisdom is marked by a bitter jealousy of others.

And it is marked by:

(2) Selfish Ambition - this is actually the motive upon which bitter jealousy is based.

Selfish-Ambition is the pursuit of personal gain or fulfillment at any cost.

Selfish - ambition is the antithesis of humility.

It is the Bane to Batman, the Giants to the Patriots, the aliens to the cowboys, or the Russian to our Rocky.

You can’t have selfish ambition and meekness or humility at the same time because selfish ambition can’t share.

It pushes out humility.

So false wisdom is motivated by bitter jealousy and selfish ambition.

And we are not to “boast and be false to the truth.”

To boast about wisdom when one is displaying jealousy and selfish ambition is, in effect, to give the lie to the truth about what wisdom is and does.

For wisdom must always be accompanied by humility.

Transition: then in (v.15) we see what characterizes or marks false wisdom.

The Characteristics

So, here James distinguishes between wisdom from above and from below.

Wisdom from God and wisdom from man or the world.

Wisdom from heaven or wisdom from the earth.

See, false wisdom is characterized here by three things: