Real Wisdom

 “Real Wisdom”

 Message @ Jericho Ridge Community Church – Sunday, Oct 19, 2014

Text: James 3:13-18 // Series: Mirror, Mirror: Reflections in the book of James

Thanks, Curtis.  I want to say, having been with our team to Guatemala, that if you’re on the fence, I dare you to go. Take a risk. You won’t regret it. 

Some time ago, I was out for lunch with a friend and I was saying to them how I enjoyed spicy food.  I didn’t know it, but my friend was bit of a hot sauce aficionado, so they began to ask if I had tried this kind of hot sauce or that kind.  I said “no – I have two kinds of hot sauce in my fridge – American tabasco and Asian Siracha” - but I told them that I like hot food so I would be willing for them to make a recommendation.  Well, since I opened the door, they walked through it.  They said to me “you say you like spicy food and hot sauce… now is your chance to prove it!  I dare you to put three drops of this hot sauce on your food and see if you can stomach it.”  Well I don’t know what you would do in this situation, but I didn’t want to be called a chicken so I accepted their dare.  I should have clued in from the look of glee in my friends’ eyes, or the warning on the label, or that the wait staff were handling the sauce with gloves. Or that it just three drops in my food already began to sting my nostrils…  But I had said I liked spicy food, so now I felt I had to prove it!  This was a big mistake!  It was the hottest thing I have ever put in my mouth.  It burned going down. It burned in my stomach.  It burned… after my stomach!  It was not a pleasant experience.  But my friend had issued me a challenge and I had accepted it, so it was time not to talk about how much l enjoyed spicy food, it was time to let my actions speak louder than my words. 

This fall here at Jericho, we’ve been studying the New Testament book of James in a series called “Mirror, Mirror”.  It’s a little book, tucked away toward the back of the Bible written by Jesus’ half-brother, and one of the main themes that James brings up over and over again is that you have to be willing to ACT on what you SAY.  Talk is cheap, says James… but actions speak louder than words.  This morning, we are in James 3, I’m going to begin reading in verse 13.  Brian Cooper was with us last weekend and did a fantastic job of laying out for us the reality that what’s inside our lives can’t help but come out in the way that we speak.  And so in James 3:13, James continues this theme when he says “If you are wise and understand God’s ways, PROVE IT by living an honorable life, doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom.”     

The tone of this verse isn’t so much a question “are you wise?”, it’s more of a challenge.  James has thrown down the gauntlet and is saying “Who among you claims to be wise?  If that’s you, then step right up. Today is your chance to PROVE IT.  It’s a challenge.  An invitation, similar to the one issued by my friend.  Who among you likes hot sauce?  Then prove it by squirting copious amounts of sriracha chili sauce on your lunch!  I love this aspect of the book of James!   He isn’t going to let any of us live a life that is unexamined. He is going to hold up the mirror to our speech and the things we say or claim and will say to us: “prove it”.  Are you a fan of the Canucks?  Prove it – wear a jersey to church on game day.  Are you into old Ford’s?  Prove it – tell me the difference between a 1964 and 1/2 mustangs and a 1965?  Are you a person who loves beer? Prove it – tell me the difference between an IPA and a stout.  Are you a person who uses the label Christian to describe yourself?  James says “prove it”.  And you prove it not by reading about it or blogging about it but by living in such a way that your actions back up your conversation. I love the way the Message translation puts this verse, It’s the way you live NOT how you talk that really counts.

But it’s also the way you live, not just what you know that really counts.  James says if you are wise AND if you understand God’s ways, your life will reflect that.  So what is the difference between wisdom and understanding?  For James, just like there is a difference between saying something and doing something, there’s also a difference between knowing something vs. applying something.  If I possess understanding, in biblical frame of reference this means that I have a grasp of the technical facts of a situation.  It’s a cognitive exercise.  But if I possess wisdom, it means that I can rightly apply what I know to a given situation.  If I am wise, it means that I understand the spiritual and the practical implications of a course of action in a given situation. 

Let’s cycle back to my hot sauce example.  Now for the uninitiated, the spiciness of chili peppers is rated on something called the Scoville Scale.  Bell peppers are zero on the scale, serrano peppers are like 15,000; cayenne or tabasco peppers are like 50,000…Habanero peppers are like 350,000 Scoville units.  And then you get way up into crazy, sign-your-life away wavier kind of stuff with so-called Ghost peppers which are between 1 and 2 million units!   But it’s one thing to have an intellectual understanding of the Scoville scale, to grasp the technical facts about a given pepper’s heat units…  It’s a whole ‘nother ball game to put that thing on your tongue!  Wisdom is taking what I know about something and working out the practical implications.  Wisdom has to be lived out, it has to be seen, not just talked about.  This is why James says “IF you are wise and understand God’s way, you will prove it by living an honourable life, by doing good works with the humility that comes from this wisdom.” 

James is painting a picture of true wisdom, real wisdom that comes from above that he is going to come back to in a few verses.  But before he describes this kind of wisdom in more detail, he sets up a contrast with another kind of “wisdom”: wisdom that has a very different source.  Look with me at James 3:14-16 [read].

In another part of the New Testament, in the book of Galatians, the Bible uses a word picture of fruit to describe the kinds of things that are present and growing when the Spirit of God is resident in a person’s life.  Do you remember what some of those fruits are? (Shout it out)  Kindness, self-control, gentleness, goodness, forbearance, joy, love, peace faithfulness. This list here in these 3 verses in James is a kind of anti-fruit of the Spirit.  James is saying to us “these are the kinds of things that crop up in a person’s life when the Spirit of God is not given permission to work”.  These things are the Fruit of (the Absence of) the Spirit.  Just like when we see humility and good works on display, it means that wisdom in growing in a persons’ life, when we see the following elements growing up through the cracks in your heart, it means that God’s wisdom is NOT being allowed to grow.

1. Bitter jealousy – envy & criticism of others.  The inability to rejoice when things go well for another person.  The need to find something wrong in what others are doing & to wallow in self-pity.
2. Selfish ambition – narrow, partisan zeal – a concern for yourself, your own group and your own agenda over and above the common good.  A desire to work hard at that at the expense of others.
3. Boasting & Lying –covering up the truth  You can get away with not telling the truth for a time, but overestimating your abilities or actively shading reality to suit your needs is not wisdom.
4. Disorder – a restless, unsettled state of mind  Here James is back to his word picture from chapter 1 – that scene of a wave tossed by the wind.  Driven in any direction and unable to settle on a course of action and stick to it.  Kinda like that Russian container ship that’s been adrift without power off the coast of Haidi Gwaii – without a clear course or any power to get somewhere on its own, it is a drift and unsettled.  Then James finishes with a kind of catch-all
5. Evil of every kind (that is demonic in origin)  James is inviting us to consider the source of the things that are taking root in our lives…  It’s like the Fruit of the Spirit is on the far left: a healthy and edible looking apple.  But then things begin to get rotten.  They decay and they look less and less and less attractive until they are shriveled up and inedible and disgusting.  Where you give way to jealousy and the kind of ambition that is not guided by the Spirit but is oriented toward yourself, that is where you will find disorder and evil of every kind.

But then James returns to his real emphasis in this text.  A more detailed description of real wisdom.  Look with me at James 3:17-18. 

When I was growing up, we would often go and help my uncle on his farm around this time of year.  And we would drive the tractor help with the harvest and remark on how it must be the highlight of the year for him as a farmer.  But my uncle would gently remind us that what happens in October isn’t the highlight so much as the natural outcome of the process.  He would say things like “you can’t grow what you don’t sow”.  In other words, the really important part isn’t so much the harvest, but the planting, the cultivation, letting the sun & rain do their work.  Every harvest starts by planting a seed.  James chooses to use that same image which is picked up often throughout the Bible.  You reap what you sow.  You can only harvest what you intentionally plant.  If you are a person who loves peace, then you will plant seeds of peace, you can work toward a harvest of good things like justice or righteousness.  But you can’t expect to harvest these things in your life if you don’t plant them at some point and nurture them with the help of the Spirit.  So what are you sowing & growing in your life?

Am I taking active steps to practice purity?  Wisdom that comes from above is first of all pure.  There are so many things that can actively choke purity out in my life the things I watch on TV or read or expose myself to online.  What steps do you have in place in your life to make sure that purity isn’t getting choked out but is instead being nurtured and allowed to grow?  You might need to take some action this week – install a software program on your phone or computer – call or e-mail me, I have some recommendations for you.  You might need to edit your library of some DVD’s or books that don’t help purity grow in your life.  You might want to get into a 4 quarters group where you can be accountable to a group of others who are seeking purity in their own lives.  If you are wise, you’ll prove it by taking active steps toward purity.  

Am I resolving conflicts and seeking peace?  People who are wise are those who pursue peace.  If there are unresolved issues, they initiate and move toward the offended party and don’t sit around in the corner and sulk.  People who are wise pursue peace, the work hard at resolving conflicts.  This is related to the next thing that is growing in the lives of those who are wise.  They are

Am I considerate of the opinions of others?  Willing to yield to others says verse 17.  Now, this has sometimes been taken to mean that Christians are doormats or push-overs with no backbone.  That’s not what James is suggesting here. He doesn’t’ say “yield” to others he invites us to be willing to yield.  In other words, am I willing to consider that I might be in the wrong and that the other party may have a point and there might be another way of doing things OR am I so entrenched in my own perspective that I won’t even hear them out.  Will I listen carefully and consider their perspective – it doesn’t mean that I agree with it – but do I allow them to air it, or do I just shut it down or disregard them as a person before they have a chance to speak. 

Let me give you an example of this. Next Sunday night, we are going to gather for a family meeting.  You may have read that in the info sheet and wondered “what’s that all about?”  Well, we as elders and leaders are actively asking for your input on areas of health and areas of growth for Jericho Ridge.  We are going to sketch out some categories of concern that were brought up at the Info Session on Sept 28.  We are going to share as a board the journey we have been on this past year and where we agree with some of those areas of concern and where we may differ on our perspectives.  We want to be transparent and let you know that we feel that we have not done a good of letting you in on what we were learning and processing as we could have done.  Once we have shared together, we’ll have an open time of Question and Answer.  The reason we are doing this is that our posture as an elders team is that we want to do the best job we can leading the church and so we want to ask if there are ways we can do a better job of things around Jericho Ridge.  The goal is to elevate the conversation away from personal experiences and to have you speak meaningfully into the strategic outcomes and the ministry plan for 2015.  We want to say “we as a board are not unaware of some of these areas that we need to work on, but we feel that this plan, structure and the team of elders we are bringing forward for affirmation at Vision Night addresses these.”  What demonstrating is that we as a board desire to listen and engage with the opinions and perspectives of people on how God is shaping and leading us as a community.  So I trust that many of you will get babysitters and will join us next Sunday evening.  You may not agree with everything that everyone shares there, but are you willing to be considerate of the opinions of others?  

There are two more things that James suggests are taking root and growing in the hearts and lives of people who are wise.  They are  

Am I gentle and sincere in my speech?  Humility is inextricably linked to wisdom.  If you are living wisely, you are living humbly.  And it will come out in the way you speak.  You will speak with gentleness and sincerity, not working to coerce or putting up a mask and pretending to be someone you are not.  Think about the words you have spoken since you got up: would you characterize them gentle and since?

There’s one last thing that James invites us to hunt around for in our lives and see if we can find it.  And that is Is there more room in my heart for mercy?  And here again James doesn’t let us off the hook with saying a quick “oh yes, I am merciful person”.  Verse 17 says I can only say that I am full of mercy if I can point to the fruit of good deeds.  I can claim that I am merciful and compassionate all I want to, but it’s the way that you live not how you talk that really counts.  So are you DOING anything that is merciful?  That’s one thing that I love about this church.  There are people here who everyday are making more room in their lives for mercy.  They are serving food to hungry kids at breakfast clubs, they are inviting neighbours into their homes for a meal who are lonely, they are using the arts to engage kids who are in trouble, they are using their counselling gifts to help empathy take root in the lives of couples in conflict.  Right now, as we speak, there’s a crew from Jericho Ridge down in Guatemala with Ralph Terpstra distributing wheelchairs as a tangible expression of mercy.  This is a group of guys who meet on Wednesday mornings at 6 AM called the Muffin Men.  Their name has nothing to do with their mid-sections but has to do with their breakfast menu.  And Ralph and Joel Schacter and others have decided that you they are not willing to sit around on Wednesday mornings and talk about being compassionate to people who are poor.  They don’t just want room in their hearts for mercy… they want room in their calendars and in their budgets and in their lives as well.  Just like these other characteristics of real wisdom, mercy needs to evidence itself in good deeds.  If it doesn’t, it isn’t real wisdom.     

As we move into a time or response to God in worship in song and in prayer, I want to ask you to consider What is GROWING in your life?  Your heart might be hardened and the soil inhospitable.  Today, I challenge you to let God break up those hard places.  You might be at the seedling stage with some of these areas – just beginning root out jealousy and bitterness and selfish ambition and re-plant peace, gentleness and humility.  Encourage you: that is hard work! Keep it up, find people who can help and support you in that journey.  You might have let something grow, but now you feel like you are slipping. Where do you hear God asking you to do some weeding or some intentional feeding in your life? 

True wisdom comes from above, from God who desires to grow certain characteristics in our lives.  The only question is are we willing not just to talk about it but actually live a life this week that demonstrates it.  Let’s pray.  Father, keep before us the wisdom and love you have revealed in your Son. Help us to be like him in not just in word but also in deed.  We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. AMEN