James series – “The Litmus Test for life”

James 3:13-16

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. ¹⁴ But if you are bitterly jealous and there is selfish ambition in your heart, don’t cover up the truth with boasting and lying. ¹⁵ For jealousy and selfishness are not God’s kind of wisdom. Such things are earthly, unspiritual, and demonic. ¹⁶ For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind.

Worldly wisdom is not only revealed by its roots and attributes but also the:

• Fruits of test-failing wisdom (16)

The fruits of test-failing wisdom are evidenced in evil works and confusion. In the Left Behind series the author said that during the tribulation, whenever somebody got saved, a mark would appear on their foreheads that only other Christians could see. But in truth when Jesus saves us, we don’t receive a secret mark to identify us to other Christians rather people know we are followers of Jesus by our fruit. Our walk will reveal our real witness. While you can’t see the tree roots you can see the acorns. And the fruit, whether it be acorns or apples will reveal how healthy roots really are. A tree with diseased roots is going to do one of two things. Either it will fail to produce fruit, or the fruit will be shriveled and diseased. The difference between trees and people is that all people produce fruit. No matter how selfishly sick and diseased the heart is, the person will produce fruit. Wisdom that has the attributes of being worldly and sensual is devilish and is borne from the roots of a bitter, contentious, arrogant, self-centered heart. That kind of wisdom which comes from a diseased heart produces wretched fruit. The fruit of the flesh listed in Galatians 5:19-21;“When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, ²⁰ idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, ²¹ envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God.” So, did you see the whole list? Or just the ones you don’t have a problem with? What about, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy. That is some ugly, shriveled, diseased fruit. James calls it every evil work, which lead to confusion, disorder and chaos. If every place that you go, there is a common pattern of confusion, disorder and chaos, you need to check your heart. For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. What fruit is laying at the feet of your tree, acorns or anger? Apples or arrogance? The wisdom that you lean on determines your walk and a test failing wisdom will always result in a worldly walk that produces the fruit of the flesh. Are you watering your life with worldly wisdom or the wisdom of God’s Word? James says that Godly wisdom results in a humble heart not a haunty one. The Greek word that describes our English word “humility” means “gentleness of spirit. It was used to describe a horse that had been broken. A broken horse still has all the power that it once had, the difference is that its power is now under the control of someone else. Godly wisdom doesn’t surrender its ability; it just places it under new management. The reason God blessed Solomon with wisdom was because his motives were not self-centered. Worldly wisdom focuses on self but God’s wisdom focuses on serving. Are you seeking wisdom for self-benefit or to bless those you serve? Is your fruit ripe or rotten? If the fruit falling of your tree is rotten then your roots are diseased and the solution to your sickness is salvation. You need a heart transplant, Ephesians 2:4-10 “But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, ⁵ that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!) ⁶ For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus. ⁷ So God can point to us in all future ages as examples of the incredible wealth of his grace and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us who are united with Christ Jesus. ⁸ God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. ⁹ Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.¹⁰ For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” Its time to turn to Jesus, to bury that old heart and be raised to walk a new life with Him. 

James series – “The Litmus Test for life”

James 3:13-16

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. ¹⁴ But if you are bitterly jealous and there is selfish ambition in your heart, don’t cover up the truth with boasting and lying. ¹⁵ For jealousy and selfishness are not God’s kind of wisdom. Such things are earthly, unspiritual, and demonic. ¹⁶ For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind.

Worldly wisdom is test-failing wisdom revealed by its roots and second by its :

• Attributes of test-failing wisdom (15)

Throughout history, man has only come up with two ways to know things. One way is by what he learns through his senses. If I pick up a shoe, I can know certain things about it by the way that it feels. By the way that it looks. By the way that it smells. If I listen really close, by the way that it sounds. And if I’m real brave or stupid, by the way that it tastes. By using my senses, I can know things but there’s a limit to what my senses and physical experience can tell me. Sure, I can use things like microscopes to help me see really tiny things like cells and molecules but even there is a limit to what I can see. My senses and experience can only take me so far. So, does that mean that if I can’t experience it, I can’t know anything about it? No this is where man’s other way of knowing things comes into play, this is where our ability to reason step in. We can’t see, smell, taste, touch or hear a number. But while we can’t experience a number, we can use our reason to know that 1 + 1 = 2. Reason is how we think we know about things like atoms and electrons and gravity and black holes. But there is even a limit to our reason. If we rely on our senses or our reason alone we will reach a point where they fail us. Don’t believe me then turn with me to Ecclesiastes 2:10. God granted Solomon the wisdom to become the wisest man in the world. But Solomon turned from God’s wisdom to worldly wisdom, sensual wisdom based on experiential knowledge. Solomon tried to use his senses to know and in Ecclesiastes 2:10-11, he wrote: “Anything I wanted, I would take. I denied myself no pleasure. I even found great pleasure in hard work, a reward for all my labors. 11 But as I looked at everything, I had worked so hard to accomplish, it was all so meaningless—like chasing the wind. There was nothing really worthwhile anywhere.” Trying to gain wisdom through the world was like grasping at the wind. What does wind feel like when you pick it up? Nothing, because in his attempt to gaining wisdom through worldly means, all he gained was vanity. He reached a place where his experience failed him. But he also reached a place where his reason failed him because the next four verses reveal his attempt to gain wisdom by relying on his reason. Ecclesiastes 2:12-15, “So I decided to compare wisdom with foolishness and madness (for who can do this better than I, the king?). 13 I thought, “Wisdom is better than foolishness, just as light is better than darkness. 14 For the wise can see where they are going, but fools walk in the dark.” Yet I saw that the wise and the foolish share the same fate. 15 Both will die. So I said to myself, “Since I will end up the same as the fool, what’s the value of all my wisdom? This is all so meaningless!” James called this kind of reasoning sensual wisdom, it’s where we get the word psychology. Psychological wisdom is the wisdom that comes only from within our own little, finite, fallen minds. All of the great questions of life, all of the deep things to think about led Solomon to the same place, vanity. When Solomon turned away from God as the source of his wisdom life became miserable and meaningless. This is what modern philosophers call nihilism. The belief that nothing really matters because everything is really nothing. A purposeless product of time and chance. Vanity and vexation of spirit. It’s the kind of wisdom James defines as devilish, it’s a wisdom that destroys and brings death, ask Adam and Eve.