Moments in the life of a Pastor

James series – “The Litmus Test for life”

James 3:13, 17-18

¹³ 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. ¹⁷ But the wisdom from above is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and the fruit of good deeds. It shows no favoritism and is always sincere. ¹⁸ And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of righteousness.

After looking at the roots of a test passing wisdom next we see the:

• ATTRIBUTES 3:17b

Test-passing wisdom has the attributes of being both empty and full. First, it is empty of self. If I had to pick the foremost message of our age, it would be the message of self-esteem. The wisdom of the world tells us that problem with people today is that they don’t have enough self-esteem. So let’s take a moment and evaluate that message. We know what self is, but what does it mean to esteem one’s self? Esteem means “the condition of being honored,” “an attitude of admiration”, “to regard highly”, “to think much of.” Well I don’t see that we lack that in our current culture. In truth its actually our problem, we are too full of ourselves, we esteem ourselves too highly. We have created a culture that is focused on what is going to make me look good and what’s going to make me feel good. Even if its at the expense of how I treat others. A lack of self-esteem isn’t the problem, it’s being full of ourselves. No James makes it clear that a test-passing wisdom is empty of self, its peaceable, gentle and agreeable. You see, you can’t be peaceable if you always insist on having it your own way. Or gentle if you’re always defending your rights. Or agreeable if you insist that everybody always agrees with you. You can’t be peaceable, gentle and agreeable if you are esteeming yourself. Why? Because you can’t be those things if you’re full of yourself. You can only be peaceable, gentle and agreeable if you’re full of the Holy Spirit. And that’s the second attribute of test-passing wisdom. Its not just about being empty of self it’s about being full of the Spirit. Being full of the Spirit is the key to being empty of self. Because you can’t just tell yourself to be empty of yourself. That’s like trying to empty this room of all its air, it can’t be done. You can’t empty this room of air or you would have a void. But what you can do is replace it. The key is that it’s not about removing it’s about replacing, because replacing leads to displacing. ILLUSTRATION WATER BOTTLE.  If your heart is filled up with self, if you have made the goal esteeming yourself, then the only way to empty your heart of you is to replace it. Replace the one you’re esteeming. Instead of esteeming yourself, start esteeming Jesus. Because when we are empty of self and full of the Spirit you’ll have the third attribute of test-passing wisdom, you’ll be absent of insincerity. When you are empty of self because you’re full of the Spirit, you won’t show the kind of favoritism that fuels the fires of hypocrisy we talked about in the preference test several weeks ago. One of the number one reasons people give for not going to church is that the church is full of hypocrites. The antidote to the plague of hypocrisy that is poisoning the church is not just being empty of self but being full of the Spirit. Are you full of yourself? Whether you like yourself or not doesn’t really matter. Some of the most self-absorbed people I know don’t really like themselves. Are you full of yourself, or full of the Spirit? How do you know, well are you willing for people to offend you? To trample on your rights? To mock and ridicule you? Christ was, Philippians 2:1-5 says He emptied Himself and became an obedient slave, and that we are to model the same mindset. Godly attributes like peace, gentleness and unity come from a Godly attitude. Your attitude will determine your attributes. 

James series – “The Litmus Test for life”

James 3:13, 17-18

¹³ 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. ¹⁷ But the wisdom from above is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and the fruit of good deeds. It shows no favoritism and is always sincere. ¹⁸ And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of righteousness.

As we look at what a test passing wisdom looks like we are going to look again at the roots, attributes and fruits of test-passing wisdom starting first with the: 

1. ROOTS 3:17a

In Part 1 we talked about the heart of the problem being the roots and just like tree roots that are below the surface and are hard to see so is the heart. We saw the rotten roots of a heart that was full of selfish ambition, a heart that made the goal glorifying self instead of God. But here James says that the roots of a test passing wisdom are a pure heart. So, what does it mean for you to have a pure heart? Remember what Jesus said in the sixth Beatitude on the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:8? “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.” People with pure hearts get to see God. But how does that work? How pure is Jesus talking about here? Is he talking Ivory soap pure? Remember the old Ivory Soap commercials said their soap was 99.44% pure? Sounds pretty pure but doesn’t that still allow for over a half percent of something that’s unpure? That’s like drinking a pure glass of water that only has a teaspoon of dirt in it. Or cookies made from batter where a cat used the batter bowl as a litter box, after all it was just a little. But it still leaves a bad taste in your mouth. IsGod going to let that much impurity into His presence? Well, if not ivory soap pure how about gold bullion pure. The standard purity for gold bullion is 99.9% pure. While that is pure enough to get you into Fort Knox it’s still not pure enough to get you into God’s presence. So what about Canadian Gold Maple Leaf pure, the purest form of gold in the world. It is minted to 99.999% purity. Surely, if I could get my heart that pure, God would let me into His presence, wouldn’t He? Jesus addressed that a little further on in the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 5:48, He said, “But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” Perfect, that’s the standard. Why? Because God is perfect. But that sounds like an impossible standard, I mean where does that kind of perfectly pure heart that is the only root of test-passing wisdom come from? James says that it comes from above. Because of our fallen, sin-marred condition, we are all born with a corrupt heart. And in and of ourselves, there’s nothing that we can do to change that. Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” No one can except Christ. The One who gave up His place in Heaven as part of the eternal Godhead and took on human flesh. The One who was tempted yet did not sin. The one who not only understands the corruption of the human heart but has the cure. Because on the cross of Calvary He died to pay the price for our sinful heart. He doesn’t just remove our wicked heart he replaces it with a new one. A heart that’s pure, a heart that’s perfect. Not with your perfection, but with His. A heart that will see God. A heart from above. A heart that is the roots of test-passing wisdom. You will never have a test passing wisdom without a heart transplant. Proverbs 9:10 says “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” Spiritual wisdom starts with a reverence for God. What about you do you know Jesus as your Savior?