Good morning, Calvary Chapel. Amen.
It's a blessing to see everybody's smiling faces this
morning. Amen.
Please turn in your Bibles, if you would, to the second, third
chapter of James. And we're going to focus on
verses 13 to 18 this morning. I just want to welcome also
extend that same welcome that Kerry extended to those of you
who were here for the first time.
I want to thank you for coming and deciding to worship here at
Calvary Chapel this morning. And for those of you who have
come on a regular basis, we are so grateful for you.
We're grateful for you, the fact that you have decided to join us
in this Christian journey as we go through this life and we look
forward to the life to come. Amen.
But while we're here, we want to be about the work of the Lord.
And we're just here to lift up the name of the Lord today,
right? We're just here to lift up Jesus
this morning. So everything that we do, may it
bring him glory. Also, those of you who are
listening by way of radio or YouTube, Facebook, whatever
medium you're on, we want to welcome you as well.
We thank you for joining us and of course, all of you that are
behind prison walls. We pray that this ministry is a
blessing to you and that you are being enriched and your life is
beginning to look more and more like Jesus.
I think what I'm going to do this morning, if it's OK with
everybody, I'd like to read through these verses first.
And after I read through these verses, then I will come back
and we'll pray. I promise we'll pray, and then
we'll get into the study. Would that be OK?
OK, so we're looking at James chapter 3, verses 13 through 18.
Who is wise and understanding among you?
Let him show by good conduct that His works are done in the
meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and
self seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the
truth. This wisdom does not descend
from above, but it's earthly, sensual, demonic.
For where envy and self seeking exist, confusion and every evil
thing are there. But the wisdom that is from
above is first pure. First pure, that's very
important. Then peaceable, gentle, willing
to yield, full of mercy and good fruits.
It's without partiality and without hypocrisy.
Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who
make peace. Let's pray.
Father, you give us your word so that we can see your face, so
that we know who You are. We know your heart about the
things that you teach us. You give us your Word, Lord, to
help sanctify us, to purify us. You give us Your word to mold us
into the image of Your dear Son, Jesus Christ.
And we're so grateful. We are privileged that we are
those who desire to hear Your Word.
And Father, we are here only to hear Your word this morning.
We don't want to hear anything from me.
We want to hear my ideas. We don't want to hear my
thoughts Lord, we just want to hear Your word.
Help me to rightly divide this word this morning, Lord, I pray
that You would take scales off our eyes that we will see Your
truth in this word and see us in this word, Lord, and then give
us the power to help us through Your Holy Spirit to change
anything in US, Lord, that You are calling to be changed.
Lord, use me now, use me as an instrument of righteousness for
your purpose and your purpose only.
Speak through my mouth, think with my mind, love through your
heart. In Jesus name I pray, Amen.
In order to really appreciate what it is James is doing here
this morning and there's been so much that he has shared with us
so far as we are now in the 3rd chapter of this amazing book.
He sets this up so amazingly because he begins in first in
the first chapter with asking a question.
He said does anyone lack wisdom? And if so, let him ask of God
who gives it liberally and without reproach.
Then he comes in the chapter later in chapter 1 and he begins
to talk to us about being doers of the Word and not hearers
only. Then in chapter 2, he says that
we should walk in Jesus Christ without any partiality, without
any favoritism. And then he gets into later in
the chapter of two, and he talks about living faith versus dead
faith. He teaches us about controlling
our tongues and allowing the Holy Spirit to be the one that's
in control of our speech. And it's even in our speech that
we come to understand and we come to know who is of God and
who is not even in our speech. And now we're here in Chapter 3,
later in Chapter 3, and he's now talking to us about wisdom.
And he asked this question. He says, who is wise among you?
Who is wise? And I don't know about you, but
you know, back in the day when I was in high school and college,
I thought if anyone had a depth of knowledge about anything,
there must be a wise person. I thought my professors in
college were really wise because they could speak with clarity
and articulation on some of the most intricate and some of the
most complex things. I thought their knowledge I
understood. I misunderstood their knowledge
for wisdom. And I believe when James asked
that question, he's really looking back to what he said in
the beginning of Chapter 1 when he said, my brother, let not
many of you become teachers. You see, the whole idea of being
a teacher, the idea of the thought that a teacher is wise.
Oh, sure, The teachers, they stand up and they stand up in
front of everybody and they teach these things.
And, and it's the authority that we attach to teachers, this
perception that we have of teachers that if they're
teaching, they must be wise. And James is saying here, not so
in Proverbs 13 and 14, the Bible says that the law of the wise is
a fountain of life to turn 1 away from the snares of death.
It's the mouth of the wise, it's a fountain of life.
So here in verse 13, he asked the question, who then is wise?
An understanding among you. And maybe that's a question that
we can ask ourselves. Who is it among us who's wise
and understanding not only in this church population, but also
in the church as whole? Who is wise and understanding?
James, you know, as he, as he refers to this, he's getting us
to look at not worldly wisdom, but godly wisdom.
So we must understand that all wisdom is not equal.
There is a worldly wisdom and there's a godly wisdom.
So he says here that you will know that someone is wise not by
their ability to communicate difficult things, not because of
anyone's depth of knowledge, and also, even more important, not
because of worldly success. We tend to think that someone is
wise because there are millionaires or because they are
billionaires, so they must be wise if they can accumulate all
these things. And again, James says not So
that's the way the world may see wisdom, but that's not godly
wisdom. True, Miss, true wisdom is not
measured by how 1 teaches. It's not measured by what one
has. But true and godly wisdom is
measured by how one lives their life.
It's measured by how we demonstrate godliness in our
lives. Look at what he says here.
Who is wise and understanding among you?
Let him show not, let him tell it, not let him possess it, but
let him show by good conduct or godly conduct that his works are
done in the meekness of wisdom. Let him show, let us show that
we are wise not by what we say, but by what we do.
How do we live our life? Do we live wisely?
You know, it was King Saul who said that David behaved himself
wisely, because when Saul was attacking him and doing all
these things, David continued to abide in the law of the Lord,
and saw himself who was an enemy to David, said that David
behaved himself wisely. James over in 218.
He says I will show you my faith by my works.
I'll show you my faith by what I do.
So here he's saying that he who is wise is one who shows it by a
good conduct, shows that his works are done in meekness and
wisdom. Matthew 19 Now I'm sorry,
Matthew 1119, Jesus said this. He said wisdom is justified by
her children. So a person who was wise, they
are approved or they are shown to be wise by what their life
produces. So what is this meekness or this
gentleness of wisdom? It's having strength under
control. It's humility, patience, and a
desire to help others rather than assert dominance.
A wise person doesn't have to walk around and exert his
authority. Jesus was a wise man and he had
didn't have to exert his authority.
He was meek and he was lonely. The meek and the the meek only
seeks to glorify God, not the praise of men.
Meekness is a fruit of the Spirit and not of self will.
One can conjure up the fruit of being meek or the fruit of being
humble. That comes through the power of
the Holy Spirit. Jesus demonstrated to the
disciples when he said He who is greatest in the Kingdom is least
among all. He who is the greatest is a
servant of all. He demonstrated that by washing
the disciples feet and, and, and, and Peter didn't understand
that because Peter said, wait a minute, that's not the way it's
supposed to go. Peter was using worldly wisdom.
He was thinking and worldly wisdom.
He said that's not the way it's supposed to go.
Jesus, you got this thing wrong. You see you, you are the
Messiah, you're the one of all authority.
We are under you. We should be washing your feet,
we should be serving you. Jesus says if you don't
understand what I'm doing here, then you can't be a part of me
because that's not what the Kingdom of God is about.
If you came into this church and you only thing that you saw was
the leaders being served all the time and never serving anybody
or the leaders expecting to be served and never serving
anybody, that's not of God, that is not of God.
Jesus says that to teach that the the the servant is not
greater than the master. So if he serves, why shouldn't
we? That's worldly wisdom that says
that the the one that's on the in the position of authority
should be served. Jesus.
He disproved that by washing the disciples feet.
He was meek. You see, meekness is the right
use of power and wisdom is the right use of knowledge.
Not only was Jesus just walking in wisdom, not only was he meek,
but he the Bible says that He was gentle and lowly in heart.
This was in his heart to be lowly and to be meek.
Now we two were called to be meek and to be gentle before the
world. In Philippians four and five,
Paul said, let your gentleness be known to all men, for the
Lord is at hand. So walking in the spirit of the
Lord is, it can be shown, it can be observed, it can be
demonstrated to others that we're living a life of meekness
and humility. And please do not confuse
meekness and gentleness and humility with weakness.
It is not weak. It takes someone a lot more
strength to maintain meekness and humility under trying
situations then what it does to try to exert dominance and
power. Jesus is our wisdom.
The Bible tells us that in First Corinthians one in 30.
Jesus Christ is our wisdom, and He is our righteousness, and
He's our sanctification, and He's our redemption.
Now then in verse 14 he now moves and he begins to talk
about what worldly wisdom is and what it produces.
So in verse 14 he says, But if you have bitter envy and self
seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth.
James warns his listeners here to be careful not to see this
worldly wisdom as something to boast about.
And if you have these issues of bitter envy and self seeking,
don't think that that's something that you should be
proud of or boast about it, because then you're just lying
against the truth. That is not godly wisdom.
That's wisdom of this world. Yeah, he says.
Don't deceive yourselves about this.
The world promotes envy. You know, it's, it's amazing,
but the world actually promotes envy and covetousness.
It promotes those who have material gain, the people who
have the most material gain, the people who have the most
possessions, the most toys, the most wealth.
Those are the people that the world promotes.
You never see me on the cover of Time magazine.
I ain't got no money, so nobody's going to buy that
edition of it anyway. But the world promotes that.
The more material gained, the higher and the more visible
people become the people with the most gain.
The world says that successful people decide.
They give you a pattern, they give you a prescription for this
thing. Successful people decide what
they want for themselves and they set a goal and make a plan
to achieve it. It's selfish ambition because
that plan is all about me. It's all about me.
And the thing that we have to understand is with this selfish
ambition, The selfish ambition means I'm going to achieve this
goal no matter what, no matter what I have to do, no matter who
I have to step on, no matter who I have to slander, no matter who
I have to displace, I'm going to achieve my goal.
I believe the the reason why we have layoffs in this country is
because of the selfish ambition of corporate leaders who don't
want to make less money. So they get rid of my position,
they can make more. They get rid of your position,
they can make more because that's selfish ambition.
Now the world says and corporate says that's wise, that's wise,
but not in the economy of the Kingdom.
This encourages people to be lovers of self and not lovers of
God and others. So when the world promotes those
who who have bitter envy and selfish ambition in their hearts
and promotes those who achieve wealth and have a lot of money
and material gain, the message is that self ambition play pays
off. It pays off to be selfish.
It pays off to have this envy. Let's talk a little bit, just
for a couple minutes, about this whole issue of bitter envy.
Bitter envy is a hostile or resentful and very selfish form
of jealousy. It's hostile.
It's a greedy and a prideful longing for something that
belongs to somebody else. Possession.
It could be a position, it could be a skill, or even someone's
favor or praise. They get jealous, they get
resentful of somebody who has these things and they become
envious. You know, I've told you several
times that I like skill. I'm attracted to skill.
When I see somebody that has skill, I just can't take my eyes
off of what they're doing and the way that they're doing it.
And it doesn't have to be one thing.
I mean, anybody who just have skill, you could be a plumber
with skill. I want to see what you're doing.
I want to watch you. You know, I'm amazed that, you
know, when I used to, you know, when I used to work at Schmel
Rich over here used to be like one of the master technicians
over there. He has skill.
There were people who would go
and ask, find him to ask him how to do certain things, his skill,
knowledge of these things when I was younger.
And this may be something you didn't know about me.
So trivia question, what didn't you know about Louis?
You're going to find something out today.
I used to love the bass. Well, I still do.
I love the bass guitar. I love the bass guitar.
I actually tried to play that one time when I was younger.
Now, I wasn't good. I'm not saying I was good, but I
did try to play it. And when I listen to songs, my
ear goes right to the bass line. It goes straight to the bass
line. I'm going to hear what the bass
player is doing. So when I see Daniel up here
playing, I'm amazed and how gifted he is.
I'm amazed and and I like singing.
I Can't Sing, but I love those who can.
My sisters used to always say, boy, if you could sing, you'd be
dangerous because I used to sing all the time when I was younger,
but I couldn't. But when I hear Gina and all the
other singers up here, Carolina and, and Jacob and all these
other singers that come up here and sing, Laura and all, and
just hear how their voices blend, how beautiful that is.
Now, if I was a resentful person, then I would feel like,
well, how come I can't be up there doing that?
Why can't I be on that base? Why can't I be over here in
front of that Mike singing? So if I get resentful, then I
start to do things to sabotage what they're doing because I
feel like I should be there. I get selfish ambition.
And and so I'm going to do whatever is going to promote me.
So I'm going to, you know, I'm going to request to sing a solo.
I'm going to request to take, you know, to, to play that bass
one Sunday. No one I can play but out of out
of envy, out of jealousy. If it gets in my heart, then I
begin to do things that would cause a problem for the body and
that would be a problem for the body because you don't want to
hear me up here singing. That would be a problem for the
body. So that, but that's what it
does. It's a greedy, prideful longing.
How can't I be in the line? How come I can't play like he
plays, sing like they sing. I can do it.
You know, it's that envy that throughout the Bible people
became victims of envy and give me because people were overtaken
by envy. And this, this, this bitter
envy. It started way back in Genesis.
What Cain he killed Abel because he was envious, because Cain
Abel's sacrifice was accepted and Abel and Cain's wasn't.
He became envious and he killed his brother.
Yes, envy can't even resort in murder.
Jacob's sons, they were envious and jealous of Joseph.
They wanted to kill him but ended up putting him in a a pit
and selling them into slavery. Now we look at that and we said,
boy, how terrible that was. I mean, I certainly wouldn't
want my brothers to be that. So brothers, if you guys get
upset with me, come and talk to me about it, OK?
Don't throw me in a pit somewhere.
But envy, that's what it did. And and then of course you had
Saul, who became envious of David.
And because he was so envious of David, he wanted to kill him.
Why? Because the people gave him
praise and they gave him accolades that Saul felt should
be his. So he almost upset.
He upset the whole nation because he wanted what David
had. That's envy, bitter envy, and
selfish ambition. It's all about me.
Envy makes makes one critical of other people.
It breeds contention and destroys unity and brings
disorder to the church. I pray that we never have to
deal with envy. I pray that envy never enters my
heart and I begin to do things out of envy instead of do things
out of love because it will upset a church, it will destroy
a church, it will separate a church.
It does the same thing in families.
It does the same thing in family.
It is Satan's, one of Satan's plans or one of the seeds that
he sows into the heart to cause chaos.
And we have to be mine for that. So now let's look at selfish
ambition for a couple minutes. Selfish ambition, another word
that was used for that is strife.
And that's like a party spirit. And actually it's like an old
Greek term that was used for politicians who was always
canvassing for, for votes. You know, the, the, the person
who was selfish, ambitious, he's the person that wanted
everything for themselves. So they would canvas from votes,
so they would go to people and they would try to get people on
their side to see their side and be against the other side.
It's a power move. It's a power move.
And it cause, of course, it causes division in the church.
It causes division and rivalry when people try to politic
almost to try to get people on their side.
They have a position that they want to take and they want
everybody else to be on that side.
This is not wisdom from above. This is worldly wisdom to do
that. So it convinces people for their
support, to support, to support their position.
They see people As for themselves or either either for
them or against them, self seeking and self-serving, and it
creates this rival and division in the church as well.
Philippians 2 and three says, let nothing be done through
selfish ambition. Nothing, nothing, but in
lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than
themselves or more important than themselves.
In verse 15. Verse 15 says the wisdom.
This wisdom does not descend from above, but it is earthly,
it's sensual, and it's demonic. It's kind of important that we
kind of deal with that a little slower as well.
It is demonic wisdom that comes from the heart of envy and
selfish ambition is not of the Lord.
It's not of the Lord, but it's earthly meaning that it's only
concern with the things of this life.
It doesn't look at things beyond this life.
It doesn't doesn't even consider the things beyond this life.
It's just all about this thing. When you hear somebody say I'm
living my best life now, that's because they're only looking at
their life here. No real trust or faith in what's
the what's to come afterwards. We are to live here like this is
not our home. We're soul joiners.
We're pilgrims. We're just coming through.
Our home is heaven. Our home is with Jesus Christ.
Our home is in glory. That's our home.
But while we're here, we do the work of the Lord.
While we're here, the other one is sensual or unspiritual, which
means that's like being like an animal.
It's being animal like, and it's concerned only with the
gratifications and passions of the flesh.
This, this influence causes me to always look at what I can do
to please my flesh, whether physical, emotional, or whatever
it may be. Always looking to please me and
always says demonic. Demonic is means that it's
influenced by demonic activity or control.
It's not possession. Those who are saved cannot be
possessed by the devil. Let's clear that up.
If you are saved, you cannot be possessed by the devil, but you
can be influenced by demonic activity.
You cannot be possessed, but you can be oppressed by demonic
activity. If you allow your heart to be
open to that. He will come in.
He will try to come in and influence you to do demonic type
things. This the apostle John says this.
He says all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh,
the lust of the eyes and the pride of life.
This is not of the Father, but it's of the world.
So this selfish ambition and this bitter envy is not of the
Lord, it's of the world. But the next verse, verse 1617
on that is probably even the most important.
He says the world is passing away in the lust of it the
world. That means the world and, and,
and the worldly ways, the worldly principles, the worldly
way of thinking, all that is passing away.
The Bible says, do not, you know, do not be envious of evil
doers because they will soon be cut off like the grass.
All that's passing away. Oh, it seems like it's so great
when we're here experiencing it, when somebody has so much
success or so much money and they have this way of thinking
that just looks like they're always having a good time,
they're always having pleasure. They look like they're just
having the time of their life. Young people, I specifically
want to talk to you about this. Kids your age will sound like
they're having the time of their life, living reckless lives,
sinful lives. And we'll talk about you and
we'll make you feel set apart, will make you feel isolated
because you're not like them. Young people, hold on, hold on,
Don't fall for that. That life is temporary.
The life you live of obedience to the word of God, that is
eternal, that is eternal. I wish somebody would have said
that to me. So he says in that that that
verse. He says that the world and the
worldly things are passing away. But he who does the will of God,
not the will, not his own will, or not the will of envy, not
those who you know, not the will of those who achieves his own
selfish ambition, but those who do the will of God abides
forever. Colossians 3.
One and two says, if, if then you are raised with Christ, seek
those things which are above, where Christ is sitting at the
right hand of God. Set your mind on things above,
on heavenly wisdom, and not the things that are on the earth
which is earthly wisdom. Verse 16, Verse 16 says this.
For where envy and self seeking exists, confusion and every evil
thing are there. Now just to recap, previously
James taught us that there is a saving faith and a dead faith.
There is a pure and undefiled religion and there is a useless
religion. And now he's teaching us.
He's saying there is a heavenly wisdom in a worldly or false
wisdom, and that wisdom is earthly, essential and it's
demonic. And they are marked and rooted
in envy, in self ambition. It's rooted in that.
So James, and we have to remember, James is writing to
believers. It's not like he's writing to a
bunch of unbelievers. He's writing to believers.
So these are people in the church that he's writing to it.
It can be, it's us. It's us.
Because to be honest with you, there's times that I know I have
been envious and there's times I've experienced selfish
ambition. I think we all have.
We were if, if we're honest, we could probably admit that we
were raised that way. We were raised with you.
Look, you got to take care of you.
So you go to school, you go to college and you get a good
education and you get you a good job that pays you a lot of money
so you can take care of you. No one ever said, look, when you
go to college, I want you to pray about what it is that the
Lord wants you to do. What is the Lord want you to be?
No one ever said that to me ever.
It was all about, hey, go get yours, man.
If you do this, you'll get yours.
You'll get money. You have a fat bank account.
You better drive this kind of car, that kind of car.
It was all about selfish ambition, achieving my goals and
doing what I want, James said. That's the wisdom of the world.
So he's writing to believers
about that and he says so. He's warning us right here in
the Church, the operating under the influence of earthly,
central and demonic wisdom and not operating under the Holy
Spirit nor heavenly wisdom. Now, what is the results?
What are the results of operating under this worldly
wisdom, the results of this bitter envy?
What are the results of this self seeking and or self
ambition in our hearts? What's the result of that?
He tells us that here in verse 16.
He said it brings nothing but confusion in every evil thing.
Confusion, and that's exactly what it is, bought being
selfish. Selfish ambition and being
envious has done nothing in this world but brought confusion,
chaos, and it has brought every evil thing.
The world right now is a ball of confusion.
Am I remember that song by the Temptations?
The ball of confusion. Remember that song for us?
A brief minute last night when I was looking at this, I thought
about singing one verse, but that was my selfish ambition
that kicked in and the Lord said, boy, you know better than
that. That's worldly wisdom for you to
stand up there and try to sing. So I'm going to just read you a
section of the lyric now. You have no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no. Now you have to remember the
temptations had steps when they did everything right.
I'm not doing that either. But I I just want you to think
about that as we think, as we look through these verses, OK,
he says. Think about the song now.
People moving out, people moving in.
Why? Because of the color of their
skin. Run, run, run.
But you sure can't hide an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
Vote for me and I'll set you free.
Rap on, brother, rap on. Well, the only person talking
about love thy brother is the preacher.
And it seems nobody's interested in learning but the teacher.
Segregation, determination, demonstration, integration,
aggravation, humiliation, obligation to our nation.
Ball of confusion, You guys remember that?
And you know what? We still have a ball of
confusion today. Now that was written back in
1970, believe it or not. I know it made me feel old. 1970
and we still have this ball of confusion.
Where are we confused? Well, we have confusion now with
sexual preferences. We have men who want to be with
men and we have women that want to be with women.
Confused. We have gender confusion.
We have boys that want to be girls and girls that now want to
be boys. We have identity confusion.
We have humans that want to be animals, and that's the truth.
And if you ever met my dog, you will see an animal that want to
be human. It's moral confusion.
We're in the time now where the culture says that what's good
meaning the word of God and the morals of the Bible, those
things are bad. And the things that are bad, the
way of this world, you know, sexual immorality and and
liberalism and all these other things that are contrary to the
word of God, those things are considered good.
Wow. And it doesn't even stop there.
I wish the list did, but it doesn't.
But we also have churches that are even confused about who
Jesus is, confused about who He is and what he came to do.
We got churches that are confused about who should be
pastors and who shouldn't be pastors.
There's some churches you could probably go to and a person
stands up in the pulpit who you think is a woman and is actually
a man and vice versa. We're living in a ball of
confusion. So it says also every evil
things you see, selfish ambition, bitter envy, all those
kind of things is about what satisfies me.
And that's how we got here. That's how we got here.
Somebody just wanted to do what satisfied them so.
And he says also every evil thing are there.
Eventually the sins of bitter envy and selfish ambition will
begin to keep company with other sins like deceit, wrath,
slander, lying, idolatry, hatred, adultery, even
self-serving, self satisfying. Me.
I'm not just satisfied with my wife or with my husband.
I want their husband or their wife.
And even murder, yes, even murder.
Not only just the physical killing of somebody, because
people can be moved by envy to kill someone out of envy, but
also the killing of 1's reputation, the killing of 1's
character, the killing of 1's integrity.
And I'm sad to say, but it's true.
Also the killing of our children's innocence.
When you have kids in elementary school that are going to school
and they're already being introduced to this gender ISM
this, this this. Girls that want to be boys and
boys that want to be girls, and girls saying that my girlfriend
was over my house last night and boys are saying my boyfriend was
over my house. And teachers that are enforcing
this freedom of expressing yourself.
And you don't have to let your parents know about it.
Just do it. Yeah, we're in a ball of
confusion. That's every evil thing, and it
breeds those things. Envy and selfishness and self
ambition breeds those things. So this worldly wisdom is only
for the here and now. It only serves to fulfill our
selfish ambitions and our appetites here on earth.
But this kind of wisdom is from the evil 1 and it does no good
for those who are seeking eternal life.
Doesn't do any good for that at all.
But then in 17, he tells us and we're about to come in for a
closing. In verse 17 it says, but the
wisdom that is from above is first pure.
And I just want to say that the contrast to this worldly wisdom
is godly or heavenly wisdom. And this wisdom is from above.
It's living in obedience to God's will, to His Word and to
His ways. This wisdom is about trusting
God for our provision and not trying to manipulate things and
people to get what we want. Those with godly wisdom submit
themselves to God and not their own selfish desires.
They're others oriented and not self oriented.
Jesus is our example of one who was others oriented.
If you look at Mark 10 and 45, Jesus said for even the Son of
man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his
life a ransom for many. So we look quickly at the
characteristics of godly or the characteristics of, of, of, of
heavenly wisdom, He said it's first pure.
It's first pure. The pure heart is the foundation
of everything else that he's going to mention after this.
But it starts with having a pure heart.
And a pure heart is 1 of holiness.
It's undivided. It's undefiled.
It's a chaste heart. To be pure of heart means that
my motives and attitude are free from sin.
My motives are not to do something against somebody else,
but it's pure. It's to glorify God.
It's to love that person. I'm doing it out of love for
this person. I'm not doing it out of anger or
resentment. Now, man's wisdom leads to a
sinful life, while God's wisdom leads to a pure life.
See, the closer our fellowship is with the Lord, the closer our
fellowship is with the Holy Spirit, the more pure our lives
become. The more pure our lives become.
The voice of the Holy Spirit is so much louder to us.
We feel so close to Him because we're walking in obedience to
Him. So we feel a fellowship.
That's wisdom that comes from above.
Matthew 5 and eight said, Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they shall see God who sees God, those who have a pure
heart. And Psalms 24, three and four
says, Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord, or who may
stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a
pure heart, he has who has not lifted up his soul to an idol.
The idols of money or the idols of, of, of, of self, or the
idols of, of lust, have not lifted up his soul to those
things. He is not sworn deceitfully.
And then there's the peaceable, then peaceable.
So first it has to be pure. We have to have that
characteristic first and then peaceable or peace loving.
And that's one. One cannot truly have peace or
be peace loving with an impure heart.
You got to do it with a pure heart.
And that peace loving is one who has a desire to ease conflict,
not create it. They seek peace and pursue it.
Man's wisdom leads to rivalry and division in the church, but
godly wisdom leads to peace that passes all understanding.
But this peace is not at any cost.
This isn't saying peace you know for, you know at any cost or it
for or by any means. That's not what this is about.
Because if you have peace by covering up sin or you thinking
you're keeping peace by overlooking sin, you don't
really have peace just sitting on a on a powder keg that
eventually will blow. But it's more important to have
purity and holiness in the church than it is to have this
fake peace in the church. We can always go to the Prince
of Peace to restore our peace. And when we walk in God's
obedience, He will take care of our peace.
He will make sure that we have peace.
We can't create it on our own. Isaiah 32 and 17 says the work
of righteousness shall be peace and the effect of righteousness
quietness and assurance forever. Praise and worship team, please
come forth. The next one is gentle.
That means meek but not weak, sweet, reasonableness considered
of others, not looking to fight, but neither will he compromise
truth to avoid 1. The gentle person is looking to
serve and not looking to cause problems.
Matthew 5 and five says blessed all the meek, for they shall
inherit the earth. And I'm going to stop here
because I know we have our agape meal today, so please put a a
marker there and we'll pick that up and we come back next week,
Amen. Y'all come back with me next
week, OK? Thank you, Amen.
God is so good. God is so good.
You know, as I was going through this and I think about how Jesus
Christ walked along the earth, I think about how he blessed so
many, how he was, how everything he did was about somebody else.
Even when he ran into people who were involved in sin, he wanted
to make it clear that yes, you know, I'm not condemning you.
I'm not putting you down. I'm not going to reject you, but
I want you to be clear and you got to go and sin no more.
It is yet a sin. I'm not overlooking this sin
because I want I don't want you to just get along with me
because you think I'm overlooking your sin.
I am not. But I want your life to be even
more enriched. I want your life to be fuller.
I want your life to be more pure and you'll enjoy it more.
So please go and send no more. But I'm not going to condemn
you, and nor is this about condemning anybody.
We all are growing in Christ Jesus, every one of us, and
we're growing every day. As we go into His Word, He shows
us areas of our lives which we need to grow and become more and
more like His Son Jesus Christ. And that's the beauty of this
walk, and that's why. And that's the beauty of having
a church that you can join. If you're new and you're
thinking about a church that you want to join, consider a church
who understands that we have weaknesses.
None of us are perfect. None of us can sit in a seat of
judgment because we're too busy laying on the seat of mercy.
We have to acknowledge that we all need God's mercy.
And that's what we're doing here every week.
We're not here judging anybody, but this purifies us, this
thanks to this sanctifies us, and it causes us to be more like
Jesus Christ. So as we go into a communion,
let us consider that Jesus did sacrifice himself so that we
could have this eternal life and that we can live a life of godly
wisdom. Godly wisdom, not wisdom that
will cause confusion. Jesus never brought confusion
everywhere. He when he brought peace.
Now if there were those who were contrary to the word of God,
they had their own confusion. But Jesus, he came with peace,
he came lowly, he came meek even to the point when he went to the
cross, the Bible says he said not a word.
He was like a a sheep going to the slaughter, never said
anything. He just went in obedience to his
father. And I'm so grateful to him for
that. When he hung on that cross, he
could have come down, He could have freed himself from that
cross and destroyed everybody around him.
But he didn't. He stayed there and I'm so glad
he did because my sins were covered under that blood, my
sins were washed clean under that blood.
His body was broken for my sins. So on the night in which Jesus
was betrayed, he took the bread and after he gave thanks, he
broken. And he said that he said, eat
this is my body which is broken for you.
So take it and eat it. And as often as you eat it, eat
it in remembrance of me. And he also took the blood, the
the cup, which is symbolic of his blood.
And he said, this is a new covenant in my blood.
And he shed a lot of blood, but his blood washed away the stain
of our sins. So he said, drink this, and as
often as you drink it, drinking and remembrance of me.
For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you do
show the Lord's death till he come.
The Lord bless you. The author is open for anyone
who would like to come up. God bless you.
Let's stand together one more time, if you can.