Humility and Wisdom

I've come to find out that everyone wants wisdom, or so it seems. Everybody everywhere seems to have a desire for wisdom. But oftentimes people are looking for it in the wrong places. Maybe not intentionally so, but it ends up that they're looking for it in sometimes the wrong places. We feel like that if we gain some wisdom that we can attain to certain things. Now, maybe we start with reading, and we go into our bookstore. And one of the most read genres in all of literature at this point are self-help books. It's between a 10 and a half and $15 billion a year business. And with those self-help books, titles for self-help books have increased threefold. They've tripled over the last decade. And so, people are searching for wisdom in self-help. Or maybe people are thinking, "I'm scouring the internet "and I'm watching all kinds of videos "and I wanna be able to acquire all this knowledge." Because it seems like everybody nowadays is an expert in everything because they've done a 20-minute Google search. Right? That's just kind of what we're doing. We're trying to gain all of this knowledge. We live in a knowledge economy, and now we've got access to more knowledge at our fingertips in a moment than the history of civilization up to this point combined had. And we've got it all there. But oftentimes our knowledge is superficial. We don't really know what to do with that knowledge. And isn't it interesting that we have way more knowledge in the culture that we live in, but maybe not as much wisdom? Knowledge doesn't exactly always equate to wisdom. Or maybe we view the idea of wisdom as some type of success. You guys are saying, "How far are you going up here?" You're trying to figure out if like, is success really wisdom? And that's why we have life coaches and we have gurus and we have experts on a bunch of things because we're trying to gain wisdom in our minds, because wisdom for us means that we are climbing levels and we are succeeding, right? I would just mention to you that I'm not against any of these things that I mentioned. I'm not against trying to read and maybe help ourselves in some ways. I'm not against maybe getting some outside help in certain arenas. I'm not against being knowledgeable about certain subjects. I'm not against any of those things, but we can't mistake those exactly for wisdom. You see, everybody is looking for wisdom, or so it seems. Everybody's trying to stand in line to get wisdom. But here's what I'm also having a tendency to understand, is that while the line for wisdom is long, if I were to say how many of us wanna line up for humility, it seems that that line is not so long. We've got a long line of people wanting wisdom in the way that they defined it. And we don't have a very long line when it comes to the idea of humility. Sometimes we hear the word humility and it strikes fear in us or gives us a bad feeling. But I wanna mention something to you, and it's this, biblically speaking you cannot have one without the other. You cannot have wisdom without humility, and you cannot have humility without wisdom. You see, James understood this of course, and he's going to write to us about it, but he's writing specifically to a group of people that he has identified a problem. I don't know exactly what all of the problem may have been, but I do know this, that he addresses teachers in the beginning of chapter three, and he's concerned about them actually with wrong motives wanting to be teachers. He says, "Not many of you should be this." Because many of them wanted honor as opposed to wanting to equip the people of God in the truth of God. And so I'm sure that he's got them in mind, but I think he's also got in mind that not only with those examples, but in some of the dispersed churches that are all over the place that James is writing to, that he's finding that there are problems in those places. And some of those problems are stemming from not a true pursuit of what wisdom really is, because wisdom and humility are not actually together. And when we read the end of chapter three into the first portion of chapter four, we find a really simple and profound truth, and it's this, that wisdom and humility are inseparable. Wisdom and humility are inseparable. And what James does is he gives us really three penetrating questions, maybe even provoking questions, over the course of the next little bit that he is writing. And what those questions do is they reveal to us how inseparable wisdom and humility actually are. And he also reveals to us maybe with some of these questions where when humility and wisdom are absent here's what occurs. So I wanna just walk through these questions while we have some time together for us to be able to understand that wisdom and humility are inseparable. Here's the first question that James asks, and I'll phrase these as close as I can to the way that he phrases them, who is wise among you? This is the first question that James asks in our passage today. Here's what it says, beginning in James 3:13. It says, "Who is wise and understanding among you? "Let them show it by their good life, "by deeds done in the," watch this, "in the humility that comes from wisdom." James is actually already in this particular verse, he's helping us see very clearly that wisdom and humility are inseparable. And in fact, he says that humility comes from wisdom. Now, you and I both know, because we've been studying the Book of James, that James is kind of the New Testament version of Proverbs, so to speak, maybe the closest that we can get to a New Testament version of Proverbs. Well, the reason that we say that is because James has been influenced by the Book of Proverbs in his writing. He calls upon it. I'm not just making that up and going, "You know what? "I think James was influenced by the Book of Proverbs." He literally quotes the Book of Proverbs in the Book of James, and we also see places where he didn't quote the Book of Proverbs, but he's referencing the truth and the wisdom of the Book of Proverbs. And what fundamentally is Proverbs about? I know there's a bunch... Proverbs basically means these pithy statements that you're getting that are maybe not all the same, but they're just linked together. And we've got a bunch of chapters of that. But what is fundamentally Proverbs about? It's about wisdom. Right? And so James knows when he writes this, and he says point blank, he says that humility comes from wisdom. But you know what James also knows? That wisdom comes from humility. That this works both ways, that this goes both directions, because James is familiar with the Proverbs just like we are familiar with the Proverbs. In fact, let me show you in Proverbs 22 here's what it says, "Humility is the fear of the Lord; "and its wages are riches and honor and life." So remember that. Humility is what? It's the fear of the Lord. Now, let's try that again. That was pathetic. You're literally looking at it. Humility is the what?

- Fear of the Lord.

- Fear of the Lord. I heard that from all of our campuses. Thank you. All of you, other campuses did much better than Crosspoint did on the first shot. Actually, no, you didn't. I saw you as well. "Humility is the fear of the Lord." Now watch what the writer of Proverbs says in chapter nine. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, "and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding." "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." What is humility? The fear of the Lord. What is the fear of the Lord? The beginning of wisdom. Thus, we could say that humility is the beginning of wisdom. Right? This is what the Proverbs writers are helping us to understand. This goes in both directions. James says right here that humility comes from wisdom, and it's also true that wisdom comes from humility. That's why I'm making the case here that wisdom and humility are inseparable. So James asks, he asked this question, the first question is, who is wise among you? And he answers that question in a twofold way. Here's the first way that he answers it. Who's wise among you? Those whose deeds demonstrate a good life. Those whose deeds demonstrate a good life. Look again in verse number 13. "Who is wise and understanding among you? "Let them show it by their good life, "by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom." One of the things that I love about James that it doesn't take you very long to figure out is that James is not okay just with religious talk. That religious talk is not by itself what we are made for. We are actually made to demonstrate and to do the work of God and to do the will of God. When James talks about the good life, that we should show this wisdom by a good life, he's not referring to good life in the same way that our culture refers to the good life. When we in our culture use that phrase, "Oh man, they're living the good life," what are we saying? We're saying either that they're retired and they don't have anything to do, they're living the good life, no responsibilities. Or they've made a ton of money in their lives, they're living the good life because they've made all of this money. Or maybe you're your own boss, you make your own schedule, you do your own thing, you're living the good life. Or whatever, somehow, or you take lots of vacations. I don't know what your employer does, how many vacation hours that you get, but it seems like it's months not days. They're living the good life. That's not what James is talking about here. When James talks about the good life, he's talking about a morally righteous life that demonstrates itself by doing the things that are consistent with the heart and the will of God. That's what he's referring to when he refers to a good life. Because James doesn't have time for just talk. James says that our faith must become action. That it's not just faith in our words that we say, but it actually works itself out in the deeds that we do. In fact, I think that James has been influenced, as I've mentioned many times over, by Jesus' teaching, specifically Jesus' teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. And do you remember what Jesus said in Matthew 7? He said, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' "will enter the kingdom of heaven, "but only the one who does the will of my Father "who is in heaven. "Many will say to me on that day, "'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name "'and in your name drive out demons "'and in your name perform many miracles?' "Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. "'Away from me, you evildoers!'" You see, what Jesus was saying here is that it's not enough to just use His name. It has to be a demonstration of doing the will of God, deeds that are done in the humility that comes from wisdom. Now, what I love about James is what you love about James and that is, is that he is not content for our words to just be words, but they must result in action. That's why when we talk about the mission that God has given us as a church and to us as individuals, and we talk about it being that every man, woman, and child has an opportunity to both hear and see the Gospel of Jesus Christ. You see, we can't, as a church and as a people, we can't just be a people who thinks about, "When can I communicate the Gospel?" Even though that is imperative. The Gospel hasn't been shared if it hasn't been spoken. We have to be able to speak the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But we also live out the realities of the Gospel in what we do. We don't turn our... We don't turn a deaf ear or a blind eye to those who are poor, to those who are marginalized, to those who are hurting, to those who are looked past in society. It's why we are partnered together with a whole bunch of places that are doing a variety of things: sheltering people who have need, putting clothes on their back, putting food in their stomach, helping them with healthcare or with jobs or with places to live, or whatever that looks like. This is actually a part of doing the will of God. It's the demonstration of the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ worked out through the people of God. That's what we need to be a part of. So James says, "Who is wise among you?" He answers by saying, "Those whose deeds demonstrate a good life." But there's a second aspect to this question, it's, "Who is wise among you?" it's those who desire the wisdom of heaven, those who desire the wisdom of heaven. Now you say, "Well, is there another wisdom "other than the wisdom of heaven?" Well, thank you for asking. James says, there is, in quotation marks, and let me show it to you, beginning in verse 14. He says, "But if you harbor bitter envy "and selfish ambition in your hearts, "do not boast about it or deny the truth. "Such 'wisdom' does not come down from heaven "but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. "For where you have envy and selfish ambition, "there you find disorder and every evil practice. "But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; "then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, "full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. "Peacemakers who sow in peace "reap a harvest of righteousness." You see, what James is saying here is that the wise among us are those who desire the actual wisdom of heaven instead of the, in quotes, the wisdom that is earthly, unspiritual, and then he makes a very startling statement, demonic. James says that the wisdom that some people are pursuing, maybe it's the teachers he's writing to, maybe it's other people in some of the distributed church somewhere, he says the wisdom that some people are pursuing is full of bitter envy and selfish ambition. And he said, "Let me tell you what kind of wisdom that is. "It's the wisdom of hell." That's what he says. It's demonic. It's the wisdom of hell. Envy and selfish ambition. Some people just need to be, to have some authority. Some people just need to insert themselves into stuff to prove that they've got some power. Some people have made themselves, they've deputized themselves and said, "It's my job to hold every single other person "accountable for everything." You know those people? They're awesome. They're the people when you see coming you go the other way. 'Cause you're like, "I don't know who appointed you. "Actually I do; you appointed you "to be this kind of person." Right? Selfish ambition. Or envy, wanting to be like someone else. Maybe I want the honor as a teacher like James was dealing with with some of the teachers that were there that he's already dealt with. I can tell you this, that this is kind of thing that is demonic. Does it happen in the church? Of course it does. That's who James is writing to. This can happen in the church, and should not. The wisdom of hell should not be present in the people of heaven. Right? I know this gets close to home a little bit, and you're less one hour of sleep, I've got that. I understand. But the wisdom of hell should not be a part of the people of heaven. It's why in some ways that there have been people spread out through the course of the country who maybe were a part of churches, but have been emotionally scarred and beat up from those churches. Because in some of those churches, they had leaders whose primary concern was selfish ambition at the expense of the people. I can also tell you that there's an inverse to that, because I'm not trying to just beat up on pastors, I is one and these are my people, and most of the pastors that I know, they're incredible. They're awesome and I love them. But we have to be honest, right? But here's what I can also tell you about some of those folks, is that they have kids who have been scarred emotionally and spiritually in the church because there were people in the church who spoke the language of hell and who demonstrated the wisdom of hell. And in their ambition, they desired to control. It hasn't... I feel like I live at Disney World. We've got such a wonderful congregation, wonderful people. I'm almost embarrassed sometimes when I'm having these conversations with other pastors and leaders, 'cause I'm like, "Man, God has graced us "with a wonderful people "who are a unified people who love the Lord, who love..." Now, I'm not saying there's no problems. I mean, look at you. Right? I'm not saying there's no problems. I'm here, you're here, that means that sometimes there's gonna be things that happen here and there, right? We all understand that. But generally speaking, we live in a really gracious place here. This hasn't happened to my kids. My kids aren't scarred in any way from being a part of the church, even though they've had to bear the last name Gillis in this community, and that meant something. And they had to figure all of that stuff out, but I'm grateful to God. But in many ways, some pastors' kids have been scarred because they've been in the church. And what they found is that some of the people in the church spoke the language of hell more than they spoke the language of heaven. And they demonstrated the wisdom of hell, envy and selfish ambition, more than they demonstrated the life of heaven. But instead what James says is that the kind of wisdom that actually comes from heaven, it's first and foremost, it's pure. There's an authenticity. There's a beauty, there's a purity. And then he says, and it's peace-loving. And he actually finishes that statement by saying, "Peacemakers who sow in peace "reap a harvest of righteousness." Why? Because peace is the atmosphere in which the wisdom of heaven flourishes. Right? And I think that James here is also being influenced by the teaching of Jesus, when Jesus said in what are called The Beatitudes, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. "Blessed are the peacemakers, "for they will be called children of God." I think this is sitting in the background of James' mind when he's writing these things. So, who is wise among you? Those whose deeds demonstrate a good life and those who desire the wisdom of heaven. He asks a second really penetrating question, and it's this, what causes conflicts among you? See, he asked this question to start getting at some of the root causes. In other words, where there's an absence of wisdom and humility, this is what happens is that conflicts happen. Listen to what he says in verse number one, "What causes fights and quarrels among you?" This is chapter four, verse one. "What causes fights and quarrels among you?" I kind of simplified that by saying what causes conflicts among you? Let me tell you quickly what James outlines here. He gives us three reasons that all begin with self. First is selfish desires. This is what causes conflicts among us is selfish desires. Look at the beginning of verse one and then part of verse two. "What causes fights and quarrels among you? "Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? "You desire but you do not have, so you kill. "You covet but you cannot get what you want, "so you quarrel and fight." Now, I don't think that James here, when he is talking about the desires that battle, that rage and that battle within us, the desires that battle within us, I don't think he's necessarily referring to the good desires and the bad desires that battle against one another. I think in the ancient world, they thought a little bit differently than that because they thought about how Jesus transforms our soul, but that there are desires that are warring against our soul. In fact, Peter said that exact same thing. Here's what he said in 1 Peter 2, "Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, "to abstain from sinful desires, "which wage war against your soul." See, I think this is ultimately what James is also referring to is that there are selfish desires that are making war against our souls. And what are those things? Well, he's pointed out two of them. He talked about bitter envy and he talked about selfish ambition; it's not just limited to those, but we can see them play out. In fact, we see them when he starts talking about, "you desire, but you do not have." That sounds like envy, doesn't it? And what does he say you do as a result? You kill. Now, you're going, "Man, that James. Whew. "Is he having to deal with murderers in the church?" "Is that what's happening?" I think James is probably utilizing the word in the same manner that Jesus did in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus talked about how anger is what actually leads to this outcome. And I'm guessing that James, being influenced by that teaching, is probably using it in the same way. That he's talking about how our selfish ambition when we don't get it, what does it make us? Really angry. And where does anger lead to? It can lead to this outcome. Whatever the outcome related to selfish ambition, it is a bad and a disastrous outcome. And James is just helping us to see this isn't wisdom because it's motivated by self. Now, you've gotta remember that James is also interfacing with the grand narrative of what the Old Testament has taught us. James knows what happened in the very beginning. He knows what happened in the Garden of Eden. In Genesis 3, listen to what this says. "When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree "was good for food and pleasing to the eye, "and also desirable for gaining," what? "Wisdom, she took some and she ate it. "And she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, "and he ate it." See, James knows all of this is transpiring, and he's helping us to understand that selfish desires motivated by self and even in what we call our desire to acquire wisdom on our own outside of Him, these lead to bad outcomes and they cause quarrels and fights. He uses two different words there in the Greek language. Quarrels mean it's a war of words. Fights means it's a war of violence. So he actually uses both of those and talks about these are terrible outcomes and this is where selfish desires get us. But you know what else causes conflicts? Self-dependence. That also causes conflicts among us. Not just selfish desires but self-dependence. Look what he says right after that in verse number two, "You do not have because you do not ask God." Isn't it a remarkable thing? Have you ever come away from a scenario where you have realized, "Man, I just went through this difficult scenario "and I wish the outcome was different and I'm mad about it." But here's what I realized, I didn't talk to God at all about it. James says, "You do not have because you do not ask God." This is the height of self-dependence and is the opposite of wisdom that is born out of humility. It's the opposite of that. Self-dependence is an indicator that we are filled with pride. It is not an indicator that we are filled with the wisdom of heaven that is born out of humility. 

You know what else causes conflicts? Self-dependence. That also causes conflicts among us. Not just selfish desires but self-dependence. Look what he says right after that in verse number two, "You do not have because you do not ask God." Isn't it a remarkable thing? Have you ever come away from a scenario where you have realized, "Man, I just went through this difficult scenario "and I wish the outcome was different and I'm mad about it." But here's what I realized, I didn't talk to God at all about it. James says, "You do not have because you do not ask God." This is the height of self-dependence and is the opposite of wisdom that is born out of humility. It's the opposite of that. Self-dependence is an indicator that we are filled with pride. It is not an indicator that we are filled with the wisdom of heaven that is born out of humility. Jesus taught us to pray, didn't He? Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today, what?

- Our daily bread.

- Our daily bread. Give us today what we need for today. He says later, "And keep us from temptation." We don't wanna give rise to the evil one in our life. So He taught us how to pray. But do you know what He also taught us to do? He didn't teach us just how to pray, He taught us, "Hey, you should pray. "Like you should ask." This is what He said in the Sermon on the Mount. "Ask and it will be given to you; "seek and you will find; "knock and the door will be opened to you. "For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; "and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. "Which of you, if your son asks for bread, "will give him a stone? "Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?" Could you imagine that? "Can I have a fish?" "No, here's a snake. "It's gonna bite you. It's terrible." What a good dad. "If you, then, though you are evil, "know how to give good gifts to your children, "how much more will your Father in heaven "give good gifts to those who ask him!" Do you know what pride does? Pride keeps us from a good Father who we can speak to, talk to, interact with, fellowship with, pride keeps us from that and keeps us lodged in self-dependence. And do you know what self-dependence ultimately does? Leads to fights and quarrels among us. That's what it does. But there's a third self-motivated. What causes conflicts among you? Selfish prayers. So watch this. Self-dependence is, I don't even ask. But then James says this in verse number three, "But when you do ask, you do not receive, "because you ask with wrong motives, "that you may spend what you get on your pleasures." See, you can see how selfish desires lead to self-dependence and can actually begin to make us pray selfish prayers. We can deceive ourselves because we think, "Whoa, I'm praying. "Nobody can accuse me of not praying." But we're praying based out of our self-dependence, trying to fulfill our selfish desires because we are not, listen, we are not embracing the wisdom of heaven, a wisdom that is born out of humility, of dependence on God. Let me ask you something. How many of the conflicts that are in your life, and you probably have some, how many of them do you think that your lack of wisdom born out of humility has caused? That's something I think you might wanna ask the Holy Spirit to investigate in your own life. Here's what I can promise you, listen, what the wisdom of hell will do in your heart right now is self-justify. What the wisdom of heaven will do in your heart right now is self-examine. You get to choose self-justification or self-examination. But I can tell you this, self-examination is going to require humility. But do you know what humility is? It's the beginning of wisdom, because humility and wisdom are inseparable. So James has asked two questions to help point this out, who's wise among you, and what causes conflicts among you? But then he gets to the heart of this with a third question, and it's this, don't you know you have to choose a way of life? James asked this, don't you know you have to choose a way of life? I'm paraphrasing the question a little bit, but here's how James phrases it in verses four through six, "You adulterous people, "don't you know that friendship with the world "means enmity against God? "Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world "becomes an enemy of God. "Or do you think Scripture says without reason "that he jealously longs for the spirit "he has caused to dwell in us? "But he gives us more grace. "That is why Scripture says: "'God opposes the proud "'but shows favor, or gives grace, to the humble.'" He's quoting Proverbs 3 right there with that passage of Scripture. Now, this is a beautiful, beautiful passage, but it's also one that is opening up our very lives because he's saying, "Don't you know "that you've got to choose a way of life?" I mean, we get a choice. We can either try the way of the wisdom of the world and figure out what we call wisdom, what we've determined that wisdom is, we can try that. But what we realize is when we get to the top, you're saying, please don't, what we realize when we get to the top... Everyone actually behind the scenes right now is saying, "Please don't." When you get to the top, it's not as wise as you thought. You got all the money. You got all the downtime. And sometimes what it means is that you're wasting your life. And now you find yourself wanting things that you don't have, even though you've got more than you even know what to do with. It's not really wisdom at all. And the wisdom of the way of the world doesn't turn out to be the wisdom of God. You see, when we come to faith in Jesus, we end up on the way of wisdom, the way of God, the way of Jesus. This is what we end up in. And as we walk in dependence and we walk in humility, what happens is this, is that we don't have a life where we're climbing a ladder. We have a life where what the Lord Jesus is doing as we trust Him and we depend on Him fully and we choose Him, is that He Himself is lifting us up to shape us more into the image of Him. That's what He's doing. See, here's the problem and here's where a lot of people are, is that they think that they can live in both worlds. I've got one foot in what I call the wisdom of the way of the world, 'cause I'm hedging my bets against what it means to follow Jesus in the way of wisdom, which is the way of humility, and so I just do this. Now, here's the thing. What gets so sneaky about it is that you can do it for a moment. You might be able to do it for a little longer. But here's what happens. You realize pretty quickly, I as a believer, I want to be conformed into the image of God, I want to look more and more like Jesus. Why can't I? Here's why. Because as you can plainly tell, it's impossible to keep climbing this ladder and keep climbing this ladder at the same time. You've got to choose. James says, "Friendship with the world is enmity with God." One of these will be a friend and one will be an enemy is what James is trying to say to us. And you are gonna have to choose which one is which. Do you know why you can't go anywhere from this particular point? Here's why; because God opposes the proud. He opposes the proud. That literal word means to keep at arms length. If you are thinking about it in football terms, it's a stiff arm. God keeps at arms length those who are proud. And anything that is on this ladder, the way of the wisdom of the world, is fundamentally opposed to dependence on God and is more interested in selfish ambition and dependence on self. And as a result, God opposes that. So we've gotta make a choice. You know what the difficulty is in all of this, besides standing on it? You know what the difficulty is in all of this? Is that we can be at this place and stay in this place for a really, really long time where we've not determined, "No. "This is where I am. "This is where I'm gonna stay. "This is where I wanna be." Because do you know what James actually refers? Listen to this. James actually refers to the people he's writing to as adulteresses. You say, "No, it says, 'You adulterous people.'" It's in the feminine. He says you adulteresses, because what James is doing is he's calling back to mind exactly what Jeremiah said to the covenant people, exactly what Ezekiel said to the covenant people, exactly what Hosea said to the covenant people, he's calling all of that back to mind and he's saying, "Hey, not only was Israel this way, "cheating on the One who is their true Husband, "but the people of God, Jesus' people can also be this way." Here's, listen, you've got a choice to make: who are you going to cheat? Because James says this is a choice that has to be made. And then he says that, "Hey, you gotta understand that God is a jealous God. "He's a jealous God." Now, not in the sense that we understand jealousy. We understand the sense of jealousy as we want something that someone else has. That's how we view jealousy. Different with God. What God is jealous over is that we have given to other people what rightly belongs to Him, and that's worship. We're now giving our worship to other people and other things and other places, which is called idolatry, instead of that belonging to God. Listen to how Moses said this when he was writing in the 10 Commandments, he was obviously copying those, he said, "You shall not make for yourself "an image in the form of anything in heaven above "or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. "You shall not bow down to them or worship them; "for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God." This is repeated, by the way, in Deuteronomy, it's repeated in Joshua, it's repeated in the Psalms, it's repeated in Nahum, this exact same thing of God being a jealous God. So listen, folks, here's the deal. You gotta choose a ladder. You gotta choose one. But I can promise you this, that on one of them it will require the wisdom of heaven that is born out of humility and dependence upon God, and the other one doesn't require any of that, but it's just you doing you. We have to choose, but here's the beauty, God gives us more grace. He gives us more grace, and He gives us grace to repent from our pride. Listen to what he says in the closing parts here of James 4. "Submit yourselves, then, to God. "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. "Come near to God and he will come near to you. "Wash your hands, you sinners, "and purify your hearts, you double-minded. "Grieve, mourn and wail. "Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. "Humble yourselves before the Lord, "and he will lift you up." You see, right here in this passage at the beginning of it when he talks about submit yourselves to God, and at the end of it when he says humble yourselves before the Lord, he's just bookending a reminder that it requires humility if we want to be people who walk in wisdom. He's bookended it. And then in the middle of it, he gives us three couplets that he arranges in there for us. And all of it is simply saying this: sin is serious and will seriously kill us. And James does not hesitate to tell us that we should grieve over our sin and we should repent. But what does repentance take? Humility. Wisdom. Remember, I say it often, sin is the poison, humility is the medicine. Repentance is the medicine where we can submit ourselves to God. Some of you like to think about resisting the devil and you talk to the devil. Why are you talking to the devil? I don't think there's really a particular instance where you should be talking to the devil. "Devil, you get away." Stop talking to him. There's really no reason to talk to the devil. When the angel of God was fighting over Moses' body, he didn't actually say that to the devil. He talked in the name of the Lord. You see, do you know what your resistance of the devil is? Submission to God. That is your resistance to the devil. Submit yourself to God, humble yourself before the Lord. That is in effect resisting the devil who is himself motivated by pride. The devil is appealing to us to act by self-indulgence, self-dependence, selfish ambition. This is what the enemy is trying to get us to do. Resist him by submission to God, humility before God. Let me ask you this, do you want to be wise? Do you want wisdom? Because wisdom and humility are inseparable. Oftentimes when we think of wisdom, we think of wise people that we can emulate. And by the way, I think that's good. Scripture actually talks about these kinds of things. And maybe because we've referenced the Proverbs a number of times, you think of who God at the time said is the wisest person that has ever been and will ever be, Solomon, at least for that window of time. 'Cause Solomon was the wisest man until he got stupid. But at that point in time, Solomon wisest man to ever live. And God actually is the one who said so. Do you remember what Jesus said in Matthew 12? "The Queen of the South "will rise at the judgment with this generation "and condemn it; "for she came from the ends of the earth "to listen to Solomon's wisdom, "and now something greater than Solomon is here." Watch this. Solomon was wise. Jesus is wisdom. Understand that. Solomon was wise. Jesus is wisdom. In fact, the Proverbs writer, if you were going to Proverbs 8, and I don't have time to go there, what Proverbs 8 does is it chronicles how wisdom was there at the creation. And do you know what Proverbs 8 is doing? It's personifying the Lord Jesus who actually was the agent of creation, He Himself is wisdom. Paul said it a number of different ways. Here's what he said in 1 Corinthians 1, "Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, "but we preach Christ crucified: "a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, "but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, "Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God." He also in the Book of Colossians says it in a different way, in Colossians 2, "My goal is that "they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, "so that they may have "the full riches of complete understanding, "in order that they may know the mystery of God, "namely, Christ, in whom "are all the hidden treasures of wisdom and knowledge." You see, we are reminded here that the wisdom of God, the Son of God is the agent of creation, that in Him are all the treasures of wisdom. And that what He did is He became flesh and He showed us something in His coming. Do you know what He showed us? Do you know what wisdom of God, the Wisdom in the flesh showed us? Humility; that's what He showed us. Because wisdom and humility are inseparable, not just in theory, but in Jesus. Humility and wisdom. Jesus was born to people of no nobility. Jesus, when He began His ministry, did not have a place to lay His head. He had to depend on the provision of the Father and the generosity of the people of God. Jesus when He was with His disciples at the very last meal He would have with them, He took off His garment and He washed their feet demonstrating to them humility. Not because He was trying to do a humble, noble task so that they would go, "Oh wow." But so that they would understand He did this because of who He was. He had all power, He had all authority, He had come from God and was going to God, and what He did was wash their feet. He did it because He knew who He was, not because He was trying to gain points with the Father. You see, when we know who we are, when we know what God has done for us in Christ, pride dies at the cross. This is where pride goes to die. And when we understand what has been done for us because of the beauty of what Christ has done, pride dies and we walk in the wisdom of humility. We even see it at the cross of Jesus, don't we? Paul said it this way in Philippians 2, "Don't do anything out of selfish ambition or vain conceit." Have you heard those words from James? "Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, "not looking to your own interests "but each of you to the interests of the others. "In your relationships with one another, "have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: "Who, being in very nature God, "did not consider equality with God "something to be used to his own advantage; "rather, he made himself nothing "by taking the very nature of a servant, "being made in human likeness. "And being found in appearance as a man, "he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, "even death on a cross!" And what did God do with Jesus' obedience of humility? He exalted Him. Exactly what James is talking about when He says, "Humble yourselves before the Lord and He will lift you up." In this instance that happened literally. Jesus died a humble death of obedience on our behalf and God lifted Him up out of the grave. And what He does with us when we walk in the wisdom of humility is He lifts us up to live a resurrected type of life. There's only one true way of wisdom, brothers and sisters, it's the life of Jesus. That's it. And we've gotta choose. One of these ladders, one of them comes with humility that is wisdom from heaven, and one of them comes with being able to be absent with all of that, and run our own direction. But I can promise you only one of them is the way of wisdom, and that is the way of Jesus. Let's bow our heads together. It may be that you're here and you've actually never humbled yourself to receive Jesus' forgiveness and salvation. I want you to know that that is available to you because of what Christ has done for us on the cross, satisfying the justice of God, taking upon Himself our sin, rising from the dead, conquering sin, hell, and the grave, that if we would put our trust in Him, we would be made new, forgiven, reconciled to God, able to now live a different kind of life, an eternal kind of life. If that's you and you've never before put your trust in Jesus, then in a moment there'll be some folks that'll be down front that would love to take a moment and talk to you about what that means, pray with you about what that means. There'll be men and women that are gonna be right down here down front. I would encourage you, don't leave here without settling that issue in your heart. But it may be that you're a believer and you know that through what we've talked about, that you've got one foot on one ladder and one foot on the other. And maybe the order of the day for you is repentance, agreeing with God, being sad over your sin, confessing it to the Lord, and finding His grace. I pray that you'll do that. If you need to just sit there, when we dismiss in a moment, feel free to do that. You wanna come take one of these folks by the hand, feel free to do that. Whatever it is the Lord leads you to. Father, thank You for Your Word. Thank You for Your Spirit that teaches us. Every time we come face to face with Your Word, if we will humble ourselves before You, You will change us and shape us into Your image. Would You do that for us, Lord? 'Cause the world that we live in already knows the language of the way of wisdom that is actually inflamed by hell itself. But may they see the way of wisdom and be surprised by the way of heaven, the pure, peaceable way of the kingdom. I pray You would help us with that so that we put that on display in our lives, not just in what we say, but in what we do. That we might glorify You in all that we are, all that we say, and all the deeds we do. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.