Howdy Mars Hill Church.
Pastor Sutton Turner here and I'm in Ethiopia.
And I just want to thank Jesus
for continuing to use Mars Hill Church
to make disciples and plant churches.
Mars Hill Global is the arm of Mars Hill Church
that makes disciples
and plant churches all over the world.
We not only do church planting,
but we help better equip church planters.
Most recently we shipped and now distributed
1,000 bibles into Amharic,
which is the language here in Ethiopia.
And we launched a project
to translate Pastor Mark Driscoll's doctrine book into Spanish.
We have people from over 29 different countries
that are giving on a monthly basis to Mars Hill Global.
So whether you're a member
of one of our Mars Hill church locations
in the United States,
or you're 1 of 100,000 podcasters every single week,
we encourage you to pray
about giving above and beyond your tithe
to Mars Hill Global.
Thank you and let's see more materials translated,
more pastors sent out, more churches planted,
and more people saved by Jesus Christ.
Brotherhood, it's a bond as old as time.
It's a love that runs deep.
It's bold. It's strong.
It's enduring.
There's a trust that's built among brothers,
from the trials to the triumphs.
It's a trust that comes from living life together.
No one knows you like your brother.
He knows your strengths; he knows your weaknesses.
A bold brother will lay it all down for his family.
It is difficult to describe that kind of loyalty,
that kind of courage, that kind of strength.
It's the love of a brother.
It's that kind of love that compelled James to become
Jesus' bold little brother.
Who is the wisest person in the room today?
Now, before someone raises his or her hand,
let's ask a second question.
How would we find out?
How would we know?
Would we give an IQ test?
Would we want to administer a Bible quiz?
According to the Scripture, wisdom is the data that we have
in our heads, but it also is the disposition of our hearts
and the deeds of our hands.
Glad you're here as we continue our study in James 3.
We're going to cover verses 13 through 18 today,
and as we do so, I want us to ask two questions.
First, what does Jesus' wisdom look like?
How do we identify the wisdom of Jesus?
Then secondly, how do we have more of Jesus' wisdom
in our lives?
Before we do anything else, let's pray.
Father, thank you that you are a kind, and loving,
and gracious Father.
Thank you that you're a God, according to your Word,
who commits to us that you will give us wisdom
when we ask for it.
Thank you that you love us with all the love and affection
you have for your Son, Jesus.
Father, thank you that you called this meeting together
today because you want to be worshiped.
And Father, I especially thank you that today,
you've called some people to be who aren't yet Christians,
who I pray and hope will meet Jesus in the next few minutes
that we have together.
Jesus, thank you that you, being eternally God,
you humbled yourself,
and you took on the form of a human being,
and you walked this earth,
and you lived the only perfect, righteous life
that's ever been lived.
And Jesus, you went to the cross,
and there on the cross,
you took upon yourself our sin.
You died for us.
You took the penalty for sin that we deserve.
Thank you Jesus that the grave couldn't contain you.
Thank you that you've risen from the dead,
that you are at the right hand of the Father,
and we want to worship you today.
Father and Son, thank you for the Holy Spirit.
Holy Spirit, we pray that you would help us see
what wisdom is.
We pray that you would give us a desire in our heart
for greater wisdom.
And Holy Spirit, I especially pray for those today with us who
don't yet know Jesus, that they would experience your birth,
that they would be born again, that they would meet Jesus
and forever transformed.
In his good name we pray, amen.
James 3, we're going to begin in verse 13.
Pastor James--James, that's Jesus' half-brother--
has been warning teachers.
And specifically last week, as Pastor Mark preached to us,
we learned that teachers need to be careful with words,
that words can be very helpful, and productive, and fruitful,
and words can be very destructive.
So as Pastor James continues to talk to teachers today,
he introduces the concept of wisdom.
And the first thing I want you to see about wisdom is this:
wisdom is as wisdom does.
James 3:13, "Who is wise and understanding among you?
By his good conduct"--
pay attention to that phrase--
"By his good conduct, let him show his works
in the meekness of wisdom."
Wisdom is as wisdom does.
Wisdom isn't merely data we collect in our heads,
but it's also the disposition of our hearts and the deeds
of our hands.
And there's a biblical distinction I need you
to understand between knowledge and wisdom.
You can't have wisdom without knowledge,
but it is possible to have knowledge without wisdom.
I think Pastor Mark gave this great definition a few weeks ago
when he was preaching through James 1.
This is what he said;
listen to this:
"Knowledge is knowing the truth;
"wisdom is knowing what to do with it.
"Knowledge is theoretical; wisdom is practical.
Knowledge is truthful; wisdom is useful."
Listen to this:
"Knowledge provides information; wisdom provides transformation.
"Knowledge tells you what to believe;
wisdom tells you how to behave."
Wisdom is as wisdom does.
I am fortunate to have a wife of 27 years this coming December,
Kara.
She's not a perfect woman,
but she loves Jesus more than any person
I've ever met in my life,
and it's a joy to be her husband.
And I also have 4 daughters, all between the ages of 23 and 15,
so most of my adult life,
I have been swimming in a sea of estrogen.
And when my girls were little, I remember this scene unfolding on
a regular basis where we were getting them reading for school,
and one of the last things that Kara, my wife,
would do with my daughters is take them into the bathroom
to help them comb their hair.
And she would get hair into ponytails and pigtails,
or whatever was common for the day.
Occasionally, imagine this:
occasionally, one of my daughters wasn't pleased with
the work her mom had done, and she would angrily say,
"Mom, you've done it wrong!
I want to be pretty today. Fix it."
And in every instance--and I've seen this scene so many times
play out in my home-- my wife Kara
would bend down on her knees, she would take their hand--their
face in her hands, and she'd look them in the eye,
and she would say, much like her mother said to her
in the same circumstance,
"Honey, pretty is as pretty does."
That's biblical wisdom.
That's what it means to be wise.
It impacts the data that's in our head.
We have knowledge, but it also affects the disposition
of our heart and the deeds of our hands.
Now, here's what Pastor James is about to do.
He's going to contrast two types of wisdom.
He's going to contrast for us a natural,
earthly wisdom with the wisdom that Jesus gives.
So, let's understand better what earthly wisdom is all about.
Verse 14, "But if you have bitter jealousy
and selfish ambition in your hearts"--I want you
to pay attention to that--"do not boast
and be false to the truth."
If you have an old school Bible like mine, circle that phrase.
If you've got a smart phone and you're looking at a Bible app,
then highlight that in some way.
We're going to start there in just a moment.
"This is not the wisdom that comes down from above,
"but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic.
"For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist,
there will be disorder and every vile practice."
One thing we can do mistakenly when we come to the Bible is
we can isolate ourselves from the author of the text.
We can miss the emotion, if you will, the ambiance,
the ethos of a passage.
I want you to think for just a minute who it is
that's writing this text.
This is James.
We believe him to be Jesus' half-brother,
Jesus' little brother.
Probably, you could accurately say that nobody
on the face of the earth, during the penning of this letter,
knew Jesus better than James.
James grew up with Jesus.
He saw Jesus throughout his life.
It's clear that James, in some way,
was in and out of Jesus' earthly ministry.
When Jesus dies, and is resurrected,
and sends the Holy Spirit, and the church takes footing,
James is one of the preeminent leaders in the church.
So, James is speaking with authority, and what James
is saying is--with this phrase--is, "Stop lying."
Stop lying--that there are people that are representing
Jesus who don't know him well, that don't have a wisdom
that comes from him.
And he's frustrated, and he's confronting them because
he's the expert on who Jesus is, and there are people that
are representing Jesus and actually misrepresenting him.
Can you sympathize with Pastor James?
You ever been in that circumstance?
I'm sure this has never happened to you as a parent.
Perhaps it's happened to me.
You ever had an adolescent child tell you
you don't know anything?
"You don't understand how it is today, Mom.
"You don't get the way the world has changed, Dad.
"Things are totally different today.
"You don't understand what I'm going through.
Your experience isn't really relevant here," right?
Maybe some of you are medical doctors,
been through years of training, have years of experience
under your belt.
You take a patient in, you carefully examine her,
you examine him, you reflect on all the scientific data that you
come up with you, you come up with a diagnosis
and a prognosis.
That patient sets up a follow-up appointment, comes back to you,
and says, "You know, Doc, I've been online and there's this
"website, WebMD, and I just want you to know I question every
opinion you have, and I want a second opinion," right?
That's how James feels.
Hypothetically, perhaps there's an owner and a general manager
of an NFL football team.
Let's just say his name is Jerry Jones.
And let's say Jerry Jones goes, and he looks at a recap of
a live chat that happened on the Dallas morning news,
and he comes across one comment from a man who never played
beyond high school football, has no sporting professional
experience in his life--as a matter of fact,
he's been a pastor for 20 years--
informing Jerry Jones on how to run his team
so they can begin to compete with
the World Champion Seattle Seahawks.
Now, I'm just--that's a personal confession I think I need
to make before you.
That's not pastoral observation.
Jesus, forgive me.
Mr. Jones, forgive me as well.
That would be insulting.
That would be offensive.
Pastors.
Pastors out there, sometimes you occasionally will have young men
show up who will simply say,
"I've been podcasting Mars Hill Church,
and you need to run your church in a better way."
We want you to know upfront we're sorry for that.
That's not our intention.
Do you feel James' frustration?
James knows Jesus better than anybody
probably on the face of the earth,
and there are people that are going out
and they're misrepresenting Jesus.
They're claiming to belong to Jesus, but they don't know him.
They're claiming to teach the Bible,
but they don't understand the Bible
through the lens of Jesus.
So, I want you to keep that in mind as we look at
what's happening.
Now, two things are going on in the heart of those
with earthly wisdom,
two things that are not good things, two affections.
One is bitter jealousy and the other is selfish ambition,
cohabiting in the heart of those
who don't have Jesus' wisdom.
I want you to understand that. Wisdom isn't merely the data
that we have in our heads; it's the disposition of our heart.
And the best place to go to really evaluate whether or not
you are acting in wisdom is to take a look at your heart,
become a spiritual cardiologist, take a look deep within.
That there are those who are teaching the Bible who are
falsely motivated, first in relationship to others,
because as they look around them,
and they take in the landscape, and they see what's going on,
they're envious of others who have, perhaps,
a stronger gift or greater influence.
So, their motive in teaching is jealousy, covetousness.
They're bitter, they're angry, they feel cheated,
they're in a competitive state with others around them.
Even worse, they don't understand the glory of Jesus,
because they're motivated by selfish ambition.
Every teacher who knows Jesus understands that his fame,
his name, his worth is preeminent.
And there are those that are teaching from an earthly wisdom,
who are not only jealous of other teachers around them,
but they're doing it merely to make a name for themselves.
Now, I want you to see the origin of where this comes from.
Three different things that James tells us
is the origin of this wisdom.
First of all, it's earthly.
It's of the earth;
it doesn't come from heaven.
And we'll talk about what that means in just a moment,
but this isn't a wisdom from above,
this is an earthly type of wisdom.
Secondly, it's unspiritual.
Literally, it means soulless.
The Bible teaches us this.
The Bible teaches that those of us who are in Christ
have what we call "the flesh."
It's not the material part of who we are,
but it's that residue of our old life before Jesus.
It's that part of us, and most of us are really in touch with
this, right, that resists God, that rebels against God.
And that's the essence of this type of wisdom.
It's of the earth, it's fleshly, it's unspiritual,
and in extreme forms, it is supernatural,
but not in a good sense, in a very evil sense.
It's demonic.
There are teachers who are out that are frustrating
Pastor James because their motive for teaching
is entirely impure.
It's to compete with other teachers,
jealous and envious of other teachers,
and it's to make a name for themselves.
And James clearly understands the origin of this wisdom.
It's of the earth, it's unspiritual, it can be demonic.
But I think what bothers Pastor James
much more than anything else
is the devastation it brings to the church,
because look at what happens when someone teaches
from that motive:
"There will be disorder and every vile practice."
The church is at war.
When someone is teaching from this perspective,
from bitter jealousy and selfish ambition,
from an earthly perspective, an unspiritual way,
demonically influenced, the result in the church
is devastating because there's factions, and infighting,
and people are devouring and competing against one another.
And not only that, there's every vile practice.
That basically means everything they do is worthless.
It's nonproductive.
People aren't becoming more and more like Jesus when the teacher
that's teaching them has bitter jealousy, selfish ambition.
Do you have earthly wisdom today?
"Well, Pastor Dave, how would I know?"
Look into your heart.
What do you find there?
Is there bitterness?
Is there jealousy?
Is there a deep desire to make much of yourself?
If so, I want you to come to terms with, not only is
that devastating to you, that's devastating and hurtful
to those around you.
I know this from first-hand experience.
I planted a church years ago.
Today, that church is Mars Hill Albuquerque.
I felt a strong calling from Jesus to plant that church.
I left a good church that sent me out with
blessing and support.
And as I began to plant that church and lead that church,
something happened in my heart that wasn't good.
I suddenly began to look at leading a church
as if it was a competitive sport.
I began to keep score.
I began to look around at others who had planted churches
and saw they were doing better than I was,
and to be really candid, I resented them.
I began to see it as an opportunity to add more points
on the scoreboard so that I could beat them,
even though we were on the same team.
To make matters worse, my worth and my identity were totally
tied up into the role of being a church-planting pastor.
It's brutal.
My motive became very tainted along the way, and I
began to lead the church from a perspective--if Pastor James
was speaking into my life--as a place of earthly wisdom.
And the result to the church was devastating.
People were fighting all the time.
I felt like I was pastor of Survivor Island.
Factions were being formed, and people were being voted out,
and it was just not going well.
And probably the most frustrating aspect
about all of it--lives weren't being transformed.
People weren't being changed.
People seemed to be stuck in their rebellion against God.
And it was so exhausting, so tiring that Kara and I
gathered around some close friends,
and we began to pray that Jesus
would give us a hall pass, that he would let us move on,
that he would take us and transport us
in to a healthy church where we could have a new start.
And in the midst of all this experience,
I had a day of solitude where I was fasting, and praying,
and studying the Scripture.
I went out and looked over the city that I was living
in at the time, Albuquerque, and the Sandia Mountains.
I got a vantage point of the city
and just prayed from a heart level, "Jesus, help me here.
What do you want me to know?"
And I didn't hear an audible voice,
I had this impression in my heart,
and it was as if Jesus was saying to me,
"I want you to stay where you are,
but I want you to do church by my book."
So, I began to pour into the Scriptures and I realized,
and confessed, and repented of the fact that I was leading this
church from a place of bitter jealousy and selfish ambition.
Now, God is good. God is forgiving.
God redeems all things.
Today, Mars Hill Church Albuquerque
is one of the healthiest locations that
we have in all of Mars Hill.
The church is up over 1,000 people,
but even more importantly, over 600 people have been baptized
over a 3-year span.
I'm grateful for what Jesus has done.
What does Jesus' wisdom look like?
We don't want to be, as Christians,
those who are filled with earthly wisdom, do we?
We want Jesus' wisdom.
So, how do we get it, and what does it look like?
Back to our text.
Verse 17, "But the wisdom from above is first pure,
"then peaceable, gentle, open to reason,
"full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.
"And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace
by those who make peace."
I want you to understand what James means when he talks about
a wisdom from above.
He's making a very powerful, poignant point
that we don't want to miss.
What James is saying is that none of us has,
intrinsically, inherently, the wisdom that God would have.
For us to have wisdom, we need an infusion from above.
And what the Bible teaches us in a very compelling way is
the only way that you and I will ever have the wisdom that Jesus
had is through the person and work of the Holy Spirit.
As Jesus lived his life on earth,
particularly in the Gospel of Luke,
we see over and over again that Jesus grew in wisdom and stature
through the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
And we desperately need the Holy Spirit today
so that we may, first and foremost,
have the same wisdom that Jesus had.
If you don't believe me, let me prove it to you.
Look in your Bibles at 1 Corinthians 2:11-13.
"For who knows a person's thought except the spirit
of that person, which is in him?"
Is that true or not?
I don't know what you're thinking.
You know what you're thinking.
Your spirit knows what your mind is thinking.
You know how I know this to be true?
Because I've been married for almost 27 years.
Nothing frustrates my wife more
when I try to finish her sentence and I'm wrong.
Like, "That's not what I'm thinking."
"Oh, sorry."
What makes her even more frustrated, rightfully so,
is when I try to guess what she's feeling.
"Hey, I know you're really mad at me."
"I'm not mad at you!"
"Well, now you are."
But there's this idea that only in her spirit does she know
what she's thinking, right?
Ladies, that's true of men. Are men a mystery to you?
Yes, amen.
Through the lens-- thank you, sister.
Through the lens of your husband, men are a mystery.
Only he knows what he's thinking.
I can't guess anymore, right?
We would accept that to be true of people.
What if it's true of God also?
"So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God
"except the Spirit of God.
"Now we have received not the spirit of the world,
"but the Spirit who is from God,
that we might understand the things freely given us by God."
Verse 13, don't miss this point:
"And we impart this in words not taught by"--what kind of wisdom?
"Human wisdom"--that's earthly wisdom--
"but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths
to those who are spiritual."
We need the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit enlightens us to discern what the Bible means
and he empowers us to do what the Bible says.
What the Holy Spirit does,
the third member of the Trinity,
is he takes the perfect and finished work of Jesus
and he applies it to our lives through the truths of the Bible.
And if we're going to have Jesus' wisdom,
we desperately need the Holy Spirit to do his work
in us and through us.
If there's anything you leave with today,
I want you to leave with a deep dependence upon the Holy Spirit,
because if we're going to have the wisdom that's from above,
the Holy Spirit has to bring it to us through the truth
of the Bible, interpret it through the finished work
and person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
So, what does Jesus' wisdom look like?
Seven things in this text.
First, it's pure.
Don't you love that?
Above all, it says, the wisdom from above, first of all,
is pure.
That has to do with the heart.
That's a motive statement.
When you read the story of Jesus and the Gospels,
don't you love seeing his motive unveiled?
Jesus is always about two things and two things only:
he wants to worship God and he wants to love and serve others.
Isn't that amazing?
So, if you and I have the wisdom of Jesus,
that will be the pure motive of our heart,
that everything we do in all of life will ultimately
be motivated by, we want to worship Jesus
and we want to love and serve others.
We want to be pure.
We don't want tainted motives, because the wisdom that comes
from Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit
and the truth of the Bible is pure.
When my kids were growing up, they loved a breakfast beverage
that was the most disgusting thing I've ever had in my life
called Sunny Delight.
Any Sunny Delight fans?
Oh, that's what's wrong with our culture today--is most of us
were raised on that.
As a matter of fact, it was such a part of our family,
kids just referred to it as Sunny D.
"Yo Dad, breakfast, Sunny D."
You know, that's how they would come to the breakfast table.
My wife was going out of town to visit some family members,
and so I had daddy duty for the whole weekend,
and Saturday morning was my specialty.
I'd get up Saturday morning and make waffles,
and I had this brilliant idea.
I'm going to introduce my children this Saturday morning,
where their mom's not here, with 100% pure Florida orange juice.
So, I went to the supermarket, I found a carton.
I knew it had to be true because on that carton, it said,
"100% pure Florida orange juice,"
and it cost 10 times more than Sunny D.
Put it in the refrigerator, got ready for Saturday morning.
Kids started waking up Saturday morning.
I wasn't on top of things, hadn't done the dishes the night
before, so all the dishes were out on the counter.
There were no clean dishes.
My oldest two got up and I was committed to giving them
a pure experience of Florida orange juice.
So, I said--they got up, "Dad, we want some Sunny D."
"No, no, no, Sunny D today."
"I've got something better for you."
I went to the refrigerator,
pulled out the carton of orange juice.
Went over to the sink, took two small glasses,
rinsed them under the water, poured some dish soap,
washed it out, put it down, boom.
Put them on the counter, poured for them
100% pure Florida orange juice.
Each girl took a glass, put it to their mouth,
and they weren't as exuberant as I thought they would be.
They looked, actually, kind of puzzled.
I said, "Girls, what flavors does your palate taste?
What are you tasting?"
My oldest daughter said, "Orange juice."
"Yeah, OK, good, good.
What else do you taste?"
My other daughter said, "There's dog hair in this, Dad."
I said, "It's not dog hair. It's called pulp.
It's natural. What else do you taste?"
One of my girls said,
"There's something else in here that's citrusy.
"I can't define it.
I'm not sure what it is, Daddy."
So I went back to the carton.
I said, "That's OK."
I said, "Sometimes, for an extra treat,
"they mix in mango, pure mango juice,
even grapefruit juice."
So I went over to the carton, looked. No mango,
no grapefruit, huh.
"OK, describe the citrus taste for me a little better."
"Dad, it tastes kind of lemony."
"OK."
Went back, looked at the carton, no lemon, don't see it anywhere.
Looked all around the carton, didn't know what to do.
And then my other daughter said, "And it tastes soapy."
I said, "Oh, kids, 100% Florida orange juice, Lemon Fresh Joy.
Enjoy your glass."
Isn't that the condition of our hearts, right?
When do we ever do anything pure?
But according to the text, the wisdom of Jesus is pure,
motivationally.
And what the Holy Spirit does is, he works on our heart.
He takes the finished work of Jesus through the truths
of Scripture and he changes us from the inside out,
that we become purely motivated, that all of life is
a pure motive to worship Jesus no matter what we do
and who we are, and to love and serve others.
Jesus' wisdom is peaceful,
peaceable according to this text.
Here's the amazing thing Jesus does for us.
He brings to an end the animosity and the enmity
that exists between God and us.
You need to know, by the mere fact you were born into
the human race, you were born as an enemy of God,
that our common ancestors sinned, and rebelled,
and committed treason against God,
and each one of us is born in this insurrectionist tribe
called humanity.
And then we begin to live our lives acting out our rebellion
against God.
Some of us are indifferent, some of us shake our fist
in the face of God, but we're all enemies of God,
and God righteously is angry with us and has every right,
as his natural-born enemies, to destroy us.
But you know what God does instead?
He offers us truce through the person and work of Jesus.
If you're not a Christian here today,
I got some good news and bad news for you.
Bad news first.
You're in an antagonistic relationship with God today.
He's your enemy, you're his.
You've committed treason against him and he has every right
as your Creator to absolutely punish you any way he sees fit.
Here's the good news.
He loves you and he offers you a peaceful alternative
through Jesus.
If you'll turn from your sin and you'll trust in Jesus,
Jesus will take your sin upon himself,
which he's already paid for the penalty of on the cross,
and in exchange, give you his right relationship with God.
And the wisdom that comes from Jesus is peaceable.
Peaceable people are two things paradoxically, simultaneously.
They're slow and they're quick.
They're slow to take offense.
When you and I live out the wisdom of Jesus,
we're just not easily offended.
We're thick-skinned.
We border on being naive when we look at the motives of others.
We're quick to say, "I don't think you meant to do that,
"so I'm not going to take offense at that,
because I think you love me."
We need to not be hypersensitive
because it's absolutely incompatible
to be hypersensitive and be filled with
the wisdom of Jesus.
So, we're slow to take offense, but simultaneously,
we're quick to resolve an offense, right?
If we realize someone has something against us
or we've done something wrong, as quickly as possible,
we want to go and move toward reconciliation.
That's what it means to be peaceable.
The wisdom of Jesus not only ends our animosity with God,
but it brings what the Scripture calls "shalom"
into our relationships.
For those that are reconciled,
it means that when I sin against you and you sin against me,
we can take that together to Jesus,
and we can walk forward in peace in a way that our relationships
are characterized by well-being and good intentions.
If you're easily offended, if you're slow to work out
the offense of others in your life,
you're not living out in the wisdom of Jesus,
because Jesus' wisdom is pure, it's peaceable,
it's gentle.
It's gentle.
Gentle means, most basically in common day language,
it's not pushy.
We all have our pet peeve sins, right?
Do pushy people drive you crazy like they drive me crazy?
So much so that in my own weakness,
I've created this special category in hell for
pushy people who aren't reconciled through Jesus, like,
right next to terrorists and everybody else
who's done atrocious things.
Have you ever read the Gospels and you trip up over Jesus
in the same way that those around him did?
Here's this man claiming to be God, and he's not pushy.
He doesn't impose himself on others.
He invites all to come follow him,
but he doesn't force them to do so.
He invites them, he's winsome, but he's not pushy
in any way whatsoever.
The wisdom of Jesus isn't pushy, it isn't domineering,
it isn't imposing.
Jesus' wisdom is pure, it's peaceable, it's gentle,
it's reasonable.
It's reasonable.
Reasonable means you are prone to listen before you speak.
Before you render judgment on a situation,
you want to take in all the facts.
You want to give those who you perhaps are having conflict with
the opportunity to share their perspective
before you rush to judgment.
Something none of us has ever said is, "Wow, chatty Cathy,
chatty Kevin, they're so wise."
Who has ever said or thought that?
What would we always say about chatty Cathy and chatty Kevin?
They need to speak less and listen more.
Why?
Because that's the reasonable wisdom of Jesus.
The wisest people I've ever met that have the true wisdom
of Jesus listen more effectively and carefully than anyone else
I know, and probably speak the fewest words.
Look at what else Jesus' wisdom is.
It's merciful.
Two words that are mentioned here together that are clumped
together in meaning from James 3 that I want you to see:
full of mercy and good fruits.
The idea of mercy is, it's a heart disposition,
because wisdom isn't just the data in our heads,
it's the disposition of our hearts
and the deeds of our hands.
Mercy is a heart motive towards, "I want to forgive you."
And then good deeds are actions that are consistent
with that heart.
Jesus is merciful, isn't he?
He's quick to forgive.
But do you know what else Jesus does that when we have
his wisdom we want to do as well?
Jesus loves to reverse and minimize the consequences
of sin, doesn't he?
That's what it means to be merciful.
Not only do I want to forgive you,
but I want to reduce the effects of the bad consequences
of sin in your life.
Sin has consequences, right?
Like, there's spiritual dynamics in the world that if you sin,
there are consequences that accompany that.
We don't only want to forgive people when they sin,
we want to do everything we can to minimize
the hard consequences of sin.
That's what Jesus does for us.
Jesus doesn't say, "You've done some really bad things.
"I'm going to forgive you, but I want you to go sit in the corner
and think about what you've done."
Jesus says, "Not only do I forgive you,
"you have my righteousness too, and I want you to start seeing
"yourself in light of the love that my Father has for you
and my righteousness."
I lost a friend lately, Max.
Max was a guy I got to know when I was pastoring at another time.
Max had one of the hardest lives I've ever seen anybody live.
Max grew up in a rough neighborhood
and got involved in street gangs when he was 11 years old.
He started shooting up drugs intravenously at that age
and started sleeping around at 12.
And as Max became a Christian later in life,
he was diagnosed with not only HIV
but a full-blown case of AIDS.
So, I knew Max for years, but he was always deeply stricken by
AIDS during that time.
I love the way the church loved Max.
Because if you were to ask Max and start to feel sorry for him,
he would always fight against self-pity and say,
"You know what, I made some really bad decisions,
"even when I was young, and much of what I'm experiencing today
is just the painful consequence of those bad decisions."
You know what the church would say to Max?
"Hey bro, you're forgiven and we want to do everything we can
to alleviate your suffering."
That's mercy.
Mercy goes beyond forgiveness.
Mercy says, "Of course I forgive you.
"I'm not going to make you pay anything back,
"and let me work towards helping alleviate
the suffering consequences of sin in your life."
That's Jesus.
That's the wisdom of Jesus.
That's what we need, that's what we want,
that's what we need the Holy Spirit
to give to us through the finished work of Jesus
and the truth of Scripture.
Jesus' wisdom is also impartial.
Jesus isn't impressed by people, but he loves people,
and Jesus doesn't play favorites--
he loves everyone the same.
The Bible goes so far to say as, "In the church,
"there is neither male or female, neither Greek or Jew,
neither slave nor free."
Those were the categories by which people created partiality
in the Bible times.
So, there's no partiality.
Love everyone the same.
And outside the church, we look at people as those
who deserve dignity and respect as image-bearers of God
that we want to meet Jesus.
When we look at them, it's not about their race,
or their nationality, or their political persuasion.
It's nothing about that.
We look at them impartially, and we love them,
and we want them to know and meet our Jesus who will love
and care for them as well.
Jesus' wisdom is fruitful.
I love verse 18.
I want to read it to you again.
I want you to think about this:
"And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace
by those who make peace."
The wisdom of Jesus, worked out in our life
through the Holy Sprit according to the truth of Scripture,
is fruitful.
We become righteous in everyday life.
To be righteous means you are in right relationship with God,
and because you're in right relationship with God,
you treat others rightly.
Christian, you need to understand what happened
when you turned from sin and you trusted in Jesus.
In that moment, something incredible happened.
You were declared, forensically, as if in a court of law, by God,
as being righteous.
The sin and your sin was counted to Jesus' account and what
he paid for on the cross, and his righteousness,
his obedience to the Father, his love of the Father,
his compliance to the law, his perfection was credited
to your account.
So you need to know, right in this minute,
no matter what you've done, as a follower, as a Christian,
as one who's been declared righteous,
God looks at you from heaven, and he sees you through the lens
and the perfection of Jesus.
You're in Christ.
You are positionally righteous right here, right now.
And the rest of the Christian life is living practically out
that righteousness that's already ours positionally.
That's what the wisdom of Jesus brings about in our life through
the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
We become people in everyday life who think, feel,
speak, and act like Jesus.
And it's as if the seeds have been planted,
and through Jesus' wisdom they flourish,
and this harvest of righteousness
defines the church.
You want that?
I want that more than anything else.
That's what I want.
Non-Christian, hear me today.
Here's the opportunity that's in front of you
right here, right now.
If you'll give your sin to Jesus,
and acknowledge that you've been treasonous against God,
and you'll trust him to give you back his righteousness,
you can be declared positionally righteous before God right now.
No condemnation, you are considered to positionally have
all the righteousness of Jesus, and the rest of your life
can be spent in the power of the Holy Spirit,
living out that righteousness practically.
We need the Holy Spirit, don't we?
Do you want the wisdom of Jesus?
Now that you see what it is, do you have a hunger for it?
How do we get it?
We need Jesus' wisdom.
Three things in closing.
Three things I want you to think about.
Three categories in which we desperately need
the wisdom of Jesus.
We need Jesus' wisdom in our lives.
I need Jesus' wisdom in my life.
Do you?
Can I tell you something encouraging today?
I'm making progress here.
I'm not perfect, I'm making progress.
One of the areas that I need Jesus' wisdom applied to my life
through the Holy Spirit is when things don't go
according to my plans.
I don't know if any of you can relate to this.
Some of you are going to hear me, be honest,
and you're going to say, "You shouldn't even be a pastor.
I don't believe."
You know what, you may be right.
I struggle when my plans don't come to fruition.
I have a spiritual nuclear meltdown to the point
at the end of that experience, I have a book of Job,
no matter what the circumstance is,
experience where I accuse God of being against me.
I'll give you an example.
Sunday mornings are very regimented for me.
I get up at the same time, have the same meal,
have the same coffee, devote as much time as I need to getting
ready, spend a little bit of time reading my Bible, praying.
I do all the same things every Sunday.
Immediately you hear that and you're like,
"You've got a problem."
Yes, I agree, OK.
But I do that, and I allow just enough time that there's
a 5-minute margin to get to where
I need to be Sunday mornings so I can join up
with everybody else who's coming here
and ready to serve.
A few Sundays ago--this happens occasionally in Seattle.
I'm not sure how it happens.
I don't understand meteorology, I don't get it,
but something happened in the middle of the night
that my car that stays parked out on the street
turned into a popsicle.
I don't know how that happened, but I went and I was already
running 3 minutes late according to plan.
I walk up to my car and it's like somebody put it
on a giant stick, covered it in water,
and stuck it in the deep freeze,
and pulled it out.
The thing is a popsicle, and I've only got one key left.
And it's not the kind of cool "beep beep beep" thing.
It's the old-school stick it in there and turn it.
And I'm at a huge disadvantage, because I am not a mechanic.
I only know a few things to do with a car.
I know how to change a flat tire,
I know how to open the door,
I know how to turn on the ignition,
I know how to change the radio stations.
That's it. That really is it.
So, whenever my car breaks down, I don't want to be perceived as
foolish, so I always open up the hood because I think that's
what people do when their car breaks down.
I go and I look at it, and in this hand I've got,
where no one can see it, my cell phone,
and I'm texting my wife, "Call AAA ASAP.
Here's my coordinates."
And then they show up, and they save the day.
So, I'm already running late, I've got a popsicle car,
I take my key, and I can't get into the--I can't even get it
into the keyhole.
And all I have is a Bible in one hand and a cell phone.
I need an icepick. Don't have that.
So, suddenly I'm realizing, "OK, this is a huge problem,"
and I can feel the meltdown coming.
On a normal Sunday, it'd be like, "Oh God, why me?
"Why have you cursed me? Why have you turned against me?
"You called me to be a pastor and now you're not even
helping me get ice off my car."
And I would expect my wife to come down the stairs with her
bathrobe and her furry slippers, and put her arm around me,
and say, "Honey, just curse God and die right here."
I mean, that would be my normal experience.
But in that moment, I said, "OK, Holy Spirit, help me.
"I don't want to be who I've been.
I want to be like Jesus in this circumstance."
I chipped away at the ice for a little bit,
and I don't know if this was supernatural, probably not,
but all of a sudden, what came to my mind.
Got my key, and then it still wouldn't open because it
was, like, rusted shut.
So, ice and rust, the terrible tandem
that destroys all of our lives.
And I couldn't get in, so the first thing that came to my mind
was WD-40, like, that's all I know.
So, I went upstairs, grabbed some WD-40.
It had the little red thing you stick in there,
and I just sprayed it until it looked like a root beer float
had spilled.
Stuck my key in there, got in, got in the car,
texted Pastor Mark and Pastor Sutton, said,
"Hey guys, I'm running a few minutes late.
I'll be there."
Guess what? Everything was fine.
I got there; it was fine. I worshiped Jesus.
I'm growing.
That's Jesus' wisdom in my life applied by the Holy Spirit
through his finished work, and power,
and the truth according to Scripture.
Where do you need Jesus' wisdom in your life?
What's your deal?
We need Jesus' wisdom in our homes, don't we?
You know what'd I love more than anything else?
For my home to be the field in which there is a harvest
of righteousness; that my children, and my wife,
and now my son-in-law, and soon maybe somebody grandkids,
that there would be a field;
that when it's all said and done,
I can look and say,
"Wow, that was a harvest of righteousness;"
that people not only knew Jesus,
and they not only understood that positionally
they're righteous in Jesus, but practically, as a family,
we became people who think, feel, speak, and act like Jesus.
And for that to happen, we need Jesus' wisdom.
I've had a sacred opportunity on a few occasions as a pastor
to be alongside Christian men,
Christian patriarchs, as they died.
In each case, two things were present.
Number one, the man who was dying wanted to be as close
to Jesus as possible on his final day,
knowing in a moment he would go and know Jesus perfectly.
He wanted it to just be a smooth onramp.
The other thing that these Christian men wanted
was, they wanted their wife, and their children,
and their grandkids if possible around them and to know
that they were loved and that they loved Jesus, too.
I want that to be my finish.
And while this is true for whether you're a man or a woman,
you're a single mom, you're unmarried,
men especially who long to have families,
who do have families--don't you want that for your family?
Isn't that how you want to go out?
Can I give you some news? You're going to go out.
It may be this week; it may be in a few years.
I don't know.
Hopefully it's longer than that.
Someday though, that's going to be your fate.
What if we started finishing well today.
What if we said, "Hey, the day's going to come when my life
"is going to pass.
"If I'm lucky enough, perhaps there's a little bit of time
"to put my things in order, gather my family around.
"What do I want in that day?
"I want to love Jesus and obey him more than I ever have
"in my life, and I want those around me to know
that I love them and to know that they love Jesus."
What if I began working towards that end today?
For me to do that today, I desperately need
the wisdom of Jesus.
We need Jesus' wisdom in our home.
We need the Holy Spirit to help us apply the wisdom of Jesus
to our homes.
We need Jesus' wisdom in our church, amen?
Would nothing excite you more than if Mars Hill Church
was a field where there was a harvest of righteousness?
That the people who are already here who already know Jesus
would grow deeper in their relationship with Jesus.
They would practically experience
who they already are positionally.
Wouldn't that be amazing, to see
that kind of life transformation?
Wouldn't it be incredible?
Wouldn't it be incredible if there were people in our lives
and our sphere of influence where we work, in our schools,
in our apartments, in our families who presently
don't know Jesus that would meet Jesus,
and they would not only become positionally righteous,
they would become practically righteous?
And we could look at the collective effort
of the ministry of Mars Hill Church and say,
"There's a harvest of righteousness."
Do you realize the only way that will ever happen is for
the Holy Spirit to go to work?
Do you get that?
A few weeks ago, I was in the gym.
I don't go there often as you can obviously tell.
And I was finishing up, finished cleaning up, went to my locker,
getting my last things out, putting the final touches
on how I was going to look, and headed off to the office.
And there were two other men with me
putting the final touches on their wardrobe
before they went off to work for the day.
Because it's Seattle, we didn't talk to each other, right?
That would be a weird thing.
Other places, not so much.
And the first guy in kind of our triad there getting changed
in the locker, he looked like a high-tech dude.
And the reason I know this is he looked like the mannequin
at the most expensive section of REI.
All right, he just was like North Face head to toe
and I thought, "Man, are you going to work today
or are you going to go climb Mount Everest?"
Now, I don't know what you're doing,
but what gave him away was his security lanyard,
so he's a high-tech dude.
I was decked out in the traditional
Mars Hill pastoral uniform,
so I looked like an urban lumberjack, OK?
Flannel, plaid, jeans, boots.
And in between high-tech guy and urban lumberjack was this man
who just was stately.
You ever meet people that just have a stately presence
about them?
Just dignified, and nice slacks, and he had a sweater,
and he was pulling up a tie to finish out his wardrobe.
He looked to me, honestly, like what a pastor should look like.
African-American guy, just exuded, like, wisdom,
and maturity, and I thought in my head,
before anybody said anything, "That's a pastor.
I just know it, and I want to look like that someday."
But anyway, that's in the future.
So, I'm watching him get ready.
All of a sudden, high-tech guy turns to pastor-looking guy
and mockingly says, "So Pastor--"
made sure he wasn't talking to me first.
"So Pastor, you going to go save some souls the rest of the day?"
I thought, "Wow, OK, he is a pastor.
I knew I was right."
The pastor, in a very classy way, pulled his tie up.
He looked at him and said, "Oh no, no, no."
He said, "That's not my job."
He said, "That work is entirely the responsibility of
the Holy Spirit."
And I was like, "Whoa!"
I went up to high-tech guy and was like, "Boom!"
You know?
And then I started to walk out, and I could hear them talking
about, "Man, we shouldn't let lumberjacks in this gym anymore.
Like, there's a problem here."
What's your heart for us?
What do you want for your church?
Wouldn't you love to see a harvest of righteousness?
That those of us who already know Jesus would become
more and more like him through the work of the Holy Spirit;
and those that we love in our lives,
and maybe even some we don't love,
they would meet Jesus and become like him, too;
and we could say at the end of the day,
"The Holy Spirit worked profoundly.
"He gave us the wisdom of Jesus, and we saw that harvest
"go much greater than we ever thought.
Our barns were filled with the fruit of that harvest."
Is that what you want?
That's what I want.
I want to give you the chance to respond to God's Word today.
I'm going to ask our financial stewards to come forward
and collect our offering.
I want to invite you to worship Jesus in the same way
you sing songs to him.
That you're basically saying,
"Jesus, you're better than everything.
"You're better than my money,
"you're better than my possessions,
and I want to give generously to you."
In just a minute, we're going to take Communion.
There will be offering stations, and we invite you to come.
And as you take Communion today, I want to ask you to think about
something very specific.
I want you to see that Jesus finished the work.
There's nothing you can do
to add onto the finished work of Jesus.
It's complete, so as you drink up that truth
and you eat it down,
I want you to remember that Jesus has finished the work.
Because if you walk out of here today and you think,
"You know, I'm going to study more.
"I'm going to learn some more stuff.
"I'm going to get up early.
I'm going to try harder," you've missed the whole point.
Wisdom isn't a status be achieved;
it's a gift to be received through Jesus.
We're going to sing.
We're going to sing together.
We're going to worship Jesus.
I want to ask you to do one last thing that the Bible instructs
us to do from James 1:5 in the next few minutes
we have together.
Pastor Mark preached on this a few weeks ago.
"If any of you lacks wisdom"--I lack wisdom,
I don't know about you-- "let him ask God
"who gives generously to all without reproach,
and it will given to him."
The Father loves you.
He's heavy-laden with wisdom that he wants to give you.
Would you ask that of him today?
However you want to do that, while you're giving,
while you're taking Communion, while you're singing,
if you want pray with somebody, if you want to pray by yourself,
would you simply ask God, who loves you, to give you wisdom?
Let's pray together.
Father, you're so good to us.
Thank you for Jesus.
Thank you for the Holy Spirit.
We pray that you would now make the wisdom of Jesus ours
in the power of the Holy Spirit,
that we might become practically,
day in and day out, in our homes, in our workplace,
in our schools, in our leisure time,
that we would become people who think, feel, act,
and speak like the Lord Jesus Christ
for his glory.
We pray this in his good name, amen.
Pastor Sutton here,
we've just finished our services here in the Bellevue church
and really excited today to tell the extended family of Mars Hill Global
about Text to Give.
Just came out and many of you know my story:
2007 heard Pastor Mark at a pastor's conference
went there, started podcasting.
I still gave my tithe to my local church,
however, gave a contribution amount to Mars Hill Church.
So this Text to Give, the video that we have produced for you,
you're going to love, so check this out.
Hey Mars Hill, my name is Rene and I work here
at the Media and Communications team at Mars Hill Church.
If you're a mobile user like me,
I've got some exciting news to share with you.
There's a new way to give at Mars Hill Church
and it's just as easy as sending a text.
Now, many of you take advantage of our online giving options,
which is a great way to set up recurring gifts,
but until now, we haven't had a way to set up mobile,
where you can give on the spot during our services.
If you're like me, you don't carry cash
you don't carry a checkbook, so Text to Give is the way to go.
It's fun, it's simple, and best of all, it's secure.
I want you to do something with me.
Take out your smart phone right now;
we're going to do something together.
Don't worry, you're not obligated to give,
but try this out.
Simply send the amount you want to give
and the word "Mars Hill" at the end to the following number: 45777.
The first time you give via text,
you will be asked to fill out a one-time form,
which will safely link your card to your smart phone.
Now, this new way of giving doesn't go into your phone bill,
and in case you make a mistake,
you can always get a refund for the gift that you've given.
And that's it; you're done.
You'll receive a text back confirming your gift
and from this moment forward, you'll be able to give
anywhere, anytime with just a single text.
Don't forget to save the number in your contact list.
I've saved it as "Mars Hill Text to Give."
For more information about our giving options
you can visit marshill.com/give.
Each year, over 10 million Mars Hill church sermons
are downloaded worldwide for free.
This ministry is generously supported
by Mars Hill church members and listeners like you.
If you'd like to support our efforts to preach Jesus to the world,
Please consider making a tax-deductible donation
by visiting marshill.com/give.