James 3:13-18 (Teaching)

[0:00] of your class. Morning.

[0:17] Good morning. Back to the presentation, we've been having a chat with the three of us. Last week we wrapped up with verse 12 in James chapter 3, and James wrote some seemingly harsh things to the brethren, to the fellow believers in Christ about the tongue.

[0:45] And as I said, we wrapped up that section of James 3 last week, and we come to the last section today. It's only six verses long, but there's a lot in these verses.

[0:57] And it is a different section, however that being said, the context is still the same, and we'll hopefully get to look at that this morning.

[1:09] The context is the same as it was in verses 1 through 12. However, it is a different section of this chapter. So we're starting James chapter 3, starting at verse 13.

[1:24] He says, So James begins this section here with a question.

[1:39] Who is a wise man and a dude with knowledge among you? Who is wise among you? Well, he gives a description of how a wise man should act directly thereafter.

[1:51] He says, Let him shoe out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom. And this word for conversation, and this isn't the only time that we see this in Scripture, but it's talking about let him show it with his life.

[2:07] Let him show it with what he does. Let him show it with how he lives. Let him show that he's a wise man. Let him show that he's in dude with knowledge.

[2:18] Let him show these things through the life, let him show it out of a good conversation, out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom.

[2:29] So not only does he need to, a wise man need to show it out of a good conversation or out of a good life. Doing good things, doing good deeds, living upright and holy and righteous, not only before God, but before other men.

[2:48] We're supposed to do these things, but we're supposed to do them in meekness. We certainly don't need to boast about how we're living. This is what gets a lot of church people in trouble.

[2:59] I'm talking about born again believers. I'm talking about just church goers. If it's born again people in trouble, they'll boast about what they do or about what they've done or even about what they intend to do for the Lord.

[3:15] Now there's one thing to say, I'm going to go out and do such and such. I'm going to go out and preach a street corner. I'm going to go out and I'm going to hand out tracks or I'm going to teach this in Sunday school or teach that in Bible school or whatever the case is, it's one thing to do that.

[3:36] But it's a whole other thing to boast about doing these things. And we all probably know people that do that. Once again, James is writing to believers here and he's talking to believers about believers when he's writing these words.

[3:53] Verse 14, but if you have bitter envy and strife in your hearts, glory not and lie not against the truth. This is a hard pill to swallow, but he hasn't changed one bit into who he's referring to.

[4:10] He's still referring to the church. He's still referring to my brethren as he calls them at the beginning of this chapter in verse 1 of this chapter.

[4:22] But if you have bitter envy and strife in your hearts, glory not and lie not against the truth. If you have these things in your heart and your believer in Christ, something's bad wrong.

[4:35] These things, they have no place in a believer's heart. We've all been guilty of it though. We've all been guilty of bitterness since we've been born again. We've all been guilty of strife.

[4:46] We've all been guilty of anger. We've been guilty of backbiting. We've been guilty of tongue lashing. We've been guilty of doing all kinds of bad things as believers in Christ.

[4:59] None of us can say if we don't have that charge against us or haven't had that charge against us as believers. But he tells us to glory not and lie not against the truth.

[5:12] What is bitter envy and what is strife? Why is James getting these two particular things? There's a lot of arguments going on in the first century church at this point.

[5:27] There's a lot of Judaism creeping in. There's a lot of stochism creeping in. A lot of masticism creeping in. A lot of things were coming into the church, coming into the congregation.

[5:39] I believe there's one. What did those things do? They caused bitterness and they caused strife. All these things took place because people wanted to show that or people wanted other people to think that they were wiser than what they really were.

[5:57] And in verse 15 it says, this wisdom descended not from above but as earthly, sensual, devilish. What wisdom? The wisdom that causes bitter envy and the wisdom that causes strife.

[6:08] And that's what I was just talking about. These people who come into the church, and remember at the beginning of this chapter, James says, my brother, be not many masters knowing this, we should ever see the greater condemnation.

[6:23] And he's warning against teachers that were coming in just wanting to teach, wanting to blab their mouth, wanting the praise of man really wanting to be called rabbi, or wanting to be called teacher, wanting to be called master.

[6:39] One of these things, but they didn't know what they were teaching. And I mean they had no clue about what they were teaching. They were not teaching the things of God.

[6:50] And he says this wisdom, the wisdom that causes bitter envy and strife, descended not from above. Well, we already read in James chapter one that every good gift and every perfect gift comes down from the Father of lies.

[7:07] So if this wisdom is not from above, it can only be from one other place. It can be from below. That's the only place it can come from.

[7:19] This type of wisdom, now, you all may recall those of you that were here, we talked about wisdom a couple or a few weeks ago, wisdom is not knowledge.

[7:30] Knowledge is great, and knowledge is fine knowledge as well, but wisdom is not knowledge. I mean I've got knowledge of a whole lot of things, but I don't have wisdom in those things.

[7:43] I had knowledge of this book before I was saved, but I didn't have wisdom as far as this book went. Wisdom is the rightful use of what knowledge that you have.

[7:54] And once again it's the rightful use of what knowledge that you have, not just the use, because there's some people that use this book in an evil twisted, wicked map, and it's done every day. God never intended for this book to be used like that.

[8:07] That was never its purpose, but people will twist this book all around itself to get their agenda out of the way. I was talking with Brother Bern, just a week or so ago, you know, I know some preachers, they only preach certain things, and it's because it's part of their agenda.

[8:25] And I'm not saying those men aren't saved, and I'm not saying that they're not called to preach. Once again, James is addressing believers in writing this. So, me saying that a man will only preach a couple of things, and you rarely hear Jesus come out of their mouth, you rarely hear anything about redemption, or salvation, or the blood.

[8:46] It's little things that they want to throw out there. It's little things to try and convince people that, the preacher's trying to convince people that the preacher's right about something, and most of it's stuff that doesn't even matter.

[9:01] People will argue about the tiniest little things, and they will cause these bitter endings, and they will call strife in the churches. And there's people that they've got a rule or ruin attitude about the church.

[9:15] They'll either rule the church, or they'll ruin the church, and then go on to another one and see if they believe them or not. And that is certainly not the attitude we need to have.

[9:26] We can argue all day about certain things in Scripture, but when it comes down to the matter, it doesn't mean hell bends the difference. It doesn't matter. Me personally, I believe in a young earth.

[9:38] I don't believe in the millions and billions of years that some other people believe in. I believe that the earth is a few to several thousand years old. That's me.

[9:49] If you believe differently than me, that's fine. We can agree to disagree on that. Jokingly, I would tell you, well, if you want to be wrong, you can run ahead. But, you know, you can have that opinion.

[10:01] I can have my opinion. It does not affect salvation. My opinion of how old the earth is doesn't affect whether I'm saved or not. Your opinion of how old you think the earth is doesn't affect whether you're saved or not.

[10:16] Why would we argue over it? Now, there are certain things that I'm steadfast against. People say that there's no such thing as the virgin birth.

[10:27] I'll highly disagree with that. Maybe not to the point of arguing. Maybe so. Sometimes a flesh creeps in. Sometimes flesh will take over. And things like that will get heated.

[10:40] But I steadfastly believe in. I'm immovable on believing in the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. If he wasn't born of a virgin, folks, his crucifixion and the blood that he shed was in vain.

[10:53] If he was conceived of man and woman, he was conceived in sin, just like you and I were. And that's not the case. Jesus Christ was perfect.

[11:05] He was perfect from the conception, through his life, through his death, through his ascension, or his resurrection and his ascension. And he was perfect before all of that. And he's perfect now, 2,000 years later, after his ascension.

[11:20] So yeah, I believe in that. If you believe in something other than the blood of Jesus Christ can redeem you from your sins, I'll highly disagree with that. That's what Scripture teaches.

[11:32] Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission. There are certain things that we have got to be immovable on, or immutable on, as the Scripture puts it sometimes.

[11:43] But there are so many other things that just really don't matter. They really don't matter. I may not have told you all before, there are people who are complete associations and conferences that will take a Scripture or two and base their entire belief system on that.

[12:05] And denominations are the same way. You can't do that. You've got to take the Bible as a whole. You've got to take this book from Genesis 1, 1, Revelation 22, 21. And you've got to see how it all is woven together.

[12:20] You can't just take a couple of verses and make a belief out of it. He says, this wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, and devilish.

[12:32] There's three adjectives here describing this wisdom that causes bitter envies and causes strife. It's earthly. What would another word for that be?

[12:45] Well, it'd be worldly. If it's earthly, it's also worldly. We're talking about earthly as in the dirt, mud, water, and things along those lines.

[12:56] We're talking about worldly things. The wisdom that causes these things is a very worldly wisdom. It's sensual. What's another way to say that?

[13:07] It's very carnal. It's flesh pleasing. In this earthly and sensual and devilish thing, we have three things that this wisdom is derived from.

[13:21] Worldliness, the flesh, and the devil. Worldliness, the flesh, and the devil. I said earthly is worldly, sensual is the flesh, or carnality.

[13:34] And once again, we've all been guilty of pleasing the flesh once we've been saved, or after we've been saved. Everyone knows we've been tempted to do that, and we've given in to those temptations.

[13:46] And a lot of people see this as sensual, as something sexual, and that's not necessarily what it means. It's carnal, period.

[13:57] If it pleasing the flesh, then do it. My goodness, that's one of the mottoes of the Satanic Church. Did you know that? Do what thou wilt.

[14:08] That's one of the main mottoes of the Church of Satan, is do what thou wilt. In other words, do what pleases you. Do what pleases that carnal mind. Do what pleases your flesh.

[14:20] And again, the surprising and scary thought of James is right here, is that he's writing to believers, but he also says that it's devilish.

[14:31] Therefore, it can't descend from above. It's got to descend from below. It comes from Satan himself. Now, a big mistake that a lot of Christians make, is talking about how the devil's been on their heels all week.

[14:49] And the devil does this to me, and the devil does that to me, and the devil, devil, devil, devil, devil, devil. The devil is not omnipresent. The devil was a creative being.

[15:01] Now, I understand we've got the Bible talks about the spirit of Anacost. I understand that perfectly. I understand somewhat how spirits work, but the devil is not omnipresent.

[15:13] He can't be at your house and mine at the same time. Now, the devil's got little minions, he's got little demons running around that are doing his bidding, the ones that fell with him, if I understand scripture correctly, but the devil can't chase you and can't chase me at the same time.

[15:33] In fact, I'm going to dare say right now, that I'm not important enough for the devil to mess with. For the devil himself to mess with. Demons, yeah, every day. If you're born again, yes, demons will mess with you.

[15:46] But the devil himself, there's bigger fish than me to fry for him. There's a lot more important people in this world for he himself to pursue after as opposed to little meat.

[16:01] But demons will chase you. Demons will sit on your shoulder, demons will whisper in your ear, demons will tempt you and they will tempt you with what you have allowed them to know you can be tempted with.

[16:14] They're not all know. They're not all knowing like God has. Satan's not all knowing like God has. Is Satan smart? Of course he is. Satan was smart enough to deceive mankind into sending against the holy God into going against one little request that God made.

[16:37] Don't eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And Satan was cunning enough and he was smart enough to get two creatures to fall into sin.

[16:50] How smart do you have to be for that? Well, think about it. God had created Adam and Eve in his own image, created Eve out of Adam's rid.

[17:03] Put them in a perfect place, in a perfect environment, perfect temperature, perfect everything. They had all the food that they would ever need.

[17:14] They had everything that they would ever need and they had communion with God and Satan deceived them into messing all that up.

[17:29] We won't point the finger at Adam and Eve and say shame on them. We can't do that folks. Wisdom descended not from above, but it's earthly, it's worldly, essential, it's coronal, and it's devilish.

[17:43] The wisdom that causes this envy and this strife in our hearts. For where envy and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.

[17:57] Where these things are, where envy and strife are, there is confusion. That should open our eyes to a whole lot right there. 1 Corinthians 14-33 says, God is not the author of confusion.

[18:11] And if God is not the author of it, then we know who is. We know who is. Once again, we'll go all the way back to the Garden and see that. See how he used confusion in his intelligence.

[18:26] He used confusion to deceive mankind into sin, to deceive mankind away from their maker and away from the one request that God had, and he was not even that tree.

[18:41] And Satan used confusion to do that. What did he say? What did Satan say first when he was in the form of the serpent? Has God said, has he said not to eat that?

[18:55] And he said, well, of course, I'm not supposed to eat that. He says, well, he just don't want you to be like him. If you eat of that fruit, you'll be just like him.

[19:07] Well, that's not what God said. What God said and what Satan said God said were two different things. What does that do? That causes confusion. The same thing was going on in the first century church in James's day.

[19:21] People were trying to preach the true gospel. They were trying to preach that Jesus Christ saved sinners from their sin. Jesus saved sinners from the wrath of God.

[19:32] And all of these other people were coming in and saying other things. They might even include the Jesus saved sinners, but they would add other things to it.

[19:43] And there's a lot of addition to salvation that goes on in this day that we live in right now. And what does that do? It causes confusion. It causes confusion. Don't burn no longer.

[19:55] The last time I read worldwide, there's 56,000 denominations of Christianity. Christianity around the world. 56,000. Why is that?

[20:07] It's because of confusion. It's because people won't just put their nose in the book and see what it says. Or it's because, like we were talking about earlier, people will read one verse and not either take it completely out of the context that it's written in or not compare it with what Scripture has to say about the same things that are in that verse.

[20:31] And they'll make a complete belief system out of it. And that's what causes confusion. The cause of confusion and confusion is not of God.

[20:43] For where an Enveianstrap is, there is confusion in every evil word. Not some of them, not a few of them. Not many evil words, but every evil word.

[20:55] We were confused and mischievous. Now we get to the good part. Verse 17, But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy.

[21:14] The fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace. But the wisdom that is from above, now remember he had been talking about wisdom that comes from below, wisdom that's not from above.

[21:27] He says, but the wisdom that is from above is first pure. It's got to be pure first. And if it comes from above, once again, go back to James chapter 1, every good gift and every perfect gift comes down from the Father of lives.

[21:44] If it comes from the Father of lives, anything that comes from him, anything, whether it's love, whether it's mercy, whether it's wisdom, or whether it's wrath and fury, anything that comes from God is pure.

[21:59] Any and everything, the Greek word that is used for that here, used for pure here is hagnus, which is the same root that we get our English word holy from.

[22:10] And if it comes from God, it has to be holy, it has to be pure. He knows nothing but holiness and pureness. He is holiness and pureness. That's all God knows, so anything that comes from him has got to be that.

[22:23] But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable. So it's got to be pure first, and then peaceable.

[22:34] Now, that purity has got to come in first. James says it, the Bible says it, so it has to do that. Now, the rest of these don't necessarily have to be in a numerical order or a successive order for that matter.

[22:49] But purity must come first. Holiness must come first. But it says, then peaceable. So the wisdom that comes from above is pure, and it's peaceable.

[23:03] What is peaceable? What did he say in the verse before this, for where envy and strife is, there's confusion in every evil word.

[23:15] Envy and strife are not peaceable. They're not even close to synonymous with peaceable. Peaceable, the wisdom that comes from above is peaceable.

[23:28] God is peaceable. I'm peaceable. Some people probably argue that, but that's okay. I'm peaceable. What's the difference between them being harmless and being peaceable or peaceable?

[23:40] Harmless means just that. Harmless means you're not capable of harming anyone. It means that you're incapable of inflicting harm or inflicting hurt.

[23:51] Peaceful or peaceable means that you prefer peace, but you're capable of harm. You're capable of violence.

[24:02] You're capable of hurting. So this wisdom that comes from above, listen, and God, God is those things. God is completely capable of harm. My goodness, you don't believe me?

[24:14] That's the people that were on the other side of the door of the ark. That's the people who have sought him in Gamora. If God's not capable of inflicting harm, of inflicting hurt, then God's capable of those things.

[24:29] But it's pure. When it comes from God, it's pure and it's holy. We don't like to think about that, but it's true. But it's pure, and the wisdom that comes from above is pure, and then it's peaceable.

[24:42] What we should do our very best in the high section of the Apollo Road itself, if at all possible, to live peaceably with all men. Listen, there's some people, and you'll agree with me, some people, it don't seem very possible.

[24:59] Now, on the left side of that coin, there's some people we throw the towel in real early with too, as opposed to trying to live peaceably with them. But the wisdom that comes from above is pure and it's peaceable, gentle.

[25:16] That's how everybody wants to think of God. And every one of these are attributes of God. Every one of these describe God and who He is. All these here in verse 17, all these descriptions that we read here.

[25:30] He is gentle, and I'm thankful that He is. I'm very thankful that God is gentle. You look at the ministry of Jesus Christ, you look at His ministry in the Gospels, and you find one person, one person outside of the Pharisees, outside of the scribes, outside of those that had the holier-than-thou attitude.

[25:53] Now, Jesus was quite harsh with them, but outside of that, and Jesus had His reasons for that too, but outside of that, you find one person, you look at Bartimaeus, you look at the woman at the whale, you look at even Nicodemus, you look at the people that Jesus Christ ministered to, and you look at how gentle He was with them.

[26:18] Jesus Christ preached a sermon to Nicodemus in John chapter 3, but He wasn't harsh towards them. I'm thoroughly persuaded He didn't yell at them.

[26:32] He didn't insult them, man, even though He said, are you not a teacher of Israel, and you don't know these things, even though He said that, He wasn't being harsh, but He was calling Nicodemus out in His own folly, in His own fault.

[26:46] Nicodemus should have known the things that Christ was telling him in John 3. He should have realized the things, but He didn't. He didn't realize those things, but Christ was gentle with Him.

[26:57] All throughout the ministry of Jesus Christ, He was gentle. Even Peter, even Peter, when He rebuked Peter, when Peter said, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God, and then just a few verses later, Peter was rebuking Jesus, Jesus rebuked Peter and said, get thou behind me, Satan.

[27:17] But even in that, Jesus was being gentle. I don't read where Jesus grabbed Him by the collar and slung Him on the ground and kicked Him. He was gentle in it, though. He was gentle, He's been gentle with me since I've been saved, and He was gentle with me before I got saved.

[27:33] He was gentle with me, bringing me to the cross, showing me what I was, even though what I was was violent, even though what I was was wicked and evil and mean and nasty, even though what I was was those things, Christ was gentle with me.

[27:49] So the wisdom that comes from above is gentle. Therefore, if we have that wisdom, and we're rightfully using the knowledge that God has given us, it should be gentle.

[28:01] This gets, once again, a lot of church members in trouble, and it causes those bitter end beings, and it causes those strife. Why? Because they want to be right, and they want others to think or quote-unquote know that they're right.

[28:19] And I said they've got a rule of ruin attitude, and if they get driven out of that church, I'll just take those beliefs somewhere else and see if somebody else buys into them or not. If they're not gentle about them.

[28:31] Now listen, hey, some people you can present the gospel to just as gentle of a manner as you can. Other people, they might need it a little bit harsher. I'm not talking about yelling and screaming and spitting all over them, but some people might need a harsher reality brought before them than others would.

[28:54] But be gentle in presenting that just as Christ was. Just as Christ was. Easy to be untreated. I have problems with this personally.

[29:06] What does this mean? I'm easy to come to. I'm easy to approach. How many of y'all remember 20, 25 years ago before everybody had caller ID?

[29:22] You just had to pick up the phone until we rang it. Now what do we do? Duh. We look at her phone, we roll her eyes.

[29:35] I'm not going to hinder that. Shame on us. And I do the same thing. I do the same thing. Us includes me. Shame on us for that.

[29:47] I remember those days before caller ID was in play where you had no choice but to pick up the phone. But even then, though, even then, you pick up the phone and say hello.

[30:01] When you recognized the voice on the other end, you were either full of glee and happiness or you rolled your eyes when you heard that voice. But then you were already committed. Now, we don't have to do that.

[30:14] We see a text message, we get a phone call, whatever the case is, we see who it is. And if we roll our eyes, we don't want to answer.

[30:25] We're not being easily entreated. We're not being easily approached. That's going against what the Scripture here says. And once again, I'm guilty.

[30:36] I am guilty of that. I've been guilty of that several times. But we should be approached. I mean, as Christians, we should certainly be approachable for other Christians, people that want to call us, people that may have a prayer request, people, you know, somebody laying out the hospital and they're flatlining and they call me, wanting me to pray.

[31:02] I mean, my goodness, what a privilege. And what a lie I must have been sending for somebody not boasting in myself. But I see that number and I roll my eyes, I say, I ain't going to answer that.

[31:14] The one person they were reaching out to for prayer, and I don't answer the phone. I'm not being easily entreated. I'm not being easily approachable. And shame on me for having that attitude.

[31:26] And God's helped me a lot with that. I'm still guilty. I'm still guilty. I'm going to stand here and lie to y'all. But God has helped me quite a bit with that.

[31:37] Easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits. The wisdom that comes from above is full of mercy.

[31:49] Now, if you couple these, a lot of these things, in fact, all throughout the book of James, you ever study the book of James, make sure you study Matthew 5 through 7, the sermon on the Mount along with it.

[32:01] But James rings up a lot of those things. What do we read just a little while ago, the wisdom from above is peaceful. What does Jesus say about that sermon on the Mount? What do you say in the beatitudes?

[32:12] Blessed are the peacemakers. They should be called the kingdom of God and the children of God. The peacemakers would be called the children of God. Here he says that the wisdom from above is full of mercy and good fruits and the same sermon on the same Mount and the same beatitudes.

[32:30] What does Jesus Christ say? Blessed are the merciful, for they shall attain mercy. Every one of these descriptions that we read here, every one of these things that we read about here, describe God, describe Christ to a team.

[32:46] To a team. But the wisdom that comes from above should be full of mercy. Folks, if I'm easily intreatable or easy to be entreated, as the scripture here says, but I'm not full of mercy, what good is it going to do me to be entreated by other people, to be approached by other people.

[33:10] If I don't have any mercy, if I don't show any gentleness, if I'm not peaceable, it'll do no good. It'll do no good if those things don't intertwine with these.

[33:23] These things must be woven together. They must, they have to be woven together because it'll do me no good to have one or two of these and not have the rest, because that will blow what I do have straight out of the water and it will be useless for anyone else's benefit, including my own.

[33:43] But the wisdom that comes from above should be full of mercy and good fruits. This is the doing part that so many people hate about the Book of James. So many Christians, born again believers, hate the doing part of the Book of James.

[33:58] They hate the works part. And I do believe that salvation is by faith. I believe it's by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. That's the only way salvation is going to come.

[34:10] I do believe that, but if salvation has come, you will have fruit to show that you are indeed saved. Jesus Christ says that, the Bible teaches it, I believe it.

[34:22] Jesus Christ said that we would know a tree by the fruit that it bears. It bears rotten fruits because it's a rotten soul that's bearing it.

[34:33] It bears good fruits because it's a good soul that's bearing it. That's not too hard to understand. But the wisdom that comes from above should be full of mercy and the wisdom that comes from above should have good fruits.

[34:49] If it doesn't have good fruits, there's something bad wrong with the wisdom that we've got with the wisdom that we're using. Remember in James chapter one, what James says, and if any of you lack wisdom, let them ask of God who gives us liberally and upbraid as not.

[35:07] If you're lacking this wisdom to come from above, ask it of God. Don't ask it of the preacher. Don't ask it of the Sunday school teacher. Don't ask it of a dakin'.

[35:18] Don't ask it of a lay member. Don't ask it of anyone but of God. Why? Because this wisdom comes from above. It doesn't come from other people. It comes from God. It can't come from me.

[35:31] I can't tell you how many people have come to me and said, I wish I knew what you know about Scripture. I am not boasting in myself saying that. And my retort normally is, I wish I knew what you think I know about Scripture.

[35:46] I hope so. If I've got any wisdom at all, it's from God. It ain't with me. Somebody comes to me with a praise like that, glory be to God for it. It's not with me.

[35:58] And the preacher has got to be careful with that. My goodness, you preach the sermon, people pat you on the back, hug you, tell you what an awesome job it is that you've done. It'll go to your head real fast if you let it.

[36:11] Give that glory to God. Give that glory to God. That's a scribe glory. Under God, that's glory that we might receive, but we give it to God. We don't want it. It ain't ours anyway.

[36:23] All glory belongs to God according to the Scriptures. That includes any glory that you receive and any glory that I receive. It all belongs to God. And God will have all of that one of these days.

[36:36] He's got all the intrinsic glory. That's the glory that man can't do anything about. That's the glory that's just there, and it's always been there. The ascribed glory, though, is what we give under God.

[36:47] Even if it's given by another man, we don't hang on to that. But I'm about to get off on a whole other subject, and I won't do that. Full of mercy and good fruits without partiality.

[37:00] This goes back to the whole respect to a person's thing that we talked about a week or two ago. Without partiality, the wisdom that comes from above is without partiality.

[37:12] Folks, if I have wisdom in the Scriptures, if I have wisdom of God, if I have wisdom of salvation, I don't need to be partial or a respecter of whom I share that wisdom with.

[37:25] Whether it's born again believers, or whether it's the most wicked, evil, mean person that I know, I need to share that wisdom. Whether it's a Jew, whether it's a Gentile, whether it's black, white, purple, green, or yellow, it doesn't matter.

[37:41] I need to share that wisdom. It is not partial. The wisdom that comes from above is not partial. If it came from God, just like we said, I mean Peter, I believe it's in Acts chapter 10, Peter said, I perceive that God is not a respecter of persons, and he's not.

[37:58] And why did he say that? Because Peter didn't want to go preach to a bunch of Gentiles with the thought of them maybe getting saved. Peter wasn't thinking when he said that, because the gentleman did the exact same thing.

[38:12] And where'd Jonah end up? He ended up in the belly of a fish. They were being partial. The wisdom that comes from above is not partial, and it is without hypocrisy.

[38:24] Now this flows back several verses in James chapter 3, where it says, can bitter water and sweeten water flow from the same fountain? What is it? That's hypocrisy.

[38:37] Doing one thing, or saying one thing and doing another, that's textbook definition of what hypocrisy is. And the wisdom that comes from above is not hypocritical.

[38:51] Folks, if I stand up here and I teach you this Bible, or Burns stands up here and preaches you this Bible, and we are not doing what we say, we are hypocrites. We are hypocrites if we do that.

[39:04] That's what Jesus called the Pharisees over in the Gospel. He called them hypocrites, vipers. Why did sepulchres? He got them all kinds of things.

[39:17] He was harsh with them. He had his own reasons for that. He wasn't very gentle with the Pharisees at all. Maybe we'll get into that some point later as to why that was.

[39:30] But all these things, this wisdom that comes from above, is pure, peaceable, easy to be entreated, full of mercy, good fruit, and good fruit, without partiality and without hypocrisy.

[39:43] This is the wisdom from above. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace. It's sown in peace of them, and we substitute that word of with the word by, and it might make a little better sense to you.

[40:02] The fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by them that make peace. What's the fruit of righteousness? Can't be sown by those that are sowing better envies and strife.

[40:17] We were talking about just a few verses ago. It can't be. It's not righteousness. There's nothing righteousness about it. Once again, all the way back to James chapter 1, the wrath of man works if not the righteousness of God.

[40:30] Better envies and strife is done by the cause of the wrath of man. And that works not the righteousness of God, but the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.

[40:43] If they're making peace, they should be sowing the fruit of righteousness. And that's not just for they, that's for you, and that's for me, it's for everyone. That wraps up James chapter 3.

[40:56] Any questions or comments on it?