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Welcome to Day 4 of our look together through James chapter 3 and Daily Drive
Time Devotions. We're going to be talking about wisdom today, looking at verses
13 to 16. In fact, I'd like to begin our study by reading those verses to you.

James chapter 3, verses 13 to 16, "Who is wise and understanding among you? Let
him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from
wisdom. 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 from heaven, but it is earthly, unspiritual of the
devil. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and
every evil practice. " James verse 13 turns again to another of the major themes
of the book of James, wisdom.

In chapter 1, remember we studied the fact that we're to ask for God's wisdom.
And if we ask for it, God will give it. These verses are written to those who
would consider themselves wise.

I get the idea as I read these verses that James is not being sarcastic. He's
talking to people who do consider themselves wise because they've been in the
church for a while. They've studied God's word for a while.

They have a certain amount of understanding. He's not talking to people who
consider themselves wise with no reason. There is some reason they would
consider themselves that way.

And you might be one of those people. In fact, these verses are written to you,
if that's true. You've been in the church for a while.

You've studied God's word. You've been able to help other people with their
faith, maybe even. You've led other people to faith.

When people ask questions about the Bible, oftentimes you can point them to the
right place. When they ask questions about doctrine, there are times when you
know the answer, at least know where to find the answer. You're becoming more
mature as a believer.

And these verses are written to you, to the wise and understanding. If you would
say, "Yeah, I'm a little older as a believer. I'm not a new believer anymore,"
James writes and says here are three major areas to watch out for in your life.

You don't coast in your Christian life. You don't get to a point where you
think, "Okay, I've got it now. I've got to a certain point in maturity and it's
just going to automatically happen from now on.

" No, no, no. There are certain dangers in your life as a new believer that you
have to watch out for. And James reminds us here that there are certain dangers
in our life as older, more mature believers that we have to watch out for.

These are the traps of the wise. Three of them. Saying without doing, bitter
envy, and selfish ambition.

Did you notice what he talked about? Saying without doing. That's one of the
traps of the wise.

Anybody who is wise and understanding among you, let him/her show it by their
good life, he says, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. You
see, if you've been in church for a while, you've got a certain amount of wisdom
going in your life, you can begin to coast. And you begin to think, "Well, I did
it last time.

I served God last time. Let somebody else do it this time. " When you talk a
good talk, you talk about serving.

And you remember how you used to serve, but you're not showing it by your life
anymore. It's not in your life anymore. I understand we need to change the ways
that we serve.

God leads us to new ways of serving. But I never get to pass on serving. I never
get to stop serving.

Jesus served every moment of his life on this earth. And I'm to follow his
example to serve other people. So James says, watch out for this trap, where all
of a sudden, what you used to do, now you're just talking about it and you're
watching other people do it.

That is a trap of wisdom. And if you're going down that road, James' warning is,
get God's wisdom in your life. We're going to talk about what that genuine
wisdom is tomorrow.

Saying without doing. The answer to that is deeds done in humility. I don't
think that, "Oh, somebody else should do that now because I'm more full-grown as
a Christian.

" I really realize we're all to serve the rest of our lives. A second trap that
James talks about here is bitter envy. This can often happen in the life of a
person who's grown in the Christian life.

What happens? Well, as a new believer, it's all new. It's all wonderful.

I see all the wonderful things that God is doing. And I'm just excited about
what he's doing in my life. But as I'm in the church for a while, I grow as a
believer, I begin to recognize, it looks like that person over there is getting
more noticed than I am.

Oh, I'm seeing that that person over there is getting more honored than I am.
That ministry over there seems to be growing faster than my ministry, even
though that person over there is younger as a believer than I am. You see, with
experience comes the knowledge of how God works in different ways, in different
ministries, in different people's lives.

If you begin to compare based on human standards, it can lead you down this road
of bitter envy. You begin to envy what God is doing in other people's lives. You
get to a place where instead of just pure gratitude for what he's done in your
life, which is often what we have as a new believer, you're living with envy
because you're looking more at other people's lives than your life.

How do you get out of this trap? Get your eyes back on what God's done in your
life. First, grateful for your salvation.

Grateful that you're going to spend eternity with Christ in heaven. He's given
you that. And thinking that anything that happens on this earth should cause me
to have envy, that's not recognizing that I'm headed toward an eternity with
him.

Bitter envy. Watch out for that when you become older as a believer. Older, I
don't mean in years, but older in experience and in understanding of God's word.

Saying without doing, that's a trap. Bitter envy, that's a trap. And selfish
ambition, that's a trap.

It often grows out of bitter envy. All of a sudden, I begin to think, well,
maybe I should use the church for my reasons. Maybe I should use my
relationships in the church to benefit just me.

The deeper my relationships get, the more temptation there is to use those
relationships rather than grow in those relationships and serve in those
relationships. Watch out for that. Watch out for selfish ambition.

Now, you'd think if I grow stronger, if I grow more as a believer, all that
ambition is going to go out of my life. The selfish ambition, it is not. It is
not.

It is a trap that you have to watch out for. Watch out for saying without doing,
bitter envy, selfish ambition. In fact, James, as he talks about these three
things, he says they can lead to a kind of a wisdom that is not God's wisdom.

Notice what he said. "Such wisdom does not come down from heaven, but it's
earthly, unspiritual, and of the devil. " It's earthly.

That means it's a worldly way of thinking and not God's way of thinking. It's
unspiritual. That's the Greek word "sikytos," which means natural, a kind of
thinking that treats us as human beings, as animals.

We're controlled by our behavioral instincts and reactions. This recognizes we
have desires but not a depth of soul, so you just begin to use people rather
than love people. By the way, this earthly wisdom, the world's way of thinking,
this unspiritual wisdom, the natural way of thinking, you hear a lot of this
kind of wisdom in books today, even popular books.

You can hear a lot of this kind of wisdom on talk shows, people who sound very
intelligent and a lot smarter than you, but their wisdom, the heart, the core of
it, is based on selfishness. You can also hear a lot of this kind of wisdom in
church and in small groups. We give advice to feel better about ourselves, to
impress others with who we are, rather than because we just love other people.

And James says this wisdom, this kind of wisdom, it's of the devil. And you can
see James says this kind of wisdom in its results. Did you notice what he said?

Where you have envy and selfish ambition, you'll find disorder and every evil
practice. When you see disorder, confusion. When you see evil practice, people
doing the wrong thing, you know the source of it is this worldly way of
thinking, this selfish way of thinking.

You might not know exactly who is thinking that way or how they're thinking that
way, but you know it's there somewhere because that's the result of this kind of
wisdom. I don't want that kind of wisdom, but James warns me that I can be
trapped into it. So I want to take a moment today as we pray to pray that God
would give us his wisdom and not our brand of wisdom.

Would you pray with me? And just pray, "God, help me to reject the false wisdom
that's all around me, the seeming wisdom that's based on selfishness getting my
way rather than honoring you and humility and getting your way, seeing your way
work in this world. God, when I'm tempted to be envious, when I'm tempted to go
after my selfish ambitions, help me to be instead grateful.

Grateful for what you've done in my life in this world and grateful for what
you're going to do the rest of my life all the way into eternity. God, help me
not to evaluate my life based on just these few moments I'm on this earth. Help
me to recognize that I am building towards you, building in my life towards
eternity.

Make that my value and give me your wisdom, true wisdom, godly wisdom. I ask for
this in Jesus' name, amen. " Well, join us tomorrow as we come to the end of
James chapter three, we're going to be talking about what that true wisdom, what
godly wisdom really looks like.

James paints us a incredible picture of genuine wisdom.