2024-10-20 San Jose CRC-sermon only - Gil Suh

 Good morning. I will be reading the scripture passage this morning. It can be found in your pew Bibles on page 9 79. It's also up on the screen and in the bulletin, so please follow with me as I read James chapter three verses 13 through 18. Two kinds of wisdom.

Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.

But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.

May the Word of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing to the Lord. Amen. Last week, my wife Joyce had a very strange dizziness. Very strange. So we contacted the doctor's office to make arrangements just to check, but you know how it goes, it takes a long time. So, in the meantime, I used the internet to find some kind of home remedy, a practical solution where there is no doctor, there's the internet. So I found something, and that sort of worked. That helped Joyce, and you can talk about that with Joyce afterward. Through the Internet, we now have access to all kinds of information and knowledge, right?

An incredible amount of information is available, and it's getting faster and easier to access it. It can be quite useful. However, I believe what is needed more than knowledge or information is wisdom, discernment, and the ability to sort out this information and knowledge and apply it to real-life situations.

Information and knowledge alone without wisdom can dissuade or be very dangerous. People can use them for wrong purposes and false motives. So wisdom is more important and needed than information and knowledge. Would you agree with me?

I assume the answer is yes. Then, we must value and seek wisdom. The next question, however, is this. What kind of wisdom do we seek? Does the wisdom we seek recognize the Creator God who gave that wisdom to us in the first place or not? The scripture says, The fear of the Lord. Our recognition and faith in the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, the foundation of wisdom.

Wisdom without the fear of the Lord can be as dangerous as information and knowledge without wisdom. In other words, yes, we need wisdom, but what kind of wisdom and why do we need it? That question is as important as just what and why we need it. People can use wisdom for wrong motives, too.

Throughout history, many wise people have made very bad decisions. That's why today's texts tell us there are two kinds of wisdom. James, who wrote this book, contrasts these two kinds of wisdom as the wisdom from above and the wisdom from below. We can call them heavenly wisdom and worldly wisdom.

So, throughout this text, James describes how different these two wisdoms are. He started this text by asking this: Who is wise and understanding among you? And this is somewhat actually a rhetorical question. Because the answer is obvious, he's going to give. But I think the background of it is, at that time, 2000 years ago, in this first church, there are some people, early believers, they judged and classified each other, and they're making, and they're claiming themselves as leaders who are supposed to be wise and understanding.

Their wisdom was not the wisdom from above but wisdom from below. So now, James answered that question: Who is wise and understanding among you? The answer is people with humility, not arrogance. People with love and care for others, not just out of greed or selfish ambition. Through that humility, good conduct will be shown.

And those who show their faith through good conduct walk the truth and walk the faith, not just talk about it. So they show their good deeds in humility and gentleness, not arrogance and harshness. And such humility and gentleness come from wisdom. The wisdom from above. So he says, Let them show by their good life, by these done in the humility that comes from wisdom. Wisdom from above.

On the contrary, there is wisdom from below. Instead of good conduct and humility, there are people who harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in their hearts, according to verse 14. These people may be wise in their own way, and they even achieve great things in life, yet it is not wisdom from above but from below.

The ultimate result is pursuing the wisdom below and even achieving great accomplishments in the short term. The long-term result is not as good or as desirable as we think. I want to share with you a story of Abraham and Lot in Genesis chapter 13 as a good example of these two contrasting wisdoms. Abraham and Sarah left their home and came to the land of Canaan, along with Abram's nephew Lot. So they went down to Egypt. They shouldn't have, but they did. But in Egypt, they experienced God's grace in so many different ways. Now, they return to this land of Canaan. And while they were in Egypt, the Lord not only showed grace and forgiveness, but they became fairly wealthy in livestock. So imagine now Abraham, Sarah, and Lot with their slaves and servants and all these cows and herds. They came back.

Now there's a new issue, a new challenge. Because they're so wealthy, there are so many cows and goats and all this herd, and the land is not enough. So there was a dispute among the herdsmen of Abraham. Abraham and Lot were fighting over the land because they needed it for their cows and their goats to eat the grass.

Now, Genesis 13 explains how Abraham and Lot approach and react to this situation. First of all, Abraham saw this situation and told Lot, "Hey Lot, let's not fight over it. Let's resolve this quietly and very gently. You choose which land to go, then I'll choose the next one." Abraham's approach and response were humble and generous because he yielded the choice to Lot.

He initiated the peacemaking process—that's the way to resolution. But you know what? It was not easy because Abraham was older and he was a father figure, so he shouldn't have given up. Lot should have given up the right. After all, he took care of Lot, and Lot was able to accumulate his position because of Abraham.

He brought him along. Abraham somehow knew God and his experience, his grace. So he somehow knew how to resolve this, not fighting over it but yielding his will. But Lot's response was quite contrary. He was not grateful. He was greedy. And he was self-reliant. His response should have been different.

He should have been “Oh, Father Abraham, no, you choose first. I'll go next.” But somehow, instead, he looked up. “Okay, where is the better land?” And to his greedy, ungrateful heart and mind, this land looks very good. Oh, indeed, it was a good land. Do you know what that land was? It's a land of Sodom and Gomorrah. Somehow, it looked good in the eyes of the greedy and the ungrateful. That was the wisdom below.

To Abraham, the Lord said, After Lot chose the land of Solomon Gomorrah and went his way, he must have been a little bit sad or discouraged, but the Lord told Abraham, Now, lift up your eyes and look around. I will give this land to you and your offspring forever. That's the contrast. First, Lot raised his eyes, looked, and chose for himself according to his wisdom. But here, the Lord told Abraham, lift up your eyes and look, I will give you this land, you and your offspring forever. That's the wisdom from above.

The worldly wisdom, the wisdom from below, is often driven by envy and selfish ambition. Verse 14 tells us. It is described this way: the wisdom from below is earthly, unspiritual, and demonic. And it means it's not related to God. It does not originate from God. It does not focus on God. The earthly is limited in scope to things on this earth and excludes eternal truth or God out. Unspiritual. It's a natural instinct, but without spirit. It's merely human. No supernatural. And it's demonic.It's not of God in its origin. It's the devil who tried to destroy us, we just somehow follow.

C. S. Lewis, a very famous Christian writer, wrote this book called The Screwtape Letters. In that book, there's a senior devil, Screwtape; Uncle Screwtape advises the junior devil, Wormwood, regarding humans and how people usually think. And then this, the senior devil tried to advise how to lead us straight to hell. In the eighth letter, the senior devil writes this to the junior devil: You know what? Humans are amphibians, half spirit, and half animal. Humans, as a spirit, belong to the eternal world. But as animals, they inhabit time. This means that while their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodies, passions, and imaginations are changing continually.

To be in time means to change. So now, the senior devil describes how humans are made—very insightful. And then his tactical advice is to keep humans' attention only on the animal side and tempt us to pursue stability. Because the animal side is always in flux, it always changes, so we desire stability. But through what? Securing worldly success means. Uncle Screwtape now told Wormwood the difference between them, the devils, and God this way. It's quite revealing. This is the devil saying, We devils, we want to suck in. He wants to give out. We are empty and we will be filled. He is full and flows over. That's the difference.

Now the devil wants us to have that same mentality, scarcity mentality, and selfish ambition to feel their need. Because we are empty. Yeah, we are empty. We need more. So when we are tempted to feel their need on our own by competing with our neighbors because there are only limited resources are empty, or they're empty.

We have to fight to fill that emptiness or void. That's the Satan's, that's the devil's tactic. That's true; we are always tempted to fulfill their needs on our own. And some people know how to do that better than others in the past and even today—pursuing greed, insecurity, and ambition.

And then, we apply the wisdom to do that. And that's the wisdom from below, the worldly wisdom. That's the difference from the wisdom from above, the heavenly wisdom. Then how is heavenly wisdom different from worldly wisdom, the wisdom from below? Verse 17 18 describes the heavenly wisdom as, first of all, pure, innocent, modest, upright, and sincere. It's solely focused on God. Recognize that without God, nothing is given to us. So God is the source, and He's the prime reality. Every good and perfect gift comes from Him. So it's a posture of what? Humility. The posture of reliance on God, not craving on our own but open our hands to receive.

It's not mixed motives, selfish ambition, or idols. The remaining characteristics of this heavenly wisdom in verses 17 through 18 are peace-loving, not fighting and competing, but considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, and impartial. We saw Abraham applying such wisdom in a real-life situation where he needed to make a tough decision.

Abraham chose the way of true wisdom from above, rooted in grace and faith. That wisdom is humble, yielding, God-centered, not greedy or self-centered. That's Abraham. We who believe in God are Abraham's children in faith. We also need to choose heavenly wisdom in our life situations. We need to distinguish it from worldly wisdom that is ungrateful, greedy, and self-asserting.

Unfortunately, we tend to mix the two wisdoms and highly regard those who accomplish worldly success out of envy and ambition.

I'm grateful. I thought about it. I'm grateful that our church is aware of such danger and committed to seeking heavenly wisdom together. As an example, next Sunday, we will install two new office bearers, an Elder and a Deacon. We took some time to process who would serve our council and church.

And we discern that these two new officers are spiritually mature and ready to serve prayerfully. We didn't see any selfish ambition or any kind of greed. So we believe God chose Josef and Irena to be leaders among us based on their faith, commitment, and love for the Lord and his church, not based on their worldly accomplishments by wisdom below.

In other words, we are not choosing these new officers based on their accomplishments in this world. But that's the danger. And we must confess that's our tendency. Maybe that's what we have done in the past.

But we thank God for them and our council now that we are aware of the danger and don't want to give in to it. We know that we can make mistakes in recognizing and choosing leaders according to the worldly standard. We can easily prize and pursue the wisdom below, even in our church and our family, Christian life.

As God's chosen people, we need to seek the wisdom above, both in our personal lives and church lives. But like I said, we have a tendency to prize and recognize the wisdom below.

That's a very real danger. However, choosing and seeking the wisdom above is only possible through God's grace through Jesus Christ. His mercy and loving-kindness toward us have the power to transform our hearts. Only those of us who receive God's grace understand. So we are following the wisdom above, although our heart tends to seek the wisdom below and listen to the advice or tactical advice of the devil.

You have to secure on your own. You have to fight for, you have to, but we pursue the wisdom above, and we yield, and we humbly serve. You know why? Because we believe that we already receive what we need abundantly by grace. Our life, just think about it. Count your blessings. Is there anything that you have not received?

So we say, oh, I already have. Oh, enough, the Lord's grace is enough. From that space, from that place of recognition of gratitude, and contentment, we seek the wisdom above.

Then our mindset, our attitude, will be humble, yielding, and seeking God's way and His glory because He has already given us all through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Let us pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the wisdom from above, pure and full of peace. We acknowledge that knowledge and information without your wisdom can lead to selfishness and harm. Lord, help us seek the wisdom that recognizes you as the creator. The wisdom is rooted in the fear of the Lord. Keep us from worldly wisdom's envy and selfish ambition and fill our hearts with humility and grace.

We ask that you guide us to make decisions and live our lives in ways that honor you with wisdom that is peace-loving, considerate, full of mercy, and sincere. Transform our hearts and minds through your grace. Let our words and actions reflect the humility and love of Christ. In His name we pray. Amen.