James Part 8

In Jewish tradition, wisdom (chokhmah) is not theoretical, but practical. It is recognized by behavior shaped by humility. James insists that true wisdom expresses itself through “good conduct” and “meekness,” a quality Yeshua/Jesus elevates in the Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Matt. 5:5). Give a listen!

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Welcome to the Messiah in Life podcast. This series on the Epistle of James is taught by Bishop Justin D. Elwell of Restoration Fellowship International, who also serves as the Messianic Rabbi of Messiah Congregation in Washington Mills, New York. From our congregational home, we invite you into a rich and practical study of one of the most direct and challenging writings in the New Testament. Over the coming months, each episode will carefully examine James's call to a living faith, a faith that endures trials, governs the tongue, pursues wisdom, and expresses itself through righteous action. Rooted in the scriptures of Israel and the teachings of Messiah Jesus. This study brings the message of James into clear focus for life today, forming disciples marked by integrity, mercy, and spiritual maturity. Thank you for joining us. Now pour yourself a tea or coffee, and may the word we hear shape the lives we live.

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James chapter three, we're gonna cover 13 through 18. But just as uh means of introduction and review, the chapter essentially focused on the tongue. The tongue, this little member inside each of us that directs us in many ways, reveals what is in our heart through our speech. Um we had the comparison to the rudder of a ship, uh, which is generally quite small in comparison to the size of the ship. And of course, we had the the bit um that we place inside the mouth of a horse to direct it. So all of that focused on the importance of our awareness of our speech, our thoughtfulness in our speech. Speak before or think before we speak. We can we can't unsay something, but we can refrain from saying something. So we can repent of language that we have not articulated without involving really anyone other than the Lord. But once we say it, it gains in complexity quite quickly. James said, How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire. And the tongue is a flame of fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body. Now he's using this language because of ritual purity. Uh, in that time you would go to the mikfa to be cleansed, um sometimes several times a week, and you would be ritually clean. So the objective would be to remain ritually clean, to keep yourself unstained by uh ritual impurity. And so to the audience that's receiving this, this has a great deal of meaning. So we're trying to keep ourselves unstained from the world, but our tongue can stain us. And remember, back in 127, religion that is pure. He'll use that word pure again in this chapter, in the conclusion of this chapter. And undefiled before God the Father is this to visit widows and orphans in their affliction and keep oneself unstained from the world. So he is drawing on that language of being ritually pure, ritually clean. And of course, that means that you are able to be part of communal life, that you're not excluded from communal life, that you're able to enter into the presence of God. That was why that you went to the mikvah before you went to the temple. So all of this together, he is reminding us that this little thing that we hardly think of, unless there's, you know, some other issue, we bite it or something, um, can do a lot of damage spiritually, uh communally, so we have to be mindful of it. Now it would seem that he is uh changing topics, but he's really not. We'll read 13 to 18, James chapter 3, 13 to 18. Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct, let him show now you understand good conduct. This is drawing us back to wise and understanding. By his good conduct, let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is the this is not the wisdom that comes down from above. Now underline this but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. This is God's word. So he's not shifting topics. He is, as we'll see, he is drawing our attention to how our tongue, how our conduct, how how we are living in the midst of community. So he's shifting um ever so slightly to uh the damage that can be caused internally, you know, how we view ourselves, how others view us, how we are, you know, what our purity before the Lord is, and so on. And he takes us to this place of what the what is the fruitfulness of our speech? What is the fruitfulness of our speech? Remember, he said, from the same mouth come blessing and curse. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. Ought not, of course, that is the ethical ought. So we need to be mindful of what is permissive, what is permitted by the Lord regarding speech and how we are to conduct our conduct uh with each other. And so now he is shifting ever so gently to explaining the fruit of this in the community. So there's two kinds of wisdom, and both are proven by conduct. Both types of wisdom that he describes here are uh proven by conduct. So there's the wisdom from above and essentially the wisdom from below, the wisdom from God and the wisdom of man. I think the wisdom of man, we would all agree, we can justify just about anything. We can try to excuse or permit the most vile of behavior. So he shifts from speech to wisdom, wisdom which is lived out. Who is wise and understanding among you? Who is able to um let's go back to the beginning of the chapter? Um for we all stumble in many ways, and if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, he's mature, able to bridle his whole body. What does it mean to bridle the whole body? How we conduct ourselves, how we restrain ourselves. Okay, so he's he is is making this very uh intense. I mean, it really is an intense section. So who is wise and understanding among you? Who is able to uh bridle his whole person? In Jewish wisdom, in the Jewish wisdom tradition, in scripture and so on, hokma or wisdom is not something that's theoretical. It's not just uh a theory that we have, it's practical. It comes from a root to meaning uh meaning essentially to be uh skillful. And of course, that carries with it the idea of maturity, of of knowledge of something, how you should handle something. So wisdom is very practical in Jewish tradition. Um you don't have to be uh a sage, a Buddha, to be wise, to be, to have wisdom. Not every word that comes out of your mouth necessarily needs to be worthy of a fortune cookie. I don't mean that to be culturally insensitive, but it, you know, it's it's not speaking to that. It's speaking to a whole way of life, a whole manner of conduct that we need to be um attentive to here. So it's recognized by behavior shaped by humility. Remember, we spoke about meekness uh last week a little bit when we mentioned the um the Greek war horse who has been trained and he's been bridled. And because of that, you know, even though he could resist, he could fight back, he has plenty of power to do so. It's that idea of being of strength that is harnessed, strength that is restrained by the Holy Spirit, to know when to use the power, to know you when to use the strength and when not to. So we have to walk in a behavior that is shaped by humility, by meekness. So we are shaped, we are formed by the Spirit of God, as he works in us, as he's working this clay, he's working this dough, we might say, right? So he is forming in us, he's conforming us to the image of the Son of God, of course, demonstrated perfectly what meekness is. He is conforming us to the Son, the image of the Son of God, and as he does so, yeah, there's going to be times when we stumble, as he said at the beginning of the chapter. Um, but and there's going to be a natural inclination at times to respond in the way that our old man would have responded. Our quick wit, our sarcastic response, whatever it might be, our sharp tongue. But the Lord will restrain that. The Holy Spirit will restrain that so that what we speak will not be biting or necessarily jarring to the person, but rather it will be peaceable. Um so James insists that true wisdom expresses itself in good conduct and in meekness. So, how we are living the faith, what does that look like in everyday life? What does it look like to be a believer? Um, how does that shape our everyday interaction with others around us? So, this is very important. Today we'd call this in the modern uh Jewish frame, we would call this musar. So it's the Jewish tradition of ethics. And musar seeks to help refine the behavior of those who are adhering to it, those who are learning from it. So, how we conduct ourselves, how we um view, how we meditate, what we think on, what we pray on, and so on, all has to be conformed to what the Lord has commanded and given to us in Scripture. So when Yeshua is teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, he says, Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Now, the another way to translate that would be the land. We know that he is speaking to a first century Jewish audience. So for them, of course, at that time, under repression, you know, they're they're being oppressed, repressed um by the Roman Empire. So the idea of inheriting the land, which is the promised land, of course, would feature very um strongly in their ethical view. But again, blessed are the meek, blessed are those who are strong but restrained. Blessed are those who know how to conduct themselves in such a way that they don't, as I kind of talked about male bravado last week a little bit, who don't always have to put their strength on display. And so in this, they shall inherit the earth or the land. So there is the idea that of endurance that comes along with this. He who endures to the end shall be saved, of course, the Lord tells us. So if they endure in meekness and humility, even under this situation where they are being greatly oppressed, there is the promise of inheritance. And that inheritance, of course, comes only from the Lord. Because the land is his. You know, that's one of the things we read in Deuteronomy, is he says, The land is mine. You just sojourn there with me, you live there with me, right? So it's his. All of you think about the number of square miles of land on the planet, and the earth, and the Lord wants us, the Lord wants a uh a patch of earth that's about the size of New Jersey. This he says is mine. This is my special inheritance among all of the world. And it is the most hotly contested and divisive structur. Nobody's arguing over New Jersey. Not nothing against my dear friends in New Jersey. But there's not it is not there's not the same battle over New Jersey that there is over Israel. So false wisdom. Let's look at this verse, these verses again. But if you have j bitter jealousy, now he's Paul would talk about this as the lusts of the flesh, we could say the fruit of the flesh rather than the fruit of the spirit. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above. Remember, every good and every perfect gift comes down from above from the Lord, yes? So he's using this language in order to refresh and remind us. What is earthly, unspiritual, demonic? Earthly. It's of the wisdom of men. It's not the wisdom of God. It originates below, not from above. It's unspiritual. In other words, there's no life to it. There's no godly life to it. The ruach has to do with life, has to do with the breath and the body. There's no life in this. It'll lead you if we follow the wisdom of man, we see that where it leads us to, especially unbridled and fulfilling all of his desires. It's demonic. That means it originates from the influence of uh of the unbridled sin nature, but of course is influenced by the demonic realm. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder in every vile practice. There'll be disorder. For the Lord, the Lord is not the author of confusion. He wants all things to be done decently and in order. This is why we see this as pointing us to a communal application of chapter three. We don't just come in here and decide we're going to say what we want to say in the manner that we want to say it. No, we restrain our speech. Even though we have free speech in the United States, to an extent, even that is still restrained. There's still restrictions on that. If someone was to come in and talk like they were on the schoolyard, the elders would gently and carefully escort them to the door. Because it exhibits a conduct that we would not permit. It would be undignified, ungodly. Now, they are more than welcome to express themselves freely outside the doors. But we will certainly monitor people's uh articulations carefully and cautiously. So we would expect people to behave in a manner that was dignified, in a manner that was consistent with godliness and holiness. But of course, even that we can't rely on. People used to have, even people who had no faith in God whatsoever, would respect the decorum of a sanctuary. But now we can't even rely on that. That social convention has long kind of faded away. So James Kant uh contrasts godly wisdom with a counterfeit. The wisdom of men is counterfeit to the wisdom of God. Um trying to think there was a beautiful little reel that I saw this morning of Dr. John Lennox. I don't know if you're familiar with him. He's a mathematician by training, but he's an apologist. Absolutely brilliant man. I think he's one of the few what they call oxbridges in the world. He has a PhD from both Oxford and Cambridge. Um yeah, he he's he's kind of he didn't get a very high uh high uh support from his uh guidance counselor in school, so he didn't do very well. Um but wonderful man, just uh an incredibly wonderful, humble Irishman. He said something, he's a scientist. By definition, he's a scientist. That's it, I think he taught mathematics at Oxford or Cambridge, I think it was Cambridge, actually. Um and he he he spoke about how science and faith are not opposed to one another. The idea that they are comes from the science world that wants to eliminate the need for God and eliminate God entirely. And he said that the scientific process, rather than driving him away from the Lord, drove him deeper to know him, with deeper desire. And he references Isaac Newton and how Newton, after he wrote one of the greatest scientific books in history, um delved deeper into his he wrote more on faith than he did on science. And that's a that's an issue that the scientific world has to wrestle with a little bit. Um so there's this uh the counterfeit wisdom that's marked with jealousy and selfish ambition. Jealousy, jealousy in the Bible has to do with um hope I doesn't moot that. Jealousy in the Bible, maybe I can just turn that down, is how do I explain it? You have the ruach. Now you have the spirit of jealousy that comes on a husband regarding his wife. He believes that she has been unfaithful, but he has no evidence. So it's it's something that enters into your heart, into your mind. And because of that, it begins to look at everything and everyone around you in a way that is uncharitable. So the husband has no evidence that his wife has been unfaithful, but the idea that she has been. And it's a fascinating process in the Torah. What is it? Numbers five, number six, numbers five, number six. It's a fascinating process where you do a ritual before the tent of meeting, and you you drink a mixture of dirt and water and living water. It's kind of it's kind of crazy. But the point was this that the only testimony, because if she had a response, she was guilty and she died. If she did not, it meant she was innocent. Now, what are the what do they tell us about this? What do the rabbis tell us about this? The only testimony that would calm a husband's nerves about whether or not his wife had been unfaithful was the testimony of God. So the rabbis tell us that in all of the years that the temple stood, the tabernacle stood, that no woman was ever condemned before the altar of God because of adultery from the spirit of uh jealousy. So jealousy changes how we view everyone, everything. So someone that you might have been very favorable towards, if a spirit of jealousy enters into your heart over anything, it can change your entire perspective on that person. And really, the only way for that to be alleviated, that spirit of jealousy, is the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit must come in and minister to you. You have to be receptive to the Holy Spirit ministering to you in order to ease that jealousy. And selfish ambition, basically setting, you know, not caring about the condition of anyone else. You know, you have to claw your way to the top. Well, if you're clawing your way to the top, who are you clawing? Right? So it's a competitive spirit, it's a competitive nature that turns us against each other. So we have to be uh we have to be very cautious about how we are living. We need to live by the wisdom that comes to us from the from the Holy Bible, the Holy Word, and implement and walk in that. So the wisdom, uh, this wisdom, I should say, values, and he perhaps he was writing directly to this. I think there probably is a strong case that can be made for that. This wisdom, the wisdom that comes from below, reflects values of competition, honor seeking, control, all of which was deeply embedded in the Greco-Roman worldview. And of course, many religious systems and religious cultures of the time. So he is speaking against the prevailing culture, you know, and there are elements of this that are naturally accepted in our culture, right? And they're become, you know, let's say culturally institutionalized, accepted without any really any real consideration. But when he's speaking in this sense, he's again, he's writing to those who are um of faith, that are living uh uh among the nations, and that are faced with this. So again, our worldview and our manner can't be dictated to us by the world. We have to live according to how we are formed by scripture, by discipleship, by fellowship, and uh by the word of God. So this is what forms us, right? So how many years? Well, there's the, you know, we are in the season of Pesach, so there is the there's a there's a fun rabbinic expression that says, um, it only took a day for the Lord to get Israel out of Egypt, but it took 40 years to get Egypt out of Israel. And that is part of the process is that as we grow and mature, who is perfect among you, right? The one who can bridle his whole body. You know, who is being matured? How are we being matured? You you all suffering my my, you know, long and often winding uh messages every week as part of your formation in faith to learn to endure to the end. It's maturity, so you're welcome. You prayed for patience, and I showed up to preach. There you go. So we have to not be informed by the world regarding our conduct and our manner and our demeanor, but rather by the word of God and spirit of God. So James's language is strong. Such wisdom, again, is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. Well, that doesn't sound like it's very charitable. And that's the point. You have to, again, there is a strong remedy that comes with for strong delusion. If this is influenced, he wouldn't be commenting on this if there was not a degree to which this was being observed among believers. Right? Paul makes many comments that if we take them in isolation, we wonder why on earth did he write this? Well, because there's evidence of it among those that he's discipling. And it's the same here. Unless there was some degree to which, as uh believers are coming in as the as they're being born again and they're being discipled and they're uh coming into the kingdom of God, that there are uh lingering impact or lingering influence of the broader society on the congregations, on the people. And so James is discipling. James is discipling us. He's helping us to see that, you know, in our quiet time, in our times of reflection, we have to measure our response, measure our reaction, measure our emotion. Where does this come from? Where does this spirit of jealousy come from? Where does this anger come from? Where does the, you know, and be uh aware of just how much influence society has on us. Remember, where to be the salt in the society, where to be the light in the society, where to be the influence in the society, not the other way around. And unfortunately, with the modernization of the church, with the monetization of the church, with the um theatrical uh element that comes in with the body of uh Christ today, you know, the appeal we can't appeal to the world for them to come in. I'll be honest with you, and I say this in all love and all charity. Broadway does entertainment far better than the body of Christ. So leave Broadway with their entertainment. That doesn't mean we can't do things, but leave leave the entertainment world to Broadway. They do it far better. This is where we preach the word of God, we pray for each other, we render, give worship to the Lord, where we fellowship together. For what? The upbuilding of the saints. We don't appeal, you know, when an unbeliever comes in, we don't change the message to suit that person. The Holy Spirit will do the work of conviction and the work of conversion, and then we'll do the work of discipleship. But if you are, I look, I think, and I and I'm seeing, and I'm sure you're seeing this too. You've got John Q Pastor and wife. Friends, we really want to invite you to our Easter services here this Sunday. We're preparing a special program just for you. This isn't about them. Your resurrection Sunday service should not be about those people out there. It's for the saints of God to celebrate the resurrected Christ. It's not about your show, it's about celebrating that the tomb is empty, that he lives. But we have to put on a show, otherwise, the world won't come. This assembly is for the upbuilding of the saints of God and faith, then to go out and do the mission. That's the mission field. This isn't the mission field. Where does it say by our door? What direction is that going? Out. You are now entering your mission field, and it's going out the door, not in the door. This is where you come to have the rabbi come and you know put a little salt in your wound a little bit and patch you up, and that's why I'm not a doctor, doc. You put a little salt in there and patch him up and get him going, but you know, now I've gone into the realm of absurd. But that's what I and I and I don't say that in any sort of judgment of them, but I think we've missed something here. Resurrection Sunday is not for entertainment spectacle, it's to celebrate that he lives. And because he lives, we live. And because he is ascended to the Father, he will return just as he's promised. The body needs that message. Don't diminish it, we can't diminish it. Oh, but we gotta have the pastor come in on a zipline, and we gotta have him come down on the stage, and we gotta make it rain on the stage so that people really understand we're committed to Christ. No, and we got to have the pat head pastor come in on a on a tiny little uh uh roller coaster. Well, yeah, don't forget the Easter eggs, Cadbury for sure. But I I I struggle to figure out what that has to do with the gospel. Anyway, I'm off my soapbox, or maybe I'm on it, I don't know. Anyway, so Yeshua Jesus warns against this kind of religiosity, which performs righteousness to be seen by others rather than to honor God. It performs it. I'm going to do the performance of the righteous deed, but I want you to see me. I want you to see me do this good thing. No, it's better that no one but him sees you. Now, there's going to be good things we do that people see. That's not the issue. It's what's going on in here. I want people to know that I'm good. Well, you know what? Scripture says there is not one good. No, not one. But I want them to know how righteous I am. But your righteousness is imputed, you wretched, wretched man. Aren't you glad you guys came today? So we can't be, and and Messiah deals with this in Matthew 6, doing our deeds to be seen by men, to be seen by those who are around us. So we have to be cautious and careful. So true wisdom comes from above. It comes from above, and what does it do? It transforms us, changes us. It causes us to do this simple deed, but to do it well. I love um, you know, uh David in the Psalms tells us to play skillfully before the Lord. That's why I guess you know I get really hard on myself when I don't feel like I played skillfully or sang skillfully. I'm not that I'm a I don't really have a good voice to sing. It's just the you want to go before him and and raise up something that is worthy. And of course, that comes from your heart. So this wisdom that comes from above transforms how we live, how we interact, what we're doing, what we do. So it is in our interaction, it is applying the word of God, skillfully applying. How do you skillfully let me give you an example of how do you skillfully apply the word of God? This is a $10,000 theological answer. Joe last week saw me coughing. What did he do? He got me a bottle of water. Right? As simple as that is is skillful wisdom before the Lord. Somebody has a need, you meet the need. Not complicated. Do we overcomplicate it? Rabbi's coughing. I'm gonna go down and get him a uh uh what are those shakes? What are those shakes down at McDonald's? Um shamrock shake. I'm gonna get him a shamrock shake because he's coughing. No, he would be doing something else after that. Mike Green and I, he loves shamrock shakes. I brought one up when I was about 10, and I haven't been able to smell them since. Since I'm 35, that wasn't that long ago. No, it's oi oi oi oi oi. Anywho. So this contrast, uh, the wisdom from above is is characterized by distinct moral and communal fruit. So again, the first half of the chapter is dealing with the internal reality, the formation of the man, uh of God. Um when I say man, man, woman of God, trying to reduce it a little bit, but to form the person of God who has been converted, who has been born again, and is now walking out uh the commandments of God, that inner formation to remind us we can't bring forth blessing and curse from the same fountain, right? So there's a distinct moral and communal fruit. Now we're into the communal fruit part of this. First, it's pure, it's unmixed and motive. It's unmixed and motive, it's pure. And really, when it comes to the purity laws of any shade, it has to do with keeping something from having been intermingled. And now the the lesson that we can't we had we draw from that is that we ourselves, right? We can't be double-minded, double-toned, double-souled. We can't be um mixed, we can't have our our biblical worldview and our world, you know, and our secular worldview. We can't separate, we have to be pure, we have to be uh seeking the Lord in these things. So the motive has to be pure. What we're doing has to be pure. That would be um we talk about the motive behind our action. What motivated you to do this act? Was it the love of God, the the desire to serve uh humanity, your brother and your sister, your neighbor, your stranger, your enemy, and so on. So again, we have uh in that formation that I've count uh I've stated so many times that Christian ethics is the word of God applied to a situation by a person. Now, I always add that it is the person is the ethical actor, is the renewed actor. So the motivation of the renewed actor is in all things to glorify God. Whatever you do, do it to the glory of God. Yes? So if that is our motivate motivating factor, that we desire to glorify God, and that the person receiving the act would glorify God, then we know that our motive is pure. It's unmixed with with ambition, selfish ambition. Well, if people see me give a bottle of water to someone, and they're gonna say, what a righteous man this is. What a righteous man this is. No, we've then we've already that's already been disqualified. It's an action that has already been disqualified. So we'd be mindful of that. Peaceable, being oriented towards reconciliation. We're talking about uh all kinds of issues with forgiveness today, grace today, and the men's group, and so on. That we can't uh hold on. We can't hold the grudge, we can't hold on to unforgiveness, we can't hold the debt that someone else owes us. We can't physically carry that, we can't spiritually carry that. That's a weight that none of us can bear. We can't walk in faith and unforgiveness at the same time. That would be what? An impure mixture. Can't. Now, does that mean that we'll necessarily be perfectly reconciled with someone? No, but in our heart we will not be divided. We will not be divided. So to be peaceable, to be peaceable now, Messiah said, Blessed are the peacemakers, not the peacekeepers. There's a distinction there. So to make peace, to make reconciliation, and this is very Jewish language. We sing this every week, uh say shalom. Um so it's a very Jewish perspective of how we uh reconcile, how we bring together. What is peace in the English vernacular? It's the sensation, a cessation of againstness. And forgiveness is a proclamation we might say that says, I'm I'm not against you anymore. You're not against me anymore. We're not adversarial anymore. We might not lock arm in arm and sing kumbaya as we go skipping down the sidewalk, but at least we've removed that obstacle of coming together, right? So we have to be, we have to be peaceable. We have to be in a posture of seeking peace, of reconciliation, of forgiving that debt because of how much we have been forgiven. Right? How much have we been forgiven? What did the Lord forgive of us? Everything. It's a debt that we could never repay if we had 10,000 lives here on earth. We could never repay even a small portion of that. But he's forgiven it. And of course, in the uh, you know, the unfaithful uh servant, when he has been forgiven the years' worth of taxes of the uh Judean region to the Roman Empire, when he's been forgiven that, but he won't forgive a few shekels, right? And that really is what a lot of what we do is a few shekels. Yeah, it hurts. You know, there's pain that comes from it, but you know what? Quite often there are a few shekels on the way. So we have to be able to forgive that and let that debt go and eliminate that debt. Why? Because we have been forgiven this Mount Everest of debt before the Lord. Right? So gentle. Considerate rather than harsh. Sometimes, you know, we can be so masculine it's hard to be gentle. Right? I have to remind myself that the kids aren't as strong as I am, so when I pick them up and throw them across the room, you know. So we have to be considerate. How do we be considerate? Small gestures at first. You can you can learn to see someone's humanity, and I always go back to this because it's something all of us can do. You recognize someone's humanity when you hold the door open for them. Uh I had a woman hold the door open for me yesterday. I was absolutely mortified. I was absolutely mortified. She got to the handle of the door before I did. And she held the door open for me. Of course, I said, Well, thank you, ma'am. And I walked through the door. Thank you, ma'am. Made sure she heard. It and of course she said, You're welcome, sir. Sir. Maybe she was offended at it because she was, you know, young, right? But that I was mortified. But maybe she needed that. You know, you never know what the Lord's doing there. But I say that because I have a habit, if I'm going in or out of anywhere through a door, I'm looking ahead. Is anybody coming? Looking behind, is anybody coming? And I'm waiting. And I'll wait. I'm one of those guys that if I see you coming from across the parking lot, I'll stand there waiting for you. But that teaches us, it trains us to be gentle, to recognize someone's humanity, to some recognize someone's life. And I think that's a that's a it's probably it may be a slight exaggeration of what James is saying, but I think it's a good practice. So consider it rather than harsh. It's easy to be harsh. You ever notice that? I think it is. No? This for me. It's my natural way. I'm about as subtle as a never mind. But I can be harsh. I I know I can be harsh. Yeah, I know I'm very good at it, though. It is a it's a gifting, not from the Lord. Yeah. So we need to learn to be gentle and not harsh. So we have to be open to reason. That's teachable. Open to reason. Come let us reason together, says the Lord. But we need to be reasonable. We need to uh teachable. We need to be able to communicate with each other. Um take in some of the wisdom that someone else has been blessed with. That's why I like to surround myself with other deeply passionate people about the Lord. When it comes to leadership, when it comes to advisors, those who have the years of maturity under their feet, um, and still have a passion, a desire, a wisdom that that comes with that. Because you need to remain, you have to recognize that you don't know everything. A teachable posture. Are we teachable? Do we do we continue to learn? Talmud says that Talmud asks the question: who is wise? The one who can learn from anyone, or everyone, I think it says, the one who can learn from everyone. So sometimes when I pray, Lord, give me patience, Lord, let me grow in patience, let me grow in wisdom, Lord, let me grow in learning, Lord. He'll He'll give me real life. Real life helps along the way. And then when you pray the same, I walk through the door. So we have to be full of mercy and good fruit. And that comes from faithfulness. How do we how do we cultivate mercy? Always remember what the Lord's done for us. Always remember how the Lord has interacted with us, what he has given to us. We've received grace, we've received mercy. If we keep that in mind, it becomes much easier to extend it. We become merciful again. Mercy is a type of uh of care, protection. So we begin to uh we begin to move in an active compassion, right? So we we take part in someone's life, we help come alongside of them. In the earlier uh in chapter two, um he said, Hey, if you know someone has a need, fill it. But if you know they have a need but you don't, that's sinned to you, right? So we have to be mindful of the needs of others, we have to be uh willing to come alongside of them in the time of need. And all of this is wisdom that comes from from above. It's wisdom that is that is given to us through the word of God. So we have to be impartial and sincere. Don't be a hypocrite. Being impartial, looking at everyone the same way. Everyone. Doesn't matter if you're rich, doesn't matter if you're poor, doesn't matter if you're uh upper upper, lower middle class, blue collar, white collar, no collar, doesn't matter. What matters is coming to a knowledge of the truth through the word of God, of our need for a savior, our need for salvation. So we have to flee, be free, and flee from hypocrisy. We can't pretend, we can't act, don't assume, don't put on a mask. Today I'm gonna wear my righteousness and my righteous mask. I'm gonna put on my Jesus face. There's the comedian who's a Christian comedian, he's very funny. He talks about I can't remember his name. Oh, he's very funny. He talks about calling a woman from the church. So you know, he calls her and then he says that apparently I called her on their day off. Because she she answered the phone and said, How did you get this blankety blank number? And then he he said, Well, this is so and so from the church, and she said, Well, praise the Lord, brother Apparently she was off duty at the time. She was definitively off duty at the time. All right, so the description, uh, this type of uh description, uh pure, peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy, good fruit. I think this list is on your notes, isn't it? Impartial and sincere. Um parallels the ethical vision, the vision of conduct that Messiah gives us in the Sermon on the Mount. He says he emphasizes peacemaking. Uh, blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Matthew 5 and verse 9. So James concludes with uh an agricultural image, verse 18, that is very familiar to Jewish audiences. So in a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. There's a harvest. Remember, we're laborers in the harvest field of God. It doesn't matter if you're ordained clergy, uh, it matters that the body of Christ are the laborers in the vineyard. They're the laborers in the harvest field. So when we when we you know what it's not your job to try to tend to the whole harvest field, but to tend that anchor that acre that the Lord has entrusted to you. Just to tend to the part of the field that he's entrusted to you. That's all he wants. Don't go into someone, don't go over where someone else is uh is is working and and muck it up. Right? Tend to the acre that he has given to you. Do something, but make sure it's where he's given you to do it. So harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. So righteousness, zadaka. I was listening to the study yesterday and how the she was talking about it, but she kept she she said that yeah, it was very very klept and staccato, it wasn't very smooth. Um she said sadaka, or I mean it was very, yeah, it was very interesting. Anyway, so righteousness. Righteousness in in Jewish thought is communal as well as personal. How's that? Well, you have you have a personal righteousness, a straightness. Of course, our righteousness is not ours, it's the righteousness that we've received from Messiah. And then in Deuteronomy 16, it says, Righteousness, righteousness you are to pursue. And that's the pursuit of righteousness in the community. And that we would say is justice. And unfortunately, the language of justice today has been very muddied by the secular world's use of justice, injustice. So justice, according to scripture, is and it can be very easy. Um I was talking to a brother that I want him to do some work for me. Of course, you know, he wants to honor me by not charging me. And I said, no, that's unrighteous. If you want to give me a dollar an hour to charge you, that's fine. No, I'm just kidding. Um, no, but that's the thing. You know, what I tried to explain is righteousness is this. It has to be right for you and right for me, right? So it has to be equitable. So I agree to the rate that he is charging. He does the work. It's right, it's right, it's righteous. We've pursued righteousness. So righteousness is personal straightness, personal correctness. It has to do with just that. The idea of standing up straight. You're not hunched over in shame, you're standing up straight. Of course, we're able to stand up straight because we're in Messiah, not because of our own righteousness, but what his righteousness has done in us and what it is doing in the community. So that changes how we interact with each other in the community. Not just this little community here, but the broader community. I don't go in and say, uh, you know, I I I want that wonderful uh Greek gyro that I love so much, but I'm only willing to pay this. You know what he's gonna say? I'm I'm editing this for continuity's sake, um, or legacy's sake. No, that's not how this works, right? So we live that, we live righteousness out in the community by ensuring that justice is done, done justly according to what scripture. So we have to be cautious and careful of our weights and our measures. We have to be cautious about how we are conducting ourselves in business, conducting ourselves in faith and so on. All of that is righteousness. But there's communal righteousness and there is uh personal righteousness, which was why, particularly in Yom Kippur, you see a communal sacrifice for the waywardness of the community. Because you can see very easily, all we have to do is look at the world stage today, and we can see how a nation can collectively go astray. Right? So there needed to be forgiveness for the nation, the people of Israel. But there also needed to be forgiveness for the individuals who make up that nation. There had to be, right, there had to be forgiveness for the priest who leads that nation. So there had to be uh that's why it's Yom Hakiporim, the day of atone mints. It's plural. Because it's not just this atonement, that it's this one, that one, and that one, right? I've lost you all, I apologize. So it grows where peace is cultivated. Righteousness grows where peace is cultivated, not where rivalry dominates. You ever have rival factions within a church? Yeah, it happens. Yeah. And how does that happen? What is that, what fruit comes from that? None, nothing godly. Yeah, the Lord will chop it down. So we can't have rivalry dominating or rivalry uh inspiring or directing our steps, but we need to cultivate, and that's that word cultivate, this idea of sowing, of course, he's he doesn't have to give us the whole picture. He he knows that this society and those who he's writing to will understand you have to prepare the field before you sow. You have to break up the soil, you have to go through and do the work. Yeah, you gotta do the things, take care of people. You have to do the breaking up of the soil, you have to prepare it to receive the the seed. And of course, and uh shalom is to make whole. It's to make whole. And you know, that's I love I love the greeting. It's always translated as how are you, mashlemcha in in Hebrew, how are you? But it's not that's not what it's saying, saying, How's your peace? How's your peace? Mashlomcha or mashlem chachlamek, if I was talking to you, as a woman. So you say, mashlomcha. And they're probably gonna say, but said, I'm in order. I'm together, I'm in the way that I should be. Because peace, shalom, talks about being wholly together. Yeah. So that's one of the things that we you know, we we we're mindful of is that so much uh, you know, the Hebrew language is even modern Hebrew has so much righteous language mixed in with it because of its where it's derived from. So uh to ask someone, how's your peace? How how are how's your heart? How are you? And the sensibility is not always the same as it is in the United States. It might just be, I'm gonna give you my my list, but but it's it's an inquiry that allows us to evaluate what part of what part of someone's the field of someone's life is the Lord working in? And what do we need to sow into that part of their life? What wisdom from the word of God, what encouragement, what hope can we sow into? And I will tell you this. If you learn to discern how the Lord is working, I'm gonna use that field metaphor again. If you can learn to discern how the Lord is working in someone's field and help them by encouraging them in some way, as the Lord uh leads to break that up a little bit and get some seed in there, that's gonna spread into other parts of their life. But it takes time and you have to have these open. These have to be open. And the Lord will give you the wisdom to share. So wisdom is not proven by brilliance, neither is righteousness, and I'm sad to say that that's not the case, is not proven by it. Doesn't you know you're not wise because you're brilliant. Some of the most ineffectual dumbest acting people I've ever met are geniuses who can tell you everything about the flux capacitor, how to build it. It's a good, it's a good reference. Was that a little exaggerated? I thought that was pretty good. Come on, people. Thankfully, the Lord has not blessed me with such brilliance that I am, you know, virtually useless. I have just enough to keep the lights on, that's about it. So wisdom is not proven by brilliance, but by the fruit it produces in the community. So, right from the beginning of the chapter, the you know, bridling this thing, being mindful of what this tongue is doing, and how that'll impact and bring forth the fruit of the spirit. I mean, that's you know, what we if you bring forth the fruit of the spirit in your community, others are gonna taste and see that the Lord is good and they're gonna bless him. And then everything that you're doing is for his glory. So just to conclude the chapter, James 3 confronts the reader with a demanding truth. Maturity in faith is revealed by mastery of speech. Well, just proven that uh I have a ways to go on that front. And submission to divine wisdom. I know nobody likes that word submission these days, but the Bible uses it, so do I. So words shape communities. Words shape communities. You ever thought about that? Words shape communities. What do we speak when we're together? Wisdom, and think about the national narrative. There's no greater example than the talking heads on our screens who shape literally the kid the social structure of our nation by words.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:50

So we have to be cautious, attentive, mindful, all those words I use all the time, about the influence that words have. Words are shaping by by way of these little rectangles that we can't, these extra appendages that we can't get rid of. I will tell you this is an interesting statistic. That hold on, I'm gonna pull that up because I I've got a little paper that I'm preparing on it, but um is it here? It's gotta be here. Okay. On average, now this is what I stand up against, and this is what every mindful pastor stands up against as well. We have what we call algorithm discipleship. Algorithm discipleship. So on average, on average, before you come through those doors, if you are an average user of one of these little things, you have had 49 hours of screen time each week. What is that 49 hours of screen time filling you with? So imagine you have to speak to an you know to a congregation of people, each of whom have been discipled by their algorithm to think, to expect, and to want their new opinion that has been discipled into them confirmed by the talking head in the pulpit. And he has his own algorithm that he has to overcome. So we see how these little things are shaping our world. Forty-nine hours is the minimum, that's the excuse me, that's the average each week. God bless you. I have no idea, man. Seven hours a day. Yeah. So think about that. It's a lot of time, and that is influencing how you view everything. So it's no longer reading to take in information. It's even more sinister, we would say, because it enters through here and through here. So it gets the auditory learner, it gets the visual learner, it's all of us. So now we see why it was so devastating during the lockdown period of time, the COVID time, because every single person was being discipled by their chosen teacher outside of the church house, and then confronting their pastor inside the church house because they differed from the guy that was on the YouTube or whatever they were watching that said this thing. What does that do? It creates disorder, it creates confusion, it creates division, and judging by the numbers across the country, still, it worked and it was very effective. To the negative. So word-shaped communities, wisdom determines whether these communities reflect the kingdom of God or the disorder of the world. So drawing, and this will be my conclusion. I went long this week. But I went short last week, so you're welcome. Drawing from Jewish wisdom tradition and echoing the teaching of the Messiah, James calls believers to integrity of speech. That's what we discussed last week. Humility and leadership, wisdom that produces peace. That's skillfulness, all right? Skillfully applying the Word of God. So in a fractured and contentious world, James insists that faith must sound different, must not be the same as the world, must be marked by truth, restraint, and mercy. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:59

Amen. Thank you for joining us. And until our next episode, may the Lord bless and keep you in the name of Messiah Jesus. Amen.