The following was originally preached on Sunday, September 21, 2025 at Christ Church Leavenworth as part of our sermon series through the book of James.
Christ Church Leavenworth
James 3:13-18
September 21, 2025
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OT READING: Jeremiah 17:5-10
NT READING: Matthew 12:33-37
A Word to the Wiseacres
READING OF THE TEXT
Our text this morning is James 3:13-18, these are the words of God
Who is wise and understanding among you? 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 not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.
The grass withers, the flowers fade, but the Word of our God stands forever.
PRAYER
Our Father and our God, we come before You this morning through Jesus Christ, our Lord, and in the Holy Spirit. Prepare our hearts and our minds to receive Your Word. Give us eyes to see and ears to hear. Send us Your wisdom from above that we might advance Your Kingdom down here below. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.
INTRODUCTION:
This morning we are continuing our study of the book of James. Last week, James taught us that not many of us should become teachers. The first reason why was the subject of last week’s sermon, the taming of the tongue. Because many words often lead to much transgression, most people should talk less, not more. Remember what James taught us back in 1:19: you have two ears and one mouth, use accordingly. Yet most people would rather talk at others than listen to God. Why? It is more fun to tell other people what you think they should do than it is to listen to what someone else thinks you should do. We are, by nature, wise in our own eyes which is to say that we are, by default, fools. We want to be heard, but we do not want to listen. The test of wisdom, however, is not how many people are listening to you, but who you are listening to and how well.
The topic of last week’s text on the tongue and today’s text on wisdom can thus be combined into one familiar maxim: “it is better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.” Wisdom is not only knowing what to say, it is knowing when to shut up. Wisdom is not just giving good advice, it is taking good advice and putting it into practice. Not many should strive to be teachers because most are not willing to receive their wisdom from someone else. Most people want to be considered a source of wisdom, not a seeker of it. Most would rather be the teacher than the student, and that is precisely why James says that more people should be sitting in the classroom than standing at the chalkboard.
So, how do we know who is worth listening to? How can we tell who is truly wise and worth listening to and who is just wise in their own eyes? That is a good question and it is the topic of today’s text. Turn with me to James 3:13-18.
SUMMARY OF THE TEXT
(13) How do we know who is wise? Look at their lives. Wise trees produce wise fruit. Do not merely listen to what they think you should do, but look at what they have done and what they are currently doing. Do they follow their own counsel? And if they have, how did it turn out for them? Take that into account when you decide whether to take or leave their advice. The principle is clear: if anyone wants to give advice, he must first live a good life. Wisdom is not just knowing what to do, it is doing what you know, especially when no one else is watching. Wisdom is moral strength under control, which is to say it is meek. Wisdom is strong enough to be overlooked. (14) Pride, on the other hand, is too weak to be ignored. It is easily offended and often embittered. As a result, it often threatens to take its ball and go home. But if a person quits because other people are not paying attention, or not paying enough attention, then it wasn’t meekness that was making that man go, it was self interest. Mercenary ambition is not fueled by wisdom, it is wound up by wounded pride. It needs to be noticed, but it is all advertising and no product. Few things are more foolish than telling everyone else how wise you are. No one wins a humility contest. If you win, you lost. (15) Pride is the folly of Hell, not the wisdom of Heaven. It comes from the pit and yet it still somehow has the audacity to look down on others. Worldly wisdom is all elbows. It is always trying to box someone else out. It subscribes to the idea that it cannot win unless someone else loses and that it cannot succeed unless someone else fails. But no one has ever strutted through the pearly gates on the backs of others. Heaven has secure borders. (16) Where sin is sown, it grows; and where evil is conceived, it is born. The Devil never aborts his own babies. And as ugly as jealousy and selfish ambition are when they are little, they get even worse when they grow up. If you think a two year old throwing a tantrum at the grocery store is disturbing, wait until you see a twenty year old throwing a gender reveal party for zemself. Sins are like bananas, they always come in bunches and they’re often just as slippery. As we often acknowledge, it is Christ or chaos. And wherever chaos is running wild it is running the lowest common denominator down as far as it can go. (17) But where Christ is acknowledged as King, purity, peace, kindness, reason, mercy, equity, increase, and honesty thrive and prevail. Make the tree good and the fruit will follow. The fruit is fed by the root. (18) The seeds of sanctification produce a bumper crop of righteousness. Wisdom is justified by her children. You will reap what you sow. If you sow with seed from above, you will reap a harvest of peace. If you sow with seed from below, you will reap a cornucopia of chaos.
SERMONS HAVE YOU SURROUNDED
No one likes a know-it-all and that is what a wiseacre is. They do not, as it turns out, actually know it all, but that fact does not stop them from acting like they do; and that is why no one likes being around them. And whatever they do know is cancelled out by how they act. No one wants to hear from them because no one wants to be them.
But the etymology of the word “wiseacre” reveals that it is much worse than that. It is not just a matter of being a smart aleck, it’s a matter of being in sin. Wiseacre comes to us from the Middle Dutch word, “wijssegger.” You can hear it, right? So, what does wijssegger mean? Soothsayer or prophet… as in false prophet. So, a wiseacre is not just someone who thinks and acts like they know it all, they are someone who gets what they know from the world below and not from God above. They have lots of thoughts about what is going on, but none of them are informed by God or His Word. And in our day, these wiseacres are everywhere: on book shelves, on television, on the radio, and online.
We are surrounded by their sermons. Everywhere we go, someone is preaching something. Every movie we watch has a message, every show we plop our kids down in front of is preaching, and every song we sing along with is a sermon. Some people say that they don’t like going to church because they don’t like being preached at, but what they should say is that they don’t like the kind of preaching they hear at church. They prefer the preaching of their favorite podcasters and the sermons of their favorite singers, but enough about Taylor Swift and the Gospel Coalition. Ideas are everywhere and the moral marketplace is flooded with truth claims. Someone is trying to tell us about the way it really is and what they think we should do about it, and don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe. Cell phones, social media, and streaming services have virtually guaranteed that we are always hearing some kind of sermon. By the grace of God, this can be harnessed for good if you wisely select who and what you allow to influence you, but because of the laziness of men, this more often ends up with people being evangelized by the world without even knowing it. The world knows that if it gives you a moment’s rest, you might see the flowers and be reminded of the Words of Jesus and the fading glory of Solomon or you might hear the birds and remember that our Father in Heaven feeds them even though they don’t have grocery stores. So, the world’s strategy is to pin you down with a barrage of endless noise. The world doesn’t mind if you call yourself a Christian as long as you don’t think, act, or live like one. C.S. Lewis said it this way, “The modern world says to us aloud, ‘You may be religious when you are alone,’ and then it adds under its breath, ‘and I will see to it that you never are alone.’”
So, if everything is preaching, we need to pay more attention. We come prepared on Sundays to hear a message. We get up, get dressed, drive to church, sit down, stand up, sing a few songs, hear the Word, and then sit down again. It’s all right there in the bulletin. You were ready for this one. But James wants us to be ready wherever we are because the world does not wait until Sunday and it doesn’t give you the courtesy of telling you when it’s going to preach. This is not the first sermon you have heard today and it will not be the last. We are swimming in a sea of sermons; and each one is either telling the truth about God or it is lying. It is either proclaiming the peace of Christ or it is promoting the chaos of sin. It may be a well-produced and popular chaos or even a best-selling, critically acclaimed chaos; but if it is not from above, it is from below.
So if we are going to make sense of the world around us, we need wisdom; and according to James, we only have two options: wisdom from above and quote unquote “wisdom” from below. The first is real wisdom and the other is wisdom in name only, WINOs if you prefer. The first is from God and the other is from men. The first comes down to us from up above and the other is manufactured by us down here below. The one is a guarantee from God and the other is the best guesses of men. These are the only two ways of making sense of the world around us. There is no third way. Sorry, I know I said I was done with the Gospel Coalition. I promise I will stop now. To recap, there is Christ, who is the wisdom of God, and there is chaos, which is the wiles of the world. There is peace, patience, and prosperity and there are riots, restlessness, and ruin. The one from above must be memorized and meditated upon and the one from below must be marked as junk, blocked, and deleted. You should take God’s Word to heart and you should take the world’s wisdom to the woodchipper. So, how do we know who to listen to and who to ignore? That is the first question James addresses.
WISDOM IS JUSTIFIED BY HER CHILDREN
“Wisdom is justified by her children.” (Luke 7:35). If you want to know who is wise, look at their lives, especially their offspring. What kind of kids does their creed create? What type of fruit does their preaching produce? This is the reason why many of you are now here in the CREC. I know, at least, that is one of the reasons I am here. Like some of you, a few years ago I found myself looking around hoping to find someone to help me keep my kids and spread the leaven in my lifetime.
So, I naturally looked for someone who had already kept their kids and who was gaining ground against the lump. That led me to Moscow. I saw what they had done and what they were doing and I wanted that for me and my family. But I could not afford to move to Moscow. So, we began attending Fight Laugh Feast conferences in order to meet like minded men. We met many of you in Franklin, TN and shortly thereafter we put our home on the market and moved to Leavenworth. If you want to be a good and godly man, you need to find good and godly men and be where they are and do what they are doing. Wisdom is justified by her children. Good advice is only as good as the world it produces.
WISDOM IS ONLY AS GOOD A THE WORLD IT PRODUCES
You should not be taking advice from people you do not want to be like; and anyone who has shipwrecked their faith or their family should not be pushing their advice upon anyone, unless, of course, it is to warn others by saying, “Do not go that way or do what I did.” Such people should be working harder to take counsel than they should be looking for opportunities to give counsel. If a man thinks he is wise, according to James, he should put his wisdom where his mouth is. Instead of starting a podcast, he should start repenting. Instead of building his brand, he should begin with having something worth selling. And that begins at home. You cannot export what you do not produce. The first and best indicator of a person’s wisdom is the fruit they produce in their own garden. In 1 Timothy 3:4-5 the apostle Paul puts it this way: “(If anyone aspires to be listened to) he must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church?” If those who know you best don’t listen to you, why should anyone else? If your own wife doesn’t take your advice why should someone else’s? And why would another man want a marriage or a family like yours? You should not start a blog if those who know you don’t listen to you, but you might consider starting one if those who know you encourage you to. This is where James’ warning about bitter jealousy and selfish ambition applies. Many a podcast has been started by someone because an audience of one’s peers could not be found. Sometimes a man or woman who is not taken seriously at home strives to be taken seriously somewhere else. They take to social media because they get more likes there than they do around their own dinner table.
So, first things first: live a life worth imitating before you ask someone to imitate it and do not follow people you do not want to be like. Consider Hebrews 13:7 “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.” When a particular way of seeing the world is pushed all the way to the corners, what does it look like? What kind of people does it produce? What kind of world does it build? Where one looks for wisdom will determine where that one will go. Hebrews 13 punctuates this point in the very next verse (8), when it says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” In other words, true wisdom does not change. It looks the same in the end as it did in the beginning. That is why in the Gloria Patri, which we sing here every week, we say, “as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be… world without end. Amen.”
Jesus Christ is the wisdom of God and He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is wisdom incarnate. He did not just say what the Father said, He did what the Father told Him to do. So, if you want to be wise, do what Jesus says. But what if you haven’t? What if you have been listening to the wisdom of the world? What now? Do what Jesus said to do… repent. Change your mind. Confess your sin and stop relying on yourself. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and (stop leaning on) your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths. (Pr. 3:5-6) Can God draw a straight line with crooked stick? Yes, if that crooked stick submits to His hand and the line is drawn according to His standards. Otherwise, crooked is and crooked does. And just to be clear, there are no straight sticks. If you think you’re not crooked, your view of things is slanted. And anyone claiming to set you straight without appealing to the wisdom from above is just going to draw another wonky line with its wonky wisdom. A culture will resemble the ideas on which it is built just as a child will resemble his parents. The way you train up a child is, after all, the way he will go, for better or for worse.
ROTTEN FRUIT FOR SALE
This reminds us of our NT reading this morning. Take a look at Matthew 12:33-37. A tree is known by its fruit. What does Jesus call people who want a booth at the farmer’s market but don’t have any produce to sell? A brood of vipers. That is strong language. If you don’t think so, try calling someone “a son of a snake” and see what happens. Some would say that using language like this is going too far. “That’s not very winsome” they might say, “and If you want to win some, you have to be winsome, right?” Jesus says, “Wrong! That kind of wisdom is the kind that comes from below and keeps the snake oil salesmen in business. Anyone who blows sunshine deserves some blowback.” Again, you cannot export what you do not produce. If you are a rage farmer you will not have peace and quiet to sell at the fall festival.
So, hear me out: if your life is a mess, why should anyone think you could help them put theirs in order? As D.L. Moody once said, “If a man doesn't treat his wife right, I don't want to hear him talk about Christianity.” The same could be said about children. Keeping the covenant in your own home is the basis for preaching to other people in theirs. (1 Tim 3:5) Thin soup with people who love and respect you is better than a fat steak with people who don’t want to be like you when they grow up. If all of your babies are monsters, why should other people want to take your parenting advice? Wisdom is justified by her children. Our children tattle on us, for better or for worse. The same is true for folly. As Pastor Wilson once noted, “Folly is identified by her children, and all of them are pretty ugly and really stupid." What else would you call earthly, unspiritual, demonic disorder? If you don’t think that’s ugly, you need ugly lessons. Unbelief and boasting have ruined more lives and murdered more people in the last hundred years than fights over faith have in our first six thousand years combined. So, what we should say is not that folly is identified by her children, but that folly would be identified by her children if any were available for comment. Unfortunately, most of them have been aborted. Folly’s children cannot speak for themselves because their voices have been silenced. And do not kid yourself, someone, somewhere, right now, still thinks worldly wisdom like that is a good thing and they have “good” reasons for thinking that.
WE ARE NOT AS WISE AS WE THINK ARE
But those reasons are not as good as they think they are and the world is not as smart as it thinks it is. This brings us back to our OT reading from this morning. Take a look at Jeremiah 17:5-10. Anyone who trusts in himself is under a curse. His heart is turned away from God. When he looks inward for wisdom he is looking into the void. He is like a dried up bush in the desert. He is all sand and no beach.
The man who trusts in God, however, is like a tree planted by water. He is fed by the water that flows around his roots. He can handle the heat of this world because he has the living water of God. He is green and growing and produces much fruit according to his kind, even when things are difficult. He is not a dried out stick fit for nothing but the next bonfire. He knows that true wisdom does not come from within, but illness often does. Our hearts are petri dishes for poisonous fruit, but the wisdom that comes from Christ is the antidote. It can cure the sick soul and gives words of healing to anyone who hears and believes. There is a balm in Gilead, but there is no healing in Gashmu.
WISDOM IS FROM WITHOUT, NOT FROM WITHIN
Wisdom is from without, not from within. “Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered.” (Proverbs 28:26) “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.” (Proverbs 14:12, 16:25) “‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.’” (Isaiah 55:8-9) “Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.” (1 Corinthians 1:20-21) “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God.” (1 Corinthians 1:27-30)
There will always be more people who want to lead than there are people who are qualified to lead and there will always be more people that many think should lead who actually have no business leading. A man may possess skills or have a personality that people are drawn to, but if his wisdom does not come from above, no one here below should follow him. Wise counsel, it turns out, is not merely finding someone who agrees with you. And what is the end of all such wisdom? Each one of its arguments will be destroyed by the wisdom of God and every one of its lofty opinions will be struck down.
Any idea that raises itself up against the knowledge of God will be brought low. The strongholds of worldly wisdom will all be demolished and every thought will eventually be taken captive to obey Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:3-5)
CHRIST OR CHAOS
According to Pastor Wilson, "The gods of chaos are going to be cut into pieces, and it is going to be Christian worship that does it. We are putting the world in order. We do not fight against flesh and blood, but rather with the gods of chaos." So, “do not love the world or the things in the world. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and the pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God will abide forever.” (1 John 2:15-17)
We are, by nature, blind to the things of God. We walk by sight and not by faith. And that is why we need new eyes. That is why we so often pray for ears to hear and eyes to see. The ones we already have can’t. Coming to Christ, therefore, requires a transplant. We do not just need a pair of glasses, we need new eyes. The eyes of the world cannot see the kingdom of God, even with glasses; and especially not with progressive lenses. Only faith can see Christ and faith is a gift of God, not a work of the world. We cannot perform our own eye surgery. We must submit ourselves to the scalpel of the Spirit.
Jesus is either the Way, the Truth, and the Life or He isn’t. Jesus can either usher us safely into the presence of the Father or He can’t. If Jesus Christ cannot get us to God, He is a liar. If anyone else can get us to God, He is liar. But if He can and if He is the only way, we are lying when we act like He can’t or when we act like anything else can. If you want to be wise, you must first confess that you have been a fool. “Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise.” (1 Corinthians 3:18) The world, the flesh, and the devil will try to convince you not to do that. Don’t be a fool! Don’t admit that you’ve been duped. If you confess that you have been wrong no one will ever listen to you again. The way of the world is to set the trap and then mock you for falling into it. Its wisdom is one great, big phishing scam and most of us have clicked on the link at one point or another. No one wants to be that guy, but all of us have been. So, what should we do?
Listen to the wisdom of God. Back in James 1:5 he said, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.” God gives without reproach. His wisdom is not like the wisdom of the world. He does not shame you for your sins, He forgives them. He does not rub your foolishness in your face. He gladly and generously gives you wisdom. According to the world, someone who confesses their sin is untrustworthy. According to Christ, someone who refuses to confess their sins is untrustworthy.
Anyone can justify himself, but only Christ can justify you. So, if the reasons you’ve been using to justify your actions have come from below, repent. Sin can seem smart and faith can seem foolish, but it only seems that way when you’re seeing it from the world’s point of view. Anything that attempts to make sin seem reasonable is wicked. Anything that endorses evil by calling it good is an abomination. Anything that sympathizes with sin is satanic. Jesus sympathizes with sinners… not with sin. Jesus loves sinners so much that He died for them and He hates sin so much that He killed it. By faith you can be reborn and resurrected from the dead and by grace your sins will stay in that grave. That is the wisdom of God and by it we are saved.
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
PRAYER
Heavenly Father, Give us Your wisdom from above to engage the world down here below. Give us eyes to see that we might believe and be saved. Give us grace as we go out and live according to Your Word. We ask these things in Jesus’ name and we offer up the words of the prayer He taught us to pray singing…
