All right, we're going to read from James chapter 3, verses 13 through James chapter 4, verse 1.
This is God's holy word.
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 in 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.
What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you?
Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?
This is God's holy word.
We're walking through the letter of James, piece by piece, week by week.
And Philip Melanchthon, the great reformer, Lutheran reformer,
he gives us a really great summary, a helpful summary,
of everything that we've said so far in the book of James,
so we don't have to walk back through it all.
He says,
Faith alone saves, but saving faith never remains alone.
So James has told us that faith alone saves you.
You're justified by faith alone, but your faith never remains alone.
Instead, a life of faith always shows up.
It always becomes visible through good works, through conduct,
through the way you live life.
And so last time we were in James 3, we talked about words.
So when you become a Christian, your speech patterns should change.
And James talked to us about something so scary, really,
and that's that our words have such power,
power to give life, power to break people's lives.
And so we have this power made in God's image.
And he said that you will know someone's faith.
You will know that they're growing in faith by the way they speak.
Our patterns of speech have to change.
And so here today, he carries on the same logic,
but turns towards a broader concept of wisdom.
So you'll know wisdom by conduct.
You'll be able to see wisdom.
So if you walk up to somebody, you can't just say,
you can't just look at somebody you've never met before and say,
I think that this is a person of great faith, of great wisdom,
of really healthy speech patterns.
No, that's not something you can see.
It's an invisible quality that has to come out.
So James says here, who is wise?
Who is understanding among you?
Well, they will be known by their good conduct,
by the way they live their life.
Wisdom shows up.
Our faith shows up in the way we speak and the way we live.
And so that's the big question today.
Verse 13, who is wise?
And then he says, and understanding among you.
So that word understanding, who is knowledgeable among you?
One of the, some of the commentators, I should say,
think that that little phrase, wise and understanding among you,
is a way of saying who is able to be a teacher in the church.
They must have both wisdom and knowledge, wisdom and understanding.
So he's saying knowledge is not enough.
The person in the room who has great theological knowledge,
it's not sufficient that they become a teacher in the church.
Instead, there also has to be wisdom.
And he tells us what that is.
It's when faith actually manifests in your visible life,
what you actually do and how you actually live.
Talk is not enough.
Knowledge is not enough.
But wisdom shows up in good works and the way we live.
Now, that's the same thing that he said in chapter 1.
So I've said most weeks that everything in this book shows up in chapter 1.
So I'm probably being very repetitive.
So sorry about that.
But what is wisdom?
Wisdom is just maturity.
And what is maturity?
Maturity is just what James means in James 1-4,
that when you come to faith and you follow Jesus,
you start to become like him.
And he says, and you become perfect, James 1-4, teleos, perfected,
or really the word is maturing, mature.
And so wisdom is just maturity.
It's just that you've been growing in Christ-like maturity.
You follow Jesus, you become like him.
And it shows up in the way you live your life.
So let's think about that very carefully
so that we can grow into it this morning.
Number one, what is wisdom from above?
Wisdom from above, that's what he calls it.
Secondly, the war within, the problem we have.
And then finally, wisdom from above revisited.
So first, wisdom from above.
Now he gives us here in this passage a real portrait of a wise person.
And you can see the list down in verse 17.
But wisdom from above, and then he gives you these virtues,
visible virtues, pure, peaceable, gentle, open to reason,
full of mercy, full of good fruits, impartial, and sincere.
Every one of those deserves for us to linger for a while.
But we won't do that today.
But there's a logic to it.
There's an order to it.
The first thing he says is the wise life shows up as pure.
And that is being contrasted with selfish ambition and envy or jealousy
that he just talked about in the verse before.
And he's saying that purity is when you are uncontaminated by self-interest.
You are not curved in on yourself, pointing at yourself all the time.
Instead, you are other-centric, ecclesiocentric, church-centered, and other-centered.
He said that's a pure heart.
That's a heart that's like Christ.
And that's the first thing.
If you have that, if you have a heart that is turned away from self,
then everything else can follow.
So that's why it's first.
And so he gives this list, peaceable.
The Greek word there carries the weight of the Hebrew shalom.
So not just a person who avoids conflict, but actually makes peace between people.
So a wise person is a peacemaker.
You are bringing people together when they're in conflict,
especially in the local church, and you're producing shalom,
flourishing for people in a culture.
And then gentle, willing not to insist on your own rights.
That's the Greek word that's used here for gentle.
You're choosing grace instead of revenge.
That's the word gentle.
And then open to reason.
A wise person is genuinely persuadable.
So you don't come into a conversation with an agenda.
Instead, you're truth-driven.
So you are genuinely able to change your mind when you're wise.
You're open to reason.
And then sincere, impartial.
Sincere means not hypocritical.
What's true on the outside in your life is actually manifesting your heart.
So you don't live one way on the outside,
but there's something very different going on on the inside.
So that's wisdom.
All the commentators basically say that when James talks about wisdom,
there's a single word you can use, wholeness.
Wisdom is just wholeness.
It's where your outer life matches your inner life.
You're whole.
You're complete.
You're lacking in nothing, as James says.
Wholeness.
It's knowledge of God lived out.
It's understanding and wisdom.
Wisdom is actually living out the knowledge of God you have in your heart.
It's a selfless heart united with a selfless life.
It's interested in good relationships.
It's your relationship maker.
Not in the sense of dating necessarily,
but in the sense of you bring people together,
and you want to seek peace,
and you want to create a great community.
That's this idea of wholeness.
You care about the whole body, the church, the whole body.
You're ecclesiocentric in that way.
I spend a decent amount of time in my life right now
watching kids and young teens play football.
And one of the things I've noticed
that many of you who are better football knowledge people than me
already know is that you can have a really great player,
the best player, an academy player,
a 13-year-old academy player that's already been recruited
by Hibs and Harts and Rangers and so on.
But they get out on the pitch,
and they become the worst player.
And the way that they are the worst player is they don't pass.
They're not interested in assists.
They are only interested in owning the ball.
They have great understanding and knowledge with their feet.
And you watch it, and it's beautiful.
But they don't have any wisdom.
See, wisdom is wholeness.
Wisdom brings people together.
And on the pitch, if you're going to be a wise footballer,
you have to be a team baller.
You have to play team ball.
You have to be interested in assists more than scoring.
That's what he means by wisdom.
It brings people together.
It's holistic.
It's concerned about the whole group,
every single one of us in this room,
all together at the same time.
Wise people reconcile with others.
They make peace.
They say the right things at the right time.
They build community.
They're driven by truth and by gentleness and grace
at the same time.
Now, James gives us a summary word here
to summarize this whole person.
And he says it's called the meekness of wisdom.
So the one word he gives you in this passage
to say what does this look like,
it's the word meekness.
I looked up in our modern dictionaries,
Oxford, Cambridge, dictionary.com,
the way that people use the word meekness.
Modern English has, in the dictionary writers,
have ruined the word.
They've made a terrible mess of it.
So what some of the descriptions in the dictionaries are,
meekness is docile, spiritless, submissive.
One dictionary even said,
when you let others run over you.
And that's not at all what the biblical word meekness means.
And so the modern word has really messed it up.
This word pruitas, meekness,
it shows up in Socrates and Aristotle.
What they meant by it was a person
who argues their case without losing their temper.
That's how Socrates used it.
Or Aristotle said,
one who cares about justice but never seeks revenge.
So the Bible here says that meekness
is the great single word that captures
the whole of what a wise person is like.
And we could say it like this,
meekness is not the absence of strength.
It's a strength that is found somewhere else to rest
besides revenge, besides violence,
besides harsh words of insult.
And instead, it's found a place to rest
its convictions in God for everything.
So a meek person is a person who's so secure
in all that God says about them
and all that God's given them
that they are able to be gentle on the outside.
So meekness is when you are lion-like
with your convictions in your heart,
yet you look like a lamb
in the way you relate to everyone.
Lion-like on the inside,
so gentle, lamb-like on the outside.
It's when you have understanding,
knowledge of God,
and security in God.
Therefore, you become wise.
You become lion-like, yet so gentle.
I remember back in my high school years,
and I wonder if it was the same here,
there was always in every year,
every class,
that one guy,
that one girl
who everybody was afraid to cross.
Some of those people,
everybody was afraid of
because they were bullies.
And so you were afraid of getting beat up by them.
But there was always that other person.
I wonder if you had that other person.
Maybe you were that other person.
The person that you don't cross,
you don't,
nobody ever insults.
Why?
And it's because
they were so secure in themselves
that anything,
any darts that had ever been thrown at them
in the past just never stuck.
And so people stopped trying to rile them up.
People stopped trying to mess with them.
They never needed to win.
Their gentleness was so real,
but you knew that on the inside,
if there was an issue of injustice,
the bully was the one person
who was scared of them.
That's meekness.
Meekness is when you've got such security
that the darts don't stick.
And so you're able to be
so strong on the inside
that you can actually be
incredibly gentle on the outside,
incredibly lamb-like on the outside.
We, Christians in this room,
we've got so much knowledge about God,
but when we look at this list,
pure, peaceable, gentle,
able to be persuaded,
sincere, impartial,
we can look at ourselves
and see the gap
between the knowledge of God
that we have
and the people we actually want to be.
And this is the person we want to be,
but we feel,
we recognize in our lives
that we're not there yet.
And so often that's because
we look up and we say,
I know,
I can say I'm a sinner.
I can say Jesus Christ died for my sins,
but it's not helping me in this moment.
We feel that gap in our lives.
And the difference here
is the difference between
knowledge and experiential knowledge,
tacit knowledge and experiential knowledge.
You know, we can say,
I know I'm a sinner,
but have you yet come to a place
where you experience that reality?
I'm a sinner.
It brings you to tears.
It moves you.
It destroys you.
Have you come to a place
where you can move from mere knowledge
to experiential knowledge,
where you say,
I know I can say Jesus died for me,
and there's a difference
in coming and saying,
I know Jesus died for me.
That's how you move
from mere understanding
to meekness,
to wisdom.
You see here,
the way it really works,
Aristotle said,
you've got to train yourself
into this through discipline.
But here in this passage,
you'll see what James writes.
He says,
seek the meekness of wisdom.
And then later on,
he calls it the wisdom
that comes from above.
That's a language from the gospels.
Wisdom from above,
from above,
wisdom of heaven.
That's how Jesus talks
to Nicodemus in John 3
and says,
what do you need
to change in your life?
What do you need?
You need the spirit.
This is a subtle reference
to the Holy Spirit.
Wisdom from above.
Who is the Sophia from above?
It's the Holy Spirit.
And Aristotle said,
you've got to train yourself
into this,
but the truth is,
you need the Holy Spirit.
It's a gift.
It has to be given to you.
The Spirit gives it to you
by grace,
and then you seek it simultaneously.
It's both and.
It's never one or the other.
You really can become
a lion on the inside
and lamb-like on the outside,
as gentle as Jesus Christ,
and it's a gift of the Spirit.
Now, secondly,
why haven't we become
this person so far?
And we're told here,
this is why I wanted to read
just one verse of chapter 4.
It seemed like an odd place to end,
but pretend that
there are no chapter divisions.
There aren't in the original text.
There's no headings in your Bible.
You've got to take that,
cover that up with your finger.
And see, notice in verse 13,
there's a question,
who is wise and understanding among you?
Then down in chapter 4, verse 1,
there's a question,
well, what causes quarrels
and fights among you?
See, that's a frame.
On one hand,
who is wise among you?
On the other,
who amongst you are causing fights?
So he's saying,
we will know by good conduct
who is growing in wisdom.
He's talking to Christians.
And then on the other hand,
we'll know by conduct
who is not growing in wisdom,
who is foolish,
who's causing the fights
and the quarrels among you.
You see, these two questions
are the bookends
between wisdom and foolishness
in this passage.
And he tells us really plainly
the difference.
And he tells it in chapter 4, verse 1,
is the answer not this,
that your passions
are at war within you.
So what's the answer?
The answer is,
if you're a believer today
in this room,
there is a war raging
inside of you.
And the war is between
life and the Spirit,
the Spirit who is with you right now,
present with you,
and the reality that you are born
into this world fleshly.
What does he say?
Unspiritual, earthly, demonic.
And he said,
that is the war
that is raging in your life
at this very moment
in this room
as we sit here.
I just have a question for you
as we think about it.
Are you engaging in that war?
Are you aware of that war?
One of the things Paul tells us
is if you're not actively
in that war,
in that fight,
listening to the Spirit
versus listening to your flesh,
you're losing.
If you're not aware,
if you're passive,
you're losing.
And so that's why he says,
who is wise among you,
we can see.
We can see who's growing.
Who is causing fights
and quarrels among you?
It's because you're letting
your passions,
you're a believer,
but you're letting your passions
win the war
when the Spirit's gently
whispering to you
all the time
to kill those desires.
And so he's telling us here,
you really do have to engage
the fight
to put on wisdom
by fighting,
by putting away your desires.
You've got to do things
you don't want to do
because your desires
are earthly,
unspiritual,
demonic,
he says.
And so he gives you
two qualities
of what it looks like
to not be growing,
to be walking
instead of foolishness,
and they are bitter jealousy,
he lists them,
and selfish ambition.
The Greek word there
is bitter zeal,
but the word bitter
makes it into
the word jealousy
or envy
or covetousness.
And so he says
the opposite
of growing in wisdom
is to embrace
envy and covetousness,
which is in us all.
It's to let it grow.
It's to let it take hold.
There's a good kind of jealousy
when you are jealous
for a spouse
that they would be faithful.
That's a good kind of jealousy.
That's the jealousy
God has for the church.
But there is an evil
kind of jealousy,
and it's really discontentment.
It's feeling resentful
about the advantages,
the possessions,
the life that other people have.
So bitter jealousy
or envy
or covetousness
is when you say
effectively,
I just want my life
to be different
than the providence
God has given me.
And I really want
the life of the other person.
And it's a quiet reality
that rots the soul
from the inside out.
It sucks away all joy
when you're walking
through a season
of bitter jealousy
and envy
and covetousness.
And so he's telling us here,
we all,
it's not that some of us,
he's saying,
we all have this in us.
And if we're not
listening to the Spirit
and fighting bitter jealousy
and envy,
it will be growing.
Covetousness will be growing.
The second one he says
is really just a clarification
of the first,
selfish ambition.
This is what Aristotle said
about this word
that's used.
It's one word
in the original text.
Aristotle said,
selfish ambition
is the self-seeking pursuit
of political office
by unfair means.
What it means
in the Bible
is when you say,
quietly maybe,
not too loud,
but my life is about me,
my pursuits are for me.
Every relationship you have
is what am I getting
from this?
So it's a life
that's curved in on itself,
self-centric
instead of theocentric,
God-centered,
or church-centered,
other-centered.
And it's exactly the thing
that life in the Spirit
is meant to free us from.
So you know
you're becoming wise
when you can feel
that you are forgetting
about yourself more often
and more concerned
with other people
and their problems
and their issues
and the things
that are going on
in their lives.
And so James
pulls no punches.
He tells us what this is.
He says it's earthly,
meaning it's living life
as if there is nothing
above the sun.
There is no God above you.
Then he says
it's unspiritual,
living according
to the mere human reasons,
human desires.
It's actually a word
that says it's living
like an animal,
merely with animalistic desires.
And then the third thing
he says is it's demonic.
Now he's not saying
that believer
you are demon possessed.
He's saying
our natural desires
are demon like.
He's saying Satan
taught us to be like this.
This comes from
the corruption
of the Garden of Eden.
This is who we've been
ever since.
And he's calling us today
to see that
if you're not,
if you're in a place
where you're not growing,
it's not because
you're not justified
by faith.
It's because you're not
walking in step
with the Spirit.
You're not listening
to the Holy Spirit.
When you feel
the prompt
of the Spirit
saying don't go there,
don't do that,
don't look at that,
you're losing those battles
and so you're not growing,
you're diminishing,
you're becoming
more self-centered,
more curved in on self
instead of growing
in quote,
good conduct.
I'll move on
to the final point
but the word
good conduct,
he says wisdom
will show up
in good conduct,
verse 13 and 14.
We've got two words
for good
in the New Testament
and this is not the one
that is the opposite
of bad.
This is not the one
that is the opposite
of evil.
This is the one
that is opposite
of ugly.
And so the word
he uses,
you will be known,
the life of meekness
and wisdom,
you will be known
by your beautiful conduct,
not your ugly conduct.
So he's saying
that when you put
on the Spirit
and you seek the Spirit,
your life grows
into a life of beauty.
Beautiful conduct,
beautiful wisdom
is because of how
it all comes out.
The meek person
is the most dangerous person
in the room in a way.
Not because they will hurt you,
no they won't.
Not because they'll seek revenge,
they won't.
But because they do not
need anything from anybody.
And in that,
that kind of freedom
is almost incomprehensible
to a world
that is run
on selfish ambition.
almost incomprehensible.
How to change,
lastly.
How do we change?
How do we grow
into this person?
Paul says,
our natural instincts
are demon-like.
You do not need
an exorcist.
You need a Savior.
You need a Redeemer.
And so,
the wisdom from above,
thirdly and finally,
revisited once more.
Let's look at it once more.
How do we change?
Now,
we've already been told
about meekness
in the beginning of the book,
chapter 1,
verse 21.
And here's what James says,
therefore,
put away all filthiness
and rampant wickedness.
Sounds almost identical
to this passage.
And receive with meekness
the implanted word,
which will save your soul.
So,
Paul,
James gave us
exactly what we're supposed
to do back in chapter 1.
Put away
the desires of the flesh
and instead receive
with meekness,
gentleness of spirit,
the implanted word.
And so,
he tells you,
how do you change?
You've got to receive
the implanted word today.
And receiving
the implanted word
means that either
the word has already
been implanted in you
and you need to re-receive it
over and over again.
Or today,
you might sit here today
and you need to receive
the word.
What is the word?
What is the word
that you need to receive?
And when you read this list
in verse 17,
just think about it
for a second.
What is the word?
One who is pure,
peaceable,
gentle,
open to reason,
full of mercy
and good fruits,
impartial and sincere.
The word is Jesus Christ.
You need to receive
the one who is this list.
This list is a person
and that person
is Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ,
we read it
in our call to worship.
He has one moment
in the Gospels
where he gives
an autobiography,
one moment
where he talks
about himself
so clearly
in his own virtues
and it's in Matthew 11.
It was our call
to worship today.
He says,
come to me,
all you today
who are weary,
I will give you rest
for I am meek
and lowly in heart
and in me
you can find rest
for your souls.
On the night
that he was betrayed,
Jesus was standing
before Pontius Pilate,
you'll remember this,
and he says to Pilate,
if I desired,
I could call down
twelve legions
of angels
right now
to do away
with all of this,
to do away
with the cross,
to do away
with my being
brutally beaten
and murdered
by my own creation.
He said that to Pilate
and he was telling
Pilate that
but he didn't do it.
That is not weakness.
That is the most astonishing
kind of restraint
in world history.
It is meekness.
It is the lion
of the tribe of Judah
choosing to become
the lamb of God
who took away
the sins of the world.
And when he was
on the cross,
you'll remember,
he looked up
and he did something
unbelievable.
He said,
Father,
forgive them
for they do not know
what they are doing.
Father,
my murderers
do not understand
what they are doing.
That is not weakness.
That is unbelievable.
meekness.
Such restraint.
Such gentleness.
Such tenderness
to the person
that has hung him
upon the cross
to every single one
of us in this room today.
And so,
the cross of Christ
does two things
for you this morning.
First,
it shows you
when Jesus hung on the cross,
you can look at him
and realize
how sinful you are.
How full of selfish ambition
and envy
and jealousy
every one of us
really is.
How much fleshliness,
demonic-like longings
we have.
But then secondly,
when he looked up
at the cross
and said,
Father,
forgive them.
They do not know
what they are doing.
That tells you something.
He came to rescue you
from yourself.
He came to forgive you.
He came to turn you
outside of yourself
and focus you
in the way you were made
on others
and on him
and on the local church
and on the body.
He rescues you
from yourself
and he can today
gift you
with the meekness
of wisdom,
with peace
and purity
and impartiality
and sincerity.
He can do that.
Let me finish
by giving you
three things to do
to grow in this way.
Number one,
it's straight out
of the text.
He tells us first,
receive the implanted
word this morning.
So if you're a Christian,
you already have
the word of Christ
in you,
the Holy Spirit.
Today,
you need to come
and receive that word again
and look for the spirit
in your life
and re-receive
the implanted word.
Look to Christ
through the word.
Let me read this sentence
because I want to say it correctly.
Meekness is the fruit
of a particular
kind of security.
If you do not
trust God today,
you need to fight.
You have to fight
for everything
in your life
for yourself.
Your reputation,
your comfort,
your place
in the pecking order.
But if you are
genuinely convinced
that the God
of the universe
is your father,
is your defender,
and your deepest satisfaction,
you today can afford
to be gentle.
You don't have to fight
for everything
in your life anymore.
You don't have to
climb up the pecking order.
If you are in Christ,
you can afford
to be gentle.
You can afford
not to treat conversations
as transactional.
I got a letter
in the post yesterday
from an elder
in Mississippi
from where we're from.
And he had mailed it
on January 2nd.
And I got it
on March 20th.
Now that's because
he mailed it
to our old house
in Murrayfield
and it went back to him.
And then I think
from I'm looking
at all the stamps
on the envelope,
it looks like he tried it
twice and then
it came back again.
And then he mailed it
to my parents
and then they mailed it.
So I finally got it.
So it was all
about the new year.
So he wrote me
a new year letter.
But I was prepping
this passage yesterday
at the house
and got the letter.
And this is what
the letter said.
As you enter a new year,
take heart.
The same God
is with you
and goes before you
to demonstrate
his redemptive power
in your life.
The instructions
are still the same.
You must keep your focus
on the word of God.
You must believe it.
You must obey it.
The surging,
swirling waters of doubt,
the impregnable fortresses
of satanic distraction,
the dismays
of sudden unexpected trials,
the fears wrought
by past failure
and present danger,
they are very real.
But if you have been
redeemed by grace
and seated
with the presence
of the Spirit,
sorry, excuse me,
sealed with the presence
of the Spirit,
so the Lord your God
comes with and before you.
Keep your eyes
this year on his word.
Read it.
Obey it.
Follow it.
In 2026,
you have never been
this way before.
You will need it.
Signed out.
Listen to the Spirit.
Receive the implanted word
day by day.
You have never been
this way before.
Tomorrow is a new day
and you've never been
to tomorrow yet.
You need the word.
It's the only way
to grow in the meekness
of wisdom.
Secondly,
verse 14,
if you have bitter jealousy
and selfish ambition,
don't boast.
What is he telling us there?
He's saying,
remember last time
was all about words.
He's saying,
if you know that you're
in a place right now
where you are particularly
walking in the flesh,
not the Spirit,
he says,
don't boast.
In other words,
practice silence
with your speech,
which is a way of saying
that you have to make
a conscious decision
to step forward
with new disciplines,
new practices
to address the sins
of the flesh
that you are walking in
at the minute.
So he's saying,
in order to practice weakness,
you have to decide today
to put away
the sins of the flesh
and to make practical steps.
So he's saying,
if you struggle with boasting,
then be silent.
Just say,
this week I'm going to talk,
not very much at all,
because every time
I open my mouth,
I tend to brag.
You see,
he's saying habits matter,
disciplines matter,
taking steps matter.
Let me paint a quick picture
for you between two people.
Person A,
someone struggling
like we all have,
like I certainly have,
with selfish ambition.
every conversation
is subtly about
establishing where we stand.
When we listen
to somebody talk,
we're actually just
waiting to talk.
When we praise somebody,
it's in order to get
something back.
When we're talking to people,
we're calculating
what it is that we can
get from them,
and if this conversation
will provide anything
of fruit at all.
People are background noise.
When we feel threatened,
our words get sharper
and colder.
We need something
from every person we meet
because life is about me.
Person B,
walking in the meekness
of wisdom.
They're genuinely curious
about the person
in front of them,
and so they truly listen.
They're not running
an internal calculation
of what they're getting
from this conversation.
When someone else wins,
they celebrate it
because they're truly glad.
They're truly happy about it.
Their identity
is not built on being right.
It's not built
on being better.
Their words build up others
because they don't need
to tear people down.
They don't need anything
from the people they meet.
They have everything
they need in Christ.
The difference is not personality.
The difference is not the past.
The difference is simply
what source are you running
to day after day.
That's the difference.
Thirdly and finally,
at the very end
of this passage,
verse 18,
when you put on
the meekness of wisdom,
a harvest of righteousness
is sown in peace
by those who make peace.
So here at the very end,
he turns this to the community
and says a harvest of shalom,
a harvest of peace,
a harvest of flourishing
is sown by all of us
when we together
seek this kind of life,
seek this kind of peace.
What is he saying?
He's saying that the farmer
does not reap
on the same day that he sows.
And to build a community of peace,
purity, sincerity,
impartiality, wisdom,
wisdom takes a long time.
That's what he's saying.
And in other words,
it's that a community,
a beautiful church,
a beautiful community
is built on the thousands
of small moments,
thousands, millions
of small moments
of years of interactions
with one another
where we're seeking
to genuinely be for each other.
Ecclesiocentric,
theocentric,
not self-centered,
the meekness of wisdom.
With Christ,
you can afford
to be other-centered.
Let us pray.
Father,
we want to get away
from our self-interest
and we struggle so much
with selfish ambition
and bitter jealousy
and envy
and we are curved in on ourself
as it's been said
throughout church history
so often.
Turn us around,
flip us upside down,
give us a different sense
of what we were made for.
Lord, renew us
to be the people
you made us to be.
Imago Dei,
the image of God
in the world.
So teach us today
as we sing
in this final hymn
to be other-centered
all because we are putting
on the meekness of Christ
through the implanted word.
So speak the implanted word,
O Lord,
into our hearts.
I pray for those
in this room
who may need
to meet with you
the word himself
for the first time,
the logos,
the word who gives life.
Lord,
by the Spirit,
would you give life
to someone here today
who does not yet know hope
through the word,
through Jesus.
So I pray for that.
And then I pray
for the rest of us
that are believers today
that you would teach us
wisdom,
meekness,
through the word sung.
And so we pray for that.
In Christ's name,
Amen.