No Instant Replay for Godly Living

“But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere,” James 3:18

September 21, 2003

The National Football League uses instant replay during football games to correct bad calls. Typically, an official makes a call and the people watching from their seats disagree, and they start booing the officials. The sports channels show the controversial play over and over. The commentators agree with the fans or the officials. They seem to always to take size. At that point the coach of either team can call for instant replay. The head football official goes to a camera on the field and reviews the play. The fans can see the official looking at this camera, but they cannot see what he sees. Then he trots back onto the football field, stands erect, turns on his public microphone and says something like “The play stands as called on the field or the play is reverse.” Then if the play stands as called on the field, he says that a time out is charged to the team that requested instant replay. If the play is reverse, he says that there is no time out charged the team that requested the replay. The point of all of this instant replay is to see what actually happened in slow motion and to make the right decision.

Some things are not hard to get right the first time. Instant replay is not required. Enough evidence is all that is needed to make the correct call every time. In this passage James talks about two kinds of wisdom: worldly wisdom and heavenly wisdom. Worldly wisdom is wisdom that is not from above. Heavenly wisdom is wisdom that comes from above. Being unwise is worldly wisdom and being wise is heavenly wisdom. He uses descriptive words to describe these two kinds of wisdom. I want to talk about these two kinds of wisdoms as living a godly life (godly wisdom) and living an ungodly life (worldly wisdom) and what those two lifestyles look like as we live our lives in the church.

In verse 13, James says, “Who is wise and understanding among you?” What a question for his church family. In other words, he may have been saying look out among yourselves and identify the person or persons that are wise and understanding among you. You make the call. I just want to know who that person is among us. How would you answer James’ question? Who among us is wise and understanding? It is important how we answer such a question. The answer must be the person knows the Lord. No one is wise that doesn’t know God.

Then James says, “Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in humility that comes from wisdom.” That is the true test. The proof is in the putting, so to speak. It’s like the old familiar saying, “I’m from Oklahoma, show me.” I want to see something in your life. I want to see how you live. I want to see how you handle things. How deep do you look into things? How do you manage your own life? How do you handle the ups and downs of life? How do you hang in there when things get difficult? How do you stand up under all types and varieties of pressures in this life? Show me how you handle these if you are wise and understanding. It is suppose to show in your daily walk in this life.

I believe James is saying that if there is a wise and understanding person living among us, we will know it. The unmistakable sign is a godly life that is characterized by deeds done in humility. In other words what they do is “not done for form or fashion in this unfriendly world.” James is really down to earth in what he says. He uses concrete words about Christian behavior: deeds. Deeds are things that we can see for ourselves. But the deeds he is talking about must be done in humility that comes from wisdom. Jesus is our greatest example of deeds done in humility. When John the Baptist baptized Jesus in the Jordan River, Jesus demonstrated outstanding humility. John the Baptist said to Jesus, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me? Jesus in great humility said, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” What humility! That was his conduct throughout his life on earth. That’s what is expected of those among us that are wise and understand.

There is a great need for the wise and those that understand in our communities. People everywhere in our society are hungry for some one they can go to who lives close to God, understands life and its complications, sees into things more deeply and clearly than others, and is successful at managing their lives. They aren’t looking for cheap talk that is not supported by wise behavior, godly conduct, and a life that is devoted to God.

Having defined an unmistakable standard for godly wisdom or godly living, he now turns to a description of these two kinds of wisdom. The first one he describes is in verse 14: “But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth.” He pinpoints the source of envy and selfish ambition as being in the heart. Now, the thing to keep in mind is that James is writing to Christians. Again and again, he addresses them as brothers. These are people in his church family. Yet, some of these Christians are harboring bitter envy and selfish ambition in their hearts. The bible is clear that our hearts are not to harbor envy and selfish ambition. The heart is to possess the truth. Bitter envy and selfish ambition in our hearts produce bad relationships and a divisive attitude towards brothers and sisters in the family of faith. It splits churches, causes divisions, creates parties and cliques, and causes people to fight for what they see as their rights and privileges. It tears down instead of building up. James is clear that where there is division, it comes from envy and selfish ambition. It is not the truth.

Now, James says, “Don’t boast about it or deny the truth.” Call it what it is. It is not from God. It is worldly wisdom. It is the way of the world. In fact, James says that “such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, of the devil. You don’t need “instant replay” to know this type of wisdom or living. He defines it with four descriptions:

1) Not from above – that’s clear enough

2) Earthly – godless in its source, without God, not related to heaven

3) Unspiritual – the natural man

4) Of the devil – demonic in activity

James says that these four things produce clear results: disorder and every evil practice. I don’t think he can be any clearer than that. “For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.” Jealously and selfish ambition create a mess in the church. They create favorites, cliques, parties, divided fellowships, restless, instability, and disturbance in the fellowship. Nothing is barred. Now that is his description of world wisdom or worldly living. This never comes down from heaven.

Now, my question is do we believe James. Church fights at one time or another has impacted all of us. Divided fellowships have caused some of us life long pain. Yet we fail to see that it is not of God. It is not from heaven. It is from jealously and selfish ambition.

So how about that ugly thing in the Episcopal Church? It is not of God if I understand James. It is not from above. It is of the earth. It is unspiritual. It is of the devil. It has caused division, disorder, parties, cliques, and maybe a schism before they are done with it.

Now, he turns to godly wisdom. In verse 17, he says, ‘But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.” What mighty characteristics! Seven (7) characteristics that clearly and unmistakably are produced by wisdom that comes from heaven. I want you to hear and closely observe what he says here. We know only one person who embodied all of these seven characteristics: Jesus Christ. He possessed all of them. He lived all of them. They were obvious in his life. We want to be like him. We want to live like he lived.

I just believe we will need these characteristics in our lives so that the world can see them before we can demonstrate that there is a wisdom from above that is markedly different from the wisdom of the world. The world is hungry for people that possess a life style and wisdom that is pure, peaceful, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Our churches will overflow. We will not need to pound the pavement trying to get people to come to our church. We will not need to put on program after program to get people to our churches. We will not have to have a night for bingo. We will not have pay people to come to church. We will not have to advertise like the world. Our advertisements will be we are for real; we’re peaceful; we are considerate of one another and we mean it; we don’t insist on having it our way; we can be reasoned with so only god gets the glory; we are full of mercy and good fruit for all of God’s people; we are impartial and sincere because we follow the one who said, “Whosoever will let him come.” We are like him.

Then we will see a harvest like never before. It will be a harvest that the world needs badly. It will be a harvest of righteousness. A life approved by Almighty God. Then we will come to church feeling like a new person. A church where there is evidence of things from heaven. We will come to church to see a picture of heaven. The picture will be in the conduct and in the behavior of the people in the church. They will be wearing a new wardrobe. They will have on all of these characteristics. Amen.