Jesus is Total Truth

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. Good morning. It's good to be here. I'm Pastor John Roth, one of the pastors here, one of the members of our team at Thrive, and I've been on vacation for the last three weeks, and so I might be a little rusty this morning. But beyond that, I think we just need some time in prayer before we get into the message. Let's pray. Lord God, you are the source of all goodness, all wisdom, all truth. We thank you. We thank you for being here. We thank you for your word, your love, your mercy, your grace, especially revealed in Jesus. We pray that you would reveal it to this world again through us in these days, in these days of disorder and chaos and struggles and doubts and questions and hope. Lord, you know where we're all at this morning as we are gathered here. We lay our burdens before you, our lives upon you. We ask you to open our ears, that you would calm us, Lord, so that we can hear what you would have to say to us. And Lord, do your work in us this day. Bless all the churches in our area, Lord, that are proclaiming your word today. We thank you for places like Summit and First Baptist and Zion and Hope and Gulf Coast Presbyterian. Lord, we know that there is really only one church. Many different expressions of it, Lord. And we just pray that you'd make us faithful to your word and your grace, that we could see all things through that framework that you've given us in this world, the wisdom and the grace that we see in Jesus. It's in his name we pray. Amen. All right, we continue in this series in this book of James, one of the most practical, pithy books in all of the New Testament. And it's got some poignant words for today in James chapter 3. And what's fascinating about this is I've been able to study this for the last three or so weeks on vacation. That's kind of hard to do, studying on vacation and getting ready for a sermon, but you can do it. So I've been marinating on these words over the three weeks. And let me tell you, a lot happened in those three weeks on our national and internationally. And these words just were like a clarion call again and again about all of this stuff going on. And we're going to talk about that today, that what is wisdom and the wisdom that God has for us. So let's read these words from James chapter 3, 13 to 18. Who is wise and understanding among you by his good conduct? Let him show his works and 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 exists, 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 the harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. What a question. Who is wise among you? Right. Who is wise and understanding among you? What a question to ask in our day and age. Over the last few weeks, when I've looked at this text, I've wondered, is there anyone wise among us anymore and has understanding because it seems like it's been all over the charts. As far as what I've seen on Facebook, to what I've read in the news, what I've heard people shout and push their agendas, you name it, it's just all over the place. So who is wise among us now? Here, what is amazing, though, is James is not pointing this passage outside, but to the people inside the Christian church in his day and age. And he was really asking them, among you, is there anyone wise? Is anyone got understanding? Well, then show it by how you conduct yourselves. You know, there are thousands of pieces of advice that are given to you every day that you get to hear. People will call to you. Advertisers target you. Merchants sell to you. Coworkers advise you. Musicians try to woo you. Politicians appeal to you. And of the thousands of pieces of advice you get, actually, it all boils down to two different voices that are being called out, according to the book of Proverbs, and I would say according to the book of James. And that is the way of wisdom or the way of folly. That's the way the book of Proverbs speaks it. You can either listen to the foolish words or you can listen to the wisdom words that you hear among all the clamor in our society. There are not a thousand different voices, but just really two. Now, the problem with this, according to James, and I think he's got a good point, is both of these call themselves wisdom. And the way James describes it in this text is there's the wisdom of the world and there's the wisdom from heaven. But those are the two voices that are being spoken to you and to me all the time, by all the appeals, by all the advice that people give you, and it's probably...