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00:37 Amen. Glory to God. Welcome to the cafe.
00:42 I hope you’re having a wonderful day, a wonderful week. I thank you for joining me, Pastor Clark Covington here, KJV Cafe, diving right into the Bible. Again, every episode we are getting into the scriptures, looking at how they apply to our lives, how they can help us, how God Himself through His Word can help us get by and thrive in this life by understanding the truths in His Word.
01:06 And today we are talking about godly wisdom, godly wisdom, James 3:17. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. And so we see here in James 3:17 that godly wisdom is pure.
01:33 And we’re focusing on this again today. Last episode we focused on godly wisdom being pure, and here we are again continuing because the subject is so big, couldn’t pack it into just one episode. Just the word pure, you know, who is God? He’s pure, is He not? Philippians 4:8 tells us to think on what’s true and honest and just and pure and lovely and of a good report that has any virtue and has any praise.
02:00 Does that not describe godly wisdom? Godly wisdom is true, is it not? I mean, God cannot lie. The Bible says that there’s no variableness or shadow of turning with God. He cannot lie.
02:12 So what He tells you is true. That’s why a lot of times what God will tell you through His Word may not be what you want to hear, it’s what you need to hear. Like a good parent would tell you, if my child said, look, dad, I want to have, not that this is a real example, though it could be, the child gets up at nine o’clock because he’s not in school or anything, he’s too young for school, he says, dad, can I have a soda for breakfast? I say, no.
02:40 Right? Well, I’m saying it’s not good for you. That’s true. Well, he doesn’t like my answer, but it doesn’t make it less true.
02:48 I’m his dad. I care about him. I don’t want him to be slugging down colas at nine in the morning.
02:53 And you can tell it’s something I’m dealing with as dad here today. But that’s true. As a good father, I want the best for my child.
03:00 How much more so does God want the best for us? And His Word is true and honest. Same is true. Completely, 100% honest.
03:09 God cannot lie. And that’s why we know that the wisdom is good wisdom that we get from God and is just. God is a just God.
03:17 He’s a sovereign God. If he wasn’t sovereign, he wouldn’t have had to send Christ to die for our sins on the cross so that we could be forgiven of our sins. He’s a sovereign God.
03:27 And it is pure as we were talking about here today. And lovely. You know, when I think of pure, by the way, I think of something unadulterated, not not contaminated, lovely, beautiful, loving God that loves us so much.
03:42 I think sometimes we’re afraid to pray to God because we’re afraid he’s going to put more on our plate than we can handle. And maybe God wants to take something off our plate. Maybe God wants to say, look, just rest in this season.
03:55 Take it easy. Hey, you don’t have to win my favor. You’re saved by Christ.
04:01 You believed on Christ and what he did on the cross. You’re saved. You’re not under condemnation.
04:06 Have you ever thought about that? It’s lovely. It’s a good report, a good news. Amen.
04:11 The Bible, especially the Old Testament, you read about good tidings, good tidings. What does that mean? That means good news. That is the gospel message.
04:17 1 Corinthians 15:1-4, that Christ died for our sins. It was risen again the third day, according to the scriptures. And that means that we can be saved according to God.
04:27 Great. God’s great plan. The Bible clearly states that he desires all to come to repentance for all to be saved.
04:33 Any virtue and any praise. God is virtuous and he is worthy of our praise. You know, the Bible says, I believe it’s in Psalms, that God inhabits our praise.
04:44 And when we give Him praise, he is there and He is worthy of that praise. And when we live for Him wholeheartedly, we can give Him that praise knowing that He is the author of not just our salvation, but our entire lives. That he is sovereign.
05:02 That he’s working his will in our lives. Romans 8:28 tells us that. That he is working for our good.
05:07 Amen. And so as we look at this pure wisdom from God, we understand that the context here in James 3, it’s always good to get the context of scripture. James 3, the context here is comparing this pure wisdom to worldly wisdom.
05:25 Verse 13 of James 3, who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you. Let him show out of a good conversation or behavior his works with meekness of wisdom. But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth.
05:41 This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, without hypocrisy.
06:02 And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace. And so we see that the wisdom from the world and from the devil, you know, the Bible calls the devil the little g-god of this world, and we see that worldly wisdom is reactive, isn’t it? You think of sensual or something that’s tempting, right? You think of the way that the devil wants you to act. He wants to get you confused.
06:24 He wants you to react. The Bible says to be slow to speak and swift to hear. And the devil’s saying, no, no, no, let me pervert that and get you to speak quickly and not listen, right? React.
06:36 The Bible talks about bridling ourselves. Matter of fact, here in James 3, it mentions that we need to bridle our tongues, amen, like the horse’s mouth. James 3:3, behold, we put bits in the horse’s mouths, and they may obey us, and we turn about their whole body, right? And so it’s talking about bridling our mouth and how hard that can be.
06:57 And that’s what the devil wants us to do, is react and live out of instinct, right? Out of temptation, out of desire, out of lust, right? And what the Bible’s telling us is godly wisdom is pure. It’s not reactive. It’s not trying to get us into a trap.
07:13 You always hear the devil’s a liar. The devil is a liar. He’s trying to confuse you and get you off track and get you into a whole heap of trouble.
07:21 And God’s wisdom is pure. It’s unadulterated. It’s not contaminated.
07:24 He’s trying to send you on the right path. And yet, how often do we seek godly wisdom? Hardly ever. Let me give you a scripture here.
07:32 Romans 11:33, oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out. Well, who wrote the book of Romans? Paul. Paul met Jesus on the road to Damascus.
07:48 Paul knew Jesus well, amen. Paul is a great, the great apostle to the Gentiles, Amen. Paul’s where we get our doctrine from.
07:56 And he is saying the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God is unsearchable. His judgments and his ways are past finding out. They’re literally impossible to discover.
08:05 Oh, how we could get a hold of this. How we could seek the Lord and learn so much from him. If we could realize the gold in our Bible, everyone would be running to the Bible instead of Bitcoin, instead of this thing and that thing.
08:16 They’d be throwing that stuff out. And they’d be running to God’s word. True riches are found in God’s word.
08:22 But it’s the foolishness of preaching that saves, isn’t it? Many people find it foolish. Many people find it not worth their time. And God’s fine with that because he’s saying, look, you unbeliever, I’m going to give you what you desire.
08:33 I’ll give, you want to live carnally? You want to have that reprobate mind? Here you go. Have at it. See how it goes.
08:38 I’ve told you the wages of sin is death. I’ve sent witnesses to you, but you’re beyond that. You want to live in the world? Then here you go.
08:46 You understand God is repaying people with their fleshly, earthly, sinful desires by allowing them to live it. And yet, if we just say, Lord, that’s not enough. Lord, that’s not fulfilling.
08:58 Lord, this is empty. Lord, this is shallow. If we are just going to go ahead and speak up and seek his will and seek his wisdom and seek his knowledge.
09:08 Oh, how blessed we would be. And that starts with salvation, does it not? When we realize we can’t do it on our own, when we realize that there is a God and he is a fearful God and there is a judgment, there is a real hell and a real heaven. Well, then we desire to be saved.
09:24 And we ask God to save us. We seek Jesus Christ. And we apply that blood, that perfect sinless, spotless blood of the lamb to our lives.
09:35 We believe in what he did on the cross. We believe that he’s resurrected from the grave. And then we’re saved.
09:40 And then once we’re saved, we seek that godly wisdom and sanctification. 1 John 1:9, if we confess our sins, he’s faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Well, what does that mean? That means that we need to seek the Lord’s wisdom in our sins.
09:59 We need to go to God and let him know, Lord, I repent for my sins. If you know what it is, tell him what it is. If you don’t, ask Him to reveal it to you by the work of the Holy Spirit.
10:07 And then get on his side of the equation. It’s not just, repentance is not just admitting you messed up and then going and doing it again. It is admitting you messed up and siding with God and saying, that is a sin and that is hurtful to you.
10:23 It is hurtful to me. That is an enemy of you. That is enemy of me.
10:26 That is not holy to you. That will not be holy to me. I don’t want anything to do with it.
10:34 That is repentance. And how can we have repentance if we don’t have pure godly wisdom? We cannot. When you go in the Bible and you start reading about sin, you realize that sin is a very deep and disturbing aspect of mankind.
10:47 And we all have a sin nature. Even those that are saved are still in this mortal body until the Lord calls us home. Amen? And so what we have is a need for sanctification.
10:53 And what we have is a need for that pure wisdom that can only come from God. Oh, how we want to solve it ourselves. Oh, how we want to search it up on our phone or grab an app or go talk to someone about it or have a conference.
11:09 When in actuality we need to be in our prayer closets seeking the Lord, calling out to God, desiring that wisdom. You know how Solomon wrote Proverbs? He said, God give me wisdom. He could have asked for vengeance on his enemies.
11:21 He could have asked for great riches. He asked for wisdom. Have you asked for wisdom lately? Have you ever asked God for wisdom? You bet I have.
11:32 I ask God all the time. My prayer life is consistent in the sense that I’m praying. The Bible says a prayer without ceasing.
11:38 And so I’m constantly praying to the Lord. And oftentimes like you, I’m sure, I go to the Lord with pains and aches and this and that. And at the same time I’m often asking God, well what about this? Or why is this this way? And I can’t say that he speaks audibly to me, but I can learn through his word and I have the Holy Spirit helping me discern it.
11:57 And the Lord gives me wisdom. I believe He’s given me wisdom. And He’ll give you wisdom.
12:02 And you can do great things for Him with that wisdom. If that’s that your desire, right? You’re saved. You made Jesus Lord of your life.
12:10 You want to please your master. The Bible calls us prisoners of Christ. That’s what Paul called himself, a prisoner of Christ.
12:16 We are literally bond servants or bond slaves to Christ who bought us with the price of his precious blood. And how are we not seeking his wisdom? Which we know is pure. And there’s a lot of other facets of his wisdom that I’m gonna get into in future episodes.
12:32 Just to tease it for you to continue to listen. I’m gonna get into all the different facets. But just staying with the idea of pure wisdom.
12:40 It is a wonderful, wonderful fruit of that comes from a relationship with God. And a prayer life. And a Bible study life.
12:51 And a repentant walk with God. You know, we are saved by the blood of Christ. We’re saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
13:05 And yet, even in the book of James, we learn that faith without works is dead. That we should have a change about us. That we should be living for Christ.
13:09 And how can we live for him if we don’t seek his wisdom? And why shortchange God? If God wants to give you wisdom in all areas of your life, are you seriously not wanting to take it? Have you looked to stars? Have you looked at the universe? Have you looked at His creation? Have you looked at the genius and brilliance and all that He has done? And all that He has made? And that God, Amen? The God of the Hebrews. The God of the Israelites. The God of Paul.
13:32 The God that is Jesus Christ in the flesh. The God that we accept and have living within us. When we receive the Holy Spirit, we accept Christ.
13:39 That God wants to give you wisdom. And you’re gonna sit around and think about it. You say, maybe one day I’ll ask Him.
13:45 Make today the day you seek his wisdom. Make today the day you go to God and ask Him, Lord pour out your wisdom upon me. Give me that great wisdom that you have so that I can serve you better and live for you better and teach others about you.
13:58 And be a servant that’s sowing seeds and reaping a great harvest for you. That should be our prayer every single day. We should go to the God of pure wisdom every day and ask Him for that wisdom.
14:11 I thank you so much for listening. Take care. God bless and Amen.