Real Wisdom (5 of 8)
Series: Real Religion
Craig Smith
James 3: 13-18
I. Introduction
Star Bellied Sneetches
It's remarkably easy to become a Sneetch - someone who places value on things that are not actually valuable and begins creating division in the pursuit of what is ultimately not worth pursuing.
II. Main Body
A. True Wisdom
13 Who is wise and understanding among you? (James 3:13a)
Let's actually just stop there for a second, because this is the critical question in this passage. Everything else that we're going to see today is basically just giving us the information we need to be able to answer this one, all-important question. What James is asking is ''are you truly wise?''
Here's how we're going to define wisdom: Wisdom is the ability to move things from where they are to where they should be. Wisdom isn't just intelligence. It's not just about intellectual understanding of facts...it requires understanding, but wisdom is about applying that understanding in ways that accomplish change, so it's the ability to move things from where they are to where they should be. But the question is, how do we know how things should be? How do we know what the end goal is?
And the answer is that the end goal is very different depending on which kind of wisdom you're talking about. What we're going to see today is that there are two very different things that both claim to be wisdom operating in the world...one comes from God and the other comes from Satan. Not surprisingly, these two different kinds of ''wisdom'' have very different ideas about what should be.
Let's think about it this way: what James is calling ''wisdom'' is a lot like the operating system of a computer. It's the foundational approach to life. And in the same way that there are different operating systems that computers can run off of, So the question James is asking here is: What operating system are you running? That's our big question for today. Obviously the goa ...
Series: Real Religion
Craig Smith
James 3: 13-18
I. Introduction
Star Bellied Sneetches
It's remarkably easy to become a Sneetch - someone who places value on things that are not actually valuable and begins creating division in the pursuit of what is ultimately not worth pursuing.
II. Main Body
A. True Wisdom
13 Who is wise and understanding among you? (James 3:13a)
Let's actually just stop there for a second, because this is the critical question in this passage. Everything else that we're going to see today is basically just giving us the information we need to be able to answer this one, all-important question. What James is asking is ''are you truly wise?''
Here's how we're going to define wisdom: Wisdom is the ability to move things from where they are to where they should be. Wisdom isn't just intelligence. It's not just about intellectual understanding of facts...it requires understanding, but wisdom is about applying that understanding in ways that accomplish change, so it's the ability to move things from where they are to where they should be. But the question is, how do we know how things should be? How do we know what the end goal is?
And the answer is that the end goal is very different depending on which kind of wisdom you're talking about. What we're going to see today is that there are two very different things that both claim to be wisdom operating in the world...one comes from God and the other comes from Satan. Not surprisingly, these two different kinds of ''wisdom'' have very different ideas about what should be.
Let's think about it this way: what James is calling ''wisdom'' is a lot like the operating system of a computer. It's the foundational approach to life. And in the same way that there are different operating systems that computers can run off of, So the question James is asking here is: What operating system are you running? That's our big question for today. Obviously the goa ...
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