OCT 11 2026 | Storm Proof: A Study in James S2E1 | Wise as Hell

Amen. All right. As your love in wave after wave. Crashes over me. Crashes over me. For You are for us. You are not against. Champion of Heaven. You made a way for all to enter in. Good morning. Welcome to Deluge Christian Church. Just kidding. You guys all made it. Awesome. I find that the heat will keep you away, but you're able to swim here, so that was awesome. So cool. Just a couple of things. One, "The Church Who Left the Building" is out. It's the latest book that I put together on a 12-week sermon series. I'm asking that every one of you will read it. You can get it for free as an e-download at the cchangechurch.org. You can check that out, or you can go back and get a hard copy. Remember the Prayer of Jabez? Remember that book back in the day and it started the whole gift book series? So I have an affinity, not because of that book in particular, but for gift books. So check it out. This will tell you the type of church you're at and what we're doing. This is our entire vision. But more than that, I got to tell you, the first 10 pages, I've read it three times through recently. The first 10 pages will so encourage you. It will tell you why God loves you, why you're not a failure in his eyes, the purpose that He has for you. It'll just build you up. I'm saying if you need a word of encouragement, this will do it. And check it out. So like I said, you can get it online. This is the latest one. There's a black and white picture of me on the back. I wanted you to know about that. Well, not starting a brand-new series. Coming back around for season two now. As we do in our preaching, as we go through the different types of scripture in the narratives, we try to hit every type of biblical narrative. We do prophetic, wisdom literature. We do the epistles. This is an epistle. We're back in the epistles now with James, but James is a little different. I would say it is the Proverbs of the New Testament. It is very practical, and it is a book that just hits hard and just comes straight at you. Martin Luther did not like this book. He didn't like it because it talks a lot about, hey, the stuff you should do. And so he thought there was too much works in it. He said it was a book of straw. Well, somehow, despite his opinion, it made it into the canon, and here we are with it in James. I actually really like the Book of James. I'm a simple person. I just need to be told, "Go four steps and make a right-hand turn," and this book will do that for you. James is just a great book. And so we're back in it, and you'll see I entitled the message "Wise as Hell," okay? And I had to use some wisdom to ask myself, is that the right title? I actually had Drea get back to me. "Are you sure this is the title you want to go with?" But as you will see, the exegesis, that's E-X-E-G-E-S-I-S, I believe, exegesis, which means the extrapolation of the actual text. What does it actually mean? That's what this text actually says. Look, just go to the book. Don't argue with me. Just go to the book. I just told you what the Bible says. And it basically says that there is a type of wisdom that is from below, and it's from demons. That's exactly what this says, and it's a comparison. It's a juxtaposition of wisdom and the wisdom we use in our life. Now, I'm not talking about the basic wisdom. My daughter and I, one of my daughters, regularly have a conversation. She says, "I should live in a world where I should be able to walk downtown at 2:00 in the morning and be able just not to worry about it and go wherever I want at 2:00 in the morning by myself And I said, "Well, should is awesome. It's a great word. I love the word should." But I would say that wisdom would tell you not to do that in downtown San Diego at 2:00 in the morning unless you want problems. But I should be able to do it. Yes, you should. Those questions is not what I think James is talking about here. What James is talking about is a wisdom that is a deeper wisdom that has to do with the existential and practical decisions you make in our life. The question I had with my daughter is a common sense question. Should you run across the freeway? The answer to that is no. That's just common sense, and it's a form of wisdom. But as James speaks here, James is speaking about a wisdom that shapes your life and the kind of wisdom of where are you drawing, where are you sourcing your decision-making from? It's very clear here, and once again, this is very just in your face wisdom. And what I want to lay before you in a very pragmatic way today is to start looking at the decisions that you're maybe wrestling with. And I've been doing that as I've been going through this as I-- It's awesome to have a job where I get to look into the scripture every week, and that's part of my job, and I can process it with my life. And I've realized there's just been a fair amount of decisions recently as I began to tee them up and look at them, that I realized were based more in probably earthly perspective, even carnal. I was making decisions that made me feel good but maybe weren't based on the spiritual component that comes from above. And so James says, as we'll read here in just a moment, that wisdom comes from two places. It either comes from above and comes down, or it comes from below. And I'm not talking about common sense, I'm talking about the decisions, the deeper decisions that we make. If you have your Bibles, which I hope you do, we're a Bible-bringing church. I want you to open up to James 3:13. We're going to read through 18. We're in the English Standard Version. Get an English Standard Version. That's our preaching Bible here, but you should have multiple versions. I would encourage you to do it. "Who is wise and understanding among you?" Great question. "By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom." So wisdom as a character is meek. "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 earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, then gentle, open to reason, full of mercy, good fruits, impartial, sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace." We talked about that righteousness that we get. We were talking about it. We had a giving series, and some of you responded to that. It was awesome. But it says that when we give, the number one thing that we get or what we're kind of moving towards is a harvest of righteousness. What does that mean? It means you have righteousness. This verse shows you have more peace in your life. The decisions that you make lead to peace. I was in a marriage counseling, not with any of y'all, okay, a long time ago. Don't look around next to you, although this might happen to you. And I was with this couple, and there was a husband, and he did what husbands do. He didn't clean the kitchen. He didn't put the dishes away, and they'd been there. And his wife had come to him over and over again and be like, "Hey, do you still want to use the peanut butter that you brought out on Tuesday?" And, "Should the lid be put on?" It was that kind of thing. Over and over. And it was multiple times that we'd been in counseling, and it was a couple-year period of like I'm counseling with him, and she's concerned and whatever and wants to make a point. He's not listening. So one day he's ready to go to work, and he goes out to his car. Lo and behold, there are all of his dirty dishes in the front seats of the car. How good would it feel to put those there? Oh, how good would that feel? I felt for her. I just feel the passion. I ask you the question, was that wise? Now, there's argument. Look, in our world, somebody can argue both sides of this. Hey, you got to get the point across. He's not listening. This is causing all this damage to the marriage this one time of whatever. You can do that. The question is, and what this verse will say is whether you think that's the right thing to do. And a lot of you would, and I kind of feel like that's awesome. I kind of think that's awesome. Don't put it in the bed, but that's fine. Put it in the car. That's cool. The question that I have to ask myself is, even though if something feels good and it might be righteous, like you haven't been listening, I've been asking you for two years. There is a righteous argument that you can make, and it deserved a consequence. Totally. We could have that. You could say that, and I wouldn't disagree. But does that action lead to peace? Now, that is the question. Now, I'm not asking you to decide on this particular instance, but I want to ask you in your life, in the decisions that you're making, are the decisions that you're making, do they lead to peace, and do they lead to a harvest of righteousness? It says it's pure, it's peaceable. And so just I want you to tee up right now in your life, is your life because of the decisions you're making? And look, you might have chaos makers in your life. And the world is full of chaos and unspiritual wisdom. And so the result of unspiritual wisdom leads to chaos. And if you look at our society today, it is chaotic. Which I would think if you were to look at James would say most of what's happening is unspiritual wisdom from below and demonic. So I think that's what James would say about his culture in the day and what he might say about our culture today. The question for you is, are you living in peace? Now, I'm not saying if you have a health issue, there's things that happen that are non sequitur to bringing difficulty into your life, and those are trials. But when it comes to peace in your marriage, peace in your relationships, peace in your business, are the decisions you're making, and they might feel great. It might be, hey, that feels so good to just do that thing and just I'm going to rip the Band-Aid off, and just we're going to do it. Is it leading to peace? And so you have to ask yourself that and be really honest with yourself. Here's your big idea. There are two kinds of wisdom operating in the world. One is driven by self-interest and produces disorder. The other comes from God and produces righteousness and peace. As I teach every January in the wisdom literature of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, it is a road map that leads to peace when you make those decisions. I'm a firm believer that if a married couple will both adhere to the wisdom of Proverbs, they will stay married. I've read Proverbs enough. I know there's a lot of other components, but if both in that marriage or relationship will just adhere to practical wisdom that leads to righteousness, you will stay married. I'm not saying you're going to like each other. That's not my job. That's your job. But you will move towards that. And so there's two types here. One comes from God, and one comes from below. Now, remember verse 13, it asks a great question. James asks a really good question. And you could look around right now when I ask this and start looking around. Who is it? Who is wise among you? You could look around and say, "Oh, that person seems wise, and this person seems wise." He's asking that to this congregation. And he basically says that it is proven as you weigh it out, it is proven, continue on the verse, by your good conduct and works that have the meekness of wisdom. I don't think we're living in a culture that tells you have meekness. Stand up, speak your truth, say what needs to be said when it needs to be said. Be loud. Say the most polarizing thing you can say. We live in a culture like the most polarizing people get the most eyeballs. I'm not saying they're the most popular. They just get the most eyeballs. And we're teaching a generation of young people below us that if you want to have eyeballs, which that's the currency of the day. We talk about money, we talk about free time. Currency of the day is eyeballs and attention. That's what people are going for today. And I don't know many podcasts or whatever, or influencers where their brand is meekness. And wisdom. There are some, there are a few that have that. And so as I ask you, as you are making your decisions, where is that coming from? And I have found myself that I can feel where it comes from. God gives me emotions. I didn't actually do that, but if I were to put the trash on my wife's seat. I know that as I was doing that or when I was younger, when I used to do things of that kind of nature to prove a point, they're going to get theirs, there was a feeling that came with it, and it was carnal. It was absolutely carnal. But I find when I make decisions that are spiritual, it's a harder decision to make. But when I make it, it brings a peace and actually releases me into a harvest of righteousness. Let me just tell you, when you act in wisdom, like James is saying here, the righteousness that you are going to experience, I think the majority of it is going to be experienced by you. You're going to sleep better. You're going to be able to release something. You're going to have to not carry something. You're not going to carry the bitterness, the jealousy as we continue on that. So the central question then is this, and the key word is wisdom. You can write down wisdom. The central question is what kind of wisdom is directing your life and what kind of fruit is it producing? Says in the scripture there, if you go to verse 17, the end of verse 17, as it gives the measure of the conduct, and this points back to verse 13, says it's known by its conduct. It says that conduct will be, go halfway through verse 17, it'll be peaceable, it'll be gentle, open to reason. That's a really good point. Full of mercy and what? Good fruit. And so what you're doing is it's producing fruit. And I can find sometimes that I can shake the tree of wisdom as opposed to pick the fruit from the tree of wisdom. It falls to the ground and it's bruised. Still edible, but it's bruised. And the decisions don't last as long. You take an apple, you bruise an apple, you can eat it right away. But sometimes you can go to that tree and you can make a partially wise decision, but you're holding onto some of the carnality, some of the, "I just got to get this done," or whatever it is, and you make that decision and it bruises the fruit. Are you content with meekness? If you're not, you're not going to be comfortable walking with wisdom as your partner. And so that's really hard to do. But I will say that righteousness you're going to feel, I found even today, I made some decisions today, even this morning. I was sitting this morning, this weekend, as I was thinking about multiple decisions that are coming up, and I'm kind of into, I get this. I don't know about you, if you're in a leadership role, you can get decision fatigue. And so where you just have to make so many decisions, you get decision fatigue. And so then it's really easy to make poor decisions. And so at that point, I got to really slow down and tune into here and see what the Lord says. And what I found today and yesterday when I sat and checked in with myself, why am I making this decision? Why am I doing what I'm doing? I realized that a lot of it was coming from really good reasons, but not wisdom from above. And when I said, "You know what? I'm just going to let go of that. I'm going to let go of this. I'm not going to do this. I'm just going to let that happen." You've read seen that book, "Let Them," really cool book. You just let people do what they're going to do and whatever. You know what I found? A harvest of righteousness, I felt. Like all of a sudden my chest wasn't as tight. I was more relaxed around the house. I was chilling. I wanted to do my paint by numbers. I'm a paint by numbers guy. They have really cool paint by numbers now, like really elaborate paint by numbers. So I will take a picture of my paint by numbers and show it to you at some point, because I know you're all dying to see it. Not all wisdom's wise. Go to verse 15. This is not the wisdom that comes from above, but it's earthly, unspiritual, demonic. And it has a character to it. I'm going to go straight. I'm not going to read that whole thing because I've already read it before, but it has three components. It's earthly. Earthly. Now we are made of the earth, right? And the earth is fine. The earth is good, but there is a spirit. And so our flesh is attached to the dirt. Because our flesh was brought out of dirt, I believe that. And then God breathed His spirit into us, and they're supposed to work together. But when we live according to the flesh and according to the dirt, it'll make us dirty. And when we live according to the spirit, it'll make us righteous and it'll lead to righteous decision. And so one of the things that I see believers is, I talk to believers all the time, and I have to say, this is probably more difficult now than it's been in a very long time. The ability to live in a society filled with earthly wisdom and be able to tease out, and it does take teasing out. You're not going to be able to do it on the run. You're going to have to slow down to tease out, God, what are you actually doing here? Debate is the kind of the culture of the day. There's a lot of debate. So a lot of, if you're on Instagram or X or Twitter, whatever you want to call it, and going around, there's a lot of people debating. There's a lot of debate. This person talking to this person, this person talking to that person. And in the midst of that debating, what I find is believers will often come to me and they'll share with me things, and there's really good wisdom, but it's earthly. And so I would say the first thing is take your opinions because we will be held accountable for our opinions before Jesus and before the great judgment seat. You'll be held accountable for everything we believed and everything we put forward. So we want to have those purified by the Holy Spirit. But is what I'm doing earthly? I will say when you make a decision that is not of the spirit, it probably won't bring the release of peace that I was talking about. It could bring a sensation of just carnality. I remember my old pastor, Pastor Mark, he's still my pastor. Pastor Mark Foreman, great guy at North Coast Calvary Chapel, would say, "If you sent an email and after you pressed the button, you felt great. Yes, I showed them." He said, "You sent the wrong email. You shouldn't have sent that email." And so it's earthly. The next thing it says its perspective is limited to the concerns and values of this world. It's limited to the concerns and values of this world. That's key. And unspiritual. It operates according to the natural human impulses rather than the spirit of God. I was talking to my mom yesterday about this sermon. We went out to Starbucks. It's good. We went out and we got to sit and take her out again. It was fun. And as I'm talking to her, we were talking about this. She says, "You know I've learned if I ask the Lord for wisdom," which is something James says, "usually within three days He'll give me an answer, but sometimes He gives it to me right away, and sometimes I already knew it." And I was like, "Oh, that's so good." Sometimes He will give it to you because He says He will give it to all without being selfish. He's generous with wisdom. And if you need wisdom, ask Him for it. So sometimes you'll get in the future, sometimes you will get it in the moment, and sometimes you already had it and you're not living according to it. But she looked at me and then she took a bite of her muffin, she looked at me, she goes, "And I've just found you can't rush God." And I thought, "That is so, Mom, you're just spitting today like amazing. You know what I mean? You're just on fire." So it's unspiritual. So what I have found is that when you're making a decision, even if you're in an argument with your spouse or with your children or somebody, one of the best things you can do is off throttle. We live in a world that says, "Just throttle up. Say what you want." You know what I mean? You have a right to this and a right to that and a right to this. And rights really come down to what we agree upon. Rights are just based upon what humans agree upon. We can say God has given us these rights, but it's basically what we agree upon. And one of the things you can agree upon with yourself is to just off throttle. And so I found that wisdom, the wisdom of the Lord is slow, and it chills you out. It seems to have a different tempo to it. And when you feel it, you will feel, I guarantee you, you will feel it. It is tied to your body. The final, the one that is really hard, this is why I named it Wise as Hell. He said that the wisdom that leads to chaos is demonic. So demons want to destroy. And if you look what's happening through all societies, because in ours today as well, a lot of what's happening in the public dialogue, and this is one of the reasons we made the prayer. I just encourage you, please go get the prayer guide that we made to pray over the next three weeks. It's praying. There's nothing telling you who to vote for, but it is telling you to pray for people individually. It's really well done. We edited it as a staff, look through it, to pray for that. We live in a world of deconstruction, and Satan wants to bring chaos and deconstruction. And so a lot of what is happening I see in our society today and is demonic. It's demons pushing agendas that actually will make sense to your flesh. It'll just make sense. Oh, that's a really good idea. Arguments about the poor or how we should do whatever. These things really need to be prayed through, and they really need to be prayed through in silence. And so it's super important to be able to know the difference. James says you can know the difference And the way you can know the difference is, one, I would say slowing down. Two is understanding and the word of God. And three, what you feel from it. James says, as you go on, go to verse 17. He says, "But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason," which a lot of people aren't today, "full of mercy and good fruits, impartial," which a lot of people aren't today, believers included, "and sincere." And so what James says is there's a diagnostic that will help you decide where your wisdom's coming from. Let's take it away from the public arena and take it back to your own life, because that's where the wisdom makes the most importance. I went to take my car in recently, and there was something wrong with it, and he says, "Let me do a diagnostic on it." And I said, "Okay, what does that mean?" They have these things, they plug it in, and he plugged it in, it was like, code 2479 came up, and that means that this is happening, and he was able just to make a diagnostic and tell me what needed to be fixed. In James, he's doing that diagnostic. And so you can actually know where your wisdom's coming from, and I'm being redundant on this, based on how it feels. So he says wisdom is known by not only its conduct, by how it feels. I want to move down a little bit to verse 14 and 15. He says, "But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts..." I'm going to stop right there. The word James uses about the wisdom that comes from below will have a zealous feel to it. Now, the word jealous comes from the word zealous, but it's a little bit different. Zealous just means you're excited about something. But jealousy can be good and it can be bad, and that's why he adds the qualifier bitter jealousy. We know that God has jealousy for you, right? So God, is God bad? No, he has a jealousy for you. But he says oftentimes when our decision-making starts drifting into the earthly, the unspiritual, and I don't think everything you do make is bad. If you make a bad, wise decision, doesn't mean you're doing something that's demonic. I don't think that is in every single case, although I think demons do want to influence you 100%, right? But he says as you drift into that, you'll be able to feel it. And he says that zealous, that zeal, will become an intense desire, and it'll have this Greek word, which is pikros. It'll become bitter, sharp, harsh, resentful. He adds that qualifier to a jealousy. If you are jealous for souls, if you are jealous for God's kingdom, that's awesome. God is jealous for Israel. God is jealous for your heart. God is jealous for a lot of things, but he doesn't have a bitter jealousy. And you will know when you shift over to that because you'll feel it. And he says pikros. Word actually sounds like an onomatopoeia, right? Pikros. It is a bitterness that you will feel in your soul, and it'll feel like, I got to get even. I got to do, I'm going to make this happen because I want to make it happen, and I should, and this is a reason, and self-righteousness, and the Satan will just be, "Yes, yes." And you might have a million reasons why those yeses are right, but you can be right and still get it wrong. I've learned over and over again. Jealousy turns life into a competition, and it says if someone else is winning, then I'm losing. Let me say that again. Jealousy turns life into a competition, and it says if someone else is winning, then I must be losing. Let me just tell you two things, two at once. Somebody else can be winning, and you can still win with God. You can take the backseat over and over again and say, "God, I'm just going to trust you. I'm not going to fight for this position. I'm not going to strive to do this thing." And perhaps you're trying to get ahead at work, right? And you deserve that raise, and you've been passed over time and time again, and pretty soon it starts affecting the way you're living. It starts affecting the way that you talk about other people. Whatever it is, you start getting a bitterness, a resentment. You've been looked over, and you have. Let's say you're better. Let's say you do it better. Let's say that you've been the most righteous. You know that person cheats on their expense reports. And whatever the thing is, you know. But then there's a wisdom that just says chill. Trust the Lord. Because when the Lord wants to promote you, like Joseph out of a prison, he will promote you. I was really frustrated for a season at one of my jobs before, and I had a great mentor. And I told him, I said, "I've had enough. I'm going to quit." Had enough. It's going to feel good, right? You all had that moment. You all had the moment. I know you had it. "I'm going to quit. I'm going to walk out." I told my mentor, "I'm going to do it. Had enough." He said, "It's stressful, isn't it?" I said, "Yeah, it's stressful." He says, "Great." He says, "Great. You got two children and a wife, and you don't have a job at that point. What's going to be more stressful? Dealing with that or not having money to pay for your bills?" I stayed in the job. Ended up being amazing. It just totally turned, and God did an amazing thing. But I knew it felt so right. I want to tell you to be aware of that pikros that can come in. Final point is this, wisdom makes peace. This is so key, because why would you make peace when something might probably be better, or you could at least argue that straight talk and a confrontation is what is needed. Now, sometimes confrontations are needed, okay, 100%. But verse 17. But, that's the conjunction. We love the conjunctions in the Bible. The wisdom from above is first pure. It's pure. Then it's peaceable. Then it's gentle. And then it's open to reason. You hear the other person's point. Empathy would be a good word for that. It's not partially filled with mercy, it's full of mercy, and it's full of good fruits. It is impartial, and it's sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. It's really interesting that the word peace is used three times there. At the very beginning, it's peaceable. It's sown in peace by those who make peace. I talked about last week when we were looking at the scripture on giving, and it says that he who sows abundantly will receive back abundantly. But he who sows stringently will receive back less. And I talked about the farmer who had a thing of seeds, and when a farmer puts out seed, he doesn't take one seed and throw it over there into the dirt and one there and one there. He won't get any crop of righteousness. He won't get a fullness return on what his work. But instead, they cast seeds out. I'm going to say it doesn't feel good at first to offer peace and mercy and forgiveness to people who you know don't deserve it. And it didn't feel good for Jesus when he was on the cross being nailed to it because he was all of those things. And because of our sin, Jesus was nailed to the cross that he might sow an abundant harvest of righteousness, that he might forgive us. And so as we continue on in this passage, I want to have your practical takeaway be this. Before you act this week, ask yourself, will this action produce righteousness and peace? Is the way you're going to say that going to produce peace? Will that action produce peace? And how important is peace to you? You know what I just learned in my life? Because of Proverbs, a lot of times the pain of letting go of the desires of the flesh to get what I want is a lot less than the cleanup on aisle five I have to do when I push through. And I don't want to do cleanup on aisle five. I want to just let it be and trust God to get you where you're going. Let's have you stand if you would. We're going to have the band come forward. They're going to lead us in a final song before I bless you today.