The Meekness of Wisdom Christ as Our Model

Let's open up our Bibles to James 3. James 3. I specifically want to look at these last handful of verses. V. 13-18 Let's read that. Who is wise and understanding among you? By His good conduct let Him show His works in 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 exist, 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 a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. Okay.

Ronnie, would you pray for us? We're talking wisdom. You can all see that. The subject here is clearly a comparison of two things.

You've got earthly wisdom and heavenly wisdom. The wisdom from above, you see it. It's there in v. 17.

You all see it? The wisdom from above. And that is being compared with the wisdom that is not from above. Earthly, unspiritual, demonic.

You see that in v. 15. This isn't the wisdom that comes down from above. So you've got that which is and that which isn't.

We might say it's the wisdom of God over against the wisdom of man. And the thing is, men think they're wise. The Proverbs talk about how every person views his own life in his own ways.

And the thing is, men think they're wise. Okay. But the reality is that not all wisdom is from above.

That's what he's teaching. There's a great difference. And the thing is, we all tend to think that we have the good wisdom.

But James poses the question. You see it right there at the beginning in v. 13. Who is wise and understanding among you? And the whole point is this.

Don't prove it by the doctrine that you say you believe. Don't prove it by the facts. You see what he says.

By his good conduct, let him show. Prove it. Prove it that way.

How you live. Here's the thing. You can always come down to this.

How you live reveals what wisdom you truly possess. That's what we've got there. Now you think about James.

James is kind of a unique book in our Bibles. It's like 1 John. It gives all these tests for whether our faith is genuine.

James and John, when they want to test our faith as whether it's genuine, they're hard-hitting. Can't get around that. They're serious.

And what James does is he gives us these series of tests. And all you have to do is back up from where we are. Right now, the test is wisdom.

You back up. What was the test? What was the test in the first half of this chapter? The tongue. And then you go back to the end of 2. What was the test there? Whether you have works that accompany your faith.

And you go back. Do you care for the needy? And you go back a little more. Have you shown mercy that is actually going to be victorious in the day of judgment? And you keep working back.

Don't be hearers of the Word only. You've got this thing about true and undefiled religion before the Lord. It visits orphans and widows in their affliction.

You go back before that. You've got this idea about trials and temptations. How we respond to those.

You see, all these things are tests as to whether we're genuine or not. All these things test me. All these things test you.

And you know, it was just this kind of test I was thinking about when we had Paul Washer come down here and his wife was under the tent over there on Hackberry. And she began to recognize Paul was preaching that message, I think it was called, Examine Yourself or something. And she began to recognize, Charo began to think to herself, this isn't a test like you take in high school where you can get 80% and pass.

She recognized these things are either true or they're not true. And it hit her and she recognized this is not true. And in fact, she recognized because of bitterness.

Because the kind of stuff that you get selfish ambition and bitter jealousy, she had that kind of stuff going on in her heart. And she recognized, and that's what this is for. This is a test by which we can test ourselves.

Where we're at right now? Test of wisdom. And the point is this, if your faith is genuine believing faith, the kind that's going to get you to glory, if you've got that kind, you're going to possess the wisdom from above. That's James' whole point in this section.

Folks, demonic wisdom doesn't take anybody to glory. The kind of wisdom you possess and I possess is revealed right here. How? In the way we live.

So it says in verse 13, so here's the thing, what kind of wisdom do you possess? What kind of wisdom do I possess? That's a question that's on the table right now. We know the right answer. But it's my life.

It's your life that's going to prove everything here. And so, brethren, I pretty much checked out for four years from politics. I went to the UK.

I wanted nothing to do with theirs. They went from a queen to a king, and they went through various prime ministers. And I would hear it.

I was not interested. I was over there during basically the whole Biden presidency. I really didn't care.

I mean, I kind of kept an ear to the ground, but I was so freeing, I had nothing to do with it. When I come back, and you were leading up into this election, I started watching some of the media. Everybody out there thinks they know everything.

You hear these people talk? All these talking heads. And brethren, when we look around in the world, it's like that. Everybody just has an opinion.

Everybody has the answers for everybody. Everybody's ready to talk. Brethren, where do you find the people who admit that they don't know? Everyone's an expert.

And you know, today, it's like, well, if you're a doctor, you ever go to the doctor? The medical community really, for the most part, they believe that they're the experts. You have psychologists and psychiatrists and these counselors and everybody. It's like they've got all the right answers.

They know. Everywhere you look around, it's just scholars. If you've got some kind of degree... But you know what? It's right here that James steps in and he says, I hear you all claiming to be wise.

But who is really wise and understanding? That's the issue. Men declare it all the time. They've got all the answers.

So, definition of wise. Wise is the kind of thing that's a lot like love. We heard love talked about.

Love is the kind of thing, if I ask you to define it, we all have a sense and a feel for wisdom. We all have a sense and a feel for love. Or things like beauty.

Can you define beauty? Or just the word good? It's like there's all these words that we have in the English language that we tend to use, and we have a feel for what they mean. Wisdom's kind of like that. It falls into that category.

And here's the thing that you want to think about. Wisdom doesn't mean knowledge. It doesn't mean information that you have.

The wisdom that James is talking about is not whether you've learned the doctrine, whether you've learned the doctrines of grace, whether you can articulate the confession, or whether you know all the finer points of the hypostatic union. Brethren, wisdom doesn't equate to knowledge. Wisdom's not what I know.

Wisdom's how I live. That's very clear here. Wisdom is all about the application of knowledge to my life, practically speaking.

It's the application of knowledge by the power of God to transform my behavior into something that's right living. Righteousness. That's the idea.

It's the ability to apply godly knowledge. A matter of practical living. Living with skill, with understanding.

The Scripture talks about the beginning of wisdom has to do with the fear of God. Understanding has to do with shunning evil. And so, the thing is, here's the question.

Who among us really has this? That's the question James is asking. Who's wise in understanding among you? By His conduct. Don't just claim to be wise.

Brothers and sisters, it is a very wise thing to come to Christ. It is a wise thing to gather together with the people of God in order to stir up one another to love and good works. But you know what? We can have all sorts of truths.

We can think right about a number of things. But you can come to a place like this and then you go off. The reality is there's probably one or more men who have viewed pornography in this place this week.

We know as elders about drugs, alcohol, bad marriages. And you see what James is saying. It's like you can tout the right stuff.

You can sing those songs. And you can even believe certain things there. But wisdom is not just simply knowledge.

Wisdom's about the way you live. And see, if you say you believe these things, but then somehow it doesn't impact the way you live to where it's a righteous kind of life. That's what wisdom is all about.

Who really has this? We don't want to just claim it. We got to show it. That's the word there.

Let him show. You say you're wise. You say learn it, educate it in doctrine.

We've got to demonstrate it. You say you're a Christian, prove it. Let's look at the life.

And what are we looking for? What is it about the life that proves I possess the wisdom of God? Notice those two words in the ESV. Good conduct. Now the word good, let me just tell you that.

That is the exact same word that shows up here. Jesus said, why do you trouble the woman? She's done a beautiful thing to me. You remember the woman with the alabaster flask and the expensive ointment and she poured it on His head? And He said, this is a beautiful thing.

He said, wherever the Gospel, that story's going to be told. Beautiful. That's the word.

You know what? It is the word from which we get calligraphy. It's kalos. And the thing is, what is calligraphy? My wife used to do that.

I still have some of the things that she did in calligraphy before we had all the computers and the printers and everything. And think about calligraphy. She would write in script with these certain pens.

That is the idea here about good behavior. Think about it. It's the kind of writing that is this graceful, flowing, beautiful script.

That's what the life of the Christian is supposed to be. That is the good behavior. You just imagine this beauty.

I mean, if you spell out your life with meekness and purity and gentleness and mercy and sincerity, that's the kind of thing that you have here. That's how it's proven. Now here's the thing.

I'm reading this. I'm rereading this. I'm rereading this.

I want you to notice for a second just the words James uses. He says, "...show your works in the meekness of wisdom." Now, does she like that? The meekness of wisdom. I don't believe that that kind of phrase is used anywhere else in the New Testament.

But listen, when you hear that, the meekness of wisdom, what comes to your mind? Anything? That. Maybe I should say this. Who comes to your mind? I mean, I'm hearing Jesus say, learn of Me.

I'm meek. Doesn't Scripture tell us that He Himself is wisdom? And then you start going through here. When I see selfish ambition, that's obviously connected with the wisdom that's from below.

The demonic wisdom. That's the opposite of what we would find in true wisdom. The opposite of that is selfless.

And you start thinking about Christ. I didn't come to be served, but to serve. Or Philippians 2. He emptied Himself.

And you start going through these words, and I come across wisdom from above. And I think of how Jesus said He came. John 3.31, He who comes from above is above all.

He who is of the earth belongs to the earth. You see, you have wisdom that's earthly. Wisdom that's from above.

Christ is from above. And over against that which is earthly. Pure.

Everyone who hopes in Him, they purify themselves as He is pure. He is the example. He exemplifies it all.

Peaceable. He came and made peace through the blood of His cross. Or we call Him the Prince of Peace.

You've got these words here. Gentle. Gentle.

Again, that's the same word for meek. But He came riding on this colt. And He is set forth as being this gentle King concerning mercy.

We know He says, I desire mercy, not sacrifice. The good fruit. God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power.

And He went about doing good. And I would just say this, should any of us be surprised that the biblical teaching on wisdom points us here, here's the thing. Paul said this.

You remember he said even in Colossians about Christ and wisdom? Anybody got that text memorized? What did he say? In Christ are what? Concerning wisdom. What do you got? In Christ, all the riches, all the treasures. That's what our ESV says.

All the treasures. All the treasures. Here's the thing.

All. There's not one precious, valuable thing that James can tell you or me about wisdom, about the true treasure of wisdom that cannot be found in Christ. He is the living wisdom.

He is the living example of this. Who's wise in understanding among us? I think we can all say the man Christ Jesus is. He is whatever can be said about anybody else.

Everything that characterizes the wise life characterizes Jesus' life. Jesus says, the text came, Jesus said, you search the Scriptures. In them you think you have eternal life.

He said the Scriptures speak about Me. And so when you go through, if you're going through James, that's not just through the Old Testament Scriptures. We can say that about the New Testament Scriptures.

That they speak of Christ. You ought to be able to find Christ. You search the Scriptures and you're looking for wisdom.

Jesus would say, but they speak about Me. I mean, there's the reality. There's the fullness.

Anything here bear witness to Him? Wisdom from above? Brethren, you know what? It's the same as in Proverbs. You know what? If anybody has a discerning ear and you go back and start listening to Proverbs, especially when you come over to chapter 8, it's like wisdom is given a voice. And wisdom begins to speak.

The Lord possessed me at the beginning of His way. This is wisdom speaking. Before His works of old, I've been established from everlasting.

By Me, kings reign. By Me, princes rule. I love those who love Me and those who seek Me diligently find Me.

And the discerning Christian hears the voice of Christ. And have you ever noticed? Scripture never differentiates between the wise life and Jesus' life. And in fact, the Scriptures call us, Paul, I want you to be wise as to what is good.

Again, he says, look carefully how you walk. Not as unwise, but as wise. But you know, Scriptures can turn right around and instead of calling us to be wise, it can call us to imitate Christ.

They're interchangeable. Christ exemplifies all this. Christ exemplifies everything James is saying in there.

Jesus said, I've given you an example. Peter says that Jesus gave us an example. John says, whoever says he abides in Him ought to walk in the same way in which He walked.

The case I'm making is this, if you say you're wise, let's look at your life. Is it the wise life? Is it the imitating Christ life? That's the issue. Brethren, doctrine and church-going coupled with the same kind of ungodly life that lost people live is earthly, unspiritual, and demonic.

You recognize that? That's exactly the point that's being made here. Can you hear Jesus' voice? Learn of Me. Learn of Me.

I am meek. Learn of Me. I'm amazed that James can go through all these verses and not mention Jesus.

But I don't think that he would have us avoid him. I'm going to find him there. The case I'm making is this, James talks about a wisdom.

And we need to hear Christ. He speaks. James talks about selfish ambition.

So does Paul. You know what? James hits the selfish ambition thing twice. Do you know what Paul says when he deals with selfish ambition? Listen to this.

He says, "...Do nothing from selfish ambition. In humility, count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." And it goes on to talk about him emptying himself. What's the issue? The issue is this, James doesn't want this selfish ambition. That is characteristic of this demonic wisdom.

Paul comes along and he says, what you want is the mind of Christ. You want to think like He thinks. Meekness, gentleness, purity, peace.

Christ just exemplifies it all. So he's always repeating. What did Jesus always say? Brethren, what does He say to us still to this day? He says, follow Me.

He's like, look at Me. Imitate Me. Follow Me.

Put your feet in My very footsteps. That's why we have that all the time. These things aren't matters to be argued about, brethren.

We've got to face the facts. Christ embodied all of it. And then there's this.

Again, just another place where I see Christ jump out of these verses at me. You want to pay attention here. Who is wise among you? Look at verse 17.

First, pure, peaceable, gentle. And then the ESV puts open to reason. I don't like that.

I don't think that captures. And I don't know where the translation puts that. Listen to the legacy.

Submissive. Pure, peaceable, gentle. Submissive.

The New King James says, willing to yield. My lexicon says, compliant, obedient. And I just ask this, wisdom yields to who? Brethren, we've got that voice.

Does that voice ring? I'm talking the Christ voice. Brethren, wisdom, I yield to Him. There's a yielding over against selfish ambition.

Selfish ambition. I want to do my thing. I just hear Jesus all the time.

It rings in my ears. Somebody wants to follow Him. He's calling people to follow Him all the time.

Here comes a guy, I'll follow you. Why would He say to him, foxes have holes. Birds of the air, they've got a place to lay down and lay their eggs.

And I don't have any place. Why would He say that? And we come along and are we wise? Are we yielding? Is the meekness of wisdom meekness? One of the heights of meekness is just I'm not all hung up on my self-importance. I'm hung up on Christ's importance.

And He comes along and He says this. He said other things. He says a grain of wheat falls into the ground and it dies.

He says whoever won't carry His cross, you've got to deny yourself and carry that cross. He says, isn't worthy of Me? We're talking wisdom. Christ exemplifies all of this.

And He comes along and what's He saying to us? What's He mean to say to us comfortable Americans that all like to have houses and find a place that we can get old and retire in and be comfortable and the AC can be just the right temperature and we've got ceiling fans in every room and just the right food in the refrigerator and we like to have places and we like to have security and we like to think that tomorrow's provided for. What in the world is He saying to us? I mean, I'm just thinking wisdom here, wisdom. What is wisdom? It's yielding to Him.

And why does He say such crazy things like that? Why would He say that? Why would He say He doesn't have any place to lay His head? To a guy that wants to follow Him. What am I supposed to be hearing in all of that? There's a voice there. And the wisdom that comes is first pure, peaceable, gentle.

It is submissive. It is willing to yield. It is compliant.

And brethren, yes, I'm going over hedge and ditch to get to Christ in all of this. But you know what? If I'm supposed to be submissive and compliant and yielding to this, Christ is Lord. I mean, as much as anybody, I'm going to be submitting to Him.

He is Lord. And you know what? The Father says to us, this is My beloved Son. He said, hear Him.

And you remember what Moses said. This is Peter talking about what Moses said. The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers.

You shall listen to Him in whatever He tells you. And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people. You don't listen to Him, you're destroyed.

This is a serious thing. Jesus said as much. Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does them will be like a wise man.

There's wisdom. Here's the wise man that does what? Doesn't just hear the doctrine and you can move around in our circles and recount it. How's your life live? How's your life lived? How's your life look? How's your life square with this? You see, this is the wisdom that comes from above.

Jesus exemplifies all of this. Christ saves us from the fool's life. From the earthly, unspiritual, demonic wisdom.

And Jesus basically says, you can't avoid Me. You can't avoid Me if we're going to talk about wisdom. The Father says you can't avoid Him.

Moses says you can't avoid Him. This is the one we have to answer to. He is wisdom.

His ways are wisdom. It's our wisdom to submit to Him. Be willing to yield.

I mean, when you look at Him, listen, He says, follow Me. Now if He was here today bodily, where would He take us? I remember hearing John MacArthur years ago and he said, if Jesus came in here right now, he says, I think He'd mess things up here. Because He makes us uncomfortable.

And yet, what's He saying to us? What is He wanting from us? Brethren, there is a meekness of wisdom. Who's wise in understanding among you by your life, by your conduct? There is this meekness. You know, meekness.

One of my lexicons says, a quality of not being overly impressed by a sense of one's self-importance. And it's totally opposite to the selfish ambition which is here. Like I say, it's being impressed by a sense of Christ's importance.

Who's wise in understanding among us? Carrying the cross. If you save your life, you lose it. If you lose your life for His sake, you'll find it.

And He's saying, I don't have a place to lay My head. What does that mean as followers? He says, follow Me. Like watch Me, watch what I do, and imitate good works.

That's how your life is proved. He did good works. And they're not good works separated from Him that we're supposed to do.

We're supposed to imitate Him. He says, I've given you an example. That example is of love.

But He's an example for us. If we say that we have union with Him, then we should walk the same way that He walked. How did He walk? Where did He walk? You see, this is the walk of wisdom.

We can become complacent, but Jesus is calling us. Are we wise? That's the thing. So, not many are going to jump on board this.

I recognize not many approach this Christ with the meekness of wisdom. I mean, we can talk meekness. You can have a guy that's nice.

You know, there's nice people. Their personalities are nice. But that's not the issue here.

That's not what this is calling for. This is calling for the kind of purity. You think about purity.

Purity is a singular devotion. Blessed are the pure in heart. The wisdom from above is first pure.

That means undivided. Your loyalties are singular. You don't give yourself to another woman.

You're singular in your affections. Singular to Christ. Brethren, the meekness of wisdom, that is just a beautiful expression.

The thing is, you look around, most people in this world, they think they're wise. They're proud and arrogant. There's just an arrogance that goes along with the meekness of wisdom.

You look at that. What's that? I mean, the man of this world. The people of this world, who wants to be regarded as meek? That's the last thing that they want.

It's like calling him a coward or calling him a weakling. It's just some charge of unmanliness. But James actually says that guy that doesn't like to be... he's got all the answers, but he doesn't like to be regarded as meek.

He says it's demonic. That's a very devilish thing. The devil wants us to think a meek man is like a foolish weakling.

Who is wise and understanding among us? Let him demonstrate it in lifestyle. I want to talk for a moment about this. Obviously, there are two things that he hits on that is so characteristic of the wisdom that is not from above.

He's emphatic here, and he hits it twice. Jealousy. Selfish ambition.

Two things he nails. You see it there. V. 14, If you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, don't boast and be false to the truth.

And I would say, what truth? Well, obviously to the truth that you're wise. Don't boast about being wise when you're being false to that reality of what wise is. Not if you have this bitter jealousy and selfish ambition.

This isn't the wisdom that comes down from above. It's earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, you get disorder, every vile practice.

Bitter jealousy. You know what that is. Intense negative feelings at the success of another or the achievements of another.

Selfish ambition is just this outbreak of selfishness. You want your own. You're thinking about you.

The issue is that you may have two men running around the church saying the same thing. Communicating the same facts. They believe the same things.

But James says, let's take a closer look at the life because that's where whether a person has wisdom is really going to be seen or not. And what he's dealing with here is two cancers. You see that.

Two cancers that characterize the wisdom not from above. Here's the thing. How do you cut these cancers out? How do we kill those things? And I have a truth for you.

Jesus Christ Himself, this is what Peter tells us, bore our sins in His body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds, you have been healed. Brethren, I appeal to you who profess to be Christians.

I know my wife and I have talked about this. Certain situations in our life where you might, from a worldly perspective, you might expect fear inside you. Sorrow, lust, greed, covetousness, jealousy, unforgiveness.

You know the kind of stuff that can eat at you? But we have found like in seeking the Lord, He takes these things away. Like He just douses them. It's like a fire and He puts it out.

Like there's a reality to the power of what was unleashed on the cross to actually live to righteousness and die to these things. How do we cut out that cancer? Well, brethren, God can take these things away. But how? If we really get down to this, it's like how does this happen? Well, I would go to something like this.

If you live according to the flesh, you will die. And people running around full of all sorts of jealousy and selfish ambition, they're going to die. They're living according to the flesh.

If by the Spirit, you get that? If by the Spirit, you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. Now I know these things have to do with feelings inside, but they're the things that come up out of the heart that cause us to do the things with our body. If we're going to kill these things, what's the solution here? I've got to kill bitter jealousy.

I've got to kill selfish ambition. I don't want to nurture them. I don't want to cultivate them.

And one of the things that Paul says is don't make any provision for the flesh. In other words, don't feed the stuff. That's a good starting point.

But then there's by the Spirit, you put to death. I've got to do this. This is wisdom from above.

This is war. Listen, you're going to kill something like lust or greed or covetousness or bitterness or lack of forgiveness or jealousy. Listen, those things can take you.

They can just take you. They make your life miserable. They grab you.

They enslave you. You're going to put that to death? This is war. This is not for the timid.

This is not for the coward. Meek, yes. But Christ doesn't save us to be defeated.

He saves us to declare war on sinful deeds like this. Sinful deeds, sinful attitudes, and have victory. It's hard.

Not for quitters. Not for people who easily are just going to... The Kingdom of Heaven is taken by force. You need strength above and beyond your own.

That's why you get, if by the Spirit. You need strength beyond you. That's a reality.

By the Spirit. But you've got to ask this question. Who is supposed to put it to death? Listen to it again.

Who? If by the Spirit, you put to death the deeds of the body you will live. You do it. That's critical.

It doesn't say the Spirit does it. You do it. But, you can only do it by the Spirit.

You can only do it with assistance. Divine assistance. You can only do it that way.

Christians are called to live a supernatural life. You see it right there. We're energized by the third Person of the Godhead.

Whose wise and understanding among you? By His good conduct let Him show. And good conduct obviously does not have selfish ambition and jealousy and all these other flaming kinds of emotions and lusts that can take hold of us. And so how do I do this? You've got this Person.

God. Third Person. I don't do this by my own unaided effort.

But at the same time, I can't achieve this. I can't make headway with this unless the Spirit is somehow aiding my effort. If I get victory, it's not gotten all by myself.

But it's not gotten apart from me. I've got to exert myself. Obviously, I do it.

If I don't do it, it doesn't say the Spirit's going to do it for me. So, this is critical. So how? How? It's one thing to say it.

It's one thing to talk this talk. But how do I do it? How do I get hold of the Spirit's power? And brethren, there's two places in my Bible that I always go to answer that question. And brethren, there's no more important question in all the Bible as to how to live the Christian life than how you can tap the power of divinity to have success in your life.

How do you do that? And I come across this little statement in Galatians 3 that says that the Spirit... well, actually, it's a question. It's a rhetorical question about whether the Spirit is supplied. That's what we need.

A supply of the Spirit. Is the Spirit supplied by the hearing of faith? Or by works of the law? And there's an obvious answer there. And when you begin to look in the context, this isn't faith in the Spirit.

This is faith in the Son of God. It's faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Andy works miracles.

You better believe it's a miracle to have the kind of lust, the kind of jealousies and envies and greed and ambition and selfishness that grip men and to have the power of that broken. That is a miracle. And to live the Christian life and find God real in your life like that, brethren, that to me is one of the things over and over and over again that I just find so assuring.

To live this life and find God so there to help, willing to help, able to help, and actually helping. I can remember my wife talking about something. It's like she's expecting this thing to come, this thing to come, and then God just totally took it away.

I can remember some demonic things happening. It's just like peace instead of fear. Different things just how God responds to all these things.

But brethren, the other verse is this. I want you to look at this. I want you to turn in your Bibles and see this.

You know the verse. It's 2 Corinthians 3.18. I don't believe there's a greater truth for living the Christian life than this. Why? Because this is what excites the Spirit to help you.

We've already looked. Faith in Christ. What is faith? Faith is when you look outside of yourself.

It is having a hope. It's having an assurance in something outside of you. It's your eyes on Christ, not on you.

That's the idea of faith. And here in 2 Corinthians, we all, 3.18, we all with unveiled face. And of course, the picture here is this.

What happened to Moses when he would go into the tabernacle? What would happen to him when he went up on the mount? He would come back and his face was glowing. You see, Paul picks up on that imagery and he says, you know, it's just the same for the Christian. You know, John picks up on it and he says, at the very end when we see Christ, we are going to become as He is because we are going to see Him as He is.

There is a transforming power. The Spirit does the work. The Spirit does the transforming.

But it's when your eyes and your faith are on Christ. Remember, the Spirit came to exalt Christ, not Himself. The Spirit is that self-effacing person of the Godhead.

He's pointing all the fingers and all the attention to Christ. And He says, look over there. And when you look and you behold the glory, oh brethren, where are you going to see the glory? You've got to live in the four Gospels.

Listen, don't say you're taking fighting jealousy or selfishness seriously if you're not parking yourself where you can see the glory of Christ. You've got to look there. This is how the Spirit is going to be supplied.

God does supply the Spirit. God does do miracles. How does He do it? By faith in Christ.

Brethren, it's when we behold Him. And there's nothing about His life you can behold that isn't glorious. But you're going to see all these things that define wisdom.

You're going to see His purity. You're going to see His mercy. You're going to see His sincerity.

You're going to see all of that. You're going to see His own submission to His Father, willingness to yield to His Father. You're going to see a meekness of wisdom in Him.

You're going to behold this. He wasn't jealous. He desired the good of other people.

It's selfish ambition. He put His self on the altar for us. This is what was being talked about during the Lord's Supper.

Brethren, I'll tell you, jealousy and envy, it is an awful cancer. And it just eats people. Bitterness, unforgiveness.

You've got these kinds of things that just eat people. I mean, the blessings of others just rousing a bitterness inside. And Jesus, you hear that voice, learn of Me.

Isn't that what He says? Learn of Me. Paul at one place says, that's not the way you learn Christ, assuming that you have heard about Him and were taught in Him as the truth is in Jesus. Have you learned? You know what? If you learn Him, you don't learn to be jealous.

If you learn Him, you don't learn to be selfish. If you learn Him, you don't learn to be bitter. Our Lord was the greatest man of all.

Brethren, all these people running around claiming that they have all sorts of wisdom and they're arrogant and everything. Great men of this world, they are driven, selfish, jealous. And so, brethren, what I would say is this.

If you're a child of God, never say there's an insufficiency to deal with these things. Never say, well, I can't help the bitterness. I can't help how I feel.

I've got these awful feelings towards somebody. I can't deal with this. You don't complain about the insufficiency of power or ability.

If you complain that you're a defeated Christian, you're just helpless, you're powerless, I mean, who are you really calling into question? Yourself? Or God who says there's a Spirit and by Him you can put all these things to death. God's given these things to you. You get to a place where you say, I can't put sin to death.

Remember, that text has two parts. If you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit, you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

If you come along and say, I can't, I've had somebody say that to me. I was preaching one time. A guy, first or second row, said, I can't live righteous.

My marriage is rotten and it always will be, period. You know what he just did? He put himself in the first category. We don't want to live in that first category.

They die. When you believe you can't have victory, I mean, you just have to think about it. Who's really dishonored in all of it? When you say you can't, are you looking at yourself or are you looking at Christ? So I heard somebody say one time, we have a lion living within us.

You have the Spirit. Look, if you don't have the Spirit, you don't belong to Christ. You belong to Christ.

You've got the Spirit. That's the lion this guy was talking about. I forget who said that.

But that's a reality. The genuine Christian is a lion living within him. That lion can eat up all the garbage in your life.

He can defeat it. His claws can come out. He can shred jealousy in your life.

But brethren, I'm just going to tell you, as we get ready to start the new year and everybody gets ready to start their new Bible reading and everything, brethren, you've got to live in the Word of God. Why? Because you've got to live beholding the glory of Christ. You live beholding it.

I'll tell you, you've got to live under the sound of His voice. And He's going to tell you crazy things. Like, how are we going to follow Him in 2025? How are we going to put our feet where He walks? He says all the time, He's saying, follow Me, follow Me, follow Me.

I'll follow you. I don't have anywhere to lay my head. What's that mean? What am I supposed to do with that? Just ignore it and go on? We've got the doctrines of grace.

We're good, right? We've got Nehushtan over here. Brethren, I hope that just pulses in your heart. The meekness of wisdom, the example of Christ, following Him, dying like He did, living, I mean, all on the altar.

2025 is at hand. We don't want to play Christians. We don't want to play church.

Brethren, there's no more important thing in all the world than to have this kind of wisdom that is yielded. You say you're wise? Your life will prove it. Your life speaks.

Not so much the doctrine, the facts in your head. It's like this woman you were talking about reminded me of what our brother over in Thailand, he talks about people who know 100 times less and do 1,000 times more. Anyway, Father, we want to be wise.

The meekness of wisdom. We want that which is spoken about here, pure. It's first pure, peaceable.

Oh, Jesus, what a peacemaker He was. Gentle, yielding, merciful, good fruits, impartial, sincere. Lord, we want to be sincere.

We don't want to be fake. We don't want to be hypocrites. We don't want to be one thing in the sight of the brethren and something else behind the scenes.

Where you see us, where we're totally exposed, we're totally open. Lord, You know the degree to which we are selfishly ambitious, wanting our own way and not to follow Christ. Lord, You know us.

We're an open book. There's total transparency. Lord, You see us.

You see our life. You see our works. You see our thoughts.

You see our motives, our goals, our passions. Lord, You know right where we're at. Father, make us wise.

We pray in Christ's name, amen. You're dismissed.