Wisdom from Above. Grace to you and peace from God, our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Bridge

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1 Wisdom from Above Jeremiah 11:18-20 James 3:13 4:10 Mark 9:30-37 Pentecost 18 Jesus was teaching His disciples, saying to them, The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill Him. And when He is killed, after three days He will rise. Grace to you and peace from God, our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Bridge One of the crowning achievements of human wisdom is the invention of the internet upon which you can quickly find vast listings of other crowning achievements of human wisdom ushering in things horribly bad. In internet articles such as Inventions that proved Worst for the World and 6 Spectacularly Bad Ideas from History s Greatest Geniuses, earth s brightest and best display how giant steps from the wisdom of us here (down below the Heavens) seemingly forward also birth an infinite amount of additional options for using them to take huge steps backwards. Mankind s ingenuity before the world s 2 major Wars, for instance, were eye-opening about that because of where we took human wisdom from before it to converting creativity and engineering into machines, tools and strategies perfected so-as to kill each other. Weapons became (ultimately) the crowning achievements of inventions as humanity accelerated its energies to specifically hone the military industrial complex. I ve heard that microchips the size of dust-particles are soon (if not already) available to inject into a person s bloodstream so diagnose and neurologically-fix any number of health problems that can be (that way) monitored, maintained, assessed, and dealt-with. But the problem with deciding to

2 subject yourself to this quote enhancement is that governments are already documented ready to use it in spray-form on enemies. If they can get them to inhale it (spray it over them, for instance), then they could program them (like they ll be able to do) to surrender or more. Governments can, then remember, program citizens-injected to whatever potentially nasty end. While we (somewhat) appreciate new technologies for the conveniences and, even, comforts that they re championed to afford us, I don t think there are any naïve-enough to forget that for every step that s presumably forward, civilization takes with it from several dozen to several hundred steps backwards. Text Scripture encourages the embracing, use, and expression of Wisdom with understanding. Our text in James instructs in it while, first, expecting our dedication to it and Proverbs (in the Old Testament) is adamant about its necessity: blessed is the one who finds it and gets it (the whole book demands and instructs it as being the principal thing for, literally, this life onto the next). Yet not all wisdom is from Above. For instance, today, disciples didn t understand Jesus and His Father s and were afraid to ask about it, quickly moving-on to, just, ignoring it and expressing some of their own so, in Mark 9:30-37, we have two paragraphs that are in stark contrast with each other. Jesus was teaching His disciples, saying to them, The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill Him. And when He is killed, after three days He will rise (God s Wisdom / His salvation / His plan for the redemption of mankind prepared-for because of man s fall into sin, knowing what we would do even before beginning creation) but they did not understand the saying and were afraid to ask Him. And they came

3 to Capernaum. And when He was in the house He asked them, What were you discussing on the way? But they kept silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest. The Law s need for God to afford fair justice upon sin with His Gospel willingness, by love, to inflict that justice entirely upon His own divine Son is foolishness to the world s titfor-tat logic. We know, obviously, that bad people deserve bad things and we try to be goodenough to be considered Good in some Heavenly sense. But God (who really is Good) given over to men for their killing and ascribing that death-of-perfection as more-than-sufficient for everyone who receives it for themselves, that grace is beyond earth s logic, and its foughtagainst or denied, laughed-about for its sillyness, or ignored, or (maybe worse than all) taken for granted. But neglect-of-it James describes as wisdom from below, and of that he says it s of bitter jealousies and selfish ambition, boastful and false to the truth. And as recognizable as that is to us, James called wisdom like what the disciples displayed in their argument with each other only earthly, unspiritual, and even demonic. What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder (or hate). You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask the Father, trusting Him to provide what you need. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people who ve given yourselves to the world to let it master you! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God and God yearns jealously over the spirit

4 that He has made to dwell in us. Human adulthood has a knack for growing into a nasty volume of wisdom from below: we get set in our own ways rather than the Lord s. I often point-out the purest Christian we get in this room as a baby just baptized, joined to the Lord that way so intimately-inseparablefrom-him by grace and nearest to that moment when that union happened, not having departed-yet-some-distance by an idiotic amount of development of evil wisdom from below. Disciples, Mark records, did not understand God s Wisdom and (stupidly or complacently or neglectfully or arrogantly and pridefully) were afraid to ask Him about it. But children are, also, highly inquisitive and not-so stuck on earth they re always asking about the why s of things while adults give up or decide that they know enough or are, again, afraid to ask for embarrassment or laziness or any-and-all of those other stupid reasons Application and, so, Jesus gave us the example of the young child: He sat down and called the twelve and said to them, If anyone would be first, he must be Last of all and Servant of all. And He took a Child and put Him in the midst-of-them and taking Him in His arms He said to them, Whoever receives One Such Child in My name receives Me, and whoever receives Me, receives not Me, but Him who sent Me My Father. See, Jesus is that Child who is wide open (and obedient and willing) to Divine Wisdom, even BEING THAT WISDOM as the FULFILLMENT of all that Proverbs pointed to as Wisdom coming down from above. Abraham to sacrifice his young boy Isaac withheld became the Heavenly Father giving-insacrifice not-withheld His young then-made-boy Jesus to the nails and wood of a cross.

5 And, practically, James highlights the characteristics of Jesus that we can get from Him since HE submitted perfectly to Heaven s will: Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Humble yourselves (and do that before the Father like Jesus), and He will exalt you. We have a glorious summary statement of JESUS on Who s coat-tails Hope and Fulfillment is embodied, and on His coat-tails we need not fulfill the Law perfectly but be repentant and dependent and worshipful of Him Who did because Philippians 2 tells us (and I leave you with this) to have this mind among us, which IS OURS IN CHRIST JESUS baptized and believing in Him and His work, Who though He was in the form of God (as God), did not count equality with His divinity a thing to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, HE humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross, therefore God has highly exalted HIM and bestowed on HIM the name that is above every name, that at the name of JESUS every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth (because that s WISDOM in response to Him), and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. In +His name. Amen.