Wisdom From Above: Peaceable, Gentle and Full of Mercy

SERIES: WISDOM FROM ABOVE
MESSAGE: Peaceable, Gentle and Full of Mercy
TEXT: James 3:13-18
MESSAGE BY: Pastor J Carr

Worldly wisdom is used to demean and damage

Wisdom from above is used to help and heal

What does it mean to be gentle?

• 1 Timothy 3:3

• Titus 3:2

• 1 Peter 2:18

• Philippians 4:5

  • Treat people like you would if Jesus is near (because he is)

What makes us act un-gently?

• Pragmatism

  • Tied to selfish ambition

• Self-pity

  • Tied to jealousy

Pragmatism is pervasive

• A default mode of thinking

  • Results/happiness/blessings are all used to justify behavior

Pragmatism overestimates our foreknowledge and ability

• James 4:13-17

  • Always looking to future (pre-eternity) makes you less focused on faithfulness in the present

Alternatives to pragmatism

• Three approaches to ethics:

  • Duty/rules

  • Consequences/outcomes

  • Virtue/character

    • The most in line with Jesus

    • James 3:17 - “…full of mercy and good fruits…”

How is virtue/gentleness attained?

• Through faith in the source of all virtue and gentleness

• Matthew 12:19-21

• Gentle & Lowly

• The Iron Giant

• Galatians 5:20; 22-24

Peacemaking

• James 3:18

  • God brings great things from small offerings of peacemaking

What keeps us from making peace?

• James 4:1

  • The war within

• Faith and repentance toward our peacemaking God

  • His cross and resurrection

    • Give us peacemaking power

Discussion questions:

If you know any people who you think of as truly wise, what do you think of when you think of them? What are they like?

• Are there any people in your life that you now think of as wise that you would have thought of as wise before?

What are some examples of acting un-gently in your life?

• How do you try to justify it?

When do you act gently?

• those times when you are gentle, what is going on in life? What is motivating you? How are you thinking? Can we learn from any of this?

• What do we need to understand about God and ourselves to act Gently?

Do you think or act in pragmatic ways?

• Where the ends justifies the means; or you assume that a desirable outcome means however you got there is okay

• Do you see any problems with that way of thinking?

  • Have you seen it be a slippery slope?

• Do you fall into duty/rules thinking of morality?

• How might thinking in terms of virtue and character be better?

  • How do we develop virtue?

What do we need to understand about God, ourselves, and reality to be peacemakers?

• Why is peacemaking so hard?