James 2026

Book of James in your Bibles.

We're gonna be having our reading now. It is James chapter three verse 13 to chapter four verse six, and Ellie Gantt is gonna come and read that for us now. And then Alex will come and preach God's word to us. Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom.

But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such wisdom does not come down from heaven, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure, then peace loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet, but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God.

When you ask, you do not receive because you ask with wrong motives that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us, but he gives us more grace. That is why scripture says, God opposes the proud, but shows favor to the humble.

Thanks, Ellie. Hello. I'm Alex. And this week I went to get my haircut. I tried out a new barbers quite near my office in the middle of London and fancy place.

They offer you a coffee or a beer when you walk in. Very cool. Everyone in there is cool, full of young professionals, guys mostly in their sort of twenties and thirties. Anyway, after a while, it's my turn and the barber calls me over, sits me down in the chair. He takes the cape thing and flourishes it and puts it around my neck.

And then he disappears off somewhere for a little bit. So I'm sat there looking around. And you know how if you're in a barber's, there's that massive big mirror in front of you and then there's one behind you as well. And in the mirror, you can see the mirror, but then you can see another reflection of a mirror and on and on and on and on it goes. So there's this massive tunnel of mirrors.

That's what I'm looking at. And as I'm looking in that mirror of or tunnel of mirrors, out of the corner of my eye, I spot something that I hadn't seen sort of as I walked in. It's this old bloke, head full of gray hair. So I think he looks quite out of place here, right? Full of young professionals, young cool people.

So I turn around to get a better look. And as I turn, he turns. Some of you saw that coming, didn't you? It was me, it was me. I was kind of caught off guard to be honest.

I caught sight of myself down this tunnel of mirrors. I knew that I had some grays. I hadn't quite clocked that it was, the coverage was that extreme. It wasn't very flattering, if I'm honest. This is my third time preaching here at Cornerstone.

After each of the last two, I've gone onto YouTube to watch back the recording. Sort of listen back, see what worked, what didn't, what had changed, that sort of thing. But something else struck me as I look back. You see, over the last year, I've lost quite a lot of weight. And watching those recordings, seeing my reflection, I found myself thinking, Damn, I look good.

Sam is a lucky woman. That's mirrors for you, right? Sometimes you don't like what you see. Sometimes you do. Either way, they can show you something about yourself that you had not noticed.

If you've been with us throughout this series in James, we've been using this picture of a mirror that we keep coming back to. It's back from chapter one of James, where he describes someone who looks at his face in a mirror and goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. And James says that that is what we're like when we hear God's word, but don't put it into practice. And that's been something of a theme as we've gone through this letter, right? Hasn't it?

James has challenged us about our faith. Not just whether we say we have faith, but whether that faith is actually demonstrated in the way that we live. He wants us to look at how we actually are. And tonight he does that through a series of probing questions. And if we do our job properly, I suspect we're in for an uncomfortable time.

Because tonight, James is going to call you a killer. He's going to call you an adulterer. And before you decide that that couldn't possibly apply to you, we better pray. So let's pray. Heavenly father, your word sees us more clearly than we see ourselves.

So please give us the humility to look honestly into it tonight. Strip away our excuses. Expose what we'd rather not see. And don't let us turn away and forget what you've shown us. But above all, us to see the Lord Jesus Christ and to rejoice in the greater grace you give us through him.

Amen. So let's look into the mirror of God's word and see what he has to show us. So look down at verse 13. Who is wise and understanding among you? That's quite a question, isn't it?

James has warned people at the beginning of this chapter who are eager to teach and now he addresses all who call themselves wise. Now you might never call yourself wise, but you've heard the sermons, you've read your Bible, you know how Christians ought to behave, but if that's not thinking you're wise, what is it? And James says, show me. Not your knowledge, not your theological arguments, your life. Deeds done in humility.

He's already shown us that faith without works is dead and that the tongue can bless God while cursing those made in his image. Now he's asking, does your wisdom survive the same test? Let me show you what I mean. Imagine somebody at church has bought a lovely new house. There's a photo on WhatsApp or social media, two grinning faces, holding the keys outside the front door.

And then you look it up on Rightmove. Beautiful kitchen. Lovely garden. Room to spare. You tap the little heart react and you're pleased for them.

You really are. But later you're back at your own place and a thought creeps in. Must be nice. So do close to church too. Do they really need somewhere quite so big?

I wonder how they're paying for all that. And the next time somebody mentions their new house, you say Well it is lovely, but I do wonder is it all a bit extravagant? Perfectly sensible observation of course, but strange how you only became concerned for their finances after you saw that house. And somehow saying that makes you feel a little bit better. Wanting more space isn't wicked.

Seeing somebody else enjoy what you've longed for can hurt. But you've begun treating somebody else's blessing as though it was your defeat. Or there's that family at church whose children are polite, well behaved. Apparently they even enjoy doing homework and you love your children but some days getting them to put on their shoes feels like negotiating a peace treaty. Then one Sunday at Tiffin, you see one of those perfect children has an absolute meltdown.

Shouting, stamping, refusing to do what they've been told. And mom stands there going bright red, just wishing the floor would swallow her up. Now what ought you to feel? Compassion, surely. But be honest.

Wasn't there just the tiniest part of you that rather enjoyed it? Well, well, well, their children aren't quite so perfect after all, are they? On the way home you mention it. Did you see what happened with their little one? I do sometimes wonder if they're a bit too soft on discipline, know?

But hang on a minute, when your child misbehaves, they're tired. They're having a difficult day. People ought to be understanding but when their child misbehaves, suddenly it's evidence of their poor parenting. You're wonderfully charitable when explaining your own failures and you're wonderfully discerning too aren't you when examining someone else's? And here's the really ugly thing right?

Another Christian had a miserable morning and some part of you was glad. That's bitter envy and selfish ambition. Your sister's humiliation felt like your victory and you called it wisdom. Perhaps you used to say yes to everything at church. Lifts, meals, clearing up, but children or work or age have left you with less time or less energy.

Others take over and they get thanked. Funny. I did that for years and nobody made a fuss over me. Just wait. I'll find out just how much work that is.

And part of you hopes that they struggle just enough to remind everybody of how much you used to do. But then there are the others. The ones you see and think must be nice. All that time, all that energy and what are they doing with it? They're sat on their backsides.

If I had that sort of freedom, I'd be serving the church. But hang on, the people who step up, they annoy you because they're taking your place and the people who don't, they annoy you because they're wasting their place. What exactly would make you happy? That's the frightening thing about the world's wisdom. It doesn't look ugly to you.

It looks sensible. It looks perceptive, responsible, sometimes positively godly. You have given your envy respectable names. You're actually proud of what should shame you. Look at verse 14.

Bitter envy and selfish ambition can fill your heart while you boast about your wisdom and deny the truth. You've become so proud in your judgment that you won't see the truth about your heart. Verse 15, James says that this supposed wisdom is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. Earthly, it belongs to the world and its standards. Status, recognition, success, getting ahead.

Unspiritual. However sophisticated your reasoning or convincing your excuses, this isn't wisdom from God's spirit. And then demonic. Remember chapter two? Even the demons believe in God but that knowledge doesn't make them obedient to him.

Just think about those situations I described and what we're doing. These are people Christ died for. Our brothers and sisters And here we are using our supposed wisdom to tear them down, to get ahead of them, to turn people against them. Whose work are we doing? You can know your Bible backwards and still take your advice on how to treat people from the devil.

And look at verse 16. What does this wisdom produce? Disorder. Every evil practice. But verse 17 shows us a different wisdom.

Wisdom from heaven and notice how he begins. First of all, pure. Pure. Not God's wisdom with a few sort of worldly methods thrown in whenever obedience becomes inconvenient. Pure.

And then peace loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial, sincere. That wisdom, it accepts correction. It can admit you're right, I was wrong. When another Christian gets something wrong it doesn't relish putting them in their place. It wants to help them, not humiliate them.

Isn't that beautiful? Just imagine being like that. You can celebrate their new home even when it stings a bit. You can move towards that struggling parent with kindness rather than feeling smug. When you've less time or strength to serve, you can rejoice in those who step up instead of keeping score.

That's heavenly wisdom. But now let James turn it on you. Pure? What about the worldly calculations you've been bringing into your relationship with other Christians? Peace loving?

What peace have you been sowing while you've been quietly undermining everybody? Full of mercy? Where was your mercy when that mum stood there humiliated and some part of you was enjoying it? Because we can admire heavenly wisdom and then despise it the moment it costs us something. And it does cost us something.

Sometimes it means swallowing your pride. Sometimes it means surrendering an advantage you have. Sometimes it means bearing your own disappointment without inflicting it on somebody else. And isn't that the way of our Lord Jesus? The world says climb over others.

He lowered himself to serve others even to the cross. James says that the wisdom from heaven produces a very different harvest. Look at verse 18, Peacemakers sow in peace and reap a harvest of righteousness. A harvest more than just avoiding an argument, actively making peace and seeking your neighbor's goods. This wisdom comes from heaven and God gives it generously.

But here's the question, is this the wisdom that you're living by? Then James looks at God's people and what does he find in four verse one? Fights, quarrels. Oh come on James, we don't fight at Cornerstone. Don't you?

Think of that person you've become very good at avoiding on Sundays. Perhaps not from a blazing row, but years of little comments and grudges. You spot them by coffee. Suddenly, need to speak to someone across the room. A spare seat beside them.

You'd rather sit three seats that rose back. Oh, we haven't fallen out. I love them, of course, but I just don't particularly like them. Really? You won't sit with them.

You won't speak to them. You're relieved when they're not there and you're telling me that you haven't fallen out. You stopped arguing perhaps, but you haven't made peace. And these are your brothers and sisters, not out there in the world, among you. You've just heard what heavenly wisdom produces.

Purity, mercy, gentleness, peace. So what on earth are you doing to each other? Perhaps somebody came to mind. I expect you got your reasons. You remember how they treated you, the messages they ignored, the times they let you down, those hurtful things they said.

You've replayed it so many times that you could repeat every word and perhaps they have genuinely wronged you. But James asks what's happening inside you? Look at verse one. He says, Your fights come from your desires that battle within you. Your desires.

James has just exposed the wisdom governing your conduct, but now he's going deeper. What do you want so badly that you're prepared to fight for it? Suppose you spent months helping somebody at church. You've listened, prayed, offered advice. You care about them and now they're facing a decision and you think they're making a mistake and you've told them so, but they do it anyway.

They don't even tell you. You actually hear it from somebody else after everything I've done for them. You want what's best for them, but you also want them to listen to you, to value your wisdom, perhaps even to need you. Now look at verse two. You desire but do not have, so you kill.

Kill! James isn't messing about. So perhaps you stopped checking in. Not because you're giving them space, because you want them to feel your disappointment. When another Christian asks how they're doing, you say Well I'm rather concerned.

They've had plenty of good advice but they're determined to go their own way. Perhaps that's true. You've chosen your words carefully haven't you? Just enough to make them look foolish and yourself look wise. Soon people take sides, conversations become awkward, people watch what they say and to whom?

The war in your heart is becoming a war in your church. Then you hear they've had a setback this person. What's your first reaction? Compassion? Or is it a flicker of satisfaction?

Good. Perhaps now we'll see. Perhaps you even hope things get a bit worse because then they'll finally have to admit that you were right. You began by wanting them to flourish And now do you see you're willing them to fail? You wouldn't dream of murdering them, but you'd quite like to see their life in ruins, wouldn't you?

Look at what your desire has done. Someone you are supposed to love has become somebody that you want to punish. Your desires have taken commands and you're prepared to go to war with your brother to get what you want. We don't like seeing that ugliness in ourselves, do we? But James isn't finished.

Now he turns to your prayers. Some of you aren't asking God at all. Why would you? You don't need God's wisdom. You know best.

You can't control the desires in your own heart, but you sure know how to fix everyone else. Some of you are praying, but verse three says that you ask and don't receive because your motives are wrong. You want things to spend on your pleasures. You're still asking God to satisfy the very desires that started the fighting. Perhaps you've been praying for that pay rise.

Lord, please provide. And you've already spent every penny in your head. The holiday, the new car, that kitchen extension. Funny, isn't it? You haven't once asked him to make you more generous or perhaps your prayers sound much holier.

Lord grow our church, bless our ministry. Wonderful things to pray for. But another ministry starts flourishing. More people, more volunteers. Are you delighted or are you jealous?

You prayed for people to come and they have just not to your thing. Suddenly instead of thanking God, you're keeping score. We can pray for God's kingdom to grow while secretly wanting our bit of it to come out on top. Or perhaps you've been praying for that friend. Lord, please bring them back to their senses.

Perhaps they did make a mistake, But suppose God blesses them anyway. Would you rejoice or resent that they never had to admit that you were right? You've brought the desires poisoning that friendship into your prayers and you want God to satisfy them. Do you remember in chapter one, James told you that if you lack wisdom, you should ask God who gives generously, yet you're asking God to serve your foolishness. God has offered you wisdom and you've got the nerve to ask him to take your side against it.

And when we see this, we might be tempted to stop praying altogether, but that's not James' aim. He wants to reshape our prayers by exposing our hearts. Our quarrels are bad enough, but even our prayers are corrupted by these same selfish desires. Divided hearts make for divided churches. But he's about to reveal something even worse because in verse four, he tells you what those divided hearts mean for your relationship with God.

Well, look at verse four. You adulterous people. Adulterous people. That is what James calls you. Not merely unwise, not merely selfish, not merely quarrelsome, adulterers.

You have betrayed God himself. Think about adultery. Some of you know exactly how painful that is. You discover your husband or wife has been unfaithful. All the while they've been coming home telling you they love you, making plans for the future together while they hold your hand.

But behind your affection and the intimacy that they promised exclusively to you and suddenly everything changes. You confront them and they say, oh don't make such a fuss. Not as though I've left you. I still come home, don't I? I still love you.

Would you say, oh, well, as long as you're still coming home. That's alright. Of course not. Because you cannot claim to be faithful while giving yourself to somebody else. That is James's picture for your relationship with God.

The prophets accused Israel of prostituting herself to other gods. James looks at you and says, you're no different. You come to church, you sing his praises, you listen to his words, you pray, you call yourself a Christian but when it comes to how you actually live, whose wisdom have you been following? Whose approval have you been seeking? Whose values have shaped your choices?

Look at verse four. James says that friendship with the world means enmity against God. Friendship. Remember what he said back in chapter one, pure religion means keeping yourself unpolluted from the world and now you've made friends with it. You've welcomed the world's values into your heart and you brought them into the church.

You make snide remarks about another family's lovely new house and you call it discernment. You secretly enjoy another's humiliation and call it good judgment. You resent Christians who serve and sneer at the ones who don't and you call it concern for the church. You hope the person who ignored your advice comes crashing down and you call it loving concern. These are your brothers and sisters and this is how you've been treating them and you've been making excuses all along.

It's not as though I've stopped believing in God. Exactly. You haven't stopped claiming to belong to God. You've just been living according to the wisdom of his enemies and that's why James calls it adultery. You want God's love and the world's approval.

You want the church's family and its members as rivals. You want Christ to forgive bitterness in your heart, not interfering with your grudges. You want Jesus as Lord until he calls you to pick up your cross. You want it both ways but you can't. Verse four, choose friendship with the world and you make yourself God's enemy.

Enemy! Remember Abraham in chapter two, his actions demonstrated his faith and James called him God's friend and we claim to be God's friends at Cornerstone but what do our lives say? And God isn't indifferent. Look at verse five. James speaks of God jealously longing for the spirit he's caused to dwell in us.

But this isn't the bitter envy that James has condemned. God isn't insecure. He's the living God. The God who made you, who gave you life, who gave you new life and calls you his own. He rightly demands your wholehearted devotion.

He will not pretend that friendship with the world is faithfulness to him. He loves his people with a holy covenantal love and you've betrayed him. Do you see how far James has taken us? We thought the problem was our wisdom. Then James exposed the desires tearing our relationships apart.

And now he's shown us what those divided desires reveal. We've been unfaithful to our God. But he gives us more grace. But he gives us more grace. Really let that sink in.

You mustn't miss this. In fact, let's read it out loud together. But he gives us more grace. The God you've just heard about, the God who jealously desires your wholehearted devotion, the God you betrayed, he gives you more grace. You can turn against another Christian simply because they won't give you what you want and yet God whom you've genuinely wronged doesn't treat you as you've treated him.

He gives us more grace. But grace doesn't mean God overlooks sin. Look at the rest of verse six. God opposes the proud, but shows favor to the humble. God opposes the proud.

Perhaps even now you're still making excuses. Still explaining why you were justified, why your circumstances were different, why James couldn't possibly have been talking about you. Well, you can keep defending yourself, but don't ever think that you can win an argument against God. He opposes the proud, but he gives can grace to the humble, to the Christian who finally stops pretending, who sees their reflection in God's words and empty handedly admits, yes, that's me. I've been a fool.

I wanted my own way. I've betrayed you. And here's the wonderful thing. You don't have to make yourself worthy of grace before God will give it. You couldn't.

That's why it's grace. And where does that grace come from? Well, think of James held up, before to us heavenly wisdom and you've seen how far short of that you fall. But Jesus, pure, gentle, merciful, sincere, never once twisting the truth to his own advantage. And his desires facing the cross.

Were you afraid for your own way? He prayed not my will, but yours. His allegiance never divided. He wouldn't trade his father's approval for the world's wisdom entirely from heaven, desires perfectly submitted to God, allegiance absolutely undivided. Everything you have failed to be, Jesus was.

And where did that faithfulness take him? To the cross. Not because he had sinned, because you have. The faithful son died for the unfaithful. The Christ you have betrayed gave himself to bring you back to God And he rose again.

Do you see what that means? After all that James has exposed, all the pride, all the bitterness, the selfishness, the betrayal, you can come home. The God you betrayed, he's not pretending your sins were nothing. They cost his son his life. Christ has born your guilt.

Your forgiveness has been purchased at the cross. And now can you believe this? The God you betrayed welcomes you through the son who never betrayed him. He doesn't just tolerate you. He welcomes you.

After everything you've done, everything you've tried to justify away, everything you've refused to see, he gives more grace. It's more even than forgiveness. By his spirit God begins to change the very hearts that have betrayed him. James one:five, God gives wisdom generously. Two thirteen, mercy triumphs over judgement.

Remember the harvest of righteousness that we saw earlier in chapter three. God isn't merely forgiving you for failing to produce it. He's giving you the wisdom by which it grows. Think again about those other Christians. The couple whose lovely new house suddenly made your own place seem inadequate.

You don't have to keep finding reasons to diminish their happiness. You can rejoice with them even when it hurts. And the Christian who refused your advice, you don't have to spend your life waiting for them to fail. You can genuinely seek their good even if they never admit that you were right. Imagine the freedom of that, not having to win, not having to be admired, not needing another Christian to lose so that you can feel like you've won because you belong to Christ and his grace is enough.

The heart that's been fighting and grasping, its own way can begin to rest in the love of God. Not overnight, but genuinely. That's what the power of God's greater grace does. It takes people who've been proud of their foolishness and teaches them wisdom. It takes people enslaved to their own desires and teaches them to love.

It takes people with divided hearts and makes them increasingly wholehearted. So when you look in the mirror of God's word, don't turn away from what you've seen, but don't despair of what you've seen either. The God who exposes your unfaithfulness is the God who gives more grace. You cannot have it both ways, but he gives us more grace. Let's pray.

Psalm 86 says, teach me your way, o Lord, that I may walk in your truth. Give me an undivided heart to fear your name. Lord, we lack wisdom. Teach us. Our way of life contradicts our claims of faith.

Make us walk in your truth. Our hearts are divided. Unite them. We have been proud. Teach us to fear your name.

Thank you for giving us more grace. Amen. We're gonna do something, that we don't always do. We're gonna have a video come up of a song and the words will be sort of on the screen. Use it as a chance to reflect on what we've heard.

And then I think we're gonna sing straight after that. To sins that we cannot deny we've turned from you the fountain of living water and have tried to drink from cisterns cracked and dry what