So, have you ever bought something that you didn't really need? Maybe this weekend, bought something you really didn't need. Well, since my dad died in May, uh my sisters and I, we, we have discovered more of my dad's legendary buying adventures. Uh And, and by that, what I mean is that my, my dad bought things very uniquely. Now, my dad uh was an absolute master with money. I, I know of no one. I know who is better and was better at managing money than my dad. So I'm just assuming there's a really good reason that my sister found four brand new still in the box leaf blowers in his workshop. Yeah, four of them brand new. All in the. Now granted there's four kids. Ok. So perhaps my dad, you know, was, was thinking of all of us and he was going to give all of us a leaf blower. But it is also highly likely that my dad found a great deal on leaf blowers and said, you know what I'm going to get for them. You never know when you might need another leaf blower. It's very, very, very likely there are also enough brand new sharpies, brand new highlighters, brand new yellow legal pads, brand new paper clips to outfit every single law firm and accounting firm in the Continental United States in my dad's office. It's unbelievable how many things there are but whether it's vitamins or medicine, whether it's, um, applewood smoked bacon, uh, whatever it may be, whether it's a good deal on a leaf blower, all of us buy things, we, we all buy things and before we buy things, we think things and we read things and we say things and we look at things, there's all kinds of things and all of those things impact every moment of our lives. We continue our series Navigating Life where we're considering keys to making good wise, healthy decisions. And we're going to be looking in the Bible in the book of James and James is giving some ingredients of, of wisdom. These are ingredients of things that are wise for us to pursue. They're, they're wisdom from above. It's God's wisdom. And today he's going to give us an ingredient that has its roots kind of in buying things and in buying things. And so, in fact, it's this ingredient that could really, really, really help us if we could buy this ingredient so to speak, it would be a tremendous help to us as we make all kind of decisions in life. And in fact, this ingredient would also be a help to us as we deal with fear. And worry and pride and anger and frustration. And yes, even wisdom for whether or not to buy for leaf blowers that this one ingredient has that much impact and can have that much impact on our lives. So, what is this ingredient? Well, let's find out together. Today's message is turning toward freedom. We're going to be looking at the very last part of verse 17 and this is what James writes to the church. But the wisdom from above is free of hypocrisy. Wisdom from above. The wisdom that comes from the one true sovereign God is free of hypocrisy. Now, if we're going to understand what it means to be free of hypocrisy, we might need to understand what hypocrisy means. And many times when it comes to the word hypocrisy, the words of the philosopher in ego Montoyo come to mind, you keep using that word, but I don't think it means what you think it means. There are a lot of people that use the word hypocrisy and it doesn't really mean what we think it means. Here's a definition from the American Heritage Dictionary that I I just think is very succinct. It says the practice of professing beliefs, feelings are virtues that one does not hold. Let me read that again. The practice of professing beliefs, feelings are virtues. That one does not hold, this would be the person that would go to the statehouse and they would protest with great fanfare that the 10 Commandments had been taken down from the wall of a courthouse, but they actually won't live and follow the 10 Commandments in their own house. This would be the, the politician that throughout the campaign says, yes, I am, I am for these values, I'm for these family values. And if you elect me, then I will uphold these family values. But it takes about 30 seconds to look at that candidate's life and see that none of those values are in his own family. Now, at first glance, this sounds like the old adage. You know, you gotta practice what you preach, but that's not really what it means because this is, is deeper. This is saying if you don't practice what you preach, you don't believe what you preach, you profess something. You, you don't even believe in how many of us as parents or grandparents. We, we want our, our kids, our grandkids to, to follow Jesus, to find God to, to be a part of a local church to, to be a positive influence in the community. Most of us would say, yeah, those are things we want. Alistair Begg said this when my Children hear Godliness out of my mouth and they see wickedness in my life, then I point them to heaven and lead them to hell. That's a picture of hypocrisy. This, this is what I believe, but it's, it's not seen in my life as I've noted before. My mother in law. Many years ago, said to me, she said there's a difference in raising your kids in church and raising your kids in Christ. It's, it's different. So, as, as believers, are we raising our kids in church, are we raising them in Christ or are we raising them in other things? Are we raising them first? And most in, in family or, or friends or work or school or, or Clemson or Carolina or Georgia or airport or BC or, or River Bluff or, or vegan or bacon or fast food or whatever it may be? Are we raising them first? In, in Christmas and, and Halloween and Easter? Are we, are we raising them with all of these things first and most now that somebody's thinking, oh, Pastor Grant showed up again. No, no, no. Look. Go to the game. Cheer. Shout. Enjoy life. Have fun. Deck. The halls with Boughs of Holly, go vegan, go bacon, go to Italy and eat pasta. It's all good. It's fine, whatever. But when it comes to your last breath and when it comes to the last breath of your Children or your grandchildren, what do you want the most? What are you pointing to the most today for that moment? Do you want for yourself or for your kids or your grandkids to, to be with God forever or be separated from God forever? Do you want them to know the, the joy and satisfaction of knowing God forever? One of my sweet and precious friends. She text me on, on Sunday morning just to say that she's praying for me and praying for our church. And today would have been her daughter's 51st birthday and, and her heart was just broken and she texted me this morning and, and my response to her was this, I'm so sorry. I hope that today you can feel what a treasure she was and that with no shadow of a doubt that she is with her treasure right now. That's, that's what we should want the most as believers. And that mother does. That's, that's why I can text that to her. See in the, in the last moment in the last moment, I do not want my Children shouting for their team in the last moment, I do not want my Children surrounded with their retirement. In the last moment, I want them to know the treasure. And I hope hope that Alistair Beck's story about me is, is not true. Maybe that line is, is true. Maybe I've pointed and led in two different ways. I hope not. But I know it matters. I know what we're pointing to the most it matters. And wisdom from above says that when it comes to what matters the most, that, that wisdom is free of hypocrisy, it's free of saying, well, this is what I say is most important, but this is what I do. I say, I believe in this. But, but this is not seen in my life. Now, does that mean we can live perfect lives with no hypocrisy whatsoever. No, no, you are a hypocrite and I am a hypocrite. I am a hypocrite. You are a hypocrite. And if that just made you bristle inside and say, well, I don't like that. You may not be a Christian because we're hypocrites. We all have moments where we say one thing and, and we do the other. We all have moments where we sin and we fail. But a believer and follower of Jesus Christ, we know that we know that no matter how much we try to point people toward Jesus, we'll mess up, we'll fail and we don't worship the failures. Someone said it is the fruit that defines our life, not the failure. People see the fruit more than the failure. So we don't worship the failure. We, we praise God for the fruit. We will all have moments when we fail. The question is always this, what's the pattern of our lives when we look at our choices, when we look at our attitudes, when we look at our priorities, when we look at the way that we speak at home and work and school and church and, and all the different things. What is it that most is seen in our lives? What, what's mostly seen? Is it, is it belief that generally speaking is also seen in, in what we do or is it just belief and, and then our lives are a completely different thing. And what would our spouses say? What would our kids say? What would the people that we go to work and school and church with? What, what would they say to that question? What's, what's the pattern you see? We all know how to drive by a really fancy restaurant and we see someone sitting in the window of that fancy restaurant. We go, I can't believe they're wasting all that money on that food. And then we drive on by and we go to Home Depot and we buy four leaf floors, right? I mean, we, we all, we, we know that right? Or we look at our neighbors and go those wild neighbors. They need to start going to church, not realizing that our wild neighbors are looking to go at us and going man. If they're going to keep going to church, they sure should quit complaining. You know, we all know what it means to criticize someone who spends five hours shopping while we spend five hours golfing, hunting, fishing or something else. Likewise, we know what it means to criticize someone for spending five hours golfing, hunting or fishing while we may spend five hours scrolling through social media. We all know what it means as a, as a kid to say, oh, my parents are so boring. They don't know how to have any fun when we don't realize that one of the reasons they're boring is so that we can have fun. They do the boring work so that we can enjoy life. We're all hypocrites. None of us perfectly practice what we preach. We just don't, but that's not even what James is getting at here. When he says that wisdom from above is free of hypocrisy. He's saying it's free from insincerity. He's saying it's free from putting on a mask and playing a part that we don't even believe in this word for hypocrisy here in James is the same word that Peter uses in his first letter to the church. So the same Greek word and, and Peter uses it in a completely different form, but it's, it's the same exact word. It's just translated different. And so what Peter is doing is he's writing to the church about the living hope that they have in Jesus Christ. And he says, when we have this living hope, when we've been saved and redeemed and rescued and, and the Holy Spirit is working in our lives, it leads to something. And what does it lead to? Here's how he put it first Peter. 122 a sincere love of the brothers and sisters. Sincere and APOC is, is the same word. This this word sincere is saying, look, when these people became Christians, they loved other Christians like they didn't act like they love, they didn't put on a mask that says, hey, I'm a Christian I'm, I'm going to love people. No, they actually genuinely, they sincerely love those people. Last Sunday I was in Virginia and, uh, I had to be somewhere at 1030 last Sunday morning. And so I went looking Saturday night for a church that had a 730. Well, I went for an early service and the only early service I could find was at 730 in the morning. Huh? How about that? We'll see y'all next Sunday at 730. Y'all coming in for that one. But the only early service I could find was at 730. Everything else was, you know, 10, I think there might have been one that was 930 but I, I knew it wouldn't have time. So it's like, you know, 1030 11. I was like, all right, I said, well, I'm going to the 730 service at the Episcopal Church, you know, and, and when I got there, it was a small gathering. They invited me up to the front and as I walked to the front, I said, hey, I've never been to Episcopal service. You have to show me what to do. You know, it, it was quite an experience. It was a very encouraging edifying experience. And, and during the message, the minister told a story how a couple of years ago he was biking across the country. He and 20 other people, they rode their bikes, not their hogs, their, their bike bikes. They rode them from the east coast to the west coast. And he said about halfway on this trip, he just became overwhelmed with something. And what he was overwhelmed with were all the cars and all the trucks trying to run them off the road. All the people yelling and screaming and cursing and everything else. And then he, he just got overwhelmed and he said, I just started getting angry. I was just angry at all these people being so awful to us. And he said, I got so angry about it. I just, you know, I began to pray about it. I knew my heart wasn't right. And as he genuinely began to pray about it, the truth of the scripture started stirring in his heart and his mind. And he said, I realized the more I prayed, God reminded me of that one amazing biblical truth. And that is that Jesus died for their sin too. And he said, I became overwhelmed with that. My heart became tender and he goes into try to move myself out of that attitude. I begin to say as the cars rode by, as they yelled, as they swerved whatever they did. I begin to say sometimes in his mind and sometimes out loud, loved by Christ, love by Christ. So he realized that the the great and grand love of Jesus Christ that came through his birth and his life and his death and his resurrection, his ascension all of that was this picture for him that those dangerous, angry cursing drivers, they too were loved by Jesus through the cross. And so he began to say love by Christ, love by Christ, love by Christ. And slowly his attitude began to change. And I guess because there were so many cars, he eventually said, I just started saying love, loved by Christ, loved. That's a sincere love that we receive from Jesus. It's a sincere love that Jesus calls us to. And how do you think a sincere love like that would change things in my life in your life today? How would a sincere love like that change things in your marriage? How could a sincere love like that change things with your parents or, or with your kids? How could it change things with the people you work with or go to school with or go to church with as we prepare for our, our church conference this afternoon? How could a sincere love like that change and help whatever you're worried about or afraid about or or angry about as you head next week, some of you into the voting booth to elect municipal elections and and next year as we all go to the booth for a number of different reasons as you had to vote. How could a sincere love like this love of Jesus that we've been called to help you with what you're afraid of what you're worried about? What you're angry about is this kind of sincere love? Easy. Uh, no, it's really, really, really hard. But it's wise, it ain't easy, but it's wise. In fact, it's wisdom from above. It's, it's God's wisdom and it's wisdom that is free from hypocrisy. It's, it's free from insincerity. It's free to love wisdom from above is free from hypocrisy. It's free from saying, well, I believe this but I don't really live it, it's, it's free to say, I believe this and I love to live it. I don't live it perfectly. But I, but I love to live now. What does all of this have to do with buying things? Well, the, the Greek word is the same for hypocrisy and sincerity. And, and then when you look at the Latin word for sincerity, it's a combination of two words and those two words are without and wax in ancient times. What merchants would do from time to time is they would take uh the, the pottery and if there were defects or cracks, they would fill them in with wax and they polish them up really good. So, so you would know, so what you bought was actually not a real product. What you believed you were buying was not the real thing. The product wasn't true. And James is saying that true wisdom, the best and most ultimate wisdom, the wisdom from above is without wax. I it's sincere. It's, it's free of hypocrisy. It's, it's free of insincerity. It's not perfect, but it's real. We had a, a wedding here last night and, and earlier this week I, I came across a passage that's connected to what happens in the moment of the wedding ceremony. And, and this is the quote from Marshall Siegel. A wedding is a celebration not of love found, but if love declared love promised it's not. Hey, look, I found love. No, it's saying in this moment, I'm declaring love. I'm promising love. It won't be marked by my feelings. It will be marked by my promise. It will be marked by my choice. I'm not choosing to say, I found love. I'm choosing to say I will love when we look at the cross of Jesus Christ. When we consider what it means to be wise in this life. If you're a Christian, if you are part of the family of God or as the Bible says, the bride of Christ, part of what we are doing is celebrating through the birth and life, the crucifixion, the resurrection, the ascension of Jesus. We're celebrating that we were found. See, we were found by laws. We were lost, not, not like GPS lost. We, we were lost in the sense that we actually thought it was no big deal, whether we believed in God or not, that it was no big deal where we, whether we honored God or not. So we were, we were lost in our sin. But then we were found like Jesus. And what we're celebrating is that we have been found by Jesus and he has declared and promised his love to us yesterday today and forever, we cannot escape his love. That's why we would say loved by Christ to ourselves in the mirror. And then we remind ourselves to say it in every other way as well because we have no idea whether that person really knows Jesus or not. But through the cross, they've been loved by him, loved by Christ, loved that truth changes everything, everything. And if you've been loved, if you've been rescued, if you've been redeemed, then love Christ and love other people and love with sincerity, love without wax, love without hypocrisy free from hypocrisy. Let our faith be free of hypocrisy. Does that mean we're free of sin? No, no, we'll still sin. We'll still fail. We, we still have moments where we'll be hypocrites about something. David Terry was one of the deacons in the first church that I pastored and David was just a man. He was a good old country boy, a hunter, a fisher, um, loved Jesus, loved his family, loved the church. And I remember David and I were talking one day and, and David said, you know, I grew up in this town and my thoughts about this church when I was growing up was, it was a bunch of hypocrites, those people over that church. They were a bunch of hypocrites. He said, and then I started attending here. And what I discovered is I was right. They're a bunch of hypocrites. He said, there are a bunch of hypocrites just like me. I never forget that because because it was wise as believers, we have to acknowledge and remember that because of the world, because of sin, because of the flesh, because of the devil, we will not perfectly live this life for Christ will sin will fail. And from time to time, we won't practice what we preach. But if we've truly repented of our sin, if we've truly been rescued and redeemed, we cannot escape the love of Christ and the love of Christ becomes our fuel to be free from hypocrisy because your family and your friends and your favorite politician and your favorite team, they cannot fuel your heart to be free from hypocrisy. They don't, they don't have that ability. But the love of Jesus Christ that we cannot escape from, frees us, fuels us to be free of hypocrisy free from insincerity. If the, if the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ is your primary goal and purpose. You don't have to wear a mask. I know that sounds over simplistic, but it's so true. If the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ is your ultimate goal and purpose, then you don't have to wear a mask. You can be free from hypocrisy. You can believe and hold to what you believe. You can profess it and you can possess it and you can live it. That's what the love of Christ does. Loved by Christ, loved love. Kevin DeYoung says this, the hypocrite is not the Christian who struggles against sin, fights against temptation and keeps doing what is right even on his worst feeling days. That's a hero, hero, love that if you're fighting against sin, if you're fighting against temptation, if you are fighting to do the right thing, even on the days when everything feels wrong, or if you're fighting to do the right thing, even when doing the wrong thing feels so right. If you're in the fight, your hero, I, I kind of needed to hear that this week. A hero because of the fight. Look, there's nothing in our culture that will tell us this. But if you are pursuing holiness and godliness, it's cool. I mean, it really is. No one will tell us that. But it, but it is extremely cool. Why? Because it's heroic. Fighting against sin is the only ultimate heroic reality. I don't care who you love in Marvel and DC, the only ultimate heroic reality is fighting against sin because fighting against sin is the only heroic reality that actually sets you free. It's the only reality that leads to actual freedom today tomorrow and forever freedom. That is true. Freedom, that is lasting freedom that is ever lasting. It's not their fault. But you can't get that from your family and you can't get it from your friends and you can't get it from your job. You can't get it from your team. You can't even get it from this church. It only comes from Jesus. The freedom that your heart longs for the most. Only comes from Jesus. Fight sin, be a hero to your family and your friends and your community and your church and your country be, be a hero to yourself. Fight the good fight against sin. Let let us do that. And if we don't, if we refuse to fight the good fight against sin, if we refuse to fight against sin, fight against temptation. If we are a professing Christian that our spouses and our, our kids and our parents and our friends and our neighbors and, and everybody else will like, yeah, good guy says one thing does another. It's not good. If, if we're the kind of people that say, well, my way is the only way that exists and until you line up with my way, your way doesn't exist, that would be hypocrisy. That would be a a danger zone. Now, none of us are perfect. But again, the question for the good of our hearts is are we being more of a hypocrite or more of a hero? I, I promise the hero is better for your soul. I promise that the hero will bring more joy to your life. And I also promise that if you're pursuing, trying to be the hero life will still be hard and it'll still be difficult and things won't be perfect in your marriage or your family or your friends or this country or anything else. It will all still be difficult and there will be moments where you will be afraid and you'll be angry, you'll be depressed, you'll be scared, you'll be confused. You'll feel like there's no hope. You'll feel like there's no mercy. But you can always in that moment, keep preaching this to your heart. Look in the mirror, say it as loud as you can loved by Christ, loved. We don't ever have to stop preaching that message to ourselves and that's what it means to be free of hypocrisy to be sincere in what we believe. Not, not because we're great, but because Jesus is great. Kevin Dion goes and say this, the hypocrite is the Christian who uses the veneer of public virtue to cover the rot of private vice. He describes it this way. He's the man living a double life, the woman fooling her friends because she has church clothes, the student who proudly answers the questions in Sunday school and just as proudly romps through immorality. The rest of the week, the sin of hypocrisy he says is not that we are more messed up than we seem. That's true of all of us. The sin is using the appearance of goodness to quote the deeds of evil. And then he says this, the sin is in thinking that who others think you are matters a great deal more than whom God knows you to be. That's where the rubber meets the road. It's not what other people think we are because you know what, and, and you can put me at the top of this list. If we're not careful, we'll think what other people think of us is true. We, we really know it's not right. If you don't, let me just say it's not every now and then it is, you know, it is there, there's good in us. God does great things to us and it's ok. Hey, that person, you know, thinks this and that's ok. But we get a little too wrapped up in thinking, well, if, if these people think this about me, it must be true. That's where hypocrisy wins because we begin to think not what, what we think about what other people think. And, and we just don't even care what God thinks. As long as our mentors say, we're a great Christian. I'm a great Christian. As long as the people that we're mentoring, tell us that we're great Christians, we're great Christians. We believe things that may or may not be true and who cares what God thinks of us? Well, I can tell you this. God does. God does and we will all have that moment where we will stand before him. So let's go ahead and do it today. Let's go ahead in our minds. Stand there today and say, well, God, who do you say I am? Because if we can get an answer to that, we'll be free from hypocrisy, we'll be free from insincerity, we'll be free from the mask. God gave this message to the prophet Isaiah, Isaiah 55 1. You there. That, that means you all of you There. Everyone who thirst come to the waters and you who have no money come by and eat. There is no invitation like this in the world. Almost every single invitation that we have in this universe requires much more than we can provide or at least requires something of us. But this is an invitation to be right with the one true God of the universe and the invitation is come and buy with no money. This that's being offered when God says Isaiah, write this down, you there, you there come, come by and you have no money, come by, come by what your soul wants the most, come by, what your family needs the most, what your spouse needs the most, what your kids and your parents and your friends and your grandkids and the people at church and work and school and your neighbor and the politician and everybody else on the planet come get what is needed the most the most and come buy it with no money. Come come buy it for free. How in the world can we do that? Because the price has been paid as the old hymn says, Jesus paid at all. He paid, paid everything. There's, there's, there's nothing left to pay Jesus Christ loved you and he gave himself up for you. And because that's true to follow after Jesus is the wisest thing that anyone can do and it is a wisdom that creates freedom. So let us throw off the shackles of hypocrisy. Let us throw off the shackles of insincerity. Let's say what we believe and live what we believe for our good. Let us believe. Let us buy, let us experience the joy of what it means to be truly, deeply eternally loved by Jesus Christ. And let us experience the joy of what it means to be free. And how can we be free because of something that was paid by Jesus, loved by Christ, loved by Christ, loved by Christ, loved by Christ, loved by Christ, loved by Christ, loved by Christ, loved, laughed, laughed.