Will Vaus

As I begin the message today I would invite you to close your eyes and consider a few questions… Who is the wisest person you have ever known? Do you have a picture of that person in your mind? What are or were the chief characteristics of that person? Where do you think that person got their wisdom from? What are or were the results of wisdom in that person’s life? Alright, you may open your eyes. I asked you to engage in that exercise because I think that often in life we learn more from people’s lives, people’s characters, than we do from books. So, when we think about wisdom, it is important to have in our minds a clear picture of a wise person we have known. As we proceed through this sermon together, you might take mental note of how that wise person you know or have known, stacks up against the description of wisdom I hope to provide in this message. Now, when you saw the title of this sermon, “Two Kinds of Wisdom”, what two kinds of wisdom did you think of? Perhaps y...

It was his first day on the job. He was a new clerk in the produce department of a large super market. A lady came up to him and said she wanted to buy half of a head of lettuce. He tried to dissuade her from that goal, but she persisted. Finally, he said, “I’ll have to go back and talk to the manager.” He went to the rear of the store to talk to the manager, not noticing that the woman was walking right behind him. When he got into the back of the store, he said to the manager, “There’s some stupid old bag out there who wants to buy half a head of lettuce. What should I tell her?” Seeing the horrified look on the face of the manager, he turned about and, seeing the woman, added, “And this nice lady wants to buy the other half of the head of lettuce. Will it be all right?” Considerably relieved, the manager said, “That would be fine.” Later in the day, he congratulated the boy on his quick thinking. He then asked, “Where are you from, son?” The young man said, “I’m from Toronto, Cana...

I had a small part to play in this Billy Graham TV Special. My part begins at 14.25. Check it out!

My mother used to tell the story of attending a banquet with my father and their friend, U.S. Senator Mark Hatfield. My parents arrived at the hotel where the banquet was being held, and immediately my father parted from my mother to meet Mark Hatfield in another room. My mother tried to gain entrance to the banquet hall but was prevented by one of the hotel employees because she didn’t have a ticket. She tried to explain that she was the wife of one of the speakers and a friend of Senator Hatfield, but the hotel employee wasn’t having any of it. No ticket—no entrance. A few minutes later, my father and Senator Hatfield came walking through the hallway to the banquet room. Mark, upon seeing my mother, walked up to her, opened his arms wide, hugged her and said, “Alice, it’s so good to see you!” The hotel employee was standing nearby and if he could have disappeared into the wallpaper he would have. The rest of the evening, he could not do enough for my mother. That little story has...

This letter, that we are about to read eleven verses from, is a fascinating one. The author calls himself “James,” a “servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.” Most scholars today aren’t sure who this James was, but the early church was convinced that the “James” who wrote this letter was a brother, or half-brother of Jesus. If that is so, then he was also one of the first leaders of the first church in Jerusalem. If this letter was written by James, the brother of Jesus, then it may also be one of the earliest, if not the earliest, book written out of all the books in the New Testament. I say this because James died around AD 62. Some people think this letter may have been written as early as AD 45 or 50. James writes this letter “to the twelve tribes who are dispersed abroad”. The mention of the twelve tribes suggests a Jewish audience. But obviously, James is writing to other Jewish Christians like himself because he mentions the Lord Jesus Christ twice in this lett...