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that James was one of these children, physical descendant of both Joseph and Mary. And we see we can learn some more about James as we see how he describes himself. He says he's a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, it's interesting. We see no arrogance on the part of James. Now, James could have said, "Hey, I'm the brother of Jesus. The one that's writing to you knows more about Jesus than anybody else. Why? I grew up with him. We played together. We worked together in Joseph's carpenter shop. Listen to me. I'm the brother. No, I'm the servant of Jesus. Recognizing that even though they had the same mother, there's a huge difference. Jesus is divine. James is mere mortal. He is a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. James could have also said, "I'm the pastor of the First Baptist Church in Jerusalem. Listen to me." Now, it wasn't a First Baptist church, but it was the church in Jerusalem, and he was the leader of that church. We see in the book of Acts. But James doesn't push his credentials. He's a servant. And we can see something about his theology also. You cannot separate God and Jesus. He's a servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ. You cannot serve God without serving Jesus. You cannot serve Jesus without serving God. Now Jesus himself had taught you cannot serve two masters. Therefore, God and the Lord Jesus Christ are not two separate masters. But as Jesus said, I and the father am one. And as a matter of fact, in the original language in the Greek, the phrase that is usually translated a servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ could from a grammatical point of view also be translated a servant of Jesus Christ who is God and Lord. So in the opening statement, James is proclaiming that Jesus is Lord and he is Christ or Messiah. Now earlier James had rejected this. We see in the gospels that some of Jesus' family is trying to pull him out of the public. They thought he had gone crazy. But after the crucifixion and the resurrection, Jesus made a personal appearance to James. We see that in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. And after that, James life was transformed. He had seen the risen Lord. And so now he is a servant of the risen Lord. Lord being the Greek equivalent for the Old Testament word that is usually used for God. In the word Christ, the word Hebrew word Messiah, the promised, the one who God would send to bring salvation, the anointed king, the one who would rule over the kingdom of God forever. So this is who James is a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, the target group to whom he was writing was what he says, the 12 tribes in the dispersion. And there's different opinions on what this might mean, but the symbolism, the wording goes back to the Old Testament. The people of God in the Old Testament were frequently described as the 12 tribes, but they had been dispersed over 700 years before the birth of Christ. The northern kingdom, the northern 10 tribes had been conquered by Assyria, carried off into captivity. A lot of them assimilated, and some of them, yeah, were no more identifiable as tribes of Israel. The southern kingdom, the southern two tribes were carried off into exile almost 600 years before the birth of Christ. So, they'd been dispersed. So when James is talking about the 12 tribes in the dispersion, he's probably referring to all the people of God. Peter uses similar vocabulary when he's talking about the Christians, the tribes of the dispersion, talking about the people of God. Similar to what Paul said in Romans, also in Galatians, where he is emphasizing that true descendants of Abraham are not the biological descendants. They're people like Abraham. Abraham was a man of faith. People of faith in Jesus, they are the true Israel. They are the true children of Abraham. So probably when James is writing this to the 12 tribes and the dispersions, he's writing to all Christians dispersed wherever they might be, even those in Jerusalem being dispersed or away from their heavenly home, pilgrims here on earth. Whatever he exactly meant in that is debatable. But we do know that the message that James gives was applicable to all Christians back then. And it also applies to all of us today. Then if you want to learn how to be brief in greetings, look at James's greeting. One word, greetings. And then he immediately jumps into the text. Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds. Now, I don't know where James picked up his writing style. I don't know where he was trained in the art of public speaking, but if you want to get your reader attention, this will get their attention. Count it joy when you have trials. It'll either get their attention or it'll turn them off. Hey, I don't want to hear anything about such a message because I don't want to have any trials. Seems very abrupt in English. Greetings. Count it joy when you have trials. There is a connection in the original language that is interesting to see because the word order is different in the Greek. He says, "Greetings all joy." And the word greetings and the word joy in the original language are very similar as you can see there similar in spelling also similar in pronunciation. So there's this word play greetings joy but then he does go ahead and he starts talking about very difficult topic. As a matter of fact the difficult topic he's talking about is the difficulties that we face. and he tells us how we can deal with the difficulties in life. And the rest of the time this morning, now that we've done some background on the book of James, we'll be talking about this very thing. How do we deal with difficulties? The first thing our text is going to say is that we should accept the fact that trials will come. Notice the text. It does not say if you happen to have the misfortune, if something might happen to you. know when trials come. Trials will come. Now, for most of you, that's nothing new. You know it. You accept it. Possibly you're currently undergoing a terrible trial. Possibly you've had some very difficult times in your past life as a Christian. And if not, we're all going to face some kind of trial at one time or another in our life. Christians face the same types of trials that other people face. Sickness, death, the possibility of tragic accidents, relationship problems within the family or at work, even at church, financial difficulties, pressure at the job, losing the job. Christians are not immune from suffering. And some people, I think in their evangelistic fervor, they're wanting so bad that somebody else comes to faith in Christ, they might even go a little too far and say, "If you come to Christ, then all of your problems will be solved." Be nice if it were true, but it's not. Now, your biggest problem is solved because the biggest problem that all people have is that we are separated from God because of our sin. And when you come to faith in Christ, that relationship is restored. You can now live in peace and harmony and reconciliation with God. But that doesn't mean all of the other problems will go away. Some within the Christian community, especially in the prosperity gospel, they try to preach if you have enough faith, then all of your problems will be solved. And if you're having problems, that shows you don't have enough faith. So if you only have enough faith or another one, if you just pay enough money to my ministry, of course, then your problems will go away. And they're a little bit like that Johan Tetsel guy back in Martin Luther's day. Have a little thing like, you know, as soon as your coins in the coffer ring, your problems away from you will spring. And they give that kind of an idea. Well, Peter tells us, "Don't be surprised when fiery trials come upon you. They're going to come upon you to test you. So, don't think it's something strange." But the reality is, we usually are quite surprised. Whoa, I didn't see that coming. And no, we usually don't. Or, God, why did you let that happen? I don't deserve that. And we're surprised that trials do come. But yet trials do come. So James says, "Acept that fact. Not only are we susceptible to the same problems that all other people are susceptible to, sometimes we get suffering because of our Christian commitment." And that's what Peter was talking about in that verse I just read. Don't be surprised at the fiery trials. He's saying if you are true to Christ, if you obey the commands of Christ, if you follow him, sometimes there is going to be persecution. So don't be surprised. So James said, don't be surprised when they come. Accept that they will come. Don't try to gloss over the reality of these real life difficulties. And don't try to gloss over the very real suffering and pain. Pain and suffering are real. They come with the trials. So after that then James does tell us but when the trials come look at things from a different perspective from a spiritual perspective. Look at your situation through the eyes of faith. Now we need to look at all of verses 2 through 4 to understand what this new or different perspective is. Count it all joy when you meet various types of trials. For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness and let steadfastness have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete lacking in nothing. So when we read this, we can see that whoa, this is indeed a different way to look at trials because the first thing we notice is when he said talks about counting it joy in these difficult situations. Sounds strange, doesn't it? Joy and trials even being in the same sentence. So what does he mean? What does he mean by this? Count it all joy. Well, before we ask what it answer what it means, I want to first look at some things that it does not mean because there is some confusion on this. It does not mean that suffering is fun. Oh boy, I like pain. No, no, no. This is nothing to do with masochism. Secondly, it does not mean that, oh, I hope I can have some more suffering so I can be more spiritual. and we try to look to find situations that we can put oursel into to suffer more so we can show others how deeply spiritual we are. No, he's not saying go out and try to find problems. The problems will come to you in time. You don't need to be looking for more. You're not more spiritual just because you can find additional ways to suffer. Now, don't shy away from suffering. If commitment to Christ leads you to suffering, be committed to Christ. But you don't have to look for extra. It's going to come. Another thing that the text does not answer, it does not answer the question why. Why do we undergo trials? Why did this happen? Oh, to some extent we know in general a vague understanding of why there is suffering. When we go back to the beginning of the Bible, Genesis chapters 2 and three that we studied here a few months ago, we saw that sin ended up breaking the relationship between people and God. Sin broke the relationship between people and sin even ruined the relationship with the earth. So they're suffering because of brokenness from God. Suffering because of being at odds with other people. Suffering because we're destroying the earth. But yet it's not a proportional tit for tat. This sin brings this punishment. Oh, if this person's suffering really bad, that must mean they've been a terrible sinner. I appreciate the testimony of the lady who had gone to alpha when she points out, "No, your suffering is not a direct result of your sin. Suffering is a direct result of sin in general, but it's not proportional. People that suffer more are not worse sinners as a general rule." The Bible does not teach the idea of karma. Now in some of the eastern religions, Buddhism and Hinduism, you have this view of what you did in the past, you're going to pay for in the future. But problem with that is frequently it's from a former life. Wouldn't you hate to be a reincarnation of Adolf Hitler? Think of how much suffering a person who's a reincarnation of Adolf Hitler would have and he wouldn't even know why. It was not his fault. No, it's not a tit for tat. This brings this, this brings that. The Bible does not answer why we sin with specific details. And even if we did know why, that's not going to relieve the suffering. Imagine a person is sick with lung cancer and they go to the doctor, doctor, why am I so sick? The doctor talks with them and finds out about them. The doctor says, oh, I can tell you why. It's because you smoked all your life. Because you lived next to a couple of factories that put out a lot of pollution. because you lived on a major road where all the trucks and buses are putting out this black diesel exhaust. It's because you're only a few miles from the center of the forest fires in Somatra that put the API 10 times the level for safety way up in the hazardous level. Therefore, that's why you have lung cancer. Oh, well, thank you, doctor. Now, I won't suffer anymore. Now, that's ludicrous. Knowing the reason why you're suffering is not going to make the suffering any easier to bear. So it's a mystery to some extent on why we're suffering. Another thing the text does not say, the text does not say that everything you experience is directly caused by God. The text does not say that everything that happens in this world is God's will. Now the Bible does talk about the fact that God is a sovereign God. The Bible says that we can trust in the providence of God. And this passage of scripture that we see on the board, it depends on the fact that God is indeed sovereign, that we can indeed trust his providence. Very important. But there are also other truths that the Bible teaches. We just mentioned Genesis 2 and 3 where we see God gave people some freedom of choice. It was God's will to let people make decisions even make decisions that went against his will. And we see people sinning. And sin by its very definition is going against God's will. It is not God's will when you sin. And so to think that everything that happens, well, God caused it. No, he didn't. He has given us some freedom. When we lived in Germany, some of the people trying to make a very strong statement of faith, a strong statement about the sovereignty of God, usually in a time of suffering, would say,
"God does not make any mistakes." Well, that's true. God does not make mistakes. And if I were in a discussion with somebody and they were undergoing a tragic situation and in deep pain, you know, I definitely would not discuss theology with them because that's not going to help at that point. Yes, it's true God does not make mistakes. But when they said that we're in a tragic situation, God doesn't make any mistakes. conversation ended. It's almost like saying it's God's fault. God is at least a co-conspirator in this problem. Blaming it on God. Well, it must have happened because God did and God doesn't make any mistakes. No, God does not make any mistakes, but people do and we make a lot of them. Some of the mistakes we make are sinful, willful rebellion against God. Some of the mistakes we make are just poor decisions, accidental, just not really paying attention. But that doesn't mean that God is causing us to act this way. I remember one situation. There was a very tragic situation that happened, a terrible tragedy. A family had a young two-year-old toddler. And this family had a nice house, a nice backyard. In the backyard, they had a large swimming pool. And one day, the family invited a lot of friends over for a barbecue. And so, as the parents are fixing the food and serving drinks and entertaining the guests, nobody's paying attention to the two-year-old. And then, oh, where's the child? And they look and there's the child floating face down in the swimming pool, dead. Terrible. terrible tragedy. But then to say, "Yeah, got my kind of failure." God doesn't make mistakes. No, God didn't make a mistake. But the parents sure did. Now, I'm not going to go to the parents when they're grieving and say, "Oh, it's your fault." They know it's their fault. You don't need to rub it in. But to blame it on God, well, it must have been God's will. No. God's will is for parents to be responsible parents. God's will is for parents to take care of their children. But sometimes, even though there was really no sin involved, made a mistake. Just one minute, not paying attention, tragic results. But James is not saying it's God's fault. James is not saying everything that happens is God's will. No, we oftenimes suffer tremendous pain because of mistakes we make or we suffer tremendous pain because of mistakes other people make. So God allows things to happen but that's not the same thing as saying God did it or the same thing ah must have been God's will like parents that have children and as the children are growing up you give them more and more decision-making opportunities and you allow them even to choose things that you don't want them to choose and when they do they're not doing what you want them to do but you wanted to let them have some freedom to learn responsibility Same way with God. He gives us freedom, but sometimes we use it to go against what would be his will. So what does the text then say? The text does say we don't have to look at trials and temptations the same way that other people do. The text is saying that our joy is not dependent upon circumstances. When everything's going great, it's easy to be joyful, man. You get a new job that pays more money and has less responsibility. You get a new car. You're getting ready to go out to a nice meal after church. Have a big long vacation planned. Ah, great. I'm happy. I'm joyful. It's easy to be joyful when things are going well. But the scripture here is showing us that we can have a perspective and see things in a joyful light. We can have joy even in difficult times. Similar to what Paul says in book of Philippians, rejoice in the Lord always. And again I say rejoice in 1 Thessalonians. Rejoice always. It's similar to what we heard at the very first song that the worship team led us in this morning. blessed be your name. Now, that's a fun song to sing and it's rhythmic and sometimes we just sing right through it and don't even think of the text. But the text is really, I think, quite profound because it talks about we're going to bless God when things are going great, but we're also going to praise God when things are not going well. The second stanza, blessed be your name when I'm found in the desert place, though I walk through the wilderness. Blessed be your name. When the darkness closes in, Lord, I will still say blessed be your name. And then the little bridge where you give and take away. You give and take away. Do you know where that text comes from? The book of Job after Job had lost his life savings, all of his wealth was gone, all of his children had been killed in tragic accidents. And Job said, "The Lord gives, the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." Great encouragement to see that even in difficult times, we can rejoice. We rejoice because we know that God is with us. We can rejoice because we know that our sins have been forgiven. We rejoice because we've been reconciled to God. And now we can live in peace and harmony with our maker. We can rejoice that God has given us new life, a new quality of life. We rejoice that God has given us immeasurable spiritual blessings. And we rejoice that God is currently at work with us in our life. When we look at the text, we see where it says to count it all joy for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. You see, even in difficult times, we can rejoice because we know that in these difficult times, God is working to bring about growth. He's working to bring about something good in our life. We will become stronger. We will grow in our Christian walk. We will become steadfast. We will become mature. It's very similar to what Paul said in Romans 8:28 when he said, 'We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. He doesn't say all things that happen are good. He doesn't say everything that happens is God's will. He does say that in all things, even the bad things, even when you're reaping consequences for your sin, in all things, God will work with us to bring about good from that situation. Therefore, we can count it all joy when we meet various trials because we know that God is working to bring about good and he will develop our character. He will give us strength, endurance, steadfastness. He will cause us to grow. Now, in looking at the text where it says, "Count it all joy." When I was studying the text, I was wondering, "What does it mean? Count it all joy." Does it mean the trials? Are we supposed to consider the trials to be joyful? Or does the it refer to knowing that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness? So, I looked it up in the Greek and I found out the word it does not even exist in the Greek. It's just that when you translate it into English, you have to throw that word in or it doesn't make sense because what James really is saying, all joy count, my brothers. Well, you can't talk like that in English. All joy count or consider my brothers. So, they throw in the it just to make a sentence structure that we can understand. So I think what James is really saying here is we count it all joy because we know that the testing of our faith is going to produce steadfastness. We're not, oh boy, I get to suffer again, but no, I get to see God work again in this difficult time. So, we're seeing that in dealing with the difficulties of life, James says, first of all, accept the fact that troubles will come. And when they do come, look at them from a different perspective. See them through the eyes of faith. You can count it all joy because you know that the testing of your faith brings growth. And you can count it all joy because you can be assured that God is working. And looking through the eyes of faith, we can also be steadfast because we realize that growth or maturity takes time. We're to be steadfast, the scripture says, because you're not going to be overnight mature. Let steadfastness have its full effect. Or another translation says, have it perfect work that you may be perfect and complete. Another translation, perseverance must finish its work. An illustration we could use would be like that of an athlete training. If you just go to the gym one time and pump a lot of iron one time, you're not going to walk away with big muscles and you're all in shape. You got to go again and again. You suffer pain. It's stressful. You work hard and it's not easy. That pain that comes from lifting though is going to make you strong. As a matter of fact, some athletes will say, "No pain, no gain." When I used to go snowking in the Alps when we lived in Germany. I remember one time we were going down a pretty tall mountain and the guy with me about halfway down the mountain and these runs are several kilometers long. about halfway down the mountain, he had to stop and he said, "Oh, oh, I really feel the burning in my thighs." Well, you're going to feel the burn with weight training and with strength training. Now, that should not be confused. I am not endorsing a political candidate in the American race at the current time. But what I am saying, if you're going to build muscles like this, you've got to feel the burn. You've got to put in the time. You've got to put in the effort. There will be some pain in doing this. It's not going to happen overnight. Seriously, growth does take time. But we do gain strength. We gain resilience, but only after we've been tested and tried many times. So, the scripture talks about persevering. Be steadfast. Some tra translations, the old King James version talked about patience. And that's an okay translation. But in the modern use of the English, sometimes patience is misleading. Because sometimes patience has the connotation of just passively waiting, twiddling our thumbs, doing nothing, just sitting back and seeing what's going to happen. But the idea here is more of a tenacious holding fast to the faith. tenaciously holding on to God knowing that he is also holding on to us. It's the constancy, the persistence like we see with Job that I mentioned earlier. After he lost everything, it would have been easy just to give up and his wife even counseledled him to do that. She said, "Curse God and die. Be done with it." But Job, no, no, no. Even though he slays me, yet I will serve him. He persevered. He was steadfast. He maintained his faith in God. He didn't say, "Well, God, if you're going to treat me like that, I'm out of here. I'm not going to worship you anymore." No, I'll serve him even if he kills me. So, seeing through the eyes of faith also will include that we keep our eyes on the goal. Athletes know this. If you're running a race, you have the goal in mind. You know where you're headed. and you cross that finish line. Well, what is the goal in this passage? Well, when you're looking through the eyes of faith, we see that the goal is spiritual maturity. That you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. It's talking about consistent Christian living daily, day after day after day. And this then will make us perfect. Not in the sense of sinless perfection. No, we will all still sin up till the day we die. But perfect in the sense of being made complete, being made mature, being brought to a mature faith in Christ where you do hold fast in faith, not turning your back on him and complete, meaning now you are adequate. You have the spiritual resources needed as you faith all types of difficulties. So the goal is as we look at these difficulties, we see with spiritual eyes that God is going to be using these to bring us to maturity. We'll be growing in Christlikkeness. We will be conformed to the image of Christ. When I was 17, I was part of a youth mission team that traveled about six months in Europe and it was other university age students. We were you working primarily with youth, English-speaking youth. And we were in England for about 10 weeks of those six months. One place where we were in England, we'd been working with a church that had a pretty strong youth and young adult group. Seeing a lot of good things happen there. And working with youth was a lot of fun. Back in those days, I was younger. I could get out with the boys and we'd play soccer, play football, have a great time. But one day, one of the church leaders asked us, "We want your youth team to go visit an elderly man who's a member of our church who is bedridden. He cannot come to any of the services that you are leading. He's not able to get out and meet you, but he wants to meet you all. Can you go and visit with this elderly man?" I'm thinking, boy, I don't know what to do in a situation like that. I'm only 17, relatively new Christian. What can I say to help cheer this old man up who's bedridden? I'm thinking, man, I don't know what to do. But I went with the other team members, hoping they'd know what to do. Well, when we got there, we didn't have to do anything. When we walked in the door, the man was smiling. He was beaming. We introduced ourselves, and he started talking to us about how good God was. Here the man's laying in bed. He's been laying in bed for years. Can't get out of bed. And he's talking to us about how wonderful God has been to him and how he has grown in his faith and how he's seen God's help and God's comfort and God's strength. And I realized the reason for our visiting this man was not so we could help him, but so that he could encourage us. As we saw, this is what's possible with growth in the Christian life. Even in difficult times, God can shape the character of a man like he did here and bring about wonderful fruit, wonderful results for the kingdom of God.
In addition to the spiritual maturity that we want to achieve in this life, the first chapter of James also mentions one more goal. This is from the text for next week, so I'll just hit it quickly. Talks about you will also after you endure the trial successfully, you will receive the crown of life. A crown referring to victory, rejoicing at the end of the race, you now have your eternal reward in heaven. So in looking through the eyes of faith, we can count it all joy when we face trials because when we keep our eye on the goal, we know that God is going to do something good. No, the testing is not fun. The trials do bring pain, but the results are desirable. Much like what much like what Jesus experienced on the cross. Here in Hebrews chapter 12, it talks about Jesus who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross. Now, how can you even say joy and cross in the same sentence? It was not fun to have nails driven through your hands or your feet. But the joy came because he saw the results. He saw the end. His suffering was now going to make it possible for people to receive forgiveness of sin when they responded in faith to him. So there could be joy even in the suffering because eyes were on the goal of what God was going to be doing. So in the difficult times of life dealing with those we accept the fact that trials come and we want to be able to see through the eyes of faith. Now a third thing that our scripture tells us to in deal with the trials of life is to pray for wisdom.
Now some people see that maybe we're change James is changing topics. Earlier he was talking about joy and trials. Now he's talking about prayer and wisdom. But this morning, I want to look at it as an entire hole where in the context of talking about suffering, James says, "One thing you can do when you're suffering is to pray. Pray and ask for wisdom." He says, "If you lack wisdom, let him ask God who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given to him." Now when he says if any of you lacks wisdom, he is not implying that some of you are sufficiently wise and you don't need any more help from God. It's more like when you realize you're lacking wisdom and you all lack wisdom, pray. The concept of wisdom that James had grown up with as a Hebrew, as a Jew, was that wisdom comes from God's word. Study in the Old Testament scriptures, there is wisdom. And yes, when we read the scriptures, we can understand God's will, understand his purpose, understand how he wants to live our life. But sometimes we don't know how do we apply that particular scripture to our life or in this specific situation, I know some general guidelines, but specifically how should that look? Well, James says, pray. And when you pray, God will then give. And when God gives, he gives generously. He gives without reproach. It's God's nature to give bountifully, to give liberally. It's his nature to give without hesitation. Carries the idea of sincerity, single-minded, wholehearted giving to us. and without reproach. God's not going to say, "Uh-uh, I'm not going to help you this time because the last time you messed up." And he's not going to say, "Hey, I just answered a prayer of yours last week. You don't get another one for until next month." No. God will give generously to all without reproach. And when he says it will be given, what's it going what's going to be given? Wisdom. Wisdom to know how to deal with the difficulties in life. As you're counting it joy that you can grow through these difficult times of testing, God will give you wisdom to make good decisions on how to deal with these issues and that will then bring about spiritual maturity. I can think of another tragic tragic situation. friends of us, friends of ours were on a mission trip to Germany when we lived in Germany. And on their way back to the US, when the plane landed, it did not land on the runway correctly. It ran off the runway, the plane burst into flames, and the daughter of our friends was burned up. She died from the smoke inhalation. Terrible tragedy. I mean, they had gone on a mission trip and on the way home they lose their daughter to death. I don't know exactly what all the family went through. We were in Germany, they were in the US, but we did see they continued steadfast in their faith on God. Undoubtedly, they applied some of these principles to their life that we see here in this first chapter of James. Undoubtedly they were praying God how should we respond? What should we do? What do you want us to do in the face of this difficult time and I see couple of things that I think God answered and gave them answers. Here's wisdom. Here's what you can do. One, with some of the money they got from the airlines, they established a generous scholarship at a Baptist university where children can get assistance in their education. And the man after suffering such tragedy he gave up his profession went and studied biblical counseling and now he is being used by God to help other people deal with difficult times in his life. So an example of somebody who comes to maturity comes to making good decisions despite tragedy holding fast to faith in God. So we have seen gotten some help on how to deal with difficulties in life. We see that we accept the trials that come. We want to see with a different perspective through eyes of faith. We want to pray for wisdom and we want to trust God wholeheartedly.
When talk about trusting God wholeheartedly, we see that in this text where he says, "Let him ask in faith with no doubting. For the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord. He is double-minded and an unstable in all his ways." Now, when he says, "Let him ask in faith," I don't think he's saying, "Oh, you got to grit your teeth and clench your fist and let the blood vessels pop out and turn red, and I'm really trying to have more faith."
When you look at the text, ask in faith with no doubting is contrasted to a double-minded man. So, in other words, somebody that doubts is like a double-minded man. What does this mean? I'll give you an example. We know a lady who has a heartfelt need that she's wanting God to answer her prayer. So, she's been to church, the Catholic church to pray. She's also been to a Muslim mosque to pray. She's also been to a Hindu temple. She's also been to a seek gordoara. She's also been to a Chinese temple and wanted to consult an astrologer. Now, that's not exactly a double-minded man, but more like a quintuple-minded lady, but you get the point. You're not really wholeheartedly committed to God. You're just trying to say, "Hey, whoever's out there, please help me." And there's not this wholehearted commitment to God. Some of you that might come from a non-Christian background and face the temptation. If God doesn't answer your prayer when you want him to, how you want him to, well, maybe I'll try something I used to practice in my former religion. And maybe, see, that'll help. You're double-minded. But not only with other religions. All of us experience an amount of double-mindedness in the sense that we want to serve God and mammon, God and money, God and security. We want to serve God and ourselves. We want to serve God and success or fame or popularity. We want to serve God and pleasure. And we're trying to serve two masters. But that's not possible. When we deal with difficulties in life, God will answer our prayers, give us wisdom when there's the wholehearted devotion to him. meaning that when he does speak to us, we're not only willing to listen, but willing to obey. Sometimes God will give an answer. No, God, I didn't want that answer. Let me ask you again and give me another answer. Double-minded. So, when you pray in faith, that means you're wholeheartedly committed to God. So, in reviewing, we see that James has given us some practical helps. Accept the fact that trials are coming. And when these trials come, how will you respond? Are you going to respond with horror and dread and fear, with anger and bitterness? Will you become easily disillusioned, defeated, or will you in faith respond like James is saying here with confidence and faith knowing that God is at work? James encourages us to see our troubles through a different perspective. Look through the eyes of faith, counting it joy that God will bring growth through our testings, being assured that God is working to bring about good, being steadfast, knowing that growth takes time. We keep our eyes on the goal of spiritual maturity. When we don't know what to do, we pray and we ask God for wisdom. And when we pray for wisdom, we're trusting God wholeheartedly. And we know we can depend on Jesus because he's told us, "In the world, you will have tribulation, but take heart. I have overcome the world." Therefore, we can respond in wholehearted faith and trust to him. Let's pray together. Almighty God, we acknowledge that yes, there are difficulties that come into our life. And when they come, to be honest, we don't welcome them. We don't want them. But Father God, when they do come, I pray that you would help each of us to be able to respond the way James shows us here. Help us to be able to see them through a different perspective. See them the way you would have us to see them. And Father God, for those that are facing trials right at this moment, I pray that you would help them to be able to take joy in the fact that you are working. Take joy that you are strengthening them, that you are with them, that you will help them in this situation. Father, when we lack wisdom, we pray that you would give us your wisdom, that you would show us how to respond in a responsible, godly way in these difficult times. pray that you would increase our faith that we would wholeheartedly be committed to you. And Father, if there's somebody here this morning who has never responded in repentance and faith to Christ, receiving forgiveness of sin and are therefore not able to respond in this way to difficulties, I pray that today they would come and acknowledge you as the rightful Lord and Master of their lives, confessing their sin, receiving your forgiveness, and pray that you would all lead us, that you would lead us all into the future. confident of your working in our lives, knowing that you will strengthen us, knowing that you will give us joy even in these difficult times because of who you are and because of what you do. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
