Introduction
Let me begin with a discipleship question: will we trust and obey Jesus in the real decisions of everyday life? Christ forms us through truth received, repentance practiced, and obedience lived out.
Main Points
Grace and Justification
so this is a chapter one week two of a study in the book of james that we're calling the gospel on the ground and the book of james in many people's view is a beautiful extension of the sermon on the mount it takes all of those beautiful blessings and wise teachings of jesus and the very end when jesus says and anyone who says who hears these words of mine and does them is like a wise builder and in many ways james is picking up right where jesus left off to say let's do the gospel and so that's why we're calling it gospel on the ground and we'll be in week two how many of you were here last week when we kicked off our study i'm glad to see some hands raised it was a important moment of scripture this is when james starts off this letter to at the first church age the church is scattered abroad persecution has hit the church and many believers are now in new places as they follow jesus in a new area ran off from the place that they were and james has a message for them the very beginning we studied it last week he says whatever you're going through counted all joy in the various trials or testing of your faith how many of you got to experience the joyful trial since last week isn't it funny how when you read the word or you listen to a sermon god gives you all sorts of exciting ways to allow it to be applied to your life and this week our church got to experience exciting trials joyful times i know uh for my life specifically it was a trying time it was trying just in my own family with you know all the different ways that we're pulled in so many different directions it was trying time in our church like always so much of what we do is just navigating the ups and downs of being believers together which is always hard it was a trying time even in my own personal life as i went to the dentist which is always hard for me to do i love the dentist but it is it's kind of that picture of theology it's like good news after the bad news for me so in all of those things it was like thank you lord for the verse that i needed for this last couple days to say whatever happens there's a way for me to think about this differently to see things differently to hope differently because of the joy that we talked about last week a joy that is not rooted in circumstances or the conditions of the world around us but rooted in the god that has no shadow of turning the same yesterday today and forever and so today we're going to look really at a part two of that message because if you're like me you faced various trials if you're like me you did well to find joy but you also had challenges because joy is not something that we just get because we listen to a sermon it's not something that you read in james chapter one verse two it says okay the bible says to count it all joy so here i go it's just gonna happen uh it's something that james is actually going to give some direction on for the times where it doesn't seem to be happening because no doubt some of you had trials this week even after listening to the sermon and you walk through the course of the week and you think i'm still not seeing it i'm not quite seeing the picture of god or god's fingerprints or god's sovereignty playing out quite yet and james has a solution for that he actually says that we're supposed to count it all joy but we're not supposed to just grit our teeth and clench our fists there's actually a process by which we take the good news joy and trial and put it to the ground which is the answer of today what do you do when joy is not the instinct of the believer what do you do when joy doesn't seem to be something that you're fully seen and that's what we'll look at today so we start in verse 5 on the heels of last week making sense of the trials by trusting in god's purpose through the pain it says in verse 5 if any of you lacks wisdom let him ask of god who gives to all liberally and without reproach and it will be given to him but let him ask in faith with no doubting for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind this is one of those passages of scriptures that so many believers rightfully hold on to either as a memory verse or somewhere in the house or just something to reference for all of the ways that our limited view of the future or the circumstances around us need wisdom and some of those are very practical some of you are thinking about the need for wisdom in a decision about a job or an upcoming moment of your life that you just want god's perfect wisdom to give you some insight on and that's a fine use of this scripture if you need wisdom ask god he'll give it but mindful of where we are in the context of james giving of this scripture this is really given as james says count it all joy but if you can't seem to find it if you can't seem to count it joy if you're living in a time where you see a lot more mystery than sovereignty if you're living through the burdens of your life and you haven't quite found god's goodness in bringing you to a place where he's relieving those burdens there's actually a solution you're not dead ended in the command of joy today we look at the command to also next step used as an opportunity to go to god and i'll point back one last time to last week because rather than define joy with a dictionary version of a definition of a word we actually look to god's word to say how do we experience joy sometimes the best teacher is the teacher that gives you experience in life rather than just the working definition and the bible is full of experiential joy remember we talked about the joy of salvation as a way for us to have a reference point to this radical joy that invades our life sometimes while we're in a pit of despair we meet the god of salvation and he gives us joy and then we look at another one which is helpful for this study because it says there's also joy in the presence of god the fullness of joy in the presence of god meaning regardless of when your circumstances go up and down and they're hard or they're easy there's a constant of your life which is an invitation into god's presence and that's the joy that we will go after today because what james says if you're lacking wisdom use it as a reason to go to god use that as a reason to enter into the presence of god which is a helpful reminder for all of us who are believers this morning joy and prayer are very closely connected that's what james is saying he says joy is something that is constant throughout your life and when you seem to be lacking the wisdom to see it to find it to think through your circumstances differently you now come back to the presence of god to ask for wisdom and even in the simplest act of asking for wisdom you have begun the pursuit of joy once again because you're entering in to the presence of god so today's message will really be a fundamental strategy for your joy for the trying times that we live in one of the reasons i was so excited about james is because it seems that we live in a time where joy seems to be lacking and trials seem to be on the rise so we're going to continually look at this book through the lens of the gospel and through the lens of wisdom and all of wisdom it says in proverbs start with the knowledge and the fear of god so today we understand that knowledge we the beginning of wisdom as the fear of god by understanding the fundamental reality of prayer for the life of the believer and as we've already read there actually seems to be a working outline that kind of overlays last week because it works in three and just for the simplicity of me remembering it to share it i hope that it helps you remember each word of the outline this morning starts with the first letter of the first three letters of the alphabet so abc you could call it the abcs of prayer if you wanted if you find it helpful at all but what we read james says do this when you lack wisdom you ask you believe and you commit these are three things that you cling to in the trial and three filters by which you use the trial to encourage your prayer life are you asking god are you believing god are you committing to god and what he shows you in his wisdom that's what we're going to talk about today and i hope as we do this we find great encouragement for the time that we live in the joyful trying time that we live in verse 5 he says if any of you lack wisdom let him ask of god and so we'll stop right there at that first word jesus or james says you gotta ask and gospel good news one of the lens by which we'll preach this entire series it says if any of you and i find this very helpful as i share this to a congregation i hope of people who are following christ some of you may be interested in what followers of christ believe but this is a very broad invitation which the gospel is a broad invitation to a narrow path this is the qualifier for anyone who wants the wisdom of god what do you have to do you simply have to ask and yet it is so simple that it's so profound that we can easily miss it because oftentimes when the trial hits the last thing we do is ask god in fact in much of the way that we'll be able to understand the outline this morning is through the lens of a child because one of the ways that jesus teaches prayer is through the relationship between a father and a child he gives a great illustration that all of us can relate to if you have anyone young in your life especially if you're a parent he says if parents know how to give good gifts or fathers know how to give good gifts when their children are hungry or when they ask how much more does your heavenly father and the key is that we would ask because children can be a picture of asking for food and they can also be a picture of telling of a condition and there's a great distinction there although it's very subtle instead of asking god oftentimes we simply tell him of all of the frustrations of the trial here's an example in the context of food from a child rather than a child coming to me i have four so this i get this in all angles rather than asking me for food you know what they sometimes say simply i am hungry have you guys had kids come up to you and say i'm hungry all good dads know the proper response which is nice to meet you hungry my kids hate that but i love it because what i'm telling them is hunger is not an identity being thirsty is not an identity so if you introduce to me if you introduce yourself as hunger i'm going to point out once again that you are not properly coming to me for help you're just stating something about what you think your identity is and it's not and in the same way when we come to god and we bring him all of the things that he that we think he needs to see about us i'm angry i'm upset i'm afraid i'm scared all of these confessions are good in the context of asking if we ask him for help it's good but when we just say to god things so that we would see us we're missing the point a point that jesus actually made in the sermon on the mount in chapter six when he says when you pray don't be like the hypocrites who do many things to be seen as if we have to get god's attention when trials are happening as if we've lost the good favor of god because our conditions are so bad we have to wave our hands to the heavens so that he would look at us jesus says your heavenly father knows your needs before you ask we aren't trying to get god's attention we're trying to petition for god's help there is no point in sharing our problems as if they define us because they're not our identity your trial is not your identity christ is your identity and that's why your joy can be fixed in christ regardless of your trials because your identity hasn't changed and yet when we come and say my trial is now shaping who i am we've missed the point what james says is to ask simple yet profound we come to god and say we need wisdom and the other aspect of this which is simple and profound often lost is that we would ask of god because oftentimes we feel the need for wisdom when the trial hits and we see the rubble of our life or we see the brokenness of our plans and we only see so far ahead that it looks like a dead end we actually have a rhythm by which we seek help the problem is oftentimes the last person we talk to in a trial is god sometimes we use trial as a way to create distance rather than seeking his presence for those of you here wednesday you know that tom velasco is a fantastic teacher who often uses tv reference points as a way to get theological points which i he's so good at doing that he used a scene from touched by an angel michael landon last wednesday listened to the teaching it was excellent so i'm going to use the tv show too maybe a longer stretch did anyone see who wants to be a millionaire do any contestants and who wants to be a millionaire in here um how can we draw a theological point from that show let me try the who wants to be a millionaire format was interesting it's someone in a hot seat and at some point they go through a series of questions until they can't really answer by themselves welcome to the test welcome to the trial and it's also a picture of what oftentimes we think are the best available options to us because remember what they were given when they got to the dead end of their trial or their test or their exam they have two options they could phone a friend or they could ask the audience and so often i find those to be the examples of our own version of the theological right turns that we make when a trial hits because we know we need wisdom so now we're going to find the smartest person that we know and we're going to call them and say here's all my trouble and here's all the things that i don't know can you best friend parent pastor prophet priest can you help me with the things that i need in my life now all points need a qualifier there's safety in the multitude of council it's good to have fellowship with the community of christ that you're in fact james is writing to churches one at a time and they would go through this letter together and this is an encouragement for you to actually find some of the multitude of counsel in the communities that we encourage you to join every week but your community is only as strong as it is in christ and if someone's giving you counsel it's ultimately rooted in the power of god's word or the wisdom given through the power of god's spirit and so if we're asking friends without asking god then we're missing the point and in the same way you have a second option in the show you could also ask the audience and how often do we see this as just the default position of the problems of our life well what does the culture say what do what do we do if i don't know what to do i'm lacking wisdom on the future of my life i guess i'll go to college and i'll take out some loans and then i'll get a job and i'll pay them off over the course of the next 40 years and then i'll retire with a winnebago and a beach and now i've all of a sudden lived out the entire cultural plan for my life and had nothing to do with the wisdom of god and so what james is saying to us this morning is the person that you find the actual of wisdom in is above all of the other options it is by wisdom that god founded the earth the foundation of creation built into the design of creation is wisdom built into the fabric of your life is the god of sovereignty who knew you in your mother's womb knows the number of hairs on your head and has good works planned for you beforehand that you should walk in and yet sometimes it's the last person that we'd ever talk to sometimes his word is the last point of reference for the decisions that we are looking for in the trying times of our life and yet when you think back to the times that god has spoken to you or that you've found breakthrough it's always through a revival ever so small sometimes longer than others of the power of prayer in your life it is how you are even able to understand the word as a gift from god for the path of your life it is for you because the power of the spirit came alive in your reading and he gave you direction it's why you are listening to me not as some random person in your life but someone who is exhorting you to know the wisdom of god in fact in a small way it's why we're gathered right now you guys if you've gone to this church longer than a year and a half you remember a time when we were much like the churches that james was writing to a scattered church we went through a time in the crazy unfolding history of our world where everyone seemed to be scattering churches across the globe were scattered ours no exception and i remember living out this invitation of james i have no idea what to do i hope none of you look at this church and think that any of it was my idea if you found something that was my idea please tell me so we can stop doing it the only reason that we got back together because i scratched my head i'm looking at all these updates and trying to figure out all of the appeals to authority and the sciences and the ideas and the plans of other churches and i was so lost for my own decision-making prowess that there was nothing to do but pray finally there's nothing to do but pray i love what the um one theologian says about the need for wisdom he says not until we have become humble and teachable standing of in awe of god's holiness and sovereignty acknowledging our own littleness distrusting our own thoughts and willing to have our minds turned upside down can the divine wisdom finally become ours in other words blessed are the poor in spirit and we opened our doors not through a sanctuary time where we did like a grand reopening we opened our doors starting at 7am on mondays all the way through friday and a small number of us by word of mouth just started trickling in to pray and our church reborn after the lockdown was born by prayer and it grew and we started taking communion and we started gathering together and by prayer god gave us wisdom on how to be a church again and by prayer god will do something in your trial to give you a revival of the presence of god in your life but it starts by saying in my poor spirit in my in my mysterious view on what's unfolding before me i am going to ask god and in your asking we now find the second command of james because he says but let him ask in faith when you ask it is not that you're checking some box off the commands of the program of trial as if there's a pamphlet for the playbook for trial and you step one by one and one of them says to pray and you do that but it's actually a test of what you actually believe and we'll get to that as james unfolds he'll say your faith and your action are kind of intermingled in the economy of god show me what you believe by what you do and what you do will shape what you believe and in this moment james is saying if you go to ask god allow it to be something that is part of your belief in god you're not going to a distant god he says this let him ask of god who gives to all liberally and without reproach and it will be given to him he gives three promises from god to the reader that you have to put your faith in that you have to believe is true about the nature of the god that you love and that you worship that if you go to him it is not a fruitless act and so the first thing he says for you to believe with your faith in god is that this god that we serve gives to all disqualifying nun liberally meaning not only does god have wisdom but as it says in corinthians his foolishness is wiser than man he has so much wisdom he gives it away liberally to anyone who wants it and you have to believe that about god that it is not a fruitless approach again i find children helpful here because they understand that when they go to the father they get the gift that was asked because fathers know how to give good gifts i was hanging out with one of my daughters you guys are probably sick of me saying this but it's gonna i'm gonna be hanging out with him for a while okay and we had a little window of time a short window and i said what do you want to do it's just me and you one of those daddy-daughter times and it was a couple hours and she looked at me and she says let's go to disneyland and i was like i appreciate the faith i really do now i can't do that and she's like yeah let's do it let's go and you know what i love about a child she doesn't care about how we're going to pay for it no child comes up to you and says hey i've been thinking i'm wondering i don't know what the budget's like but you do can we afford to go to disneyland she says let's go to disneyland and you worry about the bill and she doesn't figure out how we're going to get down there she didn't care if we drove or flew she said let's go to disneyland you figure out the travel and in the same way when we come to god it is an invitation to say god you have everything i don't have to doubt whether or not you have what i need if fathers that are evil know how to give good gifts how much more does the father give the holy spirit liberally the power of the spirit to read his word and hear his voice the power of the spirit to listen to the feeble words of a preacher and actually be moved in your heart to do the will of god he gives liberally the power of the holy spirit but it's not just the power of the holy spirit in romans paul says he who did not spare his only son how much more will he freely give all things so if you want to find out how giving someone is find the best gift that they have ever given and that's the bar by which all other gifts should be obvious and for the heart of god he wants to make it so clear how giving he is that the gospel says that god so loved the world he so loved you while you were still a sinner well you were far from him fist in the air towards him hard heart he gave his son his only begotten son that whoever believed would not perish that's the bar god held back nothing he gave his prized possession and then says is there any doubt that i have wisdom for your situation come and i will give it to you liberally and then it says that he will give it without reproach a word we don't use often but it comes up in scripture so it's good to know we're being called to live above reproach as leaders in ministry and leaders in the household and it says that god will give liberally without reproach so what is this saying think of it as the disappointment so if you live above reproach it'd say do your best to not let someone view your life and be disappointed by what they see so think it through think through how you're living that you would live above that bar and then when it says of god's liberal giving he says he doesn't have reproach for it meaning if we come to god he is not disappointed that we didn't already know isn't that good news how many of you are the students that in a class you would rather hide behind a false sense of security than be raise your hand and look ignorant or foolish don't raise your hand you don't need to see your hand right now because i know you don't like that i was like that too i would rather just sit back in the back of the class than you know show the whole class and the teacher that i have no idea what anyone's talking about and sometimes we're that way with god i'd rather just stay back than go to you and say i need you oh lord i need you and you see the opposite in children in this regard as bold as they are with you their parents they will ask you for anything and the bill's on you and you'll figure it out and they trust you try the opposite with your children i love doing this when we're at a restaurant and we need something i always challenge my kids you go ask for it that's so fun to watch we need like hey can we get a refill on water or maybe a nap
Conclusion
We return to the opening teaching: discipleship is not just information, it is transformation through faith and obedience to Jesus. If we receive His Word and walk it out, He will shape us into people who endure and bear fruit.
Lord Jesus, help me hear Your Word, obey it with faith, and grow as Your disciple. Amen.
Conclusion
We return to the opening teaching: discipleship is not just information, it is transformation through faith and obedience to Jesus. If we receive His Word and walk it out, He will shape us into people who endure and bear fruit.
Closing Prayer
Lord Jesus, help me hear Your Word, obey it with faith, and grow as Your disciple. Amen.