So who has ever seen a movie or a TV show or a picture or a book of some sort of a pirate wearing an eyepatch? A pirate wearing an eyepatch, okay. In fact, if you were told to draw a pirate, you'd probably include on that person an eyepatch to distinguish him from a regular person to a pirate. Now, I always assumed, and maybe you have too, that pirates wore eyepatch because they lost their eye in battle. That very well may be the case. And I heard something that was contrary to that. And whether it was true or not, the internet was the one that told me. And there's not, I mean, the internet can tell us truth, but not always true. But I heard that the reason pirates wore eyepatches was so that when they were in battle and they were to go below the deck, they could move that eyepatch and they can see. Whereas, have you ever woken up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and you turn on the light and then when you leave the bathroom and it's dark in the house, you can't see anything. And so this information that I received on the internet is if you do that in the middle of the night, shut one eye and do your business, and then when you leave, you open that eye and you can see much better than before. Experiment with this and like Sarah said, report next Sunday. Again, whether this is true or not of the pirates, I personally have experimented and it does work. I see better. Not always taking a trip to the restroom, but in a dark place after being in the light, I can see better. That's the point of our passage this morning is seeing better. And not just better in the sense of going from light to dark and still being able to see because Even if you do, like I said, you're still going to be in the dark and not able to see things as clearly as, say, right now. I don't know if you've noticed, but we have new light bulbs, which are daylight bulbs, which are a little bit brighter. They might help you read. But we see, we can see clearer now, whereas if we shut off the lights, there would be some things that we miss. Our passage doesn't just talk about seeing something better, But it talks about seeing something the way God sees it. In other words, it's a change of perspective that God wants His people to have, not from our earthly perspective, but a heavenly one, of His perspective. And we're going to explore that here this morning. But before we do, I want to read our passage and pray before we continue. So we are in James chapter 1. James chapter 1. Verse 5. We're going to be covering verses 5 through 8 this morning. So James chapter 1 starting 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. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord. He is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways." Let's pray. Father, we thank you this morning, a time to gather and to sing your praises. And Lord, a very challenging prayer, but I pray that it would be true of all of us, that we would request to be clay in your hands. And sometimes, Lord, in fact, most times, that means difficulty, because as we covered last week, you use difficulty in our lives to strengthen and deepen our faith. And Lord, we ask of this passage that you would grant us wisdom in discerning how you are at work in our lives in the face of trials, and what you're doing to our faith using those trials. We pray that you would speak to us this morning, soften our hearts, humble our hearts, and we ask that you would bless the reading and exposition of your word. In Jesus' name, amen. So I want to, before we kind of capture the idea of what James is putting before us today, I want to explore why we know that he's putting this before him. In other words, we want to look at different key words in the passage before we put together the pieces and see what he's saying. And so before we do that, I want to connect this message with last week's message, because I believe that's what James does. In fact, he uses the same word. The last verse we covered last week was verse 4. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. And then he begins our passage this morning, if any of you lacks wisdom. And so he's connecting these two verses. These ideas are distinguished. They're two separate ideas, but they are connected. They're in the face of trials, but they're also connected with our faith and God growing our faith. And so last week we dealt with the idea of God deepening a Christian's faith. So in other words, the way you become a Christian or saved, the way you're saved eternally from being separated from God is by trusting in the salvation that God offers through Jesus' death on the cross. If you believe that and you accept that as true, then you are saved in the biblical sense. And then, from there, God wants to take His saved ones, literally, His Christians, into a deeper faith. He wants to get that faith to grow and to blossom, to be rooted in Him. Firm, strong, deep. All synonyms of what God is trying to accomplish in what James was writing about that we covered last week. This passage covers a different aspect of our faith, not just a deeper or strengthened aspect, but an undivided aspect of our faith. So in other words, this passage is God's desire for us to have an undivided faith. Bringing about an undivided faith. And so I want to highlight a few words in this passage before we put it all together and explain what it means and also apply it to our lives so that we can benefit from us. Because as James will later say, we don't want to be just hearers of the word, we want to be doers. And so one of the key words that I looked closer at this week was wisdom. What is wisdom? There's a lot of answers. Depending on who you ask, you'll have a different answer for what is wisdom. But I think what we want to know is not what wisdom is, but what is the wisdom that James is talking about? Because that's the wisdom that's important for us to ask God for. And the wisdom that he's talking about is wisdom that comes from knowing God's Word. In other words, the definition that I found this week was wisdom is having the perspective of God. Seeing things the way God sees them. That's wisdom. And if we were to see things as God sees them, Wouldn't we be better off? Wouldn't we know what to do in every situation? In essence, wouldn't we be fulfilling verse 4 and lacking nothing in our faith if we knew and had God's wisdom? This, in my mind, is exactly what James is talking about. If any of us lacks wisdom, we should ask for it. And God will give it, but we will get to that in a moment. The next word I looked at was liberally. Liberally. That's what the New King James has. I forget what the NASB has, but essentially the idea is freely offered in abundance, liberally, the one who gives liberally. The next phrase I wanted to look at before we continue is Not only does God give liberally or freely or in abundance, but He gives without reproach. And reproach, me never being a big fan in English, and if you were to talk to my English teachers, they would agree. In fact, they would laugh if they knew what my profession was. and not only learning English, but now wanting to learn Greek and Hebrew, they would laugh in your face, I am sure. But I wanted to look at what does reproach mean? And what James uses without reproach here, it literally means without the expression of criticism. Without the expression of criticism. So what James is saying is the person who asks for wisdom, God will give it to them liberally, and he won't criticize them for doing it. In fact, I'm guilty of this and maybe you are too. Sometimes we act like we say comments and I've said this literal comment that God has to use a 2x4 on us to get it into our brains. And while we understand what we're trying to communicate, that's unbiblical. God does not use a 2x4. He is without reproach. He never brings up our past failures. He never says things of the essence of, well, I've given you this and you haven't done anything with that. That's not God at all. In fact, we're told just the opposite, that He will give us wisdom without reproach. No questions asked. He will give it because, I think the The purpose there is that he wants us to have it. The last word I think is key to the text and I want to focus on is doubting. Doubting. What is doubt? And as I looked at this, doubt is in sharp contrast with faith. Doubt is the exact opposite of faith. So if you are doubting God, then you are showing your unbelief in His ability to do something, or in what He has said, or any such thing. So as we look at these important ideas, keep these in mind as we begin to piece these together. The second thing I wanted to bring out is last week I talked about imperatives. And so I want to explain something. When I talk about stuff that are happening in the original languages, in the Greek, I'm not trying to show how smart I am, because trust me, I'm not. I have a very helpful Bible software that really helps me to distinguish these sort of things. But one of the things that is significant to the book of James is I heard there are 54 imperatives in the entire book of James. 54 imperatives. So in other words, these are commands. Not just helpful suggestions, encouragements, they are commands. In other words, God is telling us to do something. And so you can say that if we don't do what he's telling us to do, essentially we're sinning. Now there is grace and forgiveness of sin, but don't we want to be obedient as Christians because of what God is doing in our lives? And I would hope that you agree. There's two imperatives in this passage as well. One of them is let him ask of God. That's an imperative. It's a command. God wants us, if we lack wisdom, to ask him for it. It's a command. And so the reason I think it's important to bring this up is the English translation kind of softens it. It just sounds a little bit softer. You know, let him ask. If you have time, ask God for wisdom. If you get around to it, that sort of thing. But in the Greek, it's a very firm, godly command. to ask God for wisdom. The second imperative is to let him ask in faith with no doubting. So there's a stipulation on the way we're supposed to act, which, of course, we will get to in a moment. Again, this is a command. So when we are asking God, we are to let go of our doubt. And we're going to deal with how to do that in a moment. So two commands in the text that we want to pay attention to and look at closely so that we can be careful to do them. Because again, like he will say in James 1.22, we don't want to be hearers of the word, but doers. We want to do what God has said. So if I were to summarize the entire passage in its original context, to its original audience, and by the original author, James, I summarize it like this. Essentially, James is saying, if anyone is without wisdom, they are to ask God, and he will give it to them if they ask in faith and without doubting. If someone asks while doubting, they are not to expect an answer from God. That person is double-minded, believing in God and doubting him. So we'll look at that in a moment. And I have to make a correction. The second imperative is not ask in faith and without doubt. That person should not expect. The word expect is the imperative. So I'm sorry, I got that wrong. So the command there is the person who's doubting shouldn't expect. It's a command not to expect anything from God. And if you are expecting things from God while doubting, then essentially you are sinning. And so James is writing so that we don't do that, so we don't sin. So this is the summary of the passage, but if we could just boil that down into a nice, memorable, concise phrase, it's God bringing about an undivided faith. God bringing about an undivided faith. So in other words, do you see what God sees? Because God, the reason our faith is in God is because He's greater than us. He is perfect. He is holy. And so when we put our faith in Him, we can rest assured that our faith is in the right place. And so if I were to outline this text this morning, the first main division, starting in verse 5, the beginning of verse 5, it's essentially the one who needs wisdom. The one who needs wisdom. Verse 5, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God. So to answer that question, who is the one that needs wisdom? It's the one who lacks it. Who is the one that lacks wisdom? Well, because of what we looked at with the word wisdom, I think we all can agree that it's all of us. We all lack wisdom to some extent. Especially in the context of what he's talking about in trials, we lack wisdom in trials. In fact, trials can quickly make the believer forget about God, and about His love for us, and about His protection for us, for His best in mind for us. I think a perfect example of this is Peter. When he stepped out of the boat and did an amazing thing that no man has ever done. And he walked on water. And then what happened? He started to notice that those waves are pretty big. And I think in his heart he started to believe that God's love for him and care and strength was pretty small. And he started to sink. And then he said the most accurate and perfect sentence in all of scripture, Lord save me. If you were to pray that, that's a perfect prayer to make if you were an unbeliever. Now of course I think Peter was a believer at that point, but nonetheless. So I think all of us lack wisdom and trials get our mind off of the goodness of God. In fact, we looked at last week, God lets trials into our life to strengthen our faith. And I think that's why. It's because the trials are going to get us to look away from Him, but He's wanting to test us so that we can look to Him in the face of those trials, and then those trials don't seem very big. Those trials seem much smaller than our great God. Now, the fact remains that God is greater than anything, anything that could face you. The question that James is addressing is, do you believe that? And if you don't, then you're going to have problems with your faith. You're going to get run over by your trials. You're going to get worn out by your trials and suffering. And God doesn't want that. He wants our faith in Him, and so He lets trials to teach us, to train us. In fact, I don't think the military knows this exactly, but what they're doing is very wise with the American soldier, at least. I'm sure other nations do the same thing. But they break that person down in order to build up a new perfect person, right? They want to break down any dependencies so that they are strong and an able fighter, able to face war. They are prepared for war. I think very similar, that wisdom comes from God and what He is doing to our faith. He wants us to be prepared for suffering, for the unspeakable, the unseeable, the unmentionable. God wants us to be prepared for those moments. So the one who needs wisdom is all of us. The other thing I want to point out is, based on the original wording there, it is a command, as we looked at. It's an imperative. It's a command of scripture for you to continually ask. The way we know that is, the word ask is a present active imperative. So it's in the present tense. It means you are to continually ask of God for wisdom. So as you're continually facing trials, you are to continue to ask Him for wisdom in the midst of those trials. And the fact that it's in the active tense means that it's you doing it. It's not a passive thing. It's not happening to you. It's you happening to it, if I may put it that way. So the one who needs wisdom is essentially all of us, but the one who lacks wisdom is specifically what James is saying. The second division that we see is the one who gives wisdom. And we see at the second part of verse five, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God. who gives to all liberally and without reproach." So the one who gives wisdom is God. God is the giver of wisdom. In fact, literally, and I like the way that the original language words this, it says, the giving God is literally what he's saying. The giving God. Let him ask the giving God, because giving is in the very nature of God. So in other words, He wants to give to the one who's asking. It's in His nature to give to the one who asks. So what that means is you don't have to jump through all these hoops of obedience or the hoops of practice to get God to give you something. If you ask Him, He will give it to you. Of course, there is a stipulation which we're about to look at. And then again, I want to highlight the importance of not only is He the giving God, who He's going to give freely and liberally, But he gives without expressing criticism. In other words, he's not going to say, OK, here's some wisdom. I know you're not going to use it. God will never say that to you. He will freely give it to you without reproach, no questions asked, because he wants you to use it. He's your child. Or you're his child. Excuse me. So the third main division. So we looked at the one who needs wisdom is the one who lacks it. We looked at the giver of wisdom is God. The third one is, the rest of the passage talks about the one who won't get wisdom. The one who will not get wisdom. And we see this in, let's read verse 6 together, or I'll read it and you follow along. 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. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord. He is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways." So it's kind of harsh. The wording there is pretty harsh. As far as someone who's doubting, I think you'd all agree, we all doubt to some extent, right? And so why is James kind of laying down the hammer on us? Why is it so wrong to doubt? Because doubt cannot be mixed with faith. It's like oil and water, they don't mix. You either believe or you don't believe. And God is working in our hearts so that we are believing in Him undividedly. That our faith is complete, lacking nothing in Him. And so what is doubting exactly? That's, I think, the key here. We all are guilty of doubting, but we want to pinpoint the problem so that we can get the solution. And so I think what doubting is talking about here is doubting God's person or His promise. Doubting God's person or His promise. In other words, doubting who God is or doubting what He has said. And I am guilty of both of those, and you might agree. We all at some point doubt who God is, or we have doubted what He says. We doubt the passage that says that God has our good in mind, or that He loves us, or that He will see us through any trial. Again, sometimes our eyes will get off Christ, and we'll look at the waves, and we'll begin to sink. God doesn't want us to sink. He wants us to be undivided in our faith. He uses a word picture here, and I think this is a powerful word picture. He says that the person who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. Now, it's important to note the historical context that James would have lived in. He lived right close to the Mediterranean Sea, which was known for very powerful and strong and sudden storms that would come. In fact, there was months, three months out of the year where they would just shut it down. You were a fool to try to cross the Mediterranean in those times. In fact, Paul experienced that as they were taking him to Rome to appear before Caesar. They were delayed because of these tempest storms. So if I can liken it to something that I understand, we did our internship up at Calumet, Michigan. Up in the UP, there's a peninsula that juts out into the middle of Lake Superior. And so we got to hear a lot of interesting stories about Lake Superior. In fact, we went to a restaurant there. They had a picture on the wall with all of the ships and boats that have been shipwrecked because of the powerful storms that come to Lake Superior. And one of them, if you've ever heard the song, I forgot who sings it, but the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, a very popular song and a very true song, a very tragic situation. And from my understanding and talking to some of the locals there, what they believe happened is because Lake Superior isn't like the ocean, where the ocean will have waves that are somewhat continual, It's very random, and it'll be a big wave, and then a little, little, big wave, little, little. And so what they think happened is the Edmund Fitzgerald got pushed up by a big wave, and then pushed up by another big wave, and it was just too much on that center that it snapped in half. And they were just, I believe, 15 miles from the docks, or the... I forgot what they're called. the locks, where they switch lakes essentially. And they would have been safe, but they were not because, as it says, the November gales, the gales of November. And so that was a lake that you do not want to be out on, especially in the month of November, December and January. I personally would not really want to be out there any time of the year. They had a boat cruise, and some people in our church said, oh yeah, it's a great time. You have dinner on the boat, and they go by the Isle Royale, and very beautiful. And I took their word for it, because I did not want to do that. In fact, something about me, one of my biggest fears is space. Not just outer space, that is terrifying to me, but ocean. The Grand Canyon, so I'm yeah, I'm afraid of heights, but it's not just heights for the sake of heights. It's space I hate feeling how small and vulnerable I am So if I'm in space, and I'm just going out to nothingness that's going to terrify me I'll probably die from that or if I'm out in the middle of the ocean. I will get weak I'm terrified of space So anyways Lake Superior, very turbulent. The Mediterranean Sea, very turbulent. Very turbulent season. So this is a powerful word picture of what happens to a believer that is not fully trusting in God. Now I will say, it's okay. If you're that believer that doubts, don't beat yourself up because look what James said. God doesn't give with reproach. He's not going to say, you know, you just don't get anything right, do you? That's not God. He gives liberally and without reproach. But we do want to address doubt, because we don't want to have doubt in our lives, because we don't want to be waves that are tossed to and fro, as Paul would later say, by every wind of doctrine is another way that we could be tossed to and fro. And so the illustration I've always loved to use is the illustration of a lighthouse. I love lighthouses. In fact, one of my favorite pictures that I've seen is a lighthouse with just these mighty waves crashing against it. Guess what those waves aren't doing? Moving that lighthouse. That lighthouse is fixed there doing its job. And what is its job? Its job is to illuminate ships that are out at sea to bring them safely to shore. And I think that's such a beautiful picture of the Christian life. Is that not our job? To be a lighthouse to those who are lost at sea? To sailors who can't find their way home? We show them the light. We let our light shine to bring them safely home. But in order to be a proper lighthouse, we have to be fixed. We have to be stable. We have to be strong. And James says that we're not if we doubt. We're not. One of the things I heard from a pastor that I'll actually be getting to meet this week, I'm very excited. He'll be speaking at this conference and I look forward to thanking him for God's ministry in my life and into the life of his church. But he said this, God never promised perfect peace in the Christian life as we follow him, but he did promise safe passage. So in other words, your ship might get battered, it might get broken, it might get wrecked, but you will make it to the other side. If you have trusted in Christ for salvation, you are saved for eternity. And the beauty of this life is no matter what happens to us, nothing can take that away. As we sang, nothing can pluck us out of God's hand. Nothing. I do want to apply this to us though, but before we get to our three questions that I'm going to continue to go through as we go through the book of James, I want to see what it applied, what James was seeking to apply in the believers that were originally reading this letter, because we have to first understand that before we know what we're to do with it. And so the primary application is that James is telling the Jews, the Jewish believers, The Jewish people that have trusted Christ, who were displaced, remember we looked at they were scattered abroad, to ask God for His perspective, to ask God for wisdom on things, on sufferings, on trials. And so keep in mind the significance of these being Jewish Christians. As I mentioned last week, the same people that had Christ killed were wanting to kill these Christians, the followers of Christ. In fact, the reason they were scattered abroad is what I believe, because Stephen was martyred. And it progressed, or digressed really, to the point of them being arrested and let go, to being arrested and imprisoned, to finally with Stephen being arrested and killed for their faith. And the man Saul, who would later become Paul and be a great missionary, was the one behind gathering these Christians and killing them. So another important aspect of this is when Jesus was alive preaching, he was talking about the kingdom of God and how great the kingdom of God is going to be when it comes. And so these Jews were excited. They believed in their Messiah. They thought the kingdom was coming. But because the nation as a whole rejected the Messiah, that kingdom was postponed. Of course, we don't know that until Paul explains in some of his writings, which would take place a few decades after James wrote. These Jewish Christians needed wisdom. They didn't understand why Jesus came, but why am I suffering? The Messiah has come, but why is there hardships? Why am I losing my house? Why am I losing my property? Why am I losing my job, my business, maybe even my family? Why are bad things happening to me? Now, we say the phrase a lot, hindsight is 20-20. In other words, we better understand things of the past because of our knowledge of the present. And so we understand, you know, some of the good that came out of the early church. In fact, several Christians over history had said, persecution is the seed of the church. So anytime there's persecution, you'll see a time where the church really grows and flourishes. Because people are learning what it means to stand for God. But I don't think that hindsight is 20-20. In reality, I think hindsight is God's sight. Or in other words, foresight is God's sight. So when we have God's sight, we better understand the past, we better understand the present, and we better understand the future. And so that's the focus that James is wanting us to get, is to have the perspective of God. And that comes through faith without doubt. It's an undivided faith. And so before we get to our three questions, how do we overcome doubt? There's one thing, knowing and studying the Word of God. Knowing and studying the Word of God. And if you could write down or you could look there, I won't turn there, but Romans 10, 17 says, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. So in other words, to conquer doubt, you have faith. Well, how do you get faith? You can't just say, okay, faith. It doesn't work that way. Faith has to be in something. And our faith is in Christ. It's in God. It's in His Word and what He has promised and who He is as our God. So when we study God's Word, it's with that aim, so that we are equipped, that we are prepared to face anything, because our faith is immovable when we know what God has said about everything. When we know who God is, and this is God's revelation, He has shown us who He is, and when we know what He's going to do, which He tells us through prophecy, we have hope. And we have joy, as we covered last week, in the face of the most intense trials. Which is why Stephen, the first man to be martyred, looked and saw heaven opened up and could say, Lord forgive them for they know not what they do. The exact words of Christ. He was being made to look and resemble Christ. And that's what God wants to do in our life. So the three questions, the first one is let the Holy Spirit search you out, or challenges I should say, not really questions. Let the Holy Spirit search you out. So has God been speaking to you this morning about your faith being divided? In other words, is your faith attached or mixed with doubt? Are there areas in your life that you are doubting God, His goodness, His care for you, His love for you? Now that's not something to beat yourself up about, but it is something to address and to bring before God. Let the Holy Spirit have access to your heart in that regard. The second challenge accompanied to that, or connected to that, is humble yourself and do what God desires of His children. And like I said last week, be humble or be humiliated. And sometimes if we're being proud or prideful, God will humiliate us and bring us low because our dependence is not in us, but it's in Him. And so we have the opportunity as Christians to humble ourselves. Lord, I am not wise. Lord, I doubt. Give me wisdom. I believe who you are and what you have said in your word, and I ask for wisdom. And it's okay to ask like the man in the Gospels, Lord, I believe, but help my unbelief. That's an appropriate prayer. There's times where, Lord, I know what it says, and boy, it's hard to believe. I do believe it, but help my unbelief. And let God work in your heart to bring about an undivided faith, a faith that can stand any storm, because that's what God is wanting to bring about. The third one is learn to worship God in a worthy manner. This challenge focuses on the purpose of the book of James is worthy worship. So in other words, how are we as saved people to walk in a manner worthy of the calling that God has called us to? How do we walk in a worthy manner? How do we worship? How do we sing praises? How do we pray? How do we minister? How do we fellowship with one another in a worthy manner? In other words, what needs to change in our life? What needs to change in our life? What is keeping you from trusting in God through everything? That's hard. And here's a few things, and this kind of gets into stuff we learned at counseling. There's lies that we as Christians can believe. Lies that we believe rather than God's word. Here's some examples and maybe you're thinking of some that I won't mention, that I won't think of here. So lies that you believe are maybe that God doesn't have your good in mind. God doesn't have your good in mind. Or maybe it's personally that God doesn't love you. Maybe you know what the word says, but you have a hard time grasping, God, can you love me, even me? As we sang in that hymn. Or maybe you're believing that it isn't going to be worth it to follow God. It's not going to be worth it. This life is short. God is going to forgive me anyway, so I might as well take what enjoyment I can now. That's dangerous, dangerous thinking because this life is temporary and we are eternal beings. Whether we are separated with God or with God for eternity, we will live for eternity. Now, if you trust Christ, you're going to be with Him. But when you finally are with Him in heaven, do you want to be found faithful or to be found ashamed of the way that you lived your Christian life? That is the focus of James. so that we can stand before the judgment seat of Christ as a believer, saved by His grace, by no works, but to stand unashamed, saying, I have walked with you, Lord. And we want to do that in our life. If you could just bow your head as we close in prayer. I want to share the gospel with those who are maybe visiting that aren't saved, that aren't eternally saved. And that is that Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins, that anyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life. And so I would invite you right now in the quietness of your own heart to, like Peter said, ask Christ to save you and thank Him for doing so when He died on the cross. And if you believe, the Bible says that you are saved, and like we sang earlier, nothing can pluck you out of His hand. Father, we thank You so much for this morning. We thank You for this service, time to sing Your praises and to hear Your Word. And we pray, Lord, that You would bring about an undivided faith in each of us. Lord, that You would dispel all doubt, and that You would use Your Word To write it onto our hearts lord that we would believe and be undivided in our faith. We pray that you bless The rest of today and the rest of the week in jesus name. Amen