Sermon Tone Analysis

Big Idea: Throughout James’ letter, he is going to give instruction over several areas of life that we are prone to live inconsistently by saying one thing and then doing another.

James will talk about humility, temptations and trials, how we treat people we stand to gain something from versus those we do not, what we do with our finances, and how we use our words.

What James understands, however, is that these issues do not even begin to cover the multitude of different areas we need to live as faithful hearers and doers of God’s Word and followers of Jesus.

There is a gap between what James can cover in his short letter and what is needed to live the faithful Christian life.

To bridge that gap, we need wisdom and wisdom only comes as we seek it out from the source of true wisdom…God.

In chapter 3, James concludes his teaching on wisdom by showing the fruit of Godly wisdom.

Welcome to week two of our James study.

James’ purpose for the book = Briefly explain perfect and complete

James want his readers to live wholehearted lives of devotion to Jesus.

James will give us twelve different teachings (some closely related and hard to distinguish from one another at times) about specific areas of our life that we tend to fail at living out our wholehearted devotion to Jesus.

But, James realizes that if we are going to grow into perfect, mature, wholehearted followers of Jesus, we are going to need three things.

We looked at one of those last week.

Anybody remember the first thing that James says grows us in maturity and perfection?

Trials…explain trials.

This week, we are going to still be in chapter one as we look at the second thing James tells us we need if we are going to wholeheartedly follow Jesus in every area of our life.

Tell the story of deciding to plant a church and then deciding to come to Washington…napkin story...

You see, James is going to give us several different practical examples of areas of our lives where we do not live with perfect, mature, wholehearted devotion to Jesus.

James is going to talk about:

How we are inclined to view people and even treat people differently depending on what we stand to gain from them.

James recognizes that we will often choose to follow Gods Word only in the areas that we stand to benefit.

He’s going to talk about how we deal with one another in humility.

James is going to spend a lot of time talking about how we use our words to both bless God and then tear down the people made in His image who God actually cares a lot about.

James is going to address our motives and the things that cause us to fight and argue with one another.

He will also talk about our judgmental attitudes and how that destroys other people.

James is going to talk about our propensity to constantly be looking ahead to what comes next in life and how that is a distraction from right living and right relationships in the present.

He addresses what we do with our money, what true religion looks like, and even how to be patient.

Honestly, James is cram packed with some incredibly relevant teachings that will touch all of our lives in some major ways if we allow it to, and yet please don’t miss this… James realizes it’s not enough.

Even though James runs after a dozen different practical issues, there is still a gap in things that James isn’t able to cover…in fact, if James’ letter was a thousand pages long, it still wouldn’t cover everything.

A good example is this: How do we know we are living faithfully and moving in the right direction when it comes to planting this church?

What are we to do?

Where are we supposed to move to?

Even though James is careful to talk about how we view and plan for our future, He doesn’t cover specifically what to do in the situation Danielle and I found ourselves in.

Even though James talks about our finances, he doesn’t tell you whether or not you should make that huge purchase, buy that house or that new car.

And there are ways we can live faithfully through how we handle our money that really matter and yet James doesn’t address those areas specifically.

Even though James encourages us to guard our speech, does that mean we never speak out against things that God cares deeply about even though it might offend someone else?

What are those things and how can we know with certainty where to draw those lines?

Those are just the areas that James DOES address that still leave major gaps.

What about all the different areas James DOES NOT cover?

Like whether or not you should take that job offer or get a vaccine or put your kids in public vs. private vs. home-school.

What about whether you should seek counseling for your mental health or your marriage?

This past week, my parents were faced with an impossible decision.

My grandmother fell ill with COVID and her health deteriorated very rapidly to the point where she would never come off the ventilator and her quality of life would only worsen as time went on.

How in the world are we expected to make a decision about something like that?

We aren’t God, we don’t control life and death and yet that was the very decision my mom was asked to make about her own mother this week.

We are faced with questions, decisions, and choices every single day that range from the mundane to the life altering that God’s Word does not directly inform and yet our faithfulness is still critical and required.

In that gap stands wisdom.

Here is the Devin Wood paraphrase of Biblical Wisdom:

Biblical Wisdom - The God-given discernment and insight that enables us to live faithfully as we go about our daily lives when the Bible does not directly inform a situation.

Please note that I said:

Live faithfully NOT In a way that best benefits us.

That will be critical as we go along.

So let’s go back and read James’ opening words about wisdom and why we need it again with that definition in mind.

READ AND EXPLAIN AS YOU GO ALONG HIGHLIGHTING THAT DEFINITION

That is what James wants for us.

He’s already told us that one way we become perfect, mature, wholehearted followers of Jesus is as we allow the trials of life to mould our characters but watch this next word:

But… James 1:5

And so James is saying what I’ve been saying all morning.

We need wisdom if we are going to live faithfully.

Do you remember what I said last week?

James didn’t write anything, really I mean anything that isn’t already somewhere else in the Bible.

What made James so certain of this?

I mean, I have asked God for all kinds of things in the past and His answer has been no on many occasions… for one, I’m still not a millionaire.

Where did James get this idea so certainly that he says God will give wisdom to ALL and do so generously and without question?

I’m so glad you asked this question that I was ready to answer.

He gets it from two places:

First is the story of King Solomon.

Check this out from 1 Kings 3:5-12 EXPLAIN AS YOU GO ALONG...

And James also has these words from Matthew 7:7

And so James just puts these two ideas together, and don’t miss this: James does this under the guidance of the Holy Spirit who is filling James with the wisdom needed to write this book as he pens these words.

Now we saw that first but but its the second but that we have to really pay attention to because:

Biblical wisdom has a prerequisite.

Let’s talk about faith for just a second.

I don’t want to dive too deeply because that’s actually the third thing we need to live out wholehearted devotion to Jesus and will be covered at length next week but we do need to talk about it for a second.

What is faith?

Well any good Christian who was paying attention in Sunday school growing up will immediately quote you this verse:

And so we would say that faith is the belief in something that we don’t see but know to be true.

And if you said that, you were definitely right because it actually says it right there in the Bible that that is the case.

But in keeping with James’ theme…there is a BUT.

But that definition is incomplete.

Now, don’t get me wrong, it is right and serves the purpose that the writer of Hebrews is going to talk about over the course of the rest of the chapter, but when taken viewed against the entire Bible (and consequently against what James is going to show us next week) it is incomplete.

Let me give you a better word.

Words derive their meaning from usage not from a dictionary…dictionaries change with the usage of words over time.

So the ‘better’ word I’m going to give you still isn’t the best but it gets us about 1500 years closer in usage than the word faith does.

Faith = Fealty

Do king Arthur bit and fealty.

Faith is both a trust in (even when the object of faith is not seen) and a commitment to act in accordance with that trust.

Check out what Proverbs 9:10 says

Fear of the Lord isn’t just ‘afraid’ but it is an awe and trust in God that is so life-permeating that it changes our actions.

And so here’s what needs to happen now that we know these two definitions of what wisdom and faith actually mean.

It’s meant to drive us to answer a couple of questions:

First,

Does God care about this issue and does my faithfulness in it matter?

Here is what I mean…I have watched as people get paralyzed by this reality…do funny toothpaste bit…crest with whitening strips or colgate total protection?

But some issues do matter:

Go back to the story from the beginning…we were at the point where we either had to get out of the military, take one of the two open jobs, or stay in and move towards church planting.

And the second question is this:

Will I faithfully execute the wisdom that God reveals?

Do funny “nope God we are going to New York” Jonah and the great fish bit...

No, we have to ask these two questions prior to seeking wisdom from God and by doing this, we will save ourselves from being a double-minded person who is unstable in all their ways.

Question…Do people ever abuse this?