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All right. Well, good morning. Welcome once again. You can turn in your Bibles to our passage this morning. It's James 1, verses 5 through 8. Again, that's James chapter 1, verses 5 through 8. We're going to pick off where we pick up where we left off two weeks ago.

If you missed it, we looked two weeks ago at the first four verses in James. And we asked ourselves the very serious, very difficult question. How can we possibly count it all joy when we experience trials of various kinds? That's where James starts his letter. And he reminds us that the heavenly benefits of trial far outweigh the earthly costs.

Heavenly benefits far outweigh the earthly costs. Well, two weeks ago after I preached that sermon, many of you came up to me and you told me a little bit about the trials going on in your own life and the timeliness of that reminder. And I'm thankful. I'm thankful for the encouragement.

But this ultimately impressed on me the reality, and I don't say this lightly. That there is a lot of trial going on in this church right now. I wanted to start just by acknowledging that if you are here and you're currently in a season of trial and look around, you're not alone.

And maybe you're here and you're not currently in a season of trial. Well, maybe God's calling you to help someone who is. Galatians 6:2 calls us to carry each other's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. And I hope that describes this church. All that to say, James isn't done talking about trial.

He's going to expand on the first four verses. He's going to pivot and talk about how do you ask for help. We all need a little help, don't we? I feel like I personally have been asking God for help a lot recently. And I'll admit that sometimes I doubt if it's doing any good.

Maybe you felt this way too. Well, our text this morning challenges us to examine these doubts, to look at them under the microscope of Scripture. Respond with correction if needed. So let's read this morning, James chapter 1, 5-8. But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.

But he must ask in faith, without any doubting. For the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

Father, I pray that you would challenge us by the reading of your word, that you would convict us where needed, help us to respond with repentance and praise. Jesus' name, amen. Well, there we go. You may remember this picture. I showed this a couple weeks ago to illustrate what it means to be steadfast.

This is a house in Mexico that survived a category four hurricane. And as you can see, the storm completely decimated all the other houses around it. But this house, amazingly, miraculously, didn't budge. It remained unscathed. And that's the idea behind steadfastness. It's this idea of immovability, which James says is the guaranteed product when a genuine faith in Jesus Christ meets trials of various kinds.

But that's not to always say we feel this way when we go through trial. Sometimes we feel more like this. I would imagine that James's audience felt similarly. After all, he's writing to believing Jews who are displaced, persecuted, and culturally isolated because of their faith. And it's all good and well to talk about being eternally minded, but that doesn't always answer the question, what do I do next?

This question requires wisdom. So that's where James goes in verse 5. You can read it. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God. And you can see how James does this. He pivots on this verbal idea of lacking. In verse 4, he describes the fully mature person as someone who is complete and lacking nothing.

But then he takes that same idea and then he starts talking to those of us, myself included, who actually have a little more work to do. Those who lack, those who lack a lack of lack of lack Who lacked wisdom. That's me. But James doesn't chastise his audience because they lack wisdom.

He gives them a promise. And it's a great promise. He says, if you lack wisdom, ask God, and it will be given. That is great news. Don't miss that. All you have to do is ask, praise the Lord. But James isn't done. He goes on to specify the manner of our asking.

He says that we must ask in faith, without doubting. For the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. A little bit like this guy, huh? I'll be honest with you. This is a hard passage for me to read because I often feel like the man in this picture.

Sometimes I truly have no idea what I'm doing. I have no idea what the right path is. I have no idea when or if my trial is going to end. And does that doubt, do those feelings disqualify me from receiving the wisdom of God just when I so desperately need it the most?

So we need to wrestle with this. We need to examine our doubt under the lens of Scripture. Ultimately, we need to get to the bottom of this question. What does God really require of us when we come to Him? So, we're going to take some time to examine two words in this passage: faith and doubt.

What does it mean to ask in faith? What does it mean to doubt? And finally, how do we keep ourselves from doubting? So, let's talk about faith. Let me reread verses five and six from our passage. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.

I'll stop there for now. What does it mean to ask in faith? When I worked for the hospital, I met this preacher. He was a volunteer, and he would go around and pray for patients. Now, this preacher was pretty loud, and you could often hear his prayers up and down the hallway of the hospital.

One day, I heard him praying for a very sick patient, and he prayed something to the extent of, Oh Lord, I know in your word that the prayer of faith will heal the sick, and I believe what you say. So, I know that this man will rise up from this bed today.

Well, I came to find out, sadly, that about 10 minutes after the preacher left, that patient was declared dead. Now, what went wrong with his prayer? Did he just not have enough faith? Was he not confident enough? Maybe he just didn't believe hard enough. Now, I think the problem is that perhaps this preacher had a misunderstanding about faith.

And maybe we have this misunderstanding too. Namely, sometimes I think we can mistake the feeling of faith for the substance of faith. The Bible is clear that faith is not a feeling. Hebrews 11:1 talks about faith being the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen.

Faith is tangible, it's observable, it's fruitful. And the problem with mistaking faith for mere feeling is that you may fall into the trap that says, if I just believe hard enough, if I can muster up the right emotions, then God will respond. That God will do whatever I say.

Do you see the problem with that? Jesus prayed in Gethsemane that the cup of God's wrath would be Pass from him, but it didn't. Is it because Jesus didn't believe hard enough? Of course, that's ludicrous. Faith is not just a feeling. So, what is it? Well, let me propose a metaphor for you.

Imagine that you are on an airplane, and this airplane is going down, total engine failure. And the only way to survive is to jump. And as luck would have it, there are three parachutes on board. So, you look over the parachutes, you find one that seems like it's good quality.

You even glance over the user manual, and you decide with great confidence that this parachute can definitely save your life. So, you strap it on, and then you go return to your seat on the plane. See, that's the difference between faith and belief. You may believe the parachute can save you, you may even feel very confident in your choice, but it's not faith until you make the jump.

This is what James means when he uses the word faith throughout his letter. It's not enough to believe in God, you've got to be willing to. Act on it. In chapter 2, James will say, even demons believe in God and they shudder. But he says that faith without works, without action, is useless.

And he'll point to Abraham and Isaac as an example of this. Do you think Abraham understood what would happen to Isaac when God told him to go sacrifice his only son? Do you think Abraham didn't weep tears as he walked Isaac up that mountain? But Abraham went anyway.

And he was justified not because of how he felt, but because of what he did. That's faith. Faith is not a feeling. It's a decision to act. Ultimately, it doesn't matter how boldly you leave the plane. All that matters is that you make the jump. So faith is not a feeling.

The next thing we need to understand about faith is that everybody has it. Everybody has faith. Now, what do I mean by this? Well, if faith is the decision to act, then it follows that everyone who acts is Exercising some kind of faith. Now, it may not be faith in God or faith in Christ, but everyone has faith in something or someone.

A few years back, Norman Geisler and Frank Turek wrote a book, and this book was called, I don't have enough faith to be an atheist. Now, what's their point? Their point is that even atheists, people who don't believe in God and don't believe in the supernatural, even atheists have faith in something.

And they'll say that their faith is in the material world. Everything that exists, they can see or smell or touch. And they'll say, if I can't observe it, it must not exist. Well, think about that statement. That's a faith statement. That's not rooted in logic or reason. That's rooted in faith.

So when James makes this distinction about asking God in faith, I don't think he's distinguishing between people with faith and people without faith. I think he's distinguishing between people who put their faith in God and those who put their faith in anything else. As Americans, we like to hedge our bets, keep our options open.

But James says you can't do that with God. James 4:4, he says, Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility towards God? You know, it's one or the other. Faith is ultimately a choice. Faith requires allegiance. If God is telling you one thing, and your circumstances, your feelings, and your friends are all telling you something else, what will you believe?

What will drive you to action? That determines where you've placed your faith. And we all have to choose. Will we put our faith in God or will we put our faith in the evidence of our own eyes? And we can't choose both. I think Matthew 14 illustrates this well.

This is when Jesus calls Peter out on the water. And I'll read this section for you: Matthew 14, 28 through 33. Jesus is walking on the water, displaying his power over the wind and the waves. And Peter on the boat, he calls to Jesus and he says, Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.

And Jesus says, Come. So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water, and he came to Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid. He began to sink and to cry out, Lord, save me. Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying, O you of little faith, why did you?

Doubt. See, Peter stepped out of the boat because Jesus told him to come. And that kind of faith worked a miracle. But then Peter started seeing the wind and the waves. And in that moment, he chose to believe his eyes over the words of his master. So you see that behind Peter's doubt was actually belief.

Only it was belief in something other than what Christ had told him. And I love that even though Jesus calls Peter out on this doubt, Jesus still reaches out and he takes hold of Peter. Such is the grace of our God, even in our doubt. That brings me to my final point about faith, the faith that God requires of us.

This faith is rooted in the gracious character of God. Look again at verse 5 with me. Why does God grant wisdom to those who ask? Is it because of anything that we do or say or deserve? No, God gives wisdom because he is generous, because he does not reproach his children when they come to him, which, by the way, includes when we come to him with our Icky feelings, with our doubts, with our questioning.

That's because God's grace, His gifts are not a reflection of our character, they're a reflection of His character. In Matthew 7, 9 through 11, one of my favorite passages, Jesus says, Which one of you, if His son asks him for bread, will give him a stone, or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent?

If you then who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father, who is in heaven, give good things to those who ask? But you may say, John, I've been asking. What about when I don't receive what I'm asking for?

What about the times I've asked for bread again and again and again, and all it seems like I'm getting are stones? Well, if you find yourself here, then I would say be careful that you're placing your faith in the grace of God, not the gifts of God. There is a difference.

My daughter loves ice cream, and we have a little convenience store by our house. And the week that we moved in, we bought her ice cream from that convenience store. Well, that was two years ago. Well, to this day, every time we pass that store, which is really anytime we go anywhere, Ellie asks, Daddy, can we get ice cream today?

Now, would a good father buy his daughter ice cream every day? Now, Jesus actually says that I'm an evil father, but even I understand that sometimes a good father withholds the gifts that his children ask for. Sometimes a good father will provide something better instead. See, the thing is, Ellie has plenty of faith that I can pull the car over and get her ice cream, but that's not the faith that I care about.

The faith I care about is that she believes in me, that she trusts me. And friends, we have a good heavenly Father. And because of that fact, the specific things we ask for are often withheld or delayed or denied. But just consider, consider for a moment that that may be God's grace in action.

James 1:17 says, Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father. Of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. My friends, God does not give poor gifts. Not because we deserve good things, but because He is good. It's in His character, and His character doesn't change.

When you believe this, when you come to God with His character in mind, all the other voices telling you what to do, they don't matter. And you will receive the wisdom of God because you trust the One who gives it. The last thing I'd like to say about faith, and this is really more of an observation.

Do you know the only two people in the Bible that Jesus describes as having great faith? One is a Roman centurion, and the other is a Canaanite woman. Both of them were Gentiles. Both of them had a severe trial going on. Both of them had no logical reason to believe that Jesus would help them.

But both of them came to Jesus anyway. Friends, great faith is not a feeling. It's where your feet take you when you don't know where else to go. It's the voice you listen to when there's a hundred other voices competing for your attention. Asking in faith is not how confidently you approach the throne, but that you recognize the one who's sitting on it.

So please don't use weak faith as an excuse to keep from coming to God. Instead, go demonstrate your faith by coming to God and then submit to whatever He tells you. Well, that barely scratches the surface on faith, but we need to pivot and now talk about doubt.

What is this doubt that James says will keep us from receiving the wisdom of God? How do we keep from being like the man we saw in the picture, the man that's tossed by the waves of the sea? Well, we'll return to our passage again, and I'll pick up in verse 6, which says, He must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind.

For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. You see, doubt here is contrasted with faith. So it stands to reason that if faith Is not a feeling, neither is doubt. At least, not this doubt, not the doubt that James is talking about here.

See, the word James uses for doubting is a pretty interesting word in the Greek. Sometimes it's translated as discerning or hesitating. The root of this word in Greek is to judge. So we might think of doubting in this sense as judging between your inner thoughts. We might call it indecisiveness.

Think back to our illustration with the airplane. The plane is going down. You've got three parachutes to choose from. In which parachute will you put your faith? Now, the indecisive man, he won't make a choice. He'll spend his final minutes trying on one parachute and then that one.

He'll be so crippled by uncertainty that he'll wind up going down with the plane. Either that or he'll just strap all three on. The result's the same. It's not going to work. See, this kind of doubt leads to inaction. Do you see how it's incompatible with faith? A faith that acts?

The doubting man is further described in our passage with this metaphor at the end of verse 6. For the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed. By the wind. You can picture this, can't you? The sea is always in flux. The doubting man can't commit to anything.

And if he does put his faith in something, he is quick to abandon it the minute it becomes uncertain or uncomfortable. This is a man controlled by his circumstances. And James's warning is clear: don't be this man. He goes on to say that this man shouldn't expect to receive anything from the Lord because he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

Now, this brings up some interesting questions. Is James saying that it is wrong to be tossed around by our circumstances? Is it wrong to approach God with our struggles and our questions? Is it wrong to feel doubtful? Well, I think that depends on what's driving that feeling. In verse 8, we get a clue about what James means by the word doubt because he qualifies it with this other word, the word double-minded.

Now, James is the only one to use this word in the New Testament, and he uses it twice. He uses it once here, and he uses it in James 4. Now, this word in Greek is di-psychos, which literally means two souls. Think about that. Two souls. Think Dr.

Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Think Gollum and Smeagel. This kind of man is constantly in flux because he's serving two masters. And it's the very picture of instability, right? In James 4:8, James will call on his readers to purify yourself from double-mindedness. Because this kind of double-mindedness, this kind of doubt, it's a disease.

It's a sin. No man can serve two masters. God demands allegiance and obedience to him alone. So if you are doubting because you haven't committed to obeying the voice of the Lord, then James is telling you to repent. Don't be double-minded. But what about the doubt we feel when we just don't know what to do?

What about the doubt we feel when we ask God, why? Why is this happening to me? Is that the same thing as being double-minded? No, I don't think so. And I'd like to do a little case study. To demonstrate this, you can turn to Luke chapter 1. As you turn, I'll set the scene a little bit.

Zacharias was an old man, and he was a high priest in Israel. And he gets visited by the angel Gabriel. And Gabriel has some truly amazing news. He says that Zacharias' wife, Elizabeth, would bear a son. So let's read how Zacharias responds in verse 18. Zacharias said to the angel, How will I know this for certain?

For I am an old man and my wife is advanced in years. And the angel answered Zacharias and said to him, I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God. And I have been sent here to speak to you and to bring you this good news. And behold, you shall be silent and unable to speak until the day when these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their proper time.

Now, turn the page to Luke 1:34. Here we have a similar situation. Gabriel is now visiting Mary, a virgin, with news that she will bear a son. This is how Mary responds. Mary says to the angel, How can this be, since I am a virgin? The angel answered her and said to her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.

And for that reason, the holy child shall be called the Son of God. And behold, even your relative, Elizabeth, has also conceived a son in her old age. And she who is called Baron is now in her sixth month. For nothing will be impossible with God. And Mary said, Behold, the bond slave of the Lord, may it be done to me according to your word.

And the angel departed from her. I've always found it interesting that Zacharias and Mary, they respond to Gabriel's news in more or less the same way. Both of them question the messenger. Yet Zacharias, he's punished for his response, right? But Mary actually gets an explanation. And what's the difference?

I think we get some clues in the surrounding passage that Zacharias fits this profile of a double-minded man. Just look at his response here. When Gabriel says that his wife would bear a son, he's looking for certainty. How will I know this for certain? He says, What about all this evidence that says it's impossible?

See, Zacharias can't receive the wisdom of God here because he's crippled by the evidence of his own eyes. He's trying to believe two things at once. Now, compare that to Mary. And she too has questions. She too doesn't understand how this news can possibly be true. And by the way, if it is true, her life is about to get really difficult.

But rather than demanding proof, rather than comparing evidence, she submits. She submits in obedience. And when she asks for clarification, God answers. And even though the clarification was unprecedented and supernatural, she believes it to be true. She says, May it be done to me according to your word.

We find this when we survey the rest of the Bible. We find that it isn't uncommon to find people questioning God in their trials. Psalm 13, which we read earlier, Earlier is a great example of this. Another is the book of Habakkuk, which I encourage you to read if you haven't read it.

Under the oppression of foreign nations, Habakkuk opens his prophecy by writing, How long, O Lord, will I call to help, and you will not hear? I will cry out to you violence, and yet you will not save. Have your prayers ever sounded like that? Well, God responds to Habakkuk, and God doesn't chastise him for his questioning, but he gives him assurance, assurance that he is good and that he is faithful.

And Habakkuk responds with praise. So you see, it's not our questions that keep us from receiving the wisdom of God, but it's how we respond to the answers. When you go to God with your feelings and emotions and your doubts, ask yourself, what are your intentions? Are you asking God for wisdom so that you can submit to Him?

Or are you just asking so that you can weigh your options? You have to decide this now. You have to decide it before you go to God, or else you will waffle unseen. Ceasingly between the wisdom of God and the wisdom of the world. Because truth be told, the wisdom of the world often looks pretty foolish, doesn't it?

The wisdom of the world says that success is based on how many people you have working for you. The wisdom of God says that to be great, you must make yourself the servant of all. The wisdom of the world says that your net value is how much you have in your bank account.

The wisdom of God says that when you are generous, you will have treasures in heaven. You see, you can't submit to both. You can only choose one master. I think that's why the double-minded man can't receive the wisdom of God. It isn't because God is being spiteful. I think the double-minded man doesn't receive the wisdom of God because he can't recognize it when he sees it.

If God is just one option on a list of many alternatives, then who knows where I'm going to put my faith today? James says, don't be that man. If you want the wisdom of God, then you've got to cleanse your heart from this double-mindedness and start coming to God like Mary.

May it be done to me according to your will. See, God. Can handle your emotions, God can handle your questions, but God will not tolerate double-mindedness because He wants all of you. So, let's get practical. How do we keep from falling into this kind of doubt? You're up against a trial and you don't know what to do.

Where do you start? Well, I would say step one: seek the Lord. Seek the Lord. This couldn't be more explicit from our text this morning. When you lack wisdom, ask God. God beckons you to come. Don't miss the promise that wisdom is yours for the asking. And you can start by reading His Word.

Psalm 119, 98 says, Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is ever with me. And when you can't understand it, find godly counselors who will help you put it into practice. Now, I think biblical counseling is probably the most underrated and underused blessings of the body of Christ.

And whatever your trial may be sitting in this room this morning, I know for a fact that the elders of this church want to hear from you. They want to help you discern the voice of God in your trial. We all need help. I think, lastly, we seek the Lord through prayer.

And no, I don't expect that you'll hear an audible voice telling you what to do next. But I do think that prayer is essential to cleansing ourselves from this double-mindedness. Pray with premeditated obedience. No matter how anxious you feel about the future, Scripture tells us to count, to cast those anxieties on the Lord because He truly does care for you.

So seek the Lord. Seek the Lord for wisdom. Step two is to test the spirits. Now, this one may surprise you, but it's an important step to discerning the voice of the Lord. 1 John 4:1 tells us to test the spirits to see if they are from God.

Now, we live in the information age, we get a lot of data input every day. So, how do we know if something we Here is wisdom from above or wisdom from below. I'm so glad you asked because James gives us a list. Flip quickly to James 3, 14 through 17.

James 3, 14 through 17. He writes, But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. Now, this is not wisdom that comes from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, and demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and then every vile practice.

But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. So think about it. Is the wisdom that you're getting pure? Is it peaceable, gentle, open to reason? Is it full of mercy and good truth?

Is it impartial? Is it sincere? Now if it meets these requirements, then rest assured, it's probably from the Lord. But beware. Because if this so-called wisdom causes jealousy or selfish ambition, James says that such wisdom Is not from God, but is earthly, unspiritual, and even demonic. So I encourage you, make yourself a list.

And as you're deciding what to do next, see if that course of action meets these qualifications of wisdom from above. And if it does, then you've successfully put it through the test. The third step, third step that keeps us from falling into this double-minded doubt is to dwell on the goodness of God.

Dwell on the goodness of God. Do you have things in your life to remind you of God's faithfulness? Maybe a journal or an old picture. Israel would set up memorial stones. Well, if you don't have these things, then I encourage you to make some. Make them and put them in a place where you can see them often.

Read testimonies of other Christians who have tasted and seen the goodness of God in their trials. Let those stories encourage you. But most importantly, believe what God says about Himself. Exodus 30. 4, 6. He says, I am the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

So when you ask God for wisdom, remember who it is you're asking. The God of the Bible is not a magic genie, He's not a fortune cookie. He is the giver of every good and perfect gift, and He is the Lord of the universe. If you don't come to Him as that, then you might as well be a man tossed around by the waves of the ocean.

But those who believe that, those who put their faith in Him and come to Him accordingly, those are the ones who find a sure and steady anchor for their soul. And the thing is, I believe that over time, when you practice dwelling and responding to the goodness of God, all these icky feelings that we might call doubts, they don't have power over you anymore.

That's when you become steadfast. Not because your circumstances change, not because you aren't going through trial anymore, but because you have tasted and seen with your own eyes that the Lord is good, and happy are those who take refuge in Him. Friends, I know that you are going through trial.

I know those trials often seem like they will never end, but hear me when I say that blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord. I pray that you have the strength to put your trust in him. Father, we thank you for your goodness. Lord, we thank you for your word.

I pray, Father, that you would keep me, would keep everyone here from being like this double-minded man. Lord, that we would have assurance in who you say you are, and that would drive us to action. Lord, that we would ask. And respond to the wisdom you provide because we know that you are a loving Father and you don't give bad gifts.

Sometimes that can be easier said than done, so I pray that you give us the strength to be obedient. In Jesus' name, amen.