John K. Jenkins Sr - Living Out Loud (Book of James Chapter 1)

Opening Gratitude and Reminder
I'm grateful and thankful for the mercy of God and the grace of God, and I'm grateful for this opportunity to dive into the Word of God. So thank you for joining us. We're going to pray, and I want to remind you that what we do, what we continue to do, is to pray for the lost, the unsaved, backslidden, unchurched persons that are in our lives, believing God to draw them into His kingdom.

I pray that you still have your FRAN list—your friends, relatives, acquaintances, neighbors, and co-workers—and that you put some people on your list and you're still praying for them. Don't stop praying. Don't stop interceding for them. We have a lot of people who need the Lord Jesus in their life, and it is our assignment before God to win them to the kingdom. So I hope that you're doing that.

Prayer

Father, in the name of the Lord Jesus, I thank You for Your loving kindness and Your tender mercies. Thank You for just Your patience with us, Your forgiveness that You've made available to us. Thank You that You're a God that heals and delivers and sets free and saves, and we're grateful for all of those things that You have done in our lives. We can celebrate Your hand in all of the things that You have done.

So we pray, Father, this day that by the power of Your might You would take a few moments today and incline Your ear to hear our cry. We're praying for our loved ones, we're praying for our family members and our relatives and our friends and our co-workers and neighbors and even people that we just pass by on a regular basis. We pray for them to get saved and for their hearts to be open, drawn by the power of the Holy Spirit, that You would draw them to Your kingdom.

Now, Father, I pray that You would have mercy and meet the needs of Your sons and daughters, whatever their needs might be. In Jesus' name I'm praying. Heavenly Father, that You would forgive us. Thank You that You have forgiven us of our sins. We have missed the mark, we have failed in so many ways, but thank You that You are a God that forgives and washes us.

I pray that You take these next moments, put a shield around this place. Lord, let me, for these few moments, be Your instrument, Your conduit, let me be Your channel for Your truth. Bless our time in Your Word and in Your Scriptures. Almighty God, open our eyes. Let hearts be open and receptive to Your truth. Let Your name get all of the glory and all of the praise, and let Your truth prevail. In the matchless and wonderful name of our resurrected Savior, Jesus the Christ, we pray. Amen.

Praise and Shift in Teaching Approach
All right, praise the Lord. I meant to thank Anthony and our praise and worship team for leading us in worship and reminding us how much we need God. Thank them for that powerful, anointed song.

So you know, in the past for the 32-plus years I've been here, except for on a few occasions, I have always taught in a Bible study topically. So I would pick a topic and teach on that topic, and generally what I've done is give you verses that go all over the Scriptures in support of that topic.

But I feel inclined, I feel the Lord is leading me to shift how we've been teaching Bible study. I don't know how long I'm gonna do this, but at least until I feel the Lord tell me to do something different, I'm going to teach you through books of the Bible. I think it's pertinent and relevant for us to study the Bible the way God gave it to us. He didn't give it to us in topics; He gave it to us in the books that cover a lot of things.

And so tonight we're going to start looking at the book of James. Amen. So go ahead and find the book of James. It's in the New Testament. If you don't know where it is, just go ahead to the table of contents and find what page it is. It's page 1063 in my New King James Bible. I don't know what page it is in yours, but go ahead and find it.

And let me give a shout-out to all of our people all over the world. Let me just go ahead and celebrate them and greet you all and thank you for joining us and asking you to shout out where you're from so we can just see where people are from all over the country and the world. I forgot to say that, so let me go ahead and say that real quick. We want you to do that.

But we're going to be in this for the next several weeks. I'm trying to get through chapter one today—27 verses in James chapter one—and I'm gonna try to walk through these 27 verses because it covers several significant topics and instructions.

Author and Introduction to James Chapter 1
Let me just begin by affirming to you that this book of James was written by Jesus' half-brother James. He is the half-brother of Jesus. He calls himself in verse one a servant of the Lord, a bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus, even though he's His brother. Because, y'all know, if it was me, if I was Jesus' brother and I was writing the book, I'd say, “This is John—by the way, I'm Jesus' brother.” But he didn't tell us that. But we know that that's who he is—he's the brother of the Lord, the half-brother of the Lord Jesus. But he's also a servant of God and a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And he writes to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad. At the time of his writing, the Jews had been spread abroad all over the world, and he's writing this letter to them. And what he says to them is in fact significant things that we want to talk about.

And in this one chapter, I'm going to divide it up into four sections, four segments of what he talks about, and we're going to take a look at each one of these four areas.

Section 1: How to Handle Life's Trials (Verses 2–8)
So let's go to the first part—for the first eight verses, verses two through eight—and he talks about how to handle life's trials. That's what he spends talking about between verses two and eight: how to handle life's trials.

And here's what he says. Let me give you the first point. He tells us to do it in verse number two. He tells us to count it all joy. That's what he tells us to do when you have trials and troubles and issues—count it all joy.

Let's read it. It says right here in verse two: “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials.” When you—and notice he didn't say “if” you fall into various trials; he says “when.” Having trials is a part of life. You're gonna have trials.

I think sometimes people get discouraged and frustrated when life doesn't go the way they want it to go. But the truth and the reality is you're going to have challenging moments and challenging issues and frustrations and trials in life. It goes with the territory, especially following Jesus. There's not gonna be a bed of roses. You're gonna face some trials. You're gonna have some issues and troubles.

And he tells us, here's what he tells us to do when they come: count it all joy. And here's how I view that. When I look back over my life and I consider the things that have come to pass in my life, James says when you get to the tough times, don't skip over those things as being meaningful in your life. Don't jump over that boss, don't jump over those issues, don't jump over that sickness and eliminate it.

He said, when you become a mature Christian, you learn to consider it joy. You learn to celebrate it. And I'm gonna tell you why in a few moments, but just hang with me. He says include it in your account, include it in the arena of the things that you want to consider as highlights of your life. Take note of that. That's what he tells us to do. Don't cry, don't mope, don't complain, don't blame everybody else, don't be sad about it, but count it all joy. Consider it, put it in the plus column.

Because I look back over my life, and at the time I went through some things that I've gone through, I didn't count them as joy at the moment. But now that I've gone through a few things in life, I've matured to the point that when something comes up now, when I face a challenge now, I ain't stressed out about it, I ain't frustrated about it, I ain't fearful of it. I don't get mad or anything about it because I know that when I come on the other side of the trial, God will have brought something positive out of it.

Romans 8:28 is so powerful and clear: “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” So we reach a level of maturity where we have challenges and issues and troubles—I know God's gonna work it out. I have enough history with God, I have enough journey with God. I've seen Him do it enough times in life that I ain't frustrated, I ain't mad, I ain't upset, I'm not fearful because I know He's going to work it out. All things work together for good. I know that, and I've seen God work it out.

So now that I know that, I can count it all joy. And that's what God is saying: count it all joy, put it all in the joyful column, that when I come out on the other side, I'm gonna be better.

I look at some things God used in my life—and when I cried when I didn't get called to a church. I applied for all these different churches, and they all turned me down, and that first time I cried. But I realize now God didn't want me to go there because He had something better for me. Somebody didn't pick you for a job—it's okay, God's got something better for you. Somebody don't want to be married to you—it's okay, God got something better for you. That's all you got to know is that God has a better purpose and a better assignment. Count it all joy. Include that in your account. My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials.

Secondly, here's another reason why we can count it all joy. He says in verses three through four because we know the benefits of trials. There are benefits to it. Let's look at what he says in verses three and four.

Knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. Oh, there's a shout right there. Your trial is producing something inside of you. Your trials are bringing something positive to you. Know that the testing of your faith produces patience.

And then it says, “But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.” See, the only way that you can become perfect—that word “perfect” means mature—the only way you can be complete, that means you got everything you need, the only way you can be at a place where you're lacking nothing.

I don't know if y'all ever met somebody who's lacking intelligence, lacking patience, lacking common sense, lacking the capacity and the ability to recognize where God's trying to use you. When you have had your patience tested—your faith tested, I'm sorry—it's going to produce patience. That's what it's going to do. Knowing the benefits of it is going to bring you to a place and posture where patience is going to bring you to a level of maturity.

You got to go through it. It's just a part of the journey, it's a part of the path, because God's got something for you. For anybody who don't go through nothing—here's what a lot of people do: a lot of people seek to avoid challenges and avoid trials, so they make decisions that are not the right choices because they want to avoid trials. And so they try to make a choice or a decision to bypass the trials.

And I'm trying to tell you: make the righteous decision even if it means you got to go through some trials, even if you've got to go through some troubling days. Take the right choice because God uses the challenges and the choices of your life to bring you to a place of maturity. Let patience have its perfect work. I love that.

And so he says to us: you got to know the benefits of your trial. We know it's going to produce patience. We know that it's going to give us the ability in our future trials to be able to hang on with God. That's what patience is—it gives you the capacity to stick with God even when you're going through difficult times.

All right, and so he gives us the benefits, and then he tells us also what to do. He tells us to ask God for wisdom. You're going through something—ask God for the wisdom of what choices, how you should respond, what you should do now.

I think that's absolutely profound and powerful that he tells us to ask God for wisdom. That's what you need is wisdom. Ask God for wisdom. Verses five through eight—let's read. Here's what it says: “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 a profound passage right here. It's actually amazing, wonderful, powerful.

Because here's what this means: number one, you want to ask God for wisdom. What is wisdom? Let me talk about wisdom for a second. Wisdom is seeing life from God's perspective. It's seeing the trials of life from God's vantage point.

So too many people look at their trials from their own eyes, from their own situation, from their own vantage point. And when you look at life from your own vantage point, you're looking at it based on your pain, based on the circumstances. But God wants us to see higher than that. Wisdom is having the capacity and the ability to stop looking at it at the ground level and look at it at the 30,000 feet level—look at it from above.

Because when you look at it from that vantage point, you can see that this is just a little blip in your journey. It's just a step in the path. It ain't going to last long. This too shall pass. Whatever you're going through, this too shall pass, and it's going to pass, and God's going to take you on to a new dimension, into a new level.

That's what it means to see life from God's vantage point—see that God's got a purpose behind allowing you to go through whatever you're going through. God will never allow anything to come into your life that you don't have the capacity to handle. If God knew you couldn't handle it, it wouldn't be there.

And if He allowed it to come into your life, if He allowed it to come into the domain of your circumstances, you know what that means? That means He knows He's already equipped you to be able to handle it. And so you need to ask Him for wisdom.

Ask God—and I love this verse because it says He gives it to us liberally. He gives to all liberally and without reproach. That's powerful. God's waiting to usher in and give to you wisdom.

But hold up—before you go anyway, He says you got to ask in faith with no doubting. You can't be questioning, doubting that God will do it. He will do it. For he who doubts—this verse says—for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.

You're not doing well if you are doubting and questioning God's capacity and God's ability to provide for you and to give you the wisdom. He wants to give it to you.

And verse 7 says, “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.” You're going to God and asking Him for something but you don't believe He can do it—that's double-minded.

God's trying to tell us: don't doubt, don't question, have faith.

If you get an opportunity, I want you to jot this verse down. I want you to read it—I'm not going to read it, but I want you to read it: 1 Kings chapter 3, verses 1 through 15. And here's where that passage is—that's a passage about Solomon asking God for wisdom.

And here's the thing: Solomon had a dream in this passage, and in his dream God came to him and said, “What is it you would like? Ask anything you want.” And Solomon asked for wisdom. And God was so impressed that he asked for wisdom that He said, “I love that you didn't ask for riches, you didn't ask for long life, you didn't ask for those things. But because you asked for wisdom, I'm so blessed by what you asked for that I'm going to give you long life and I'm going to give you riches because you didn't ask for selfish things. You asked for things that would help you make righteous choices and right decisions.”

And so I think that's important for you and me to be in a posture with God that we make that our prayer. Some of you need to ask God for that. That needs to be your prayer. You need to say to the Lord, according to James, you've got trials and troubles going on—He says in the midst of that, ask God for wisdom of what you should do, how you should respond, and where you should go. That's profound. It's powerful. And ask in faith—don't doubt, don't question God. Ask in faith. Don't be a double-minded person.

So that's how we handle life's trials—by counting it all joy, knowing the benefits of those trials, and asking God for wisdom.

Section 2: How to Respond to Temptation (Verses 12–18)
Let's slide down to verse 12 because in verse 12 I want to tell you he's telling us how to respond properly to temptation. Because you are going to have temptations. Verses 12 through 18 he gives us instructions on what to do and how to respond to temptations.

In verse number 12 he says number one: we have to learn to endure temptation. Somebody say endure. Endure—hang in there, hang in there with temptations. Persevere might be another word. You can't run from it—it'll chase you. Temptations will come up wherever you go.

You got to learn at some point in your life that when temptations come in your face, that you have the capacity to say no. That's what God ultimately wants us to be—that when the temptation is right in our face, for us to say no.

Let's look at verse 12: “Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.” I love that right there. God says if you endure it, you'll be blessed. God promises the crown of life. You're going to get a crown, you're going to get a special reward—it is the crown of life—when you learn to operate by enduring temptation. When that temptation comes knocking at your door, He says you got to learn to persevere and hang through it and don't yield, don't give in, don't respond, don't do it. Endure it.

Then he says when you have these temptations—verses 13 and 14—he says don't blame God. Now this is an important point too because lots of people want to blame God for the circumstances.

Let's read verses 13 and 14: “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.”

There's another place you got to note: when you get tempted, don't say God did it. God does not tempt us. There's a difference between being tested and being tempted. God will test your faith, but He will not tempt you. Temptation does not come from God.

Our faith will be tested—you don't even know that you've got faith until it's been tested. You don't know how real your faith is until it's been put to the test. And God allows us to be tested because He wants us to know the strength of our faith and the capacity of our ability.

When you've had your faith tested and you come through and you still trust and believe God, the next trial you come through is that much easier because you know that you've seen God and watched God work miracles for you. You've seen Him answer your prayers, you've seen Him bring you out, you've seen Him do the unthinkable, the impossible for you.

So it'll be tested. And so he says: don't blame God. Whatever you're going through, don't blame God.

And then he says here's how we handle temptations: we endure them, we don't blame God. Oh, here's the third one: you got to know the consequences of yielding. Know the consequences of what happens when you yield. Magnify the consequences.

Let's look at verses 15 and 16: “Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren.”

Man, that's profound. When desire comes, it gives birth to sin. Desire—you want it, you wanted it, you liked it, you were interested in it, you were curious about it, you were attracted to it. And when it gets conceived, it ultimately gives birth to sin—it brings forth you doing it, yielding.

And sin, when it is full-grown—sin is never satisfied. The more it gets, the more it wants. It's never satisfied. You take a bite, it wants five. You take a step, it wants to go all the way into the pool. You put your feet in the water just to see how it feels—it's going to pull you in. It always takes you further than you intended to go and keeps you longer than you intended to stay.

It gives birth to sin, and sin when it is full-grown brings forth death. It will separate you and your relationship with God. It will separate your fellowship with God, your ability to have fellowship with God.

I believe there's somebody watching today—you know you have given birth to sin, you have yielded, and it has destroyed your ability to have fellowship with God. You can't pray, you can't talk to God, you can't hear from God, you can't communicate with God. That sin has come full-blown, and it has brought the consequences, which is to break off your ability to have fellowship with an eternal God.

How many people have lost the path, lost their way, lost their ability to communicate with God, hear from God, get God to answer their prayers because they yielded to sin. There are consequences to sin, and that's what this passage is warning us about—to be careful, beware.

And it says do not be deceived. You fall into deception. Oh, how many people have been deceived—they've been tricked and fooled and they're thinking the wrong things and walking down the wrong path and accepting the wrong things because they have been deceived. That's why I want to give you such a warning today that James is telling us today to beware.

Now he doesn't stop there, but then he tells us this—so he told us to endure temptation, don't blame God, know the consequences of sin, and here's the fourth thing he tells us to do as it pertains to temptation: you got to remember the nature of God. Remember who the God is that we serve.

In verses 17 and 18—let me read those verses to you. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures.”

If something comes in your life that's not good, it did not come from God. I know it looks good, I know it sounds right, but if it's a good gift and a perfect gift, that can only come from God. And it comes down from the Father of lights. He's highlighting the nature of God—He doesn't delve in darkness. When God shows up, darkness goes away. When He's in the arena, darkness flees. You can't have darkness and light in the same place—the darkness has to yield to light.

And He says every good and perfect gift God is bringing from above. He will bring you what you need—that's the nature of God. And with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning—God's nature does not change. He's always the same. He always loves you.

That's what I love about that passage—with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. He doesn't shift, He doesn't change, He doesn't become something different. His nature doesn't change.

And then it says of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth. He pulled you and me out of the darkness that we were in. He took us out of the muck and mire. His nature reached down in the dirt that you were in, in the lifestyle you were living in, and He brought you up out of it by the word of truth, that we might be the firstfruits of His creatures.

We are a part of His kingdom. His nature—He brought light, He gave us life. Remember the nature of the God that we serve. He gave you eternal life, and that eternal life begins down here on earth while we can have life while we are living on this planet. And then when this earthly tabernacle dissolves, we will have another building not made by hands, and we will live eternally in the presence of God.

And so James tells us: please remember the nature of the God that we serve. And I want to encourage you today: remember who He is, remember His nature.

Section 3: How to Communicate with Others (Verses 19–20)
Let me go to part three. He tells us in verses 19 and 20 instructions of how we ought to communicate with other people—here's how we ought to deal and talk to other people.

These two verses are verses I've probably quoted a thousand times in the course of my life. Let's read verse 19: “So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.”

Profound, powerful. My beloved brethren, when you're dealing with somebody in the midst of your trial, temptation, trouble—let every man be quick to hear. God gave you two ears and one mouth—quick to hear. You get into a debate with somebody—try to seek to understand first, then be understood. Seek to understand first—write that down. Seek to understand first, then be understood. That's the instruction from God.

Let every man be swift to hear—let me listen to what you have to say, and let me actually listen. Let me be slow to speak—don't just run off at the mouth. Y'all, I've met somebody—they got something to say about everything all the time. Slow—he said be slow to speak. That's one of the natures of what a Christian is—slow to speak.

And then he says slow to wrath—slow to get angry. Don't pop off and fuss and holler, scream, yell at people. Some of y'all are quick—He said be slow to wrath.

And then he says this in verse 20—and this is profound—this is how we deal with people: the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God. The anger of a man will not make a person be right. The wrath of man will not cause a person to make righteous choices. It does not produce the righteousness of God.

You're screaming, you're hollering, you're yelling—your anger won't change a person. God has to change them. And so He's trying to give us clear instructions on how we deal with other people: swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to wrath.

Section 4: Challenge to Righteous Living (Verses 21–27)
Finally, this last point I want to make—and then if you got questions, you can send in the questions. Point four of this first chapter is a challenge to live righteous—righteous living. That's what he challenges us to do.

And what does he tell us to do? He tells us to lay aside filthiness and wickedness—verse 21. “Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.”

I'm gonna come back to that second part in a moment, but the first thing he says is you gotta lay aside filthiness and the overflow of wickedness. Push it to the side, leave it alone, don't mess with it. That's a choice that you make, that's the decision that we make.

And then he tells us to receive and do the word. He says receive and do the word—he tells us in verses 21 and 22: receive with meekness the implanted word. Receive the word, be hungry for the word, accept the word, be anxious to hear the word, get in that word and apply it. Receive it with meekness because that word is able to save your soul, that word is able to bring deliverance to you. Accept the word, be anxious for it, be fervent about it. Make that a lifestyle—that you are anxious to hear the Word of God. That's what changes our lives.

He tells us the consequences of failing to hear and do—in verses 22–24: “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” There it is—you're deceived when you don't do the word but only hear it. You get tricked.

He says we want to be doers of the word—we want to hear it and do it. “For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.”

Man, can you look in the mirror and just walk away and forget what you look like? That's that—when you get in the word and that word shows you who you are, and you get up and forget about it, you're doing exactly what this is saying. You're forgetting about what you just heard. If you hear it but don't do it, don't apply it, don't obey it, don't submit to it—you're just like this man. And failing to hear—you're deceiving yourself. It's a challenge and a problem—you have deceived yourself.

Let me give you this final thing—and then I'll start taking some questions. Let's talk about in verse 25 the rewards of hearing and doing. There are some rewards when you hear the word and you do the word. James says there's some blessings in that.

“But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty”—by the way, that's the word, the perfect law of liberty is the word, and this is the law of love—“and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.”

God promises to bless him—that's a promise from God. God says I'm going to bless that person. That's the reward of hearing and doing—this man will be blessed in what he does. Whatever he puts his hands to, He'll bless it. That's a promise from the Lord.

Now I got one last thing—the evidence of doing. How do you know that you're doing the word? How do you know that the Word of God has impacted you? It's in verses 26 and 27.

What is the evidence of doing the word? “If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one's religion is useless. Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.”

Here's what it is—when you really been impacted by God, you learn how to control your tongue. The Scripture says a man whose religion is useless has an unbridled tongue—he doesn't know how to control what comes out of his mouth. That's the evidence of a person who doesn't have a genuine encounter with God.

But he goes a little bit further—he says when you really have an encounter with God, you will have compassion for orphans and widows. You will have compassion for the less fortunate. You will care about widows and those who are left fatherless. God will give you a level of compassion for the poor and those who have no one to cover or protect them or provide for them. That's the level of compassion that God gives to us.

I'm so proud of our church because this is one of the things our church celebrates doing—we look after widows, we look after the poor. And I believe that's one of the reasons God has rewarded us and blessed us—because we have a heart and compassion to care for the less fortunate. We've adopted poor villages in Peru, and we've sent missionaries there, and we've built schools and hospitals, healthcare places, and dug wells and cared for the less fortunate in the world. I'm so proud of our church—that's one of the things we do on a regular basis.

And then finally, when it comes to having the right kind of religion, is you remain unspotted from the world. When you have a relationship with God, the evidence of you receiving the word and doing it—you're not gonna get all entangled with the world.

I get troubled by people who flow with every fad that comes around. Whatever the fad is, they flow with the fad. You so much dive into the world that whatever the world is doing, you're picking up and doing it. Whatever the world is doing—the Scripture says we got to remain unspotted from the world.

When you have a relationship with God, He takes that out of your heart and gives you a desire to want to do the righteous things. You want to be pleasing to God, not to the world. A part of the problem—you want the world to accept you, you want the world to embrace you, you want the world to like you—and that's why you're doing what the world does.

No, that's not the thing to do. God is calling us to be unspotted from the world. I want to challenge you today to take a look at your life, take a look at your journey, take a look at yourself, and let's find out: do you have any spots of the world? What things are you picking up that the world does that you like? We want to remain unspotted from the world.

The world shifts and changes—it's never steady. But our God never changes. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Questions and Answers
All right, let me take some questions. I got a few questions that have come in already.

How do you know when you have received wisdom? You know that you receive wisdom because God gives you the answer of what to do about the situation you're in. God will tell you what to do, and you're viewing it—the key is you're viewing it from God's vantage point, not from your own vantage point. This is how you know: you can look at the situations from a different vantage point, not from being right in the middle of it. Wisdom is when you can see life from God's perspective—that's what wisdom is. You're seeing life from God's vantage point. You're able to see the bigger picture of where God might be taking you or what God wants to accomplish or what God's going to do. You see it from a bigger vantage point, and you're not just looking at it from the vantage point of what you're going through, where your trials are.

What does it mean to be double-minded? It means you think double-minded—just that. You got two ways of thinking. You're thinking—well, instead of a one-mind, single mind, you're not single-minded. You're trying to think with the world and with God. You're trying to do both things. You're trying to have your foot in the world and in church. You go to the club and the church. You reading the Bible and secular books. You sing secular music that's contrary to the Scriptures and trying to sing gospel at the same time.

Yeah, don't get me wrong y'all—I'm not saying you can't listen to secular music. It's the music that you like and you know the words to that are completely opposite of the teaching of the Scriptures—that you like and you enjoy and you buy and you go to that concert. You supporting it, you helping it. You buy the CDs, you download the music, and they're filling your mind and your heart up with the stuff that ain't pleasing to God—foul language, contrary principles. Anyway, that's double-minded. A person—they can't make up their mind which way they want to go. They can't decide where they want to be. That's why they can't approach God in faith—because they have filled themselves up with the world. That's why they can't have faith to believe God—because their heart and their soul and their mind and their emotions are filled with secular thoughts.

I think I've told y'all before—I'm a Temptations addict. I love the Temptations. But I had to put them aside because some of their music, some of the words of their music was depressing. I can get depressed without the Temptations helping me go there. I had to let them go.

Pastor, how do you count it all joy when you lose a child? You know, losing a child—I have not had that challenge, but I can only imagine what it's like to be in the most painful situation of losing a child. And somebody said, how can I count that joy? And what I try to tell people is: children are the domain of God. He loves children. God loves kids. Matter of fact, so much of the Scripture teaches us about how to raise up our children, how to teach our children, how to love our children, how to discipline our children. God's heart is for kids. Jesus told the disciples, “Let the little children come unto Me.” He loves children.

And I think we can—the one thing we can do when a child passes, when you lose a child through death—the one thing you can do is know that they are safe in the arms of Jesus. That's the one thing you can do—is say, you know what, Lord, they may not be in our presence now, but I know they're in Your presence. God loves a child, and if that child passed, please know that that child in the eyes of God—and we will celebrate. I would encourage you to do that—to think about them being in the presence of God.

What resources are available to help tame the tongue? Well, it's the Word of God. You got to get the Word of God in you to tame that tongue. Matter of fact, James spends a chapter—we're coming up, hang with us—in a couple weeks we're going to deal with the tongue, and we're going to talk—that's going to be a resource that we're going to talk to you about. Just give me a week or two—it won't be next week, I'm not at that chapter yet, but we're going to get there in chapter 3 or so and talk about it.

How do we live righteously when we're at our wit's end and can't perceive what God is doing in our wilderness? You know, here's what this question means—you want to understand everything. You want to understand why God allows you to go through what you're going through and why you're in the midst of your trouble. And rarely does God give us the end story. Rarely does He unveil everything to us because it's a part of the journey.

This question sounds like somebody wants to know—you say you're at wit's end, that means you want to understand. You're not going to understand everything that there is. You just have to trust God. This is what faith is about—trusting God. I'm going to trust that God's going to work it out, that He has a future. Jeremiah 29:11—jot that verse down: “I know the thoughts I have toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of good and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” God's got that for you.

So you just got to know that God's got a plan, and you don't have to understand. See, when you're at wit's end, it means that you want to understand everything that you're going through. I may not understand why I'm going through everything I'm going through, but what I want to do is maintain my relationship with God, walk close to my Master, cultivate my relationship with Him, love on Him. That's what God is ultimately trying to get us to do—that is, He's trying to get us to a place of obedience and love for Him instead of us trying to understand everything.

All of us got to go through a wilderness season. Everybody has a wilderness to go through—everyone does. It's a part of the journey, it's a part of life. Everybody's got to go through a wilderness. And while you're going through the wilderness, you just have to trust God that He's going to bring you out on the other side.

See, how do you get to the place where you are excited for the Word of God? You know, I'm excited about the Word of God because—and how I got excited about it is when I read it and delved into it and studied it and comprehended it and applied it—I saw God's care for me. Here's how I get excited about it: I read stuff where God is speaking to me. See, what makes me get excited is when I open the Word in the midst of my trial and the Word speaks to me. See, the Word is life.

And it's hard for me to try to explain it to people—when you get saved and you get into that Word, you can read something 100 times, and all of a sudden one day you see something that you've never seen, and you have read it 100 times before, and something leaps off the pages. That's the Holy Spirit unveiling, illuminating, and speaking to you, and it gives you life. That's what makes the Word exciting to me.

And the thing is, I know—and I want to remain focused on the Word—because I know that this gives me answers to my life's issues. It answers my challenges, it solves my problems, it gives me direction. And it'll give you direction. You've got to have belief and know that that's what this Word does.

Okay, I guess I gotta hurry up—my time is winding up. I've already gone over my time.

How do you recognize the voice of God? You know, I got a series in our bookstore about hearing the voice of God, and I don't have time to go through all of that. Call our bookstore, and there's a series “Hearing the Voice of God” that will tell you the distinction between God's voice and Satan's voice—five characteristics of God's voice, five characteristics of Satan's voice. It'll tell you the 10 different ways God speaks, and that series also will tell you reasons that God will stop talking to you. So please get that series—call our bookstore or even go on the website. You probably can go to our bookstore on the website and you can probably order it. It'll be a blessing to you.

Closing Prayer

Father, I thank You for our time and Your Word today. I'm so grateful for the privilege and the opportunity to call upon Your name. I want to pray that You help us, Lord, to take these principles that we've learned in the Word—help us to handle life's trials, help us, Heavenly Father, respond properly to temptation, help us to communicate right and properly with others, and help us to live righteously before You. Help us to lay aside filthiness and wickedness, give us a heart and a compassion to receive the Word and do the Word—not just hear it, but do it. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.