Good morning, my name is Daniel. It is Memorial Day weekend, if
you didn't know. It is a season or holiday in our
country where we pause momentarily to remember people
that have given their lives to protect the liberties and the
freedoms that we get to enjoy every single day.
And so as you BBQ those hot dogs tomorrow, remember that there's
a a bigger reason and purpose for the holiday in 1944.
The invasion of Normandy had actually been an ongoing
planning process for quite a few years.
And they got to the window for D-Day when they were going to
invade into France and the weather turned catastrophic.
And the chief meteorologist for Eisenhower said there's about a
36 hour window between these two storm fronts, and you may be
able to get the invasion force over to France in time.
But if you're wrong and the window closes, thousands of
soldiers are going to drown on the way over.
But if you wait and you don't go, more than likely the
surprise of the invasion will get out and it will no longer be
a secret, and they'll know you're coming.
And so Eisenhower sits with that decision for hours by himself,
and he decides to send the invasion force.
And what's remarkable is right after he sends it, he writes a
second letter that he he doesn't end up releasing.
And it's a letter in which he takes full responsibility and
blame for the failure of the invasion in case it doesn't
work. It actually says if any blame or
fault attaches to the attempt, it is mine alone.
He has to make a call with incomplete information under
impossible pressure, and he owns all of the potential failure in
advance. Now we know it worked because
we're speaking English, not German.
Our passage today in the book of James is about this concept of
wisdom. Wisdom is the application of
knowledge. And, and, and that story is, is
our passage sort of wrapped up in a military uniform?
Wisdom is more than just having the right information or the
right facts or the right knowledge.
It's, it's seen clearly when everyone else is panicking.
It's making the right decision when it's hard to see the right
decision. It's seen past the moment or
the, the emotions or even the temporal.
In fact, we're, we're going to look today at a concept called
biblical wisdom. And, and our big idea, if you
get nothing else out of today is this biblical wisdom is seeing
earthly things with eternal eyes, seeing earthly things with
eternal eyes. So we're going to pick up in
James chapter one, verse 5. I'm going to spend this is
probably going to be the most practical service you've ever
been to at church since we're going to spend part of our time
going through this passage and we're going to spend about half
of our time actually doing what we read here.
You guys sound super excited for class participation time.
So I didn't wait until it's July and it's 110.
So you should be you should be excited.
Last week, Pastor Vance covered verses one through 4 and that
was if you didn't have an opportunity to hear that, I
would go find it on YouTube and listen to it.
It was it was that good. We're going to pick it up in
verse 5. It says this, If any of you
lacks wisdom, let him ask God who gives generously to all
without reproach, and it will be given him.
But let him ask in faith with no doubting.
For the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven
and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose
that he will receive anything from the Lord.
He is a double minded man, unstable in all his ways.
Now this is a continuation of the thought from last week.
Last week, James starts this out by saying we should consider the
trials and the suffering that we go through as joy because God is
changing us and transforming us through this process.
And then we get into this. Ask wisdom.
Why? Because you're, you and I are
going to need a lot of wisdom to do that.
You know, everybody wants wisdom.
Everybody actually wants like what?
Wisdom is not just more information.
We have access to more information right now, in 2026,
than any any culture has ever had access to in history.
But those are just facts. Those aren't necessarily wisdom.
Wisdom is the application of that.
There's an old adage that says knowledge is knowing that
technically a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put it
in a fruit salad. Let's here, let's, let's take an
informal survey. How many of us here would like
to make the best decision possible at every moment and
every choice of our life? Now most of you raise your
hands. The rest of you, you are either
really wise or I'm already boring you.
I'm just go with wise. We're going to talk about a
specific type of wisdom today, biblical wisdom, the idea of
seeing earthly things through eternal eyes.
And this is a kind of wisdom that you and I, every person was
born without it because the Bible says that we were born
spiritually blind, because we were born under the curse of
sin. When we were born and as we were
growing, we had an inability to see spiritual things.
We had an inability to see like God sees.
So none of us naturally sees what's happening around us in
spiritual ways. We don't share the mind or the
eyes of God. It takes help, it takes
transformation, it takes training.
So let's talk about three things that biblical wisdom has.
You can even call these the three tests of biblical wisdom
to know if this is biblical or not.
Here's the first. It's extremely practical.
Why is biblicalism extremely practical?
Well, well, wisdom in every sense of the word is about the
application of information or the application of knowledge,
but even more so biblically. Think about in verse 5 when when
James says, if you lack wisdom, it comes right after this idea
that we're going to look at trials and suffering in our life
and we're going to count it as joy.
See, wisdom is more than common sense because common sense
doesn't tell you to look at suffering and call it joy.
Common sense says we should avoid that.
We should avoid suffering as much as possible.
Instead, James says no, no, there's a there's a greater
purpose behind the trials that you're going through.
In fact, the Greek word that he uses here for wisdom is the word
Sophia. Sophia is a Greek word that is
is an all-encompassing type of wisdom and they have other words
with with with narrow meanings that could have been used and
are used in other parts of Scripture but not here.
There's a word for knowledge called gnosis and we actually
see it used throughout the New Testament, but not when it comes
to wisdom. There's a word called phrenosis
that means cleverness, but that's not used here either.
Sophia is the all-encompassing word used in Greek for wisdom to
know how to live rightly. Everyone would would love to be
able to live rightly. So it's it's very practical
biblical wisdom. If you've ever read Proverbs,
it's very practical. Secondly, it's divine.
It's divine. Now what do I mean by divine?
We'll see. Biblical wisdom is so much more
than just common sense. It can't stop at common sense
because human wisdom won't tell you to count suffering as joy.
There's a level of wisdom that exceeds human understanding.
And then what James says is you can get it, you can have it, God
will give it to you. That's good news because like
every 3rd social media post is someone trying to tell you that
they have something that you need and all you have to do is
comment to get some access to some super secret wisdom.
The Bible says, no, you don't actually have to comment on that
Twitter post. You actually have to ask God for
it. Here's the third and this is
this is really critical. And as you begin to see this,
you'll begin to see what the Bible means by biblical wisdom.
The third is this. It's actually Christ like.
Biblical wisdom is actually Christ, like now twice in the
Bible, both in the First Corinthians.
Scripture will call Christ the wisdom of God, the Sophia of
God, almost like a noun. Look at First Corinthians 124
put on the screen. It says this, but to those who
are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the
Sophia of God, the wisdom of God.
And then you turn to chapter 2 and it says, Paul says we speak
a wisdom not of this age, but God's secret Sophia hidden
before time, decreed for our glory.
Jesus is what it looks like to live as a human with the
complete wisdom Sophia of God. To live life with God's mind and
God's eyes and God's perspective, to be able to see
earth the way God sees earth is what Jesus was doing.
Yes, the Sunday school answer. Jesus is the answer in Sunday
school. If you never know what the
answer is, just go with Jesus. And you're right, like 90% of
the time. It's because Jesus is the wisdom
of God. And so if you and I want to have
real wisdom, actual biblical wisdom, the idea, the
understanding of how to live rightly, how to choose well, how
to understand what God would look like as he looks at the
earth and how he would see us, then we would need to live like
Jesus. In fact, what we need to do is
we need to live like heaven is real and Jesus is coming again.
That's really what the Bible begins to press into you and I
about when it talks about wisdom is, is to go beyond an
intellectual knowledge of God that every day and all the time,
in every decision, in every reaction, in all of our
emotions, heaven is real. God is powerful and good, and
this world is broken and this life is a vapour.
And Jesus is coming again to judge the living and the dead,
and all of us will answer to him.
So Christ is our model. If you want to understand what
it looks like to live on earth with an eternal mind, we look at
the life of Jesus because wisdom, biblical wisdom, is
seeing these earthly things with eternal eyes.
You know, all of Scripture, especially Proverbs, Proverbs is
the book of wisdom. All of Scripture says that
wisdom begins with the fear of God.
That is a perspective of God, that he's real and that he's
powerful. And that's the starting point.
And if you believe that, like truly believe that, it actually
begins a path where we begin to be able to see like God.
You and I can't be God. That's actually where it all
went wrong back in Genesis when Adam and Eve decided they wanted
to be God. We can't be God.
But the Bible says we can begin to see like God.
We can be able to share His perspective of earthly things,
and that's really the key for us.
Seeing like God leads to living like Jesus.
I want to say that again. Seeing like God leads to living
like Jesus, And living like Christ develops in us the
ability to see right from wrong. You see, everybody wants wisdom,
but wanting it is not the same as having it.
James 5 tells us how to get it. If any of you lacks wisdom, let
him ask God. You know what I don't read there
at all is like? Make sure you get into a really
good university. Nope, not there.
Make sure you get a certain number of Instagram.
Nope, not there. Let him ask God.
Listen, church, sometimes I get frustrated with myself when I'm
dealing with the problem because the Bible makes it so clear.
Ask God. You know what I spend more time
doing? Thinking about the problem.
You know, I spent a lot more time thinking about the problem
that I do asking God. That's a little weird, how much
time I can spend talking about the problem, thinking about the
problem, telling other people about the problem.
But then there's this whole ask God part.
I ask God, ask him out loud, ask him silently, ask Him in
writing, ask him in a small group, ask him in a prayer
request, ask him in the
corporate environment, ask him on Facebook for all I care.
Just ask him. We spend so much time thinking
about the problem, talking about the problem, and failing to ask
God about it. Because God gives generously,
without strings attached. That's what the Bible tells us.
How do you ask God? There's a very specific way to
ask God this here. In these verses, it's actually
the opposite. What we're going to get is we
get 3 verses as a warning of how not to ask God.
And in that is actually the inverse, the secret of what it
looks like to ask God. We have to ask in faith without
doubt. We have to ask in faith without
doubt. Now to ask God in faith without
doubt is a three-part A3 part process.
We're going to make this really simple today.
So if you're writing this down, it looks like this.
Asking for wisdom involves seeking sensitivity and
swapping. Seeking sensitivity and
swapping. I'm Baptist.
Of course they all start with the same letter.
I'm almost legally required to do that.
That's a pastor joke. Seeking sensitivity and
swapping. What is seeking mean?
If you want wisdom from God, we have to ask Him, which means we
need to proactively pursue God's presence and His answer.
So, so, so you don't flippantly ask God.
Asking God the creator of the universe is not like walking by
a wishing fountain and flipping a coin in and throwing a little
wisher wishing on a falling star.
What if one of those Disney things is it is pursuing, it's
pressing into seeking God's face, seeking God's presence in
a passionate and and persistent way.
We are pursuing and that requires real faith.
Listen to me when I say like we are, we are.
We're putting real heart and effort into pursuing God.
Like, I talk to young men about this all the time when they're
struggling with initiative and discipline.
I'm like, listen, if there was a really, really attractive young
lady that you're interested in, I wouldn't have to motivate you.
Amen. And all I'm saying is maybe you
could pray at the level that you keep blowing up her DMS,
pursuing God's presence with all of your heart because you can't,
you can't seek what you don't believe in because you won't put
your full heart into it. If God is just some concept out
there, you're not going to press into pursuing his presence.
It's like having a ladder. If you if you think that that
ladder is shaky and you're not sure that any of those rungs is
going to hold you, you're not climbing the ladder.
You have to believe, you have to have some confidence in that
ladder to climb all the way to the top, because there's a risk
if we're going to pursue God's wisdom, it will be with our
whole life. And to do that, you must believe
that he is good. This is actually the way the
Bible describes it in Hebrews 11/6.
It says, and without faith, it is impossible to please him.
For whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists
and that he rewards those who seek him.
To please God, you must draw near, and to draw near you must
believe you want to seek God. If you want to ask Him for
wisdom without doubt, you're going to have to believe that
nothing is more important or impactful in this world than
drawing near to God. And the God that you're drawing
near to is not some some distant, abstract concept.
He is the God who came to us and wrapped himself in flesh as
Jesus Christ. That's who you're seeking
because Jesus is the wisdom of God.
In my life when I have faced, I have faced some impossible
decisions like impossible situations, moments of of my
leadership or in my career or conflict.
What were the choice in front of me had massive implications as a
pastor, as a dad, as a husband. And in those moments, what I
needed was not more information. I needed wisdom.
In the past three months, I've spent more time than I've ever
spent in my life praying because that's how you get wisdom.
So you ask God, our entire leadership philosophy in this
church reflects this. Our leadership philosophy in
this church is not, hey, we're smart enough, we'll figure it
out. We are not, It's not, hey, we've
been here before, we know exactly what to do.
We do not. Our leadership philosophy is
let's get on our knees and beg the God of the universe to show
up and show us what he's doing because he said he will.
And when he shows up, let's do what he says.
So. So when I'm when I'm begging God
in the middle of the night for understanding about the chaos
that's going around me. When in this past season when
the ache inside me is giving me insomnia.
I don't know if you've ever been there where you cannot sleep and
you're just sitting in bed and you feel like you're living out
Psalm 42 where your tears have been your food day and night and
you are screaming out to God. You are.
It's like, it's like getting to the top rung of the ladder and
you're leaning on God, knowing that either he holds or
everything comes tumbling down and you're going to be broken.
That's what it looks like to seek God with all your heart, to
be desperate for his presence. It reminds me there's an ancient
proverb of a young man that goes to an old wise man and he says
how do I get wisdom? And the old man grabs the young
guy by the back of the head, drags him over the river and
shoves his head under the water and holds him there for 30
seconds. And he's thrashing around and he
pulls him back up. And the young guy's looking at
him. He's like, what did you?
And he goes, listen, when you want wisdom as badly as you
wanted air right now, you'll find it.
In this last season, I have sought God like He is oxygen
because he's life. So we seek.
And then secondly, we have to be sensitive.
You have to pay attention when the Holy Spirit speaks through
the Word, through prayer, through circumstances, through
his people, the church. And you won't be sensitive to
something you don't think is real.
That's why you have to believe God is at work all around you
right now. Church have taken the time to
seek him and listen, we're about to practice this in just a
moment. It reminds me of a man is
trapped on his roof during a flood and he's crying out to
God. The God would sit angels to save
him And a guy comes floating by on a log and he looks at him.
He says, hey, I think this will hold both of us.
Why don't you get on here? He's like no, no.
And the guy floats on by and then a family comes by this
little rubber boat with a bunch of food in it.
And they go, hey, we'll, we'll make space for you.
We. And he's like, no, no, I'm
waiting on God. So they move on.
And then a helicopter comes and he waves them off.
He hasn't want to be rescued. He ends up dying in the flood
and he drowns. He goes to heaven and he's angry
at God. He's like, why didn't you?
Why didn't you send your angels? I was praying.
And he's like, well, why do I have to send more than three?
Gods that work all around us all the time, but we're too busy to
pay attention, got our nose stuck in our phone.
We're thinking about our problems.
We're worrying about something we don't need to be worrying
about. So we seek and then we're
sensitive. Where is God moving?
Where is he leading me? That's why one of the one of the
best ways to start your prayers is to open up your Bible.
Begin to read the word of God. Let God start the conversation
with his words because often times whoever starts the
conversation directs it. So like God, direct your
conversation. We don't inform God when we
pray. We align ourselves to what God
is already doing. So start in your Bible, then
ask. That's not a technique.
That's probably the most ancient path there is to prayer.
We seek. We're sensitive.
And then third, we have to swap our priorities.
You have to reorient when, when we begin to realize that God is
moving, it's going to require us to change some things in our
lives. There's going to be some
uncomfortability. When God speaks.
We reorient our life to obedience.
You know, I used to plan my entire summer vacation based on
whenever, whenever we're going to have VBS at church, that's
when I would go on vacation. You all have fun with those
kids. Don't need me, I'm an adult
ministry. And then we as elders begin to
pray through what God was doing and where he was moving.
And we begin to realize through our prayer and our prayer
retreats and our fasting and our leaders coming together, where
God was really moving was through kids in this 10 minute
window. And then what we needed to do in
order to participate with God's work was do things through a
kids camp. Which sounds foolish and silly
and made me change my vacation. But when God moves, and we
realize God's moving and it is our job to reorient around Him,
not him to us, we make lousy gods.
And so we asked, and we were paying attention.
And then when God moved and meant we had to change, listen,
I could have made plenty of excuses about why I didn't need
to be here for a kids camp. Or I could actually see God's
invitation and reorient my life around Him.
And you can too. So we're going to transition
into putting this into practice today.
But before we do, I want to mention something.
You can't ask God for wisdom the way James is describing here in
chapter 1. If you've never entered into a
relationship with God, the wisdom of God isn't a resource
that you get to tap into like a Internet site.
It's not an upgrade that you can download.
It's a person. Jesus Christ is the wisdom of
God, and to have wisdom you have to have him.
So the question today is it, do you want to be wiser?
The question is, do you know Jesus?
Because that's who wisdom is. Wisdom is seeing earthly things
with eternal eyes. Now.
Every single one of us born into sin have done things that have
separated us from God. The Bible calls that sin.
And sin isn't just giant big things.
It's just a pattern of living life like God doesn't exist.
That's the double mindedness that James talked about earlier.
It's the root of the human condition.
But because God is merciful, he didn't leave us there.
A guy named Paul who once haunted Christians for sport
before Jesus stopped him on a road wrote this in Romans 5/8.
He said that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Not once we clean ourselves up. Jesus died for you. 3 days later
he rose. Which means the death doesn't
have the final word. There's a way back to God.
And his invitation often starts with a prayer.
Not a perfect prayer or a polished prayer.
Just desperate and honest, full of faith.
And so if you're willing to surrender your life to God for
the very first time today, I want to lead you in a prayer.
Will you bow your head and close your eyes with me?
If that's you today, whether you're here, you're watching
online, and you've realized that God is calling you to salvation,
I want to invite you to respond. Just simply repeat after me,
quietly, silently, however you'd like this prayer.
God, I'm a Sinner and I believe Jesus died and rose again.
I surrender everything to you. I want you to save me.
If you said that prayer for the very first time, would you raise
your hand for me to see? Thank you, thank you.
You put your hands down in Jesus name.
Amen. Amen.
If you just surrendered your life for the very first time,
welcome to the family. All right, I mentioned we were
going to put this into practice today, so go ahead and stand up
and I'll give you some instructions for today.
If moments ago or maybe sometime this week you surrendered your
life to Christ and you haven't told anybody about that yet,
there are tables in the back that say I raised my hand in
just a moment when we break up, we'd love for you to go back
there and share that with someone.
We'd love to walk with you and talk about what comes next, what
it looks like to pursue Jesus. Now, hopefully you got a prayer
card, a little prayer prompt card when you came in.
If you did not get one, we have some more in the lobby.
We'll try to run them out there to you.
Here's what you're going to do. You're going to take one to four
people. How many?
There we go. So when I see 12 of you, I'm
going to know you can't count 1 to 4.
We want to stay small enough so you get a chance to actually
pray one to four people and whether you we want you to walk
the campus if you can, if you can't walk, we want you to just
stay in here and pray or stay in the lobby.
If you're online, they're going to lead you in the chat on how
to do that. You have 25 minutes.
We put a bunch of instructions on that prayer prompt card.
We're praying for some very specific things in this next
season, for you, for your family, for church, for the
gospel. We put about 9 different
locations and we put a bunch of scripture prompts that start
with Scripture so you can start with the word first.
You have 25 minutes. We have a running clock.
When you start hearing the band play the song, that's your cue
that's been 25 minutes. You should come back in so we
can close out our service. Your job is to ask God full of
faith without doubt, and then be sensitive to what he's going to
begin to do in your life as he begins to speak to you about
what he is doing, where he's at work.
And that is an invitation for you to join him.
So three very specific things. 25 minutes, and then we'll meet
back in here. Ready, set, go.
All right.