01 Understanding God’s Will: For You

Krisan Marotta: Thank you for downloading the Wednesday in the Word podcast. I'm Krisan Marotta. Today we'll be talking about understanding God's will for you. And the scripture we're looking at is James chapter 1, verses 1 through 8. This is the first in a series of three talks on how to understand and find God's will. There's a handout mentioned in the talk. You can find that handout by going to our lecture notes, which are at wednesdayintheword.com slash God's Will1. So glad you joined us. Our topic this weekend is understanding God's will. And we're going to focus tonight on how do you know God's will for you as an individual. This topic was given to me, I think, by popular demand. I read this was the one you asked for. I'd like to start with four examples of different ways people seek God's will. And this is adapted from Bruce Waltke's book, Finding the Will of God, which I highly recommend. If you want more, I highly recommend that book. It's by Bruce Waltke. It's called Finding the Will of God. It's only about 150, maybe 200 pages, so you can read it in an afternoon. So example one, this is Margaret. Margaret is a successful career woman. She has a desire to please God and do something for Christ. She wants to be do something significant. She's married in her 30s and wondering if maybe her job isn't really all that important. So at a recent conference, the speaker challenged all the Christians there to do more to become involved with missions and encouraged everyone to justify why they weren't serving the Lord overseas. And she was intrigued. So the next day, Margaret hears a news story about a hurricane in the Marshall Islands that afternoon. A coworker tells her about his upcoming trip to the Marshall Islands. And that night her husband comes home and says, You know, we just hired this new guy at work, and his name is Marshall. And her eyes light up, and she says, You know, I've been thinking about what that speaker said this weekend, and the funniest coincidence happened today. Do you think God's calling us to the Marshall Islands? So there's example one. Here's example two. This is Dan. Dan is married, he has two kids and a great job, but he wants to go back to school and get a master's degree because he thinks that training would help him further his career. But they've been saving money to buy a down to put a down payment down on a house. And if he quits his job, then they'd have to use that money to pay tuition and expenses. But he really wants to go back to school. He's wrestling with what to do, and at a midst breakfast, he shares his thoughts with Tom, who's not only a good friend, but he's older and more mature and has been a believer longer. And Tom says, Well, let's pray about this right now. I want you to make your mind blank. And when we're done praying, I want you to tell me the first thing the Lord puts into your mind. So Dan agrees and they pray. And after Tom closes, he looks at Dan and he says, What's God telling you? And he says, I think I should go back to school. That's example two. Here's three. Now you laugh, but I have known people who have made major life decisions on less than this. All right, Suzanne. Suzanne is a widow. She has a little extra money saved and she's debating should I invest it or should I give it away? And since her husband passed away, she doesn't know, she doesn't want to have anyone to talk to for financial advice. She has lots of options, and a nice young man from church offered her investment advice, but it was all over her head. And of course, several Christian organizations have appealed to her for money, including one that's a childhood education program. So not knowing what to do, Suzanne gets her Bible, sits in her favorite chair, and prays, Lord, I need you to show me what to do. Then she flips open her Bible to a random page and reads, Jesus said, Let the children alone and do not hinder them from coming to me. And she says, I should give my money to the children's fund. There's number three. All right, one more. Number four, this is Douglas. Douglas is a teenager. He's active in his youth group at church, and he's anxious to obey Jesus in all things, and he'd like to start dating, but he doesn't know who God's calling him to pursue a relationship with. So he makes a list of the girls he's interested in. And then he begins making phone calls by closing his eyes and randomly pointing to a name on the list. And if the call goes to voicemail, she's not the one. So the first girl to answer is the one. Those are examples. Now, does that strike you as kind of silly when you hear those? And yet they seem far-fetched, but I bet you know people who have made decisions on just those kinds of methods. Now I exaggerated them a little bit, but maybe even you yourself made decisions that way. If we accept the fact that God loves us enough to send his son to die for us while we were sinners under his wrath, does it now make sense that God is going to hide his will from us such that we have to do these crazy things to find it? And yet I think sometimes we treat God as if finding his will is like that old shell game, you know, where the con man has a marble and he puts it under a shell and he mixes it up and you have to keep your eye on it and then guess which one, which shell has the marble, and you're always wrong. It doesn't matter which one you guess, you're always wrong. And sometimes we act as if that's what it's like to find God's will for our lives, that he's like whipping it around and going, nope, that's not it, not it, not it. And we use these phrases like, if only I could find God's will, or I'm praying that I discover it as if he's hiding it from us and doesn't want it to us to find it. So what I'm gonna argue tonight is the problem is not that God is hiding his will from us, it's the way we're looking for it that is wrong. And I'm gonna argue that finding God's will is not a matter of finding the marble under the shell, it's a matter of growing in wisdom and then making wise choices. And that's really the bottom line. So the first thing I want to talk about, though, is let's talk about the popular way people have of finding God's will, which, in my opinion, is not the right way to go about it. And this is basically page one of your handout where we're gonna be ripe for a while. So, first we have to define what do we mean by God's will. And typically we talk about three different things when we talk about God's will. The first one is his sovereign will, and this is his hidden plan that determines everything that happens in the universe. So it's this detailed plan for all the events of human history. It's hidden such that we humans don't understand it, we can't grasp it fully or fully understand it. We're not expected to find it. But we can have confidence it will always come to pass. It includes both good and evil events, but we don't always understand it until after it happens. And even though it includes evil or foolish decisions, ultimately God has promised to bring good and glory out of it. So that's God's sovereign will. It's the His will that determines all of human history. Then there's God's moral will, and that is God's revealed commands in the Bible that teach us the right way to live. So these are the set of commands, precepts, instructions, proverbs, all the things we find in Scripture that tell us this is what God thinks is right, and this is what he thinks is wrong. And we're expected to learn and obey those, but we can fail to learn and obey them. They were revealed by the prophets and the apostles through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and the directives are general such that they apply to everyone. So marry a believer might would be one of the directives. It's general, it's something that could apply to anyone who's planning to get married. And then there's God's individual will, and this is the one I think we define the wrong way around. The idea is typically is that God has an ideal, detailed plan uniquely designed for each person. So it's a detailed plan for all the decisions, all the events in your earthly life. You're expected to find and follow it, but some people say you can miss it by a failure to learn and obey. It's revealed through a variety of means, including scripture and the inward call of the Holy Spirit, and its directives would be specific, like marry the guy next door and move to Vermont. So that's the quest. People think of God's will as this detailed, every decision planned out, I just have to figure out what the right one is. And the big quest is how do I find God's ideal plan for me? And it's often pictured as finding the dot in the center of the circle. So if you think of God's will as this, his moral will as this boundary, this big circle, and those are the things within which we know we should act. So we can pretty much assume we shouldn't become drug dealers or prostitutes. That would be outside God's moral will. But within those boundaries, we have to find the dot, the one set of right answers for us. So within that big moral circle, our task is to find the answer God wants us to make for each decision. So should I buy this house or that house? What college should I go to? What job should I take? And that God's morals will gives us the boundaries, and then we have to figure out the specifics. Now, different teachers and different speakers offer different methods for how you go about finding the dot. I'm gonna generalize them into what I call reading the road signs. Now, for those of you that were born after the invention of GPSs, road signs are those big green things, you know, on the side of the road and they tell you which way to go. So you might not have seen them if you're looking at your phone. But the road signs that people talk about for God's will are typically scripture. So reading the Bible is a good way to find it. Considering your circumstances, so if you're in the military and you're being deployed, that obviously limits some of the things you might be able to do. The inner witness of the spirit, your personal desires, what you feel called to do, or what you want to do, the wise counsel of mature believers, common sense often makes the list, and if you're really lucky, special divine guidance, like some revealed, this is God told me this. Unfortunately, we tend to look for those things like the open your Bible to a random verse thing. So people say, you know, you found God's will for your life when all the road signs are pointing in the same direction. And there are lots of self-help books that claim to teach you how to read the road signs. There's these are my pejorative names for them, because obviously this is not the way I think you should find God's will. But there's what I call the scroll approach. And this method says that God is only revealing the next step. This is not on your handout if you're looking for it. But you don't write it down, it's not important. This idea is that God doesn't give you the whole planet once, he only gives you the next step. So if you picture a big scroll, he's kind of only revealing the one little person you need to see at the moment, and therefore you should only ask for the next step. There's the cosmic Scrooge approach, which is the idea that if I'm absolutely terrified of going to Africa, that's the place God's calling me to go. So you can bet the one thing you really don't want to do is it. If you, you know, if you just think learning another language is torture, you can bet God's calling you to Mongolia. So there's the scroll, the cosmic screws, there's the superhero approach. This is the idea that only those in full-time missionary work are the true, like they've found the best calling. Close second is working for a nonprofit. If that nonprofit is especially related to social justice causes, then you're, you know, you're right up there under the full-time missionaries, and these are the bionic superheroes of the faith. And if you know you're gonna work in a store and raise a family, well, you missed it. You're just not your best calling. There's the gray-haired guru approach, which is my personal favorite, which tells you if somebody with gray hair tells you this is what you should do, you are guaranteed to get it right. Not to be confused with the lightning flash. So, like Saul on the road to Damascus, God suddenly speaks to you through your coffee cup. Or, you know, you see a turkey in the grocery store and I go, I'm going to the Middle East. You know, it's that lightning flash of insight. So, what I want to suggest to you is that finding God's will is not a quest to find the dot at the center of the circle. Rather, it's all about growing in wisdom. And I can tell you what God's will for you is for your life with absolute certainty, and that is that you grow in faith and wisdom. So it's not finding the dot at the center of the circle, it's that you progress from being a child to an adult, and that as you persevere in faith, that leads you to wisdom and maturity. So let me give you another example. This one I think is closer to the mark. So let's say you have a child and she has a friend over to play, and that friend wants to play with your child's most prized possession. Now your child's job is to determine the will of mom. What would mom want me to do in this situation? Should she share her toy or not? Now she knows you, you're her mother, she believes you think there's a right answer to this dilemma. She loves you, she wants to please you, but she's young and she's immature, and so she's struggling. Should I share my toy or not? I don't really want to. What if I offer a third toy? Would that be okay? Or what if we share it, but only under limited time and it with intense supervision? Or what if I suggest let's just go out inside and play and forget the toys? What do I do? So she decides to go ask you, her mother, what should she do? Should she tell share her toy or not? And when she asks you, what do you say? What do you think you should do? Heard that one? And why would your why would her mother, here she is confused and she wants a direct answer, yes or no? Should I share the toy? And mom says, Well, what do you think? Because as a wise and loving parent, mom's concern is not just that you make the right choice, but that you become the kind of person who knows how to make the right choice, and that you make the right choice for the right reasons. So if she shares her toy but it's only under compulsion and the threat of being grounded, and she kind of grumbles and complains about it the whole time, she may have done the right thing, but not really learned the lessons you want her to learn. As a wise and loving parent, your goal is your child's long-term needs and growth. And your primary concern is not that she share her toy at this particular moment, but that she display the kind of character and wisdom in her choice. You want her to make the right choice because she's learned the value of kindness and compassion and generosity. And you want her to grow in wisdom so that as she gets older and the choices get more complicated, now they're, oh, what college should I go to? What job should I take? She has the wisdom and maturity to make those choices in those situations. So you want her to make the wise choice for the right reasons, because that choice reveals what kind of person she's becoming and what her character is like, and that's your primary goal. And what I want to suggest to you is that that's how God treats us. That his primary goal is not that we find the dot, but that we learn to become the kind of people who can make wise and mature choices because we have grown in faith. Now I know you're all going, okay, but how do I do that? How do I grow in wisdom and maturity? Well, James tells us. We're going to look at James chapter 1, and so now I'm moving to page two of your handout. Now I know that we recently studied James on Wednesday morning and on Sunday mornings, and many of you are probably familiar with this passage, but we're not going to go into every like nuance of Bible study. We're going to look at it trying to answer the question, how do you grow in wisdom and maturity? And we're going to try to apply it specifically toward this question of how do we find God's will. Alright, so I put the text on your the top page of your handout. And it's if you have your Bibles, you can also turn there. So this is James chapter 1. I'm going to start with verses 2 through 4. Count it all join, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. And what I want to suggest to you is that's the goal becoming perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. And that's what I've been calling wisdom and maturity. How do you become perfect and complete? You remain steadfast in your trial in your faith through trials. So there's two phrases I want to make sure we understand. The trials of various kinds in verse 2 and the testing of your faith in verse 3. So that word for trials, it's kind of a stress test. It has the idea of you put pressure on something to see what it's made of. So you're pressing down, putting pressure on it to reveal what kind of thing it is. So a trial is any circumstance that puts pressure on your faith and reveals is this real faith or not? Is this strong faith or immature faith? So it tells you what that thing is made of. And verse 3 tells us what's being tested is our faith. A trial puts our faith under pressure to reveal the nature or the quality of it and to make it stronger. Now notice what's not being tested here. The trial does not test my worthiness for salvation. This is not a test to determine how nice or how patient I am and whether or not I'm worthy of salvation. I've got news for you. The results of that test are in, and we all failed. That test is over. We're all sinners. Our characters are flawed. We are selfish. We are not the people we were intended to be. We all fall short of the glory of God. So that test is over. Apart from the blood of Christ and the grace of God, we've all failed. So the test is not, am I worthy of salvation? The test is, is my faith real, genuine, saving faith or not? So that raises the question, well, why would God test our faith? I mean, here I am counting on Him to save me, and He's putting me through this thing that's making it harder. How can that be? Why would the God I'm counting on to save me, to give me faith, to rescue me from my sin, put me in a position where my faith is under pressure? Well, James says we should rejoice in these trials, not only that he's doing it, but we should rejoice in them because we know that this process brings about steadfastness or perseverance. And that is so valuable it's worth going through everything to gain it. By steadfastness, he just means sticking through to the end, not giving up, continuing to the end, enduring. So God uses those trials to confront us with the question: what does the gospel mean to me? Is the gospel worth it if it means I have to go through that? If following God means I have to face whatever, X, Y, Z, do I value following God so much that I want to continue? And those people with faith will continue. Now you've probably known people who said, you know, I I tried that Christianity stuff and it didn't work for me. It's not for me. They're the people that didn't have saving faith. And when the pressure came, they said, You mean following God means I have to give my money away? Well, forget that. I don't want to do that. Or you mean following God means I I can't have everything I want when I want it in the way I want it? Well, then it's not for me. Pseudo-faith will fall away in a trial, but real, genuine saving faith says following God is worth it, and it perseveres through the end. And that perseverance gives us two things. The first is it gives us proof that we're actually believers. So we all face those moments where we go, how do I know if I'm fooling myself or not? How do I know that I'm not just gonna fall away one day and maybe I'm just kidding myself and I'm saying I'm a Christian, but maybe I don't really believe it. James, Paul, and Peter all say, you know you're a believer if you've gone through a trial and you came out the other end with your faith intact. So when you face those moments of doubt, you can look back and go, I went through that and I'm still here. Therefore, the promises of God are mine. So that's the first thing. But more importantly, for our discussion tonight, the second thing it gives us is wisdom. So as I go through these trials and they test my faith, I grow in wisdom and maturity. I gain the skill I need to live life well. So I become wiser, more mature, and stronger. The trials teach us not only that we belong to God, but they take us to a place we want to go, and that is to a place of wisdom. Notice he says, and let steadfast Have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. And then verse 5 if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given to him. So there's two words we've got to understand. Well, there's probably more, but for the purposes of our discussion tonight, I want to look at perfect and verse 4 and wisdom in verse 5. So when he says perfect and complete, lacking in nothing, most often this word for perfect means something that has arrived at its intended goal. So in English, we think of the word perfect as meaning without flaw or without blemish, but the Greek word has the idea of it has grown into that which it was meant to be. So an acorn has the potential to become an oak tree, and we would say it's perfect when it has grown into a mature oak tree. It has now reached that which it was intended to be. It was meant to grow into an oak tree and it has arrived at that goal. It's now perfect and complete in that sense. Now it may be missing a few branches, maybe a little scarred and have some scratches on the trunk, but it has grown into that which it was intended to be. And that's the idea when James says perfect and complete, that's what he's talking about. Not that you'll be without flaw or without blemish, but that you will have become all you were intended to be, lacking in nothing. So trials put pressure on our faith, they test our faith, they make it more mature and stronger such that we become the person God intended us to be. Now, look at wisdom in verse 5. Notice the connection here. He says that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing, but if you lack, and what does he fill in that blank with? Wisdom. Now I define wisdom as the skill of living life well or having a godly perspective on life. So you see the world the way God sees the world, and that's reflected then in the way you live your life and the choices you make. So wisdom is the skill to live life well or to live life wisely. So to lack wisdom is not to be unsure which job should I take, which person should I marry, how many kids should I have. To lack wisdom is to be a fool. If I lack wisdom, I am foolish, I am immature, I don't understand life the way God understands life, I don't see the world the way he sees it. Now there's a very popular way of kind of applying James 1.5 as a prescription for how you find the dot, how you find God's specific will. I have heard this verse taught is, well, if you don't know which job to take, you come and you have to ask, but you have to ask with your whole heart or he won't tell you. And we're going to talk more about that when we get to the next verses. The idea is that James is saying, if I have these two jobs that will take me down these different paths, God knows which one, and if I don't know, I should ask him, but I have to ask him and really, really, really believe it. But I would suggest that the context of persevering through trials gives us the a clue that James has something different in mind. Because he's just said trials test your faith, your faith is growing to maturity, and as it becomes mature and begins to lack nothing, what does it gain? It gains wisdom. So the connection between four and five, how do what how does four lead to five? Is perseverance is meant to perfect our faith. It's to make it so our faith lacks nothing. But if you lack wisdom, that content that we gain through persevering in faith, then ask. So if I look at my life and I go, you know what? I'm not there yet. My faith isn't there yet, as evidenced by the fact that I'm still making foolish decisions or I lack wisdom or I'm not responding well to trials. So, or maybe I don't see the world as God sees it, what should I do if I find myself in that spot? I should just ask. And God gives generously. So perseverance is meant to lead to this mature, perfect faith such that our faith lacks nothing. But if we look at ourselves and go, well, my faith is lacking, and what is it lacking? It's lacking wisdom, not the knowledge of a specific choice, but a perspective on life that sees life the way God sees it. So if we lack wisdom, we should ask God, and He gives generously without reproach. And notice that, without reproach, that was always confusing to me when I first studied this first, because it was like, well, why would God reproach me for not knowing which of two good jobs I should take? Or why would God reproach me for not knowing when or if I should retire or how many children I should have? How could I possibly know the answers to that? I don't have a crystal ball, I can't read the future. So if I've got these several choices before me, why would God reproach me for not knowing which is the right one? But if we're talking about lacking a godly, wise perspective on life, then God could reproach me because he could say, Well, why is a fool like you asking me any questions? If I'm a fool, I could reasonably fear that God is going to condemn me for that. And James is saying, you have nothing to fear. You may be foolish, we're all foolish at times, and we're growing in maturity, but God gives wisdom to those who ask. People like us, fools like us, he gives generously and without reproach. There's no reason to fear him. There's no reason to feel like I can't ask God because I'm such a fool. He gives generously, even to fools like us. So he's not talking about finding the dot. Rather, he's talking about gaining a wise perspective on life. Do I see life the way God sees it? Do I value the things he values? Am I pursuing the temporal or am I pursuing the eternal? Am I seeking to live life the way God says it ought to be lived, or am I seeking the way I want to live things? Am I pursuing the things of God or the things of this world? All of that is a part of wisdom. And as I grow in that, then I gain wisdom and maturity. So maybe I've always loved money, and now God puts me in a place where I have to choose between money or like love of money or love of God. Or maybe I've always valued the opinions of others, and now God puts me in a place where, well, if I do things God's way, people are going to think I'm a fool, and I have to choose. Or maybe he's withheld something that I really want, and I have to decide, am I okay with that? Well, I follow God if He never gives it to me. So trials come in all shapes and sizes and forms, but the results are the same. They force me to ask the question, what am I really counting on? Do I really believe the promises of God or not? And am I going to follow him? What do I believe is true? And going through that process brings wisdom and maturity. Now notice that's not perfect obedience. Having wisdom does not guarantee us that we are going to live without sin and never make mistakes. In fact, we can pretty much guarantee the opposite. We will make mistakes, we will not be perfectly obedient. But part of wisdom is being able to clearly see, oh, that was a mistake, that was wrong. As I grow in wisdom, I still have the same struggles, but my perspective on them changes. So I begin to see clin sin more clearly as sin. Or maybe repentance comes a bit quicker than it used to come, or humility sets in where there was no humility before. Or all those excuses and justifications I had, they just don't seem so compelling. They seem kind of weak and flimsy because my perspective on life is changing. And what used to be in my foolishness, what used to look good, now doesn't look so good anymore. So what I'd argue is that God's primary will for our lives is that we grow in faith, which leads to wisdom and maturity. And that's what He wants us to do. He wants us to be that child who can look at a situation and go, you know what, kindness and generosity is way more important than having the perfect toy and therefore makes a wise choice. And that God is about growing us into those kind of people who can look at a situation and make a wise choice because we are beginning to see the world the way he sees it. And he's working on our faith now because eternity is at stake. The most important thing in my life is not that I make the wise choice right at this particular moment and never make a mistake and always have an easy, happy life. The most important thing is that I learn to trust God repeatedly, stronger, with more wisdom and maturity. And that's what God is about. Because if I don't have faith, I have nothing. I lack eternity. So he's not about giving us an easy, healthy life now. He's about growing us into mature believers. So I would argue, within his moral will, then, we are free to make the wise choice and responsible to make the wise choice. And here's the best part of all: God's given us the best teacher. He's given us the Holy Spirit to help us get there and make those wise choices. So it's important to know what he has and has not promised. We talked about this briefly, but he has not promised an easy, healthy, smooth, and prosperous life. Not necessarily. But he has promised to make us mature, wise, and perfect believers, perfect in the sense that I just defined it as growing into the people we were meant to be. He has promised to answer my prayer for wisdom always. You can ask. Now at first reading, it does sound like James is saying, If you don't believe hard enough, you're not going to get an answer. And I don't think that's what he's saying. It does sound like that at first reading. It sounds like he's saying, if I don't know which college to attend, and I ask God which college to attend, and I don't get an answer, then it's because I've got some doubt somewhere that I have to get rid of, and then he'll answer me. Well, we know from the rest of Scripture that that is not true. God does not treat us that way. And James just said in 1.5 that he gives generously and without reproach, so I don't think he'd turn around and go, oh wait, but there's a catch. There is no catch. Giving generously to those who ask does not mean that he will always say yes. That's one thing to realize. The biblical picture is not that all we have to do is ask the right way and we will get what we want. The biblical picture is that God is a loving parent, and like any wise loving father, sometimes he says yes and sometimes he says no, because he has our best interest in mind. So if I'm asking God something and I have no idea whether he's promised it or not, I can have confidence that he can do it, but not that he will do it. But if I know I'm asking for something he's promised, like maturity, faith, salvation, wisdom, I can have absolute confidence he'll do it because he's promised. So the issue is doubt, but the issue is not that I can make anything happen I want if only I get rid of all my doubt. Rather, I think James is saying God is capable of doing really big, incredible things for incredibly foolish people like us. All you have to do is trust him. So what does he mean by doubt here then? Because he is saying something about doubt. Doubt is wavering between two options and never committing to one side or the other. This word is sometimes translated to judge or to just to discern, and it has the idea of I'm sitting on the fence and I refuse to go one way or the other. I'm on the fence. So I have these two options. I gotta know which side of the fence is the right side of the fence, but I don't want to pick one, even though I might have very good reasons for picking one or the other. So to doubt when it comes to faith is not to be confused or to be unsure of what the right answer is. It's rather this idea that, well, I'll trust you, God, but just in case you don't come through, I've got plan B in my pocket. So I'm playing both sides of the fence. And James gives us a vivid analogy to explain it. He says, the one who doubts is like the waves driven and tossed by the wind. The wave goes whichever way the wind blows. Think of those hurricanes coming through. Whichever way they're spinning and turning, that's the way you're gonna get tossed. In contrast to, say, the tree of Psalm 1 that is planted by a stream of living water and it's firmly in the ground and is not shaken. It's the idea of the one who doubts is the one who's tossed by anything that comes along. What some new philosophy, some new trend, whatever, you're just blown any which way. So the doubter is the one who says, okay, well, God, if you're there, then I might as well throw up a prayer. And if you're there, then maybe you could help me out in this, and if you do something for me, then I'll do something for you. And that's that's the kind of person James' talking about. The one who says, Oh, yeah, I trust God, but I'm gonna trust astrology or Buddhism or whatever else, just in case God doesn't turn out. That's the person James is saying will not receive anything. It's not the one who maybe is is saying, Lord, I believe, help me in my unbelief. It's the one who says, Well, we'll try this God thing. We'll give him a chance, but I don't know that I really believe him. It's the person who is on the fence and has not fully committed to God. So the person who trusts God and Himself and astrology and Buddhism or whatever else, that person's not going to receive anything. But if you trust him, if you've submitted your life to him, if you have saving faith, then you can have utter confidence that he will give generously and without a without reproach. Having honest doubt, which is confusion or uncertainty, is okay, but doubt that is hostility or rebellion, that's the problem. I think most Christians go through a period at some point in their life where God just doesn't seem real or he doesn't seem to make sense, or you can't figure out what following him looks like, and that's normal. I don't think that's what James means here by being double-minded. He's not talking about the one who's just at this particular moment feeling lost or confused or uncertain. He's talking about the one who's saying, I don't know if I really believe you, God, the fool, the double-man-minded man, the one who says, Well, I'll be a Christian on the outside when it suits me, but not the rest of the week. Or I'll be a Christian on Sunday, but then forget that the rest of the week, I'm gonna do my own thing. That's the person who's doubting in the sense that he's double-minded, he's playing both sides of the table. So when my faith is weak and immature, I ought to call out to God for wisdom and maturity, and he will give it to you. So I believe he's there, I trust him, I want his way of life, I want what he has, I want his blessings, I'm seeking righteousness, then I have every reason to believe he will answer me. James is not promising in this section, ask God which job you should take and ask without any doubt, otherwise he won't give you anything. He's not saying that. Instead, he's saying God puts trials and hardships in your life, and that take those trials take your weak, immature faith and grow it into everything he intends it to be. He takes you from being a foolish person into a wise person so that you can serve him and glorify him and be what he intended you to be. And if you look at your life now and you go, I'm not there yet, as we all probably do. I mean, I feel that way. I'm still weak, my faith is still immature. What should I do if I find myself in that situation? James says, you should absolutely call out to God, and he is generous and capable, and he promises that he will answer you. And you can have utter confidence in that. And part of the promise is that he will give you the Holy Spirit who will teach you, shape you, mold you, and open your eyes to the truth. Finding God's will is not finding the dot. It's all about learning those daily lessons of wisdom, in day in and day out. All the things you go through, all the frustrations, the trials, the things that you think, why is God putting me through that? Those are all there to teach you wisdom and get you to the place where you see life the way God sees it and you become what He intends you to be. Okay, now I know you're saying, okay, I'm not looking for the doubt, I'm looking for the wisdom. So how do I find wisdom? I will give you a six-step program, and this is on your handout. This is from Bruce Walkey's book, Finding the Will of God, which again I encourage you all to read. These are his six steps to gaining wisdom. The order is absolutely important. You cannot skip any step, you cannot start in the middle, you cannot jump to the end. For this to work, you must begin with the first step and progress through each of them to the end. So, step one, study your Bible. You knew I was gonna say that, didn't you? Proverbs says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. If you want to be wise, you have to know who God is, you have to know what he's up to in history, what he's revealed about himself, who his son is, what he's promised to do for you, and you find all of that in your Bible. So learn how to study it and then do it. Don't depend on someone else, don't depend on self-help books. You have to learn to read it well and read it accurately. There is no shortcut to that. There is no skipping that step. I would say that is the absolutely crucial first step. And every time someone asks me, Can you help me find God's will for my life? My first question is, how much time have you spent in the Word lately? Because that is the first step. And I don't mean, you know, pointing to a random verse with your eyes closed and then reading it. That's not what we're talking about. Every believer should know how to handle scripture well. Step one, study your Bible. Step two, let what you learn from that study shape the desires of your heart. So the more you come to know God, the more you seek after him, the more you begin to desire what he desires and begin to understand what he wants. So God is not a big blue genie that grants your heart's desires if you just put in your three wishes or your three prayers. Rather, he has given you the gift of the Holy Spirit who is at work in you to open your eyes to change you from the fool that we all start as into a wise and mature believer. So the more you read the Bible and you come to know God, and the more the Holy Spirit gives you wisdom through that process, the more wise you can become. This is a relationship. It's an ongoing relationship. We tend to want the instant growth part or the instant maturity, but it's not instant. God is a personal God, He requires a personal relationship, and relationships take time. And if you skip step one of not studying your Bible, then trying to let the scripture shape the desires of your heart is impossible, or at least much harder. So step one, study your Bible. Step two, let that shape the desires of your heart. Step three, seek wise counsel. Notice this comes after steps one of reading your Bible, and step two, it is a step, but it's not the first one. It is true that God does not expect us to live our lives in isolation. He gives us friends, elders, mentors, our local churches, all of which we can help each other in the journey. We can teach each other, we can talk about it with each other and help each other sort it out. You probably heard the analogy that a log separated from a fire will soon burn out and go dark. But if you keep all the logs in the fire, then the fire burns brightly. That's a picture of the church to me. We need each other, we need to be helping each other. But seeking wise counsel is not a substitute for prayer and Bible study. Step four, consider your circumstances. Again, note this comes after Bible study and prayer. If something is physically impossible for you to do, you can reasonably conclude it is not God's will for you. For instance, I gave the example of if you're in the military and you're deployed, that limits a lot of the things you can and can't do. If you've made a commitment to the military, then some things are just ruled out for you. So, and that may be true for a lot of us. Circumstances may rule things out, but we don't put them above God's word. Good timing and coincidences are not an do not trump the word of God. Don't take good timing as concrete evidence of God's will. So circumstances play a part, but they come after Bible study, prayer, and counsel. Step five, use your brain. God gave you a brain and he expects you to use it. And notice if you've done the first three steps, your brain is now saturated in scripture, prayer, and wise counsel. His will is that he wants you to become a wise person who is capable of making a wise choice. So assuming you've done the first three steps, you are well on your way to being competent to choose. Sound judgment and common sense are not very sound or common unless they are grounded in Scripture and reflect a heart that is seeking the things of God. Okay, and then step six, do something. Make a decision and trust God. It really is that easy. Make a decision based on your wise, mature assessment of all the factors in your life, all the situations, everything you know from Scripture, everything you know from your prayer and your Bible study and the counsel of other believers, and in light of all that, then just make a decision. It's okay to say, okay, God, this is the best I can do with the resources I've got now, this is what I think is wise, and do it. So make the wisest decision you can with the resources you have available. But don't handicap yourself by starting there. That's not the first step, that's the last step. So ask for wisdom. Don't ask for roadsides, don't ask for lightning splashes, don't ask for the stars to align and all point you in the right direction. Ask for wisdom, and God will give it to you generously. And He's already given you the Holy Spirit to ensure that you grow.