Joel Snider's Sermons from FBC Rome

April 27, 2008

Good Advice: Stick with God’s Way

James 1:1-8

It is amazing how many people think of the Bible as a rule book. If you ask people things about the Bible, particularly those outside of the church, one of the responses that is common is that it is a book of rules. It is amazing because I think most of us grew up reading a lot more stories about Moses in the bulrushes, Noah and the ark, the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, and Daniel in the lion’s den than there are places where you get a lot of rules.

In Exodus and in Deuteronomy, you can find the Ten Commandments. Very few people spend a lot of time in Leviticus but you can find a whole host of almost indecipherable rules in Leviticus. Then you come to book after book about the history of Israel or Psalms with 150 different poems. We find all these different ways that God has expressed his word to us, but to stereotype the Bible and say it is a rule book just seems to me to indicate a lack of contact, a lack of familiarity.

For those people who would like a rule book and for those people who find some help in that, at least one book out of the twenty-seven books in the New Testament probably classifies as a rule book. For the next few Sundays, I am going to offer some lessons from the Book of James. I entitled the series, Good Advice, and almost as soon as it went to print, I regretted that. Advice sounds a little bit like opinion, take it or leave it. It’s more than that. If I said good instruction, probably no one would pay any attention because that sounds just a little too harsh. But it is really not advice and it is not opinion. I don’t know how familiar you are with the Book of James, but it is about the only book we have in the New Testament where there is not a sense of whom James was writing to. It says To the Twelve Tribes in Dispersion, that just means Christians everywhere. There is very little at all in the book that helps us know a specific audience and what he was trying to accomplish. There is no theme to it. There is no real theme from beginning to end. Basically, it is a series of teachings about a variety of subjects. Bam! Here is one. Go on to another. Sometimes it is very difficult to try to figure out if there is at all any reason why he skips from one subject to the next.

At the beginning of the Book of James, James deals with the issue of faith and doubting. Verse 5: “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That one should not think that they will receive anything from the Lord.”

Then in verse 8: “Because then you are double-minded, unstable in all ways.”

The most common understanding that I run into on this particular passage is that if you pray, you must not doubt. If you let any doubt slip into your prayer, if you pray out loud and there is anything that sounds like a question mark in the inflection of your voice, then that’s it. Everything is over. God is not going to answer that because you wavered. The message that a lot of people preach about this is that the prayer that gets answered is the prayer where there is mental and spiritual constitution of steel. A person is just so sure. There is absolute conviction, and if there is any waiver in that conviction, it’s over. You just might as well quit praying right now.

I have an illustration of this from 20 years ago. I ministered to a family and I am going to call the man “Norman.” Norman was in his 80’s and was diagnosed with cancer. Norman decided that he was going to take a positive attitude with no admission of any possibility that things might turn out any way other than healing. That was the way he was going to approach it. Norman had lost all his hair from chemotherapy and was clearly emaciated from the disease and the treatment. When you would see Norman and ask him, “How are you?” his response was, “Great! Never felt better. I am going to be just fine.”

“Norman, tell me, really, how are you?”

“I am great. I am just absolutely great. We are beating this thing and I am not going to talk to you about anything else.”

This went on for a while. His adult daughter was in the church, and it was clear that he was not getting well. He was clear that he was declining. Whenever she would speak to him, she would get the same answer. She came to see me and asked, “Can you talk to my father? My father is going to die, and before he dies, I would like to be able to tell him how much I love him, how much I appreciate all the things he has done for me, for my husband, and for our children. I would like to be able to have an honest conversation that he is not going to be here sometime soon.”

I went to see Norman and we talked. In the process of the conversation, he said, “To have that discussion would mean that I doubt. If I admit any possibility that death might come from this, God is not going to heal me.” He quoted the passage of scripture from James 1. He said, “Therefore, I am going to be fine. I am fine right now and don’t talk to me. Just tell my daughter I am going to be fine.”

So, obviously, they never had the conversation she would like to have had, and it wasn’t too long until he passed away.

Have you heard that type of testimony or sermon that you have to believe? Believing is holding on to something as tightly as you can, and if you let your grip go a little bit, it is over. God is not going to answer that prayer. That is an awful way to look at God because prayer is not magic. It is not about getting what we want, and it’s not about having to do all the magical things just right so God will give it to us. I will say this: If miracle comes from prayer, it really doesn’t depend on us. Do you realize how much this believing so hard, so intently, how much that really makes prayer about us? It is as if God can’t do what God wants if we somehow let up. That’s about us, not about God.

Let’s look at John 5 and the story about the man at the Sheep Gate. Jesus comes in and says, “Do you want to be healed?” The man hardly ever gives him a straight answer. He is not a very likeable character in scripture, but Jesus heals him anyway. There was no evidence of faith on the front end. If you want to say, “You have to have faith to get healed,” there is one where it didn’t happen like that.

In Mark 9, Jesus comes down from the Mount of Transfiguration and some of the disciples were there with the man whose son had an evil spirit that throws him into the fire and the disciples could not cast it out. Jesus says, “You have to believe about this.” The man says, what? “I believe. Help my unbelief.” I believe but help that part of me that has a little bit of doubt. Jesus turns and heals the son. The man was admitting that he was waivering in his faith, but Jesus healed him anyway. It’s not a game in that the people who get their prayers answered are the ones who can believe the hardest the longest. That’s not what this passage is about. What is it about?

Somehow we often leave off that it is really about wisdom. If you go back to the beginning where James talks about, “Count it joy, friends, when you face trials because this is going to test your faith.” From there, he leads to, “and if you are not sure what to do, pray for wisdom and God will answer that prayer.” It’s not just a prayer about anything. It is a prayer about wisdom. Ask God and God freely gives wisdom to people who find themselves in trial, to people who find themselves not sure what to do, and not sure how to act as a Christian. Ask and God freely gives.

What James calls doubting is not somehow not being able to believe hard enough, long enough, tight enough, or whatever way you want to describe it. What he is describing as doubting is a person who says, “I am going to ask God what I should do about this.” And then says, “I think I am going to consult Mademoiselle Magazine or some other source. I am going to call all my best friends and see what they say.” It is to begin with asking God and then to look for an answer someplace else. What James says is this: You can’t receive an answer. It is not that God won’t or can’t give to you, but if you have started off by asking God in faith and then your faith says, “I am just not sure about this God way. I am not really sure God is going to show me the way. I am not sure that what he says in the Bible is the right way. That’s not going to work. I need to find another way to do this.” That is like the man who is on the sea, with the waves going to and fro. You started off one way, and then you said, “I am not waiting on that. I am not waiting on God’s way. I am going to go back this way.”

I like what the unknown Jewish rabbi says, “Let not those who wish to pray to God have two hearts, one directed to Him, and one to something else.” That’s a perfect way of understanding what James is talking about. It’s not about believing harder but it’s about believing consistently that God’s way, God’s wisdom, God’s direction is what you need to understand what to do.

I confess again that the sermon series, “Good Advice,” is probably not the best title. What would you call it? “Wise Instruction?” That doesn’t get it either. “True Lesson?” This is the truth about faith. Stick with God’s way. If you really have a relationship that you need to pray about, a moral issue where you are not sure what to do, or a question of integrity, stick with God’s way. Don’t pray about it and then decide, “I can’t do that.” Of course, you are never going to get the answer that you want. Of course, you are never going to feel as if you are walking as closely to God as you would like. Of course, you are never going to have that sense that Christ’s heart has filled your heart because you are like the person on the sea, tossed about by every wave, once over here and then drift over there. It just doesn’t work.

God could give, but when we look the opposite way, we are not ready to receive. This is not about God being angry with someone who comes to a weakness in life and waivers over whether or not a miracle could come. This is about people who say, “I trust in God,” and then choose themselves and their ways again and again.

Consider it all joy when you are tested because your testing does lead to perseverance. If you are not sure what to do in that moment, pray to God because God will gladly, willingly, freely, give you the wisdom. But don’t start off asking God and then choose another way because you will never find an answer that way.

That’s good advice. That’s a strong lesson. That is the truth.

Joel Snider's Sermons from FBC Rome

Good Advice: Stick with God’s Way

James 1:1-8

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