Bible Guys Classics: James 1:5–8

You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a

couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun and

practical ways. Hey everybody, good morning and welcome to The

Bible Guys.

Yeah, good to be here again.

Yeah, how you feeling about it?

Yeah, this is good. This is day three.

Yeah, day three. Yeah, this is good. And we're in

the middle of a series called Dangerous Prayers, and then

all these prayers this week have the theme of God

calling us.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's been a good week thus far.

Yeah, I agree. I agree. So Wesley's here with me.

This is the Platinum Edition, and Jeff's out of town

in Africa. Yeah, he's in Africa. Isn't that funny? I'm

picking random countries. Egypt, Africa, Mexico, I don't know.

Yeah, he may have gone to Egypt. I don't know.

He does a lot of traveling.

Yeah, he was in Egypt not too long ago.

Yeah.

Excuse me. So today we're starting with a segment. I

like these. It's called Would You Rather?

Yes.

And so I like them, especially with guests.

Yeah.

Not guests, but like other than Jeff, right? So I

guess fill-ins or whatever. So the reason why is because

Would You Rather is a game that focuses on the individual, right?

Yes.

So it helps us to get to know you and

me better. Yeah. Especially together.

Yeah. So here we go. Number one. And this is

for you, Chris. Would you rather only speak in VeggieTales

quotes or only communicate through interpretive dance?

Okay.

So VeggieTales voice or interpretive dance?

First of all, VeggieTales only has a very limited amount

of tapes, first of all. I say tapes because that's

when they came out, during tapes, VCRs.

But there's the classic, the bunny, the bunny.

That's right. That's right. That's the bunny. But they don't

really have a lot of famous quotes. Yeah. But at

the same time, so it's limited communication, not a lot

of famous quotes.

Yeah.

But interpretive dance is the worst thing ever.

Oh, no.

Don't you agree? Yeah. Interpretive dance is so bad.

I'm thinking you're going to say interpretive dance has some,

you know, like good qualities or something. You're like, it's

the worst.

Well, I mean, come on. I mean, dancing styles, if

you were to tell me you're going to choose a

dancing style that I don't necessarily like, like I don't

really care for ballet. Yeah. If you're going to tell

me go to ballet, I'd be like, okay, I signed

up for ballet.

Yeah.

I enjoy ballet if I know I'm going to ballet. Yeah.

But I think probably one of the worst forms of dance...

is a free-for-all based on emotion, right? And there's a

lot of wavy, a lot of wavy type stuff. That

is hilarious. Don't you agree?

The wavy. Yeah. It's just like they try to be like, oh, yeah,

how can I make a movement?

You know, based on that sentence.

Yeah.

Or this song.

You have to exaggerate it. Yes. And, you know, add

more emphasis with your body movement.

Yeah.

So you are not a fan.

I'm not a fan, but I would rather, I would

rather choose VeggieTales quotes. Okay. On Star Trek, there was

an episode on The Next Generation where Captain Picard ran

into an entire race of civilizations that only used like

20 phrases to communicate anything they wanted to communicate. And

these phrases represented from their history represented like sentiments.

Yeah.

And somehow by the end of the episode, he was

able to figure it out.

Okay.

And it's like, and it was actually a pretty impressive journey.

It was actually like, it was very intelligent.

Yeah.

It was intelligently written. So I would rather do that

with VeggieTales than do my life interpretive dancing.

So we will not see you preach and do interpretive

dance at the same time.

No.

That will never happen?

No. Okay. Although I don't mind sometimes. interpretive dance during

a song that is, um, uh, uh, uh, very loud. Yeah. Like,

like a very, like a, uh, like a screaming song.

That's a raging type song that has a lot of, uh.

A raw emotion. Yeah.

If it's a good song.

Yeah.

I think interpretive dance works best in that environment.

Yeah.

We spent way too long on.

This, on this one.

Number two, number two, would you rather host a talent

show with zero talent or a lip sync battle? where

everyone takes it way too seriously.

Ooh, talent show with no talent.

Oh, I'm lip sync show.

I would do the lip sync thing, I think.

Well, there's a lip sync battle that's on TV.

Yeah.

Where all the celebrities do it.

Yeah.

And they take it way too seriously. And those are amazing.

Yeah, I was going to say the other one would

get kind of like, I think, boring after a while. Yeah.

If like the no talent one.

I would say painful. Yeah. Right? I mean, no talent

is really bad.

Okay, number three. Would you rather be mentored by Moana

or go on a road trip with Olaf?

Oh, there's no question. I don't like Moana and I

love Olaf.

That is funny. But you don't think Olaf is too silly?

Oh, I would be delighted through my entire road trip.

That is hilarious.

I would think my daughter, Tori, it would be her

dream to go on a road trip with Olaf.

Oh, that's funny.

Yeah. What's his name? The guy who does the voice?

I don't know who does the actual voice. Yeah, he's great.

He also did LeFou in the live-action version of Beauty

and the Beast.

Okay, yeah.

His name's Jay. There's a Jay in there somewhere. Yeah.

Everybody listening who knows who he is knows his name.

It's funny. Number four, would you rather lead a revival

in a bouncy castle, oh my word, or preach a

sermon entirely in pirate voice?

Oh, man. How do you even..

That is such a random-o question.

Yeah, like a revival in a bouncy house.

Yeah. Josh something. His name's Josh something.

Oh, man. I'm trying to... I don't even know what

the answer to this one would be.

No, me neither.

I guess leading a revival, I guess, would be the

better thing. But in a bouncy house, it's going to

get interesting quick. So I'm going to have to go

with leading a revival because I want to see lives change, but...

It's going to happen in a bouncy house. I guess

that's how it's happening.

I think you're right.

Yeah.

Because I would try to take the bouncy house and

use it in a sermon illustration.

Yeah, like somehow.

Yeah. But then communicate clearly. Yeah. As opposed to pirate voice.

Yeah. Turn to Matthew.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

God loves you, eh?

Yeah. I mean, come on. God loves you, matey. Yeah.

That's not good. Okay, I had to look it up,

as you know. Josh Gad.

Oh, that's who it is?

Josh Gad. I knew it was a J. Josh Gad

is his name. All right, and then..

I think this is me. Would you rather swap lives

with a background character in The Chosen or a main

character in High School Musical?

Well, she wrote that for me, I think. Yeah, so

swap lives.

Yeah, you had to swap lives with one, either in

The Chosen. Okay. I guess, so this is... In The Chosen,

I guess you kind of have to narrow that down. Like,

who am I swapping lives with in The Chosen?

It says background character, so I'm assuming..

Yeah, so if it's a background..

Probably meaning like part of the crowd who gets to

listen to Jesus in person.

Yeah, so now that would be cool.

Right.

But like, I don't want to be Judas.

You know what I mean? But she said background.

Yeah, she did say background.

Yeah. So in other words, what you're doing is you're saying...

The privilege of being a person who heard Jesus live

and repented and followed him and was a part of

the early church in Acts chapter 2, even though it

Acts 2 · chapter mention

was persecuted, or to actually be Troy Bolton.

But I kind of feel like, and we're getting way

too deep with this, but I kind of feel like

you'd get tired of the high school musical thing after

a while.

Oh, come on, Wildcat. Yeah. You're so crazy. You are

so crazy, Wildcat. You know what? I honestly think that

there's no question here. There's no temptation to say high

school musical in any way, shape, or form.

Yeah.

Right? How could you pass up? being a person who

had the privilege of seeing God's only son. Yeah. Right.

And then put that on your resume. Yeah.

I mean, come on.

Yeah.

Now, granted you're not, uh, you're living in the first

century where, uh, you know, uh, food and water and all, uh,

you know, indoor plumbing. I mean, all that stuff is

just the worst.

Yeah.

That existence even is the worst. Yep. You know, being

under Roman occupation or, you know, to be occupied, uh,

you know, in oppression is what I'm trying to say. And, um, Like,

all that stuff. Oh, it's just terrible. But, you know,

that over Troy Bolton, how could you say, I want

to sing and go to the University of Utah? Come on.

Or listen to Jesus live.

Yep, yep. And by the way, I know way too

much about high school musicals, you can see.

Yeah, you're the musical and movie kind of guy.

Well, to be fair, my daughter played Gabriella. which is

the lead in High School Musical in her high school play.

Oh, wow.

So on top of that, both of my daughters and

my wife are massive fans. And actually, even my son

likes it, too, by default. And I do, too. But

they would watch it over and over and over again.

Yeah.

So that's why I know way too much.

Yeah. Yeah.

So anyway. Yeah, I'm secure in my manner to say that.

Yeah.

All right, let's move on.

So we're going to go to the book of James.

That's where we're reading from today, James, the first chapter.

Hey, by the way, that segment had us made a

lot of hard choices.

Yeah.

And you know what? James encourages us to make hard

choices as well.

That was good. That was good.

Good.

Segue. So this is James chapter one, verses one through eight.

I'm going to read the whole thing. We're going to

isolate certain scriptures, certain verses, I should say, but I'm

just going to read the whole thing. So James chapter one,

starting at verse one says, and I love this. This

letter is from James. I love how he lets you

know right off the bat.

Right off the bat.

Yeah. A slave of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ,

I'm writing to the 12 tribes, Jewish believers scattered abroad, greetings.

Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come

your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For

you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance

has a chance to grow. So let it grow. For

when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect

and complete, needing nothing. And if you need wisdom, ask

our generous God and he will give it to you.

He will not rebuke you for asking. But when you

ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone.

Do not waver. For a person with divided loyalty is

as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is

blown and tossed by the wind. Such people should not

expect to receive anything from the Lord. Their loyalty is

divided between God and the world, and they are unstable

in everything they do. That's James.

There it is.

Chapter one.

So, wow. So the prayer itself that we're focusing on

is asking God for wisdom.

Yes.

But the context is just in general, the persecution, perseverance connection, right?

So in other words, trials, troubles, tribulations.

Yes.

Whenever you find yourself in trouble in that way, consider

it an opportunity for great joy, James says. And the

reason why is because it's going to do certain things

in your life that will develop your character. And then

to ask for wisdom in that context, right? So that

could be a dangerous prayer in some ways. Yeah.

Here's the funny thing about that, Chris. It says like

in verse three, for you know that when your faith

is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. I

can only speak for myself, but I like the endurance

having a chance to grow. I don't like faith is tested.

So oftentimes we want the benefits But we don't want

the things that you have to go through to get

to the benefit.

Yeah, all we got to do is look at our

diets and our bodies.

Yeah.

Right?

Yeah, well, you're going to the gym later. I'm sure

you want to live long. You want to be healthy.

Do you necessarily want to do 50 push-ups? Do you

necessarily want to do 100 jumping jacks? No, but we

oftentimes want the end result healthy. but the process to

get there isn't always so fun.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. And by the way, that's a lot

of times when, when our listeners tune in, they always

see Jeff and button down shirts.

Yeah.

Today you're in a button down shirt. Yeah. I'm wearing

a t-shirt.

Yeah.

Because I literally will go directly from here.

Yeah. Right over there.

Directly to a heritage fitness project and work out. I mean,

literally like five minutes later.

Yeah.

So, so that's oftentimes why I wear t-shirts. But depending

on when we film, but, But the bottom line is, yeah,

it's a perfect analogy, isn't it? Because we want the

benefits without the price.

Yeah, without the sacrifice.

Yeah, without the sacrifice.

Yeah.

And if you think about it, anything in this life

that's worth doing will cost you something.

Yeah.

Anything. And that doesn't matter whether it's practical, whether it's

related to your job, whether it's relational in your marriage.

It doesn't matter whether it's in the church. It doesn't

matter what field it's in. Anything that's really worth doing

is going to cost you something. And I think that

that's really what James is saying. He's saying faith is

no different. And so think about the upside of struggle.

That's what he's saying. He's saying, listen, count it joy

whenever you struggle, because just know this, there's an upside

to it. And the upside to it is you're going

to build endurance and faith. And he actually says perfect.

And what he's meaning is he's not meaning perfect without flaw.

He's meaning... Perfection, you know, heading toward perfection, right? To

be perfected is to be constantly be working on, right?

So the Bible says that God continues to mold us

and continues to shape us into the perfect image of

Jesus Christ. We will never arrive at perfection, but we're

being perfected as we're going along, right? And so, as

you're trying to perfect something and something is being perfected,

it is working toward perfection. Now, ultimately that promise is

true because one day we will be perfect. One day

in heaven, we will arrive physically, spiritually, mentally, emotionally, everything.

We will have perfect bodies. We will be without sin

once again.

No more pain.

No more pain. We'll be with our heavenly father. There

will be a perfect existence. a Garden of Eden part two, right?

That's what's going to happen. The new Jerusalem, you know,

heaven laid out for all of us. But in the meantime,

while on earth, life is hard, right? Life is hard.

We are under the sin and bondage of decay. The

Bible says in Romans 8, we're under the curse of

this world, right? And so the results of sin play

out and life is just difficult. And so therefore we

need to lean on, depend on, look to Jesus and

God's Holy Spirit's power. But all the while, even though

on the outwardly side, we're wasting away, no matter how

hard I try to fight it, right? This body's going down.

And so I can try my best to hold it

off and make it last longer, but it's going down.

But on the inside, we're being perfected, you know, and

God's going to use us for great things on this earth.

That'll reverberate into eternity.

And Chris, I like how God gave us an out.

You talked about how life is difficult. Yeah. In verse five,

it says, if, and I'm paraphrasing here, if you're in

that difficult spot, if you don't know what to do,

if you're at a crossroads in life, if you have

to make a big decision, if you need wisdom, ask

our generous God, he's not a stingy God, ask our

generous God.

That's a great adjective.

And he will give it to you. So that lets

me know whenever I'm at a point in my life

where I need wisdom, I can ask our generous God

and he will give me the direction, give me the guidance,

give me the wisdom that I need every single time.

There is never a time that you ask God for

wisdom and he doesn't give it. Now, Sometimes we have

an issue with timing. Yeah. We want things instantly. Like, Chris,

can I have your phone? Oh, what took so long?

That's literally how we are with God. We literally ask

for it and we expect instant answers to everything. But

we do have the guarantee here because we know that

God is a faithful God. He's a just God. He's

a generous God. If you're at a crossroads where you

don't know what to do, maybe someone watching right now, Chris,

has a major decision to make. It could be a

job decision, a life decision, whatever that decision is. Ask

our generous God, and God will give you the wisdom

of what to do in that specific situation.

You know what's so funny is, actually, by the time

this podcast airs next week, that actually, this will be what,

the fourth day? This will be Thursday. No, Wednesday.

Wednesday, yes.

So this episode's Wednesday. We will only be a couple

days away from the weekend series, the first week, of

a series that we're starting called Old School. And it's

all about the old school disciplines and behaviors that Christians do.

And ironically, I'm writing that sermon tonight. And guess what

the title is? Finding Wisdom. So I'm literally thinking, praying,

and living this right now because we're diving into this.

These are things that Christians do. The series is focused

on Christian behaviors and spiritual discipline. So finding wisdom is

what Solomon says is a thing that you should do

above all else to recognize that wisdom is number one, attainable,

and number two, that if you do this, that you've

done the most important thing. Because Solomon, of course, was

a guy in the Old Testament who he had the

privilege of God saying, I'll give you anything you want.

And so, because he could have asked for riches and fame,

he decided to say, God, I'll tell you what, give

me wisdom above all else. God said, because you've done that.

Which is brilliant.

It's brilliant.

Because if you get the wisdom, you can manufacture more wealth.

That's right.

If you have the wisdom of how to do it.

Right.

So forget the wealth, give me the wisdom. Right.

So consequently, he was the wisest and richest man who

ever lived. And what's the best part about it is,

for me, is that God says that because you've asked

of this, you know, you asked this of me, you

will be the wisest man who ever has ever lived

or will ever live.

Yeah.

So no human being, no matter how smart.

They are, will ever be wiser than Saul.

Yeah. That is mind-blowing.

Yeah.

Think about all the brilliant people in this whole history.

Yeah. Think of Einstein and, you know, different people. When

we think of, like, having smarts and things like that. Yeah.

But Solomon wins. Yeah. Which is amazing. Yeah. So, yeah.

So how do you find wisdom? Well, again... You go to,

number one, God's word is the source of wisdom, right?

So you have to line up. If you're looking for advice,

as you suggested, right, or implied, then go to God's

word first. You're never going to be given advice from

God or any wisdom that's going to be contradictory to

God's word.

Yeah.

Number two, what am I going to say? Godly counsel.

Yeah.

Right? You got to get godly counsel. Because these are

people who know you, hopefully. They're trusted. They're godly. So

they can speak into your circumstance with intelligence and insight.

but at the same time, they're also Christians.

Now, I'm going to be a little blunt here, Chris. Yep.

Make sure when you do what Chris is telling you,

you don't go to people who know no more than you.

That's a good point.

So maybe that friend that you normally talk to depending

on where they are at in their Christian walk, may

not be the best person to talk about this situation.

So I think that there's a caveat there. So yeah,

you do definitely wanna make sure it is someone who's

going to give you godly wisdom, not someone who will say, Chris,

you're not getting along with that person. Yeah, you should

punch him in the eye.

That's right.

You don't want that person giving you.

Right, that's right. Yeah, and don't be afraid also to

get multiple sources of godly wisdom. And here's the reason why.

I remember in college, I didn't realize my home pastor,

I say home pastor because I was in college, and

in my home church, I didn't realize how hard of

a time he was going through as an individual. In fact, unfortunately,

since then, he sort of lost his faith. And he

dropped out of ministry and he actually makes a public statement, well,

public to his friends that he's no longer a person

of faith.

Wow.

And so talk about a radical disappointment, right? But anyway,

but at the time I didn't realize that's where he was.

But at the time he was my spiritual mentor. And

I went to him and said, hey, I have a

piece of advice to ask you. And looking at the time,

I followed every single advice he gave me. Every single

piece of advice. I went to him for like three

major things and he gave me advice and I followed it.

And I'm not kidding you when I say 30 years later,

I regret to a large degree all three of his

pieces of advice.

Wow.

Now, it didn't go against God's word. Yeah. It just

sort of, you know, it was a combination of, you know,

that plus, you know, his knowledge of me and life

experience and everything else. I thought to myself, like, I

wish I would have gone to three or four people.

Yeah.

Because these were big decisions and he gave me wrong

advice and steered me the wrong way. And I could

name you my friends, people in my life who say

they did the same thing. They went to one source.

Yeah.

Listen to that one person.

Mm-hmm.

And wish they would have sought the godly counsel of

multiple people.

Yeah.

Because, you know, Dave Wilson told me this just the

other day. He said, he goes, I really wish I

would have listened to somebody else other than my mentor

on this one decision because 50 years later, I'm regretting it.

Yeah.

You know, or 45 years later, whatever it is. Because

that's why God gives us others in our lives.

That's true.

To surround us and point us in the right direction.

Guide us, pray for us, encourage us. and then counsel us, right? Yeah.

And Chris, if I can throw this in, because I

know we're running out of time, that verse five ends with,

he will not rebuke you for asking. And I love that.

Yeah, that's right.

We can ask God for wisdom and he's not going

to get mad. God isn't too busy for your conversation,

your request, whatever you have to ask him, he will

not rebuke you. He's, as a matter of fact, Chris,

he's glad to hear from us.

That's right.

He's glad when we seek him for counsel and for

wisdom and things of that nature. So yeah, that's just

a good thing to remember.

That's great. Well, that's a great thought to end with.

That's our time. And so hopefully we'll see you tomorrow

on The Bible Guys.