The Prayer That Comes with Homework | James 1:5–8

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

couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in

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

Bible Guys.

Yeah. Good to be your gig.

Yeah, how are you feeling about it? This is good?

This is day three, Yeah.

Day three, and we're in the middle of this series

called Dangerous Prayers. And then all these prayers this week

have the theme of God calling us.

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

Yeah, I agree. So Wesley's there with me. This is

the platinum edition, and Jeff's out of town in Egypt

or Africa. Yeah, And isn't that funny. I'm like 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.

He was in Egypt not too long.

Yeah, so 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, not guests,

but like other than Jeff. Right, So I guess fill

ins or whatever. So the reason why is because would

you Rather? As a game that focused on the individual. Yes,

so it helps us to you know, get to know

you and me better. Yeah, especially together.

So here we go number one, and this is for you, Chris.

Would you rather only speak in veggietails quotes or only

communicate through interpretive dance? Okay, so veggietail voice or interpretive dance.

First of all, veggietails only has a very limited amount

of of tapes. First of all, I say tapes because

that's when they came out during tapes VCRs.

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

Right, that's right, that's the Bunny. But but they don't

really have a lot of famous quotes. But at the

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

famous quotes. But interpretive dance is the worst thing ever,

don't you agree? Interpretive dances so bad?

I think you're going to say interpretive dance has some

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

the worst.

Come on. I mean now, I mean dancing styles, dancing styles.

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

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

don't really care for ballet. Yeah, but if you're gonna

tell me go to ballet, I'll 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 there's

a lot of waving, a lot of waving type stuff that.

Don't you the wavy.

Yeah, it's just it's just like it's like it's like

they try to they're trying to be like, oh, yeah,

how can I make a movement, you know, based on

that sentence? Yeah, or this song.

Leric you have to exaggerate it, yes, and you don't

add more emphasis with your body movement and yeah, so

you were not.

A fan, I'm not a fan. But I would rather

I would rather choose vegetails quotes.

Okay.

On Star Trek, there was an episode in the Next

Generation where where Captain McCard ran into an entire race

of civilizations that only us like twenty phrases to communicate

anything they wanted to communicate, and these phrases represented from

their history, represented like sentiments, 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

veggietails than do my life interpretive dancing, So.

We will not see you preach and do interpretive dance

at the same time.

That never happened, No, okay, although I don't mind sometimes

interpreted dance during a song that is very loud, like

a very like like a screaming song, that's a raging

type song that has a lot of a ron emotion. Yeah,

if it's a good song, Yeah, I think interpret dance

works best in that environment.

Yeah.

We spent way too long on the same on this one.

It's just hilarious. Number 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?

Oh? Talent show with no talent?

Oh I'm lipstein show.

I would do the lip sync thing. I think, Well, yeah.

There's a lipsing battle that's on TV. Yeah, that 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. 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 Oloff?

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

love Oloff.

That's funny, But you don't think Olof is too silly?

Oh? I would? I would. I would be. It would

be delighted my entire road trip.

It's hilarious.

I would. I would think my daughter Tory, it would

be her dream. Yeah, to be to be to go

on a road trip with Obo, it's funny. Yeah. What's

his name? The guy who does the voice?

I don't know who does the actual.

Yeah, he's he's great. He also did uh uh lafou

in the in the live action version of Beauty and

the Beasts.

Okay, yeah, his name's Jay.

There's a j in there somewhere. Everybody listening who knows

who he has knows his name. So anyway, buddy, Number

number four, would you rather lead a revival in a

bouncy castle? 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 Joshuth.

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

the answer to this one would be. I guess leading

a revival, I guess would be the better thing. But

in a bouncy house, it's gonna get interesting quick. So

I'm gonna 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 the sermons illustration, Yeah,

like somehow yeah, but then but then communicate clearly, yeah,

as opposed to pirate voice.

Yeah, turn to Matthew Yeah yeah yeah, yeah. God loves you?

Yeah yeah, come on, God loves you. Maybe yeah, that's

not good. Okay, if I had to look it up,

as you know, Josh gad.

That's it.

I know it was a Joshcott is his name? All right?

And then I think this is me? Yeah, would you

rather swap lives with a background character in the Chosen

or a main character in high school Musical?

Well, she she wrote that for me. Yeah, so uh swap.

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?

Right? In the Chosen it says background characters, So I'm

assuming yeah, 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 back, yeah, but yeah, she did say background.

Yeah, so so so in other words, what you're doing

is you're saying the privilege of being a person who

heard Jesus live and repented yep, right, and followed him

and was a part of the of the early Church

in Act chapter two, Yeah, even though it 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, wildcats, they're so crazy. You are so

crazy wildcat. Uh you know what, I honestly I think

there there's no there's no question here, there's no there's

no no temptation to say I sko musical in any way,

shape or form. Right, how could you pass up being

a person who had the privilege of seeing God's only

son blve Yeah right, and yeah, I mean come on now,

granted you're not you're living in the first century where

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

indoor plumbing. I mean, all that stuff is just the worst.

That existence even is the worst. You know, be under

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

in oppression. That is what I'm trying to say. And

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

that over Troy Bolton, how could you choose? How could

you be? How could you say I want to I

want to sing, yeah, and and go to the University

of Utah come on, or listen to Jesus Ye live. Yeah. Yeah.

So and by the way, I know I know way

too much about high school musical as you can see.

Yeah, you're the musical and movie guy.

Well, to be fair, my daughter played Gabrielle Gabriella, which

is the lead in high school musical, in her high

school play.

Oh wow.

So on top of that, my 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.

So that's why I know way too much.

Yeah.

Yeah, so anyway, Yeah, I'm securing my manager to say that, Yeah,

all right, let's move on.

So we're gonna go to the Book of James. That's

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

Hey, by the way, that that segment, yeah, 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, 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

gonna read the whole thing. So James chapter one, starting

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

is from James. Love how he lets you know, right,

off the bath of Yeah a slave of God and

of our Lord, Jesus Christ. I'm writing to the Twelve

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 waiver for a person

with divide it 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, whenever you find yourself, you know,

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. Yeah,

that will develop your character and so, and then ask

for wisdom in that context. Right, So that's a it

could be a dangerous prayer in some ways. Yeah. 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, right, but I like the

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

is tested.

Right.

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. Oh just look at our diets and our body

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 fifty push ups? Do

you necessarily want to do one hundred jumping jacks?

No?

But we oftentimes want the end result, 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. Today you're in a button down

shirt and we're in a T shirt because I literally

will go directly from here right over there, directly to

the Heritage Fitness Project and work out. I mean literally

like five minutes later. So that's oftentimes why I wear

T shirts, but depending on when we film. But the

bottom line is is, yeah, it's a perfect analogy, isn't

that Because we want the benefits without.

The price, without the sacrifice.

Yeah, without the sacrifice. And if you think about it,

anything in this life that's worth doing will cost you something. Anything,

and that doesn't That doesn't matter whether it's 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 a you know,

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 of joy whenever you struggle, because just know this,

there's an upside to it. And the upside too 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 Baba 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 you know, 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 would be

without sin once again, no more pain, no more pain

will be with our heavenly Father. There will be a

perfect existence, a garden of Eden part two. Right, that's

what's gonna 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 eight, 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 in God's Holy Spirit's power.

But all the while, even though on the outwardly side

we're wasting away, how hard I try to fight it, Right,

this body is going down, and so I can try

my best to hold it off and make it last longer.

But it's going down. But of 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. 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 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. We want things instantly,

like Chris, can I have your phone? What took so long?

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

for it and we expect instant you know, 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 you don't know what to do, maybe 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 would be

what the fourth day, this should be Thursday or Wednesday. Yes,

so this this episode's Wednesday. Uh, we would only be

a couple of days away from the from the weekend series,

the first week of a series that we're starting called

Old School and and it's and it's all and it's

all about the Old School disciplines and behaviors that Christians

do and so uh 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 because

we're we're diving into this, you know, these are things

that Christians do. The series is focused on Christian behaviors

and spiritual discipline. So 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 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 rich 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

if you have the wisdom of how to do it right.

So forget the wealth, give me the wisdom.

So consequently he was the wisest and richest man who 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 these of me, you will be

the wisest man who ever has ever lived or will

ever live. So no human being, no matter how.

Smart they are, yeah, will be wiser.

Be wiser than Solomon. That is mind blowing. Yeah, think

about all the brilliant people in this whole history.

Billion think of Einstein and you know, different people when

we think of like having smart a thing like that.

Yeah, but Solomon wins, 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 then go to God's word first. You're never gonna

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 you got to get godly counsel because these

are people who know you. Hopefully they're trusted their 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,

make sure when you do what Chris is telling you,

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

That's that's a good point.

So maybe that friend that you normally talk to, depending

on where they are at in their career walk, may

not be the best person to talk about this situation. Right,

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

you do definitely want to make sure there it is

someone who's going to give you Gottly 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, Yeah, and and and don't be afraid also to

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

reason why I remember in college I was I didn't

realize my home pastor, I say home pastor because I

was in college, yea, 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. Yeah, and he dropped out

of ministry and and and he actually makes a public state,

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

person of faith. Wow, and so 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, thirty years later, I

regret to a large degree all three of his pieces

of advice. Now, it didn't go against God's word, It

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

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

and life experienced everything else. I thought to myself, like,

I wish I would have gone to three or four people,

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,

listened to that one person, and wish they would have

sought the godly counsel of multiple people. 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 fifty years later, I'm regretting it, yeah, you know,

or forty five years later, whatever it is. Because that's

why God gives us others in our lives. That's true,

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. Yes, 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 that's great. 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. H