How to Handle Scripture (Pt.1)

Please take your Bibles this morning and turn to 2 Timothy chapter 2. I want to begin this morning by reading from verse 15 as we begin our study together this morning. It says, Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth. That is such a pointed passage that tells us what is involved in studying the Scriptures. For the past few weeks now, we've been talking about what is important about preparation. How that we need to prepare our hearts as we come to the Word of God. And not only prepare our hearts, but we also have to have a certain perspective. Because this is not the Word of men, it's the Word of God.

So as we looked at Psalm 42.1, we talked about how to thirst for God. And then we looked at 1 Peter 2, 1 through 3, and we talked about that we must deal with sin and we must have a great desire. And then we looked at this passage here in 2 Timothy 2, 15, and we talked about having a diligent approach. And then we tied it all together by saying that Ephesians 5, 18 says that we must be filled with the Spirit and we must pray. We can't do anything or understand anything from God's Word unless we're filled with the Spirit. And all of these features of preparation help us as we're looking at the text, as we're coming and communing with God in the study of His Word.

So as we come to it today, I want to talk about how to handle the Scripture, what is involved in the actual study process. As I think about this for my own self and I think about the different things that I have learned over the years, there are many things that I repeat constantly as I come to the text or come to a topic of scripture. Now topics are handled a little differently than handling a text of scripture. I think that maybe involves a little bit more work because you're looking at various passages of scripture and you need to know the context for all of those passages and to know what they mean so that you're not pulling something out and isolating it and giving it a meaning that the author never intended. And so as we talk about handling scripture, we're going to talk about an approach to scripture that many have termed inductive.

Inductive Bible study. And that's what we're going to talk about today. There's not one method of study that proposes to be the magic wand in the hard discipline of Bible study. So if you're looking for a magic formula that will unlock the secrets of God's truth in an instant, well, you're going to be disappointed.

Hans Fenzel says this, a student asked the president of his school whether he could not take a shorter course than one prescribed. Oh, yes, replied the president. But then it depends on what you want to be. When God wants to make an oak, he takes 100 years. But when he wants to make a squash, he takes six months.

So as we do this, we need to understand that We're not doing this just so that we have knowledge and facts and information. We're doing this so that we can know God, so that we can understand who He is and what He is like and what His will is for our life. And so we need to come to this time and treat it very carefully. And as we've said in our last time together, we have to see that this is the Word of God, and because it's the Word of God, it is infallible, inerrant, complete, authoritative, sufficient, and it's effective.

D. James Kennedy said, every word is 100% inspired, reliable, and unchanging. We can count on it at all times if we follow it. We will not be disappointed, defrauded, or destroyed. I agree with that.

This is something that we have to give ourselves to every day and you're going to fight the flesh on this because this is hard work. And most people don't study scripture at this kind of depth just simply because we're lazy. We don't want to do the work that's involved. We want to come to the Bible and take it like a pill that we have our devotion and we go throughout our merry day and do all the things that we want to do. And then we forget about what we have read, what we have studied, what we have learned from God's Word.

So I want to encourage you to draw near to the Lord right now. Ask Him to remove all the distractions, help you to understand what Scripture says and how to study it. I want to read a story, and it's a story that illustrates what is involved in this kind of study. We talked about in one of our times together about lingering longer in our time with the Lord. It's not that we just want to have this time and say we have it and to get facts and information, but we want to commune with the living God. And again, the whole process in all of this is being diligent to do this. And so let me read this story to us, and I want you to think as I read through this about this whole process of studying the Bible.

It says, it was more than 15 years ago that I entered the laboratory of Professor Agas and told him I had enrolled my name in the scientific school as a student of natural history. He asked me a few questions about my object and coming, my antecedents generally, the mode in which I afterwards proposed to use the knowledge I might acquire, and finally, whether I wished to study any special branch. To the latter, I replied that while I wished to be well grounded in all departments of zoology, I hoped to devote myself especially to insects. When did you wish to begin, he asked.

Now, I replied. It seemed to please him, and with an energetic, very well, he reached from a shelf a huge jar of specimens in yellow alcohol. Take this fish, he said, and look at it. We call it a haumulon. By and by I will ask you what you have seen. With that, he left me, but in a moment returned with explicit instructions as to the care of the object entrusted to me. No man is fit to be a naturalist, as he said, who does not know how to take care of specimens.

I want to keep the fish before me in a tin tray, and occasionally moisten the surface with alcohol from the jar, always taking care to replace the stopper tightly. Those were not the days of ground glass stoppers and elegantly shaped exhibition jars. All the old students will recall the huge necklace glass bottles with their leaky wax smeared corks, half eaten by insects and caked with cellar dust. Entomology was a cleaner science than etch-tomology. But the example of the professor who had unhesitatingly plunged to the bottom of the jar to produce the fish was infectious. And though this alcohol had a very ancient and fish-like smell, I really dared not show any aversion within these sacred precincts, and treated the alcohol as though it was pure water.

Still I was conscious of a passing feeling of disappointment, for gazing at a fish did not commend itself to an ardent entomologist. My friends at home, too, were annoyed when they discovered that no amount of cologne would drown the perfume, which haunted me like a shadow. In ten minutes I had seen all that could be seen in that fish and started in search of the professor, who had, however, left the museum. And when I returned, after lingering over some of the odd animals stored in the upper apartment, my specimen was dry all over. I dashed the fluid over the fish as if to resuscitate it from a fainting fit, and looked with anxiety for a return of a normal sloppy appearance. This little excitement over nothing was to be done, but returned to a steadfast gaze at my mute companion.

Half an hour passed. An hour. Another hour. The fish began to look loathsome. I turned it over and around. I looked at it in the face. Ghastly. I looked at it from behind, beneath, above, sideways, at three-quarters view, just as ghastly. I was in despair at an early hour.

I concluded that lunch was necessary. So, with infinite relief, the fish was carefully replaced in the jar, and for an hour I was free. On my return, I learned that Professor Agas had been at the museum, but had gone, and would not return for several hours. My fellow students were too busy to be disturbed by continued conversation.

So slowly I drew forth that hideous fish and, with a feeling of desperation, again looked at it. I might not use a magnifying glass. Instruments of all kinds were forbidden. My two hands, my two eyes, and the fish, it seemed a most limited field. I pushed my fingers down its throat to see how sharp its teeth were. I began to count the scales in the different rows until I was convinced that that was nonsense.

At last, a happy thought struck me. I would draw the fish. And now, with surprise, I began to discover new features in the creature. Just then the professor returned. That's right, he said. A pencil is one of the best eyes. I'm glad to notice, too, that you keep your specimen wet and your bottle corked. With these encouraging words, he added, well, what is it like?

He listened attentively to my brief rehearsal of the structure of parts whose names were still unknown to me. The fringed gill arches and movable opculum, the pores of the head, fleshly lips, and lidless eyes, the lateral line, the spinous fin, and forked tail, the compressed and arched body. When I had finished, he waited as if expecting more.

And then with an air of disappointment, you have not looked very carefully. Why, he continued more earnestly, you haven't seen one of the most conspicuous features of the animal, which is as plainly before your eyes as the fish itself. Look again. Look again. And he left me to my misery. I was fatigued. I was mortified. Still more of that wretched fish.

But now I set myself to the task with a will and discovered one new thing after another, until I saw how just the professor's criticism had been. The afternoon passed quickly, and, when toward its close, the professor inquired, Do you see it yet? No, I replied. I am certain I do not. But I see how little I saw before. That is next best," said he earnestly, but, I won't hear you now. Put away your fish and go home. Perhaps you will be ready with a better answer in the morning. I will examine you before you look at the fish.

This was disconcerting. Not only must I think of my fish all night, studying without the object before me, what this unknown but most visible feature might be, but also without reviewing my discoveries, I must give an exact account of them the next day. I had a bad memory. So I walked home by the Charles River in a distracted state with my two perplexities.

The cordial greeting from the professor the next morning was reassuring. Here was a man who seemed to be quite as anxious as I. Should see for myself what he saw. Do you perhaps mean, I asked, that the fish has symmetrical sides with paired organs? Is thoroughly pleased, of course, of course. Repaid the wakeful hours of the previous night. After he had discoursed most happily and enthusiastically, as he always did, upon the importance of this point, I ventured to ask what I should do next.

Oh, look at your fish, he said, and left me again to my own devices. In a little more than an hour, he returned and heard my new catalog. That is good, that is good, he repeated, but that is not all, go on. And so for three days, He placed that fish before my eyes, forbidding me to look at anything else or to use any artificial aid. Look, look, look, was his repeated injunction.

This was the best entomological lesson I had ever had, a lesson whose influence had extended to the details of every subsequent study, a legacy the professor had left to me, as he left it to many others, of inestimable value, which we could not buy with which we cannot part."

That story is very vivid for us as we apply this to Bible study, handling the scripture. And just as the professor told the student, look, look, look, and leaving him with him for three long days, that's exactly what we have to do. But we're talking about the Bible, we're talking about Scripture, we're not talking about a fish. We need to look long at a passage, at a verse, at a chapter, at a book. The whole process is what we could say is inductive. And we can divide it up into three steps of study following in a logical sequence. First, we look at the whole, just like the student did.

He's looking at the entire fish. And then we divide it up into parts. Now, he didn't cut up his fish, but he began to look at the various features of the fish. And as you are looking at a passage, you begin to divide it up, and you begin to ask questions, and you write information down based upon what you're seeing, just like the student did with pulling out a pencil and beginning to draw the fish.

And you're not drawing a Bible or you're drawing pictures, but you are writing down things. And that is one of the best tools ever. And finally, we scrutinize the details. So the question is, do you hurry? Because if you hurry, you'll never do any of this. This will be boring to you. You will lose interest in this. You'll get discouraged and you'll walk away.

So you need to start out from the very beginning and going back to our perspective that this is the Word of God. This emanates from God's character. And every time you open it, you're engaging with the living God. You need to keep that perspective before you. And you don't want to hurry. You want to look, look, look. You want to take the long road and the time that is necessary to do this.

I remember when I was a student in seminary and I was in a preaching class. Preaching class was three hours long. In this particular class, we came in and the teacher gave us a passage of scripture, I think it was Jeremiah chapter one, and without any type of helps whatsoever, he left us there and he said, write a sermon. And I'll tell you, I went through several phases of frustration and panic, and I was still learning how to do a lot of these things, but the one basic thing that stood out during that entire three hour class was slowing down, stopping, and reading.

This is where it all begins. It's very important that we take the time to read the Bible. Now, we've already said some things about reading and how important that is, but I want you to understand that You have to do it just like G. Campbell Morgan says, I mentioned this last time too, where he says, read and gain an impression. And that's what you're doing when you're taking time to read.

So if we were looking at 2 Timothy 2.15, and we were reading it repetitiously, we would read it over and over, we would read it out loud, we would maybe write the passage out, but we would take the time to slow down. and to read and gain an impression.

And as you're doing that, he secondly says, think and gain an outline. That's really what I'm trying to do when I'm studying a passage of scripture, is to read that passage and to see how the flow of thought, that's what an outline will do, it will show you the flow of thought. And then he says, meditate and gain an analysis.

You know, for a pastor, Sunday comes about every three days. And so having a lot of time to spend on a passage is almost non-existent, but two full days on it is really good. And so you want to take the time to read it, to think about it, to meditate on it. That's where it's helpful to walk away from it and to have some time to think over it. That's what meditation is, is to think over it constantly.

And then at the end he says, sweat and gain in understanding. Really, I was sweating a long time ago. But let's talk about this. Let's talk about this whole idea of slowing down, applying the story of the professor and the student, and seeing how that we can apply these things to our time in God's Word. So again, let's start at the beginning. We're starting with reading the Bible.

Now, when you read the Bible, you're answering a question, what does the Bible say? You haven't gotten into what does it mean? You haven't gotten into how it applies to your life? But all you're doing at this point is you're answering the question, what does the Bible say?

So consistent Bible reading is helpful in this. Reading through the entire Bible at least once a year, then taking time in a book or a passage that you're wanting to know more about and spending repetitious time in it. All of these things are necessary. So let me give you some ideas of how you can read the Bible. First, I would say you need to read it prayerfully. Read it prayerfully. It should be done with the deepest reverence.

Again, you're communing with the living God. You're talking to God. You're looking at his word. When you pray, you're talking to him. When you read scripture, he's talking to you. It's not God whispering something in your ear. this small still voice that people talk about. No, when you read scripture, he is speaking to you.

So it should be done with the deepest reverence. you can't comprehend the teachings of the Bible in your own ability, you have to have assistance. And who is the one who assists you? Well, it's the one who resides within you, and that's the Holy Spirit. Remember when we started this study and we said that you must be a Christian? Well, when you become a Christian, God gives you his spirit. And he's not just with you at the beginning by opening your heart and bringing you to Christ. No, he is now permanently with you. He permanently takes up residence in your heart.

And so when you read Scripture, you have the author of Scripture right there with you. It's so different than when you read a book that's written by a secular author, because, number one, you don't have the author right there. Number two, you may not even know the author. Number three, you can't ask the author any questions of things that you're not sure about, you don't understand, or you want more clarification for.

But all those things you can do when you're studying the Bible, because this was written by the Holy Spirit. David had a prayer. In Psalm 119 and verse 18, he said, open my eyes that I may see wondrous things from your law. David understood from the very beginning that if he was going to see anything or understand anything from God's word, God had to reveal it to him. God had to open his eyes.

You have to do the same thing. You have to pray and you have to empty yourself and yield yourself to the Spirit of God. You have to get out of the way, die to self, put all the distractions aside. This is where having the pad next to you is so important because when those distractions come up, just jot them down on your pad. And then when you're finished, you have a list of things that were distracting, maybe things that you need to do later that day, but you have it now. And you didn't leave your time with God and scripture. to go and do these things. There are so many distractions.

But prayerfully, we need to come and ask the Lord to open our eyes. I can't see anything unless He does that. And also, as you're praying, to ask the Lord to help you to stay seated in that chair. and not to get up and run to the bathroom, run and get you a snack, run and get you something to drink, go talk on your phone, go look on social media, or any of those things. You're taking the time, you're praying, you're serious about this time, you really wanna draw near to the Lord, so you wanna remove everything that will hinder that. And also with that pad, you're gonna use it to write down your impressions.

So David prayed that way, that God would open his eyes. Paul prayed a similar prayer, and he told us in Ephesians 1, 17-19, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. the eyes of your understanding being enlightened that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe according to the working of His mighty power." See, again, God is the one who has to give you the spirit of wisdom and the revelation and the knowledge of Christ, and He has to Open up your eyes. He has to enlighten your understanding so that you will know the hope of His calling and what are the riches of the glory of the inheritance of the saints.

All of these things are necessary. You can't rush this. I remember right after I came to Christ, there was so much that I wanted to know about the Bible. I didn't really have a Bible at that time, so that very night that I got saved, me and the gentleman that led me to the Lord, and I believe we had another brother with us, too. And we went to the store and bought a Bible. We bought some gospel tracts. And I just had this insatiable desire to want to know God.

And I didn't know how to study. I was not the best student in school. I hated school. I just didn't understand a lot of things that were going on. Plus, I was doing drugs at the same time. And I ended up quitting school next to my last year and tried to get some things right in my life. I still wasn't a believer in Jesus. Didn't even think about any of that. But I did end up doing what I needed to get my degree or my diploma. And it wasn't until after all of that when the Lord saved me and even began to change things about my understanding of study and what's important about it.

Now, I still struggle. I did drugs for all those years, so I still have to fight through some of the things that permanently damaged me. And I have to work through all of that every single day. I fight with these distractions like I'm talking about with you.

So sometimes the distraction may be my study itself. because I have access to internet. And sometimes I just have to get up and walk into another room where I'm not around any of that and just sit there committed while I'm sitting there praying and reading. But we have to make the same kind of commitment and you have to pray. And again, you have to do this when you read the Bible, you have to pray and you have to do it without the distraction. One author said this, probably the worst enemy of Bible study today in the Western world is television.

I would probably add in on that. If you are an average American 18 years of age and you have already amassed about 18,000 hours of TV viewing, experts tell us that by the time a TV raised American reaches the age of 65, he will have had an average of nine and a half years of solid TV viewing. That's 15% of a person's life spent in front of the TV set. If, on the other hand, a person went to Sunday school regularly from birth till age 65, he would only have a total of four months of solid Bible teaching. Is it any wonder why there are so many weak Christians in Western society?

We have to discipline ourselves and make specific time for Bible study and not let anything get in its way. You should study your Bible when you're at your best physically, emotionally, and intellectually, and when you can be undistracted and unhurried.

Well, I think you get the idea. I don't think I need to keep laboring this point. So let's move to the next one. Sure, you want to remove the distractions, but you also need to read carefully. Don't hurry as you read through a passage. Take as much time as necessary. And there are two things that we can do at this point as we do this.

Richard Kipling said, I kept six honest serving men. They tell me all I knew. Their names are what and why and when and how and where and who. I sent them over land and sea. I sent them east and west. But after they have worked for me, I have given them all a rest.

So we're going to talk about carefully reading the scripture. Now, I want you to take your pad. I want you to take your pen or pencil, and I want you to write down some of these principles. Because when we're talking about looking at the Bible just like the professor was telling his student to look carefully at the fish, I want you to write down some things that you need to do. Number one, you need to observe the whole. You're getting an overview.

And the text that I want us to look at to help us do this would be James chapter 1. Now, if I was studying James, and I have studied James, and I've taught on it about four or five times, but if I was going to tackle this book and say I'm going to spend some time studying through this letter, what would I do first? Well, what have I been talking about? I would read it. You know, there are a lot of Christians that have never read through an entire book of the Bible. James has five chapters.

If you read at a slow pace, you will have finished it in about 20 minutes. So that's the first thing I would do. I would begin reading at chapter one, and I would read slowly, not rushing, because again, my brain, it gets distracted easily because of those drugs I used to do. And sometimes I may stop in the middle of it and have to reread something I already read. But I would read through the entire book of James in one sitting. In fact, what I do now that is helpful for me to help me with these distractions is I play the audio version off my phone or off my computer and I follow there with my eyes. That is helpful because it will just keep reading regardless of what my mind is doing and I can stay with it.

But again, I want to observe the whole. I want to take a good hard look at what is actually in the text. So we have to look at the whole. And you have to do that first before you can divide it up into parts and before you can finally scrutinize the details. So you want to read this repeatedly.

So every day I would commit to reading the book of James. and I would spend that 20 minutes, and maybe that's all I had time for that morning, and maybe could come back later in the day and pick up more. But you gotta remember, when you're studying the Bible, this is not something fast. This is something slow. I think when I taught on this, it took me six to nine months to complete all five chapters. That's really kind of fast going through it. I have spent more time in other books that were shorter.

But the whole goal is not to spend a lot of time, meaning this has got to be X amount of time for this to happen. No, I would just take whatever time is necessary. And there are some times when I'm sitting here looking at verbs and nouns and adjectives and participles and all these different things, and I'm reading other things about context and reading cross-references and things like that, that sometimes that will take a lot of time versus in other cases, it may not take as much time, especially if I'm already kind of familiar with the passage. and especially in this case of the book of James, having taught on it a number of times.

But again, the first thing that I want to do, after I have been reading it every day, and I'm starting to narrow in on my reading, I would then go to chapter one, and I want to look at chapter one, and obviously it starts at verse one, but I want to see where the thought begins and ends. Well, obviously in this case, the subject matter in chapter one that starts this off begins in verse one, And then I want to know where it ends.

And it obviously ends around verse 12. What is the subject matter of verses 1 through 12? Well, I would not know necessarily immediately, but I certainly would get some kind of idea when I read at the end of verse 2 the word trials. And so I would write that down on my pad. What is chapter 1 about? Or at least what is the first 12 verses about? And as I would read repetitiously these 12 verses, I would find out that all 12 verses are dealing with the subject of trials.

So as I'm reading, I'm concentrating. This is a point, as I said, you want the notepad. You're going to write down things that you're seeing. You're going to list things that come to your mind that distract you. You're going to read with patience. You're going to take this time to fellowship with God because you're reading His Word. Irving Jensen said, where does one find time to read the Bible? Free time is so scarce for most Christians that it is never found. So we must take the time to read the Bible, scheduling it at regular time, if possible, and each day, someone has said, we ought to have a Medo-Persian hour, an unchangeable hour for our Bible study. In other words, when you establish that time in your schedule, stick to it. So now I'm observing the whole as I've read, been reading through these five chapters. I've narrowed down to the first 12 verses of chapter one.

And that's where now I'm starting to observe the parts. I'm trying to find the structure that's occurring there. So again, I begin to record my initial impressions. This is the point where you're forming those first impressions, whether your appetite for the contents of the passage is fully there. You're beginning to wet that appetite. And you might even think of it being something like meeting a person for the first time. When you walk away and you begin listing in your mind your first impressions of the person, you're actually observing the person.

Or let's just say you're out looking for a home. You're looking to buy a house. Maybe this is a first-time thing. So you're going to look at the house. You're going to look at the outside. You're going to look at the windows. You're going to look at the roof. You're going to look at the landscaping around it. And then you're going to walk inside. You're going to examine each of the rooms. And you're going to begin to break down the details of that house. But you're still in the house.

So that's kind of the idea. So as I begin to observe the parts and I'm writing down my initial impressions, that's what I'm going to do as I begin to look at these 12 verses. So with your pad and pencil, let's just write down a few ideas of some things that we're beginning to see. Again, I will have been reading this a number of times. Well, first, I'm going to see that the author is mentioned by the very first word that occurs in verse one.

I don't have to ask the question, who is the author? Because it tells me right there, it's James. The only thing I don't know is which James. You know, there was more than one James in the New Testament. And you even had one of the disciples, James, the son of Zebedee. So that's something I would write down on my pad. I would say James is the author. But which James is this talking about in the New Testament? Is there even a way to find the answer to this?

And then what he says about himself, he says he is a slave. Translated here, a bondservant, it's the Greek word doulos. Of course, at the moment I wouldn't know that it was the word doulos unless I looked it up. But I see that it tells me something about him. It tells us that he is a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. I might even want to write next to it, how can you be the slave of two masters?

And then I would see here, to the 12 tribes. Well, what is that telling me? Well, that's telling me his audience. And 12 tribes tells me something there. It's obviously a Jewish audience because of the adopting of those words. And he tells us that these 12 tribes are dispersed. They're scattered. They're scattered abroad. Well, where is abroad? Where have they been scattered to?

So you can just see right here from the very first verse that you've got a number of questions that you need to ask and answer. So how I would tackle this, I would isolate the first verse away from verses two through 12 because obviously verse one is a greeting.

In fact, if you know anything about salutations, salutations would have the writer, the reader, and the greeting. And we have all three of those features in verse 1. It says the writer is James, the readers are the 12 tribes, and then he ends verse 1 with greetings. This is a very common feature in the New Testament. We find it in Paul's writings as well. where the letters start out with this common salutation.

You do the same thing when you write a letter to a friend. You just don't jump right into it. You may have a line or two just beginning your letter. You're offering a greeting. Now, you might not say it the same way. I don't say, well, Steve, I'm a slave of God and I'm writing to you, Bill, and I know you've been troubled, but I wanna greet you. We really don't write letters like that. We don't put our name at the beginning unless it's a business letter.

We put our names at the end. But that's how we would start out. We had been reading the Bible. We're doing it prayerfully. We're doing it undistractedly. We're doing it carefully. And as we're doing this, we're forming impressions. As we look at the text, we're asking questions, we're observing the text.

So again, we see that James mentions that he is a bondservant, he is a slave of God and of Jesus. He's writing to Jews, which are the 12 tribes. And he's telling us that they have experienced some kind of scattering because they have been dispersed abroad. And then he goes into his subject. He says, count it all joy, or consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials.

Now that's a mouthful as well, because how can you count anything joyful that is painful? How can you have joy in trials? Well, that's a question that I would write down on my pad. How could you have joy in trials? Because he's talking about trials, and he's talking about joy, and he has just told me to count it all joy. That, frankly, doesn't even make any sense. So how do I count it all joy when I encounter trials?

Well, again, that's something that I would write down as a question. That's something that I want to have answered. And so since he started out by talking about trials, what can I learn about trials in this passage? Well, if you look at verse three, he says, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. So he's telling me that trials are test. Test of my faith. And that upon passing that test, it's going to produce something in my life. And what is that? Verse three, it's endurance. But I have to let this have its work in my life. I have to yield. I have to surrender. I have to let the endurance have its result.

So as I'm enduring through this trial, I'm looking for ways and means by which I can have joy and not allow this trial to take my joy. I'm keeping in mind that this trial is a test of my faith, and that certainly helps my perspective of what's going on. That also tells me that the trial may not be very long, but it will be as long as it needs to be as God is testing me. I mean, I think of Genesis 22.

Abraham's trial lasted few days because he was told to go up to mount moriah and to offer his son isaac as a sacrifice that was not a short journey to mount moriah plus he had to gather all of his things he had to gather his son so that took some time but how did he deal with this horrible reality that he was going to have to kill his son. His only son. Yeah, he had another son, Ishmael, but this was the son of promise. This was the son from his wife in their old age.

How was he going to do this? You may ask the same questions. How can I do this? I know that this is a test. And you know what? You can pass the test. You don't have to fail the test. And so I'm learning as I read through this that trials are tests and they produce endurance. And then I'm to let that have its work in my life.

And why? So that I can be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. When you're perfect and complete, you lack nothing. Then in verse 5, he tells me that if I lack wisdom, then I am to ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But I must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.

So I have my pad. I'm reading the text. I'm trying to divide it into parts. Right now, I'm just trying to understand what is going on. And that's really still part of the overview. And I have to scrutinize some of the details to help me with that overview. So let's just mention what we've written down so far. Well, we mentioned that the author is James. We mentioned that he says that he is a bondservant or a slave of God and of Jesus. He's writing to Jews. These Jews are the 12 tribes. They've experienced some kind of scattering.

He tells them to have joy during their trials. He tells them the purpose of their trials, which is to test their faith. He tells them to pray, in verse 5, and they're to do this constantly during their trials, and they're to have faith. Verse 6, as they're praying and they're asking God for wisdom, they're not to doubt. They're to constantly pray.

And then he continues to go on. He hasn't finished. Now, he's talking about verse six and carrying the idea still down to about verse eight, when he's talking about asking in faith and not doubting, and then he illustrates, verse seven, the man who ought not to expect that he'll receive anything from the Lord, that is the man who's doubting. He's not trusting, he's not believing. Being a double-minded man who's unstable in all of his ways. So there's no foundation, there's no security right there because of his doubting.

But then he focuses on the brother of humble circumstances. In fact, he focuses on two. You've got the rich man and you've got the brother of humble circumstances. So you've got someone who's poor and you've got someone who's rich. How do I know he's talking about poor and rich? Well, just by the fact that he brought in the rich man.

But verse 9, the brother of humble circumstances, he's to glory in his high position. He's to be thankful in the fact, even though he may be in poverty in his physical life, but in his relationship to Jesus Christ, he's rich. And then verse 10, the rich man, he's to glory in what? In his humiliation. You know what's interesting about the rich man and the poor man? They're brought to an equal level in their trials. Both are humbled by their trials. That tells us that's a good thing to have trials then, because they do humble you. They do reveal what your dependence is.

Now, for the poor man, he doesn't have really many physical things to depend upon. He may depend on his wisdom or his knowledge. But you have the rich man who has riches, and that's what he's depending on. So the rich man, he's to glory in his humiliation. In other words, glory means to boast. So you go back to the brother of humble circumstances, he's boasting in that his high position is in Christ, and you have the rich man, he's boasting in his humiliation.

Because like the flowering grass, he'll pass away. And then verse 11, he says, again, more about the rich and illustrating that. And he's carrying on the last line of verse 10. The flowering grass will pass away, for the sun rises with a scorching wind, withers the grass, its flower falls off, the beauty of its appearance is destroyed. So, too, the rich man, in the midst of his pursuits, will fade away. And so I may at this point want to write down some things about this, like what is this scorching wind that he gives reference to in verse 11? We all know that these kind of conditions do cause damage and decay to plants and so forth. But what is he actually referring to here as he applies this to this rich man? So these are some things, again, that I want to write down.

I would even write down things of what could be expected for the one who endures trials, because in verse 12 it tells me, "'Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial, for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love him.'" So there's obviously a blessing for persevering. There is a blessing for letting endurance have its perfect work. There is a blessing that is associated with having joy and trusting God as you go through this trial. And then he mentions, for once he's been approved, he will receive the crown of life. Now, is this talking about a literal crown? Are there any other places in the New Testament that talk about crowns? Again, these are things I'm writing down.

And he's saying here that this is going to be promised to those who love him. And really that gives me a lot of insight as well, because the one who is going to have joy, the one who is going to see that his trials are tests, the one who is going to endure through these trials is the ones who love him.

Do you love Jesus? It's so easy for us to go through the motions But we don't want to be guilty of forsaking that love. Part of our time in God's Word is demonstrating that we do love Him. We're spending this time with Him so that we can get to know Him, so that we can love Him better, so that we can obey Him more, so that we can understand what His will is for us, that we live for His pleasure. So even though you're doing all of these things and asking all of these questions and you're writing all of these things down on your pad, you've got to remember the most important part of all of this is that you love the Lord. And you're doing this because you want to draw near to Him.

And so as we bring this to a conclusion this morning, I want to ask you just that. Do you really love Jesus? Is He really your Lord and Master? Is He really the one that you live for every day? Are you spending unhurried time with Him? Are you interested in knowing Him better and knowing His Word?

Knowing Him and His Word is so key. and walking in His Spirit is key. These are things that are so essential and I pray for you this morning as you do this with me and as we spend some time over the next couple weeks talking about this entire process that you will glean from this and that you will apply this. In fact, I would encourage you after we're finished today, sit down with passage. Ask questions. Read it. Pray your way through it.

One of the things that we used to do was we would take Scripture and we would personalize it. Romans 6 was an early chapter of Scripture that I had learned years ago with a number of friends, and we would quote it to one another and we would use this passage as our help when we're going through temptation. I found out that the more that I quoted of it when I was under temptation, that the less appealing the temptation became. In fact, it eventually stopped. And that was my way of escape that God had provided from that temptation, or even from a trial. You could do the same thing. You don't have to be a pastor to do this.

You just have to be committed. So will you commit yourself to this whole process? Would you commit yourself to spending unhurried time with God? Would you let this be a Medo-Persian hour that's unchangeable, that you guard and protect and not let anything take it away from you? I hope and trust that you will.

Now we've said on all the other occasions, you gotta be a Christian. because God reveals His Word only to His children. And if you're here today and He's revealing to you that you're lost, that you're not saved, that you never have been saved, you've just been playing games with God, would you stop right now and pray? Would you ask Him to forgive you of your sin and come in and take residence in your life? that you're willing to surrender your life to Him? You're willing to commit your life to Him? Would you do that right now?

Well, as I conclude our time together and as I pray, you pray that. Draw near to the Lord as He draws near to you. Let's pray. Jesus, we thank you so much for this time that we've had together today. though that this process that we're talking about seems to be very detailed. Help us, Lord, to grasp it. Help us to make our time in your word better. Help us to shred these kind of bad habits maybe we picked up on through the years. And let's have a serious time with you in your word.

Lord, open the hearts of those who are not saved, that don't know Jesus. Change them this morning, Lord. Grant them the new birth. Grant them saving faith that they would repent and believe in you. We thank you for this time we've had together. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.