Come in and turn with me to the
book of James chapter 1. We'll begin in verse 8. James chapter 1, verse 8. Here the apostle James writes
in verse eight, a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. That phrase double-minded is
used twice in the scriptures by this same man named James. Double-minded means just, What
it says, it means to have two minds. It means to have two opinions,
a man who wavers between two thoughts. Double-minded means
to be indecisive, frequently changing, not firmly established,
irregular, not faithful or dependable, full of inconsistency. Double-minded,
James 1, 8. In verse 7, James says of the
double-minded man, let not that man think that he shall receive
anything of the Lord. In verse 8, as we just read,
a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. That word unstable
means the same thing, inconsistent. He wavers between two thoughts.
The word unstable also means double-minded. James is trying
to make a point here. And that is that man is by nature
double-minded. Shall not receive anything of
the Lord as long as he remains that way. Writing to believers, James says
in verse five, if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God
to give it to all, and that word men is italicized, meaning it
was added, but he gives to all liberally, and God gives to all
believers. That's who that's talking to.
That's who this letter was written to. You know, I remember someone
not long ago telling me, well, the Lord is not willing that
any should perish. And I said, who's that letter
written to? It's written to believers. All the epistles were written
to believers. He's not willing that any believer
should perish. He gives to all believers liberally. He gives wisdom to all who ask
for wisdom. And this is why, because they
see that they like it. God will give to all who believe,
not the whole world, If a believer lacks wisdom, let them ask for
wisdom, and God will give to any of them who ask wisdom. I
was thinking as John was praying to Mendego several times in his
prayer, he asked for things, asked for all of us, faith, believing,
mercy, grace. And if any man likes those things,
all he's got to do is ask. And God is liberally gives. Not to the whole world, but to
those who have a need. We always come back to that,
don't we? God gives spiritual things to those who ask. It's
not speaking of material things, but spiritual things. but seek
ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these
things, spiritual things, will be added unto you. God's righteousness
is a spiritual thing. Wisdom, faith, salvation are
spiritual things. If a child asks for anything
spiritual, if a child of God asks, let them ask in faith,
nothing wavering, single-minded. Lord, I need this and I want
this. I need this when the Lord is
faithful to give it. Let them ask with a single mind. When they ask for it, the believer,
they'll receive it. Isn't that a wonderful thing?
Now, it doesn't say if you ask for a new house or a new car
or material things, that's not what it's talking about. James
adds in verse six that the man who wavers is like the wave of
the sea that is driven with the wind and tossed. In another place,
the scripture refers to us being tossed about by every wind of
doctrine, unstable, double-minded. Turn over a couple pages. James
says in this same letter, chapter four, look at this, verse two. He says very plainly and simply
here, you have not because you ask not. Verse three, you ask
and receive not because you ask immense, that you may consume
it upon your lust. In other words, you're asking
lustfully for material, fleshly, earthly things, not spiritual. Verse four, ye adulterers and
adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is
enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a
friend of the world is an enemy of God. And you know what the
apostle John said? John said, love not the world,
neither the things that are in the world. If any man loved the
world, the love of the Father is not in him. First John 2.15. And back in James 1, verse 6,
James tells us plainly, simply, and directly. That's how the
gospels preach, plainly, simply, directly. We don't speak in riddles. We don't speak in fairy tales. We declare God's word as it was
given to us, simply, plainly. He says that if we ask in faith,
believing, we'll receive it. If we don't, we won't receive
anything from him. That's pretty simple, isn't it? Pretty direct. Waiver means the
same thing. It means to be undecided. It
means to be halt between two opinions. It means to be double-minded.
Do you remember what Elijah said to the people of Israel in 1
Kings 18, verse 21? He said, how long will you halt
between two opinions? If the Lord be God, follow Him. But if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not
a word. They were still hot between two
opinions. They didn't know if God was God or Baal was God.
Well, they were fixing to find out. Most folks today, even believers,
having an opinion about this and they have an opinion about
that. They have their thoughts on this and they have their thoughts
on that, regardless of what the Bible says. There's folks that
way. Well, you know, I know the Bible
says that, but I believe, it doesn't matter what you believe.
It matters what the Bible says. It matters what God says. What
does God say about it? Psalm 12, two, they speak vanity,
everyone with his neighbor with flattering lips and with a double
heart do they speak. That's our problem. The Bible
is a book of singleness. Every believer knows this. Have
we not all one Father? The question is asked. Hath not
one God created us? There is one God and there's
none other but He. But to us there is but one God,
the Father of whom are all things, and we in Him, and one Lord Jesus
Christ, by whom all things are all things, and we by Him." You
see the singleness of God's Word? It was to the believer, the child
of God that Paul wrote in Ephesians chapter four, there's one body
and one spirit and one hope of our calling, one Lord, one faith,
one baptism, one God and father who's above all. Well, that's
pretty narrow minded. God is narrow minded. Did you
hear me? God is narrow minded. We better listen to him. There's
one God and there's none other but He, seeing that it is one
God which shall justify. There is but one God and one
mediator. How many? One. between God and
man, the man, Christ Jesus, 1 Timothy 2, 5. Oh, thou believest, there's
one God, thou doest well. The devils also believe and tremble. The devils know that there's
just one God, and they know one day they're gonna have to deal
with him. The man and woman that believes the gospel is a single-minded
man and woman. And that's what I'm encouraging
you to be this morning, to be single-minded on the things concerning
God and His Christ. And we have a single message
that we preach and that we believe. We don't have two messages. We
don't have a message that we preach to the lost and say, okay,
now you sit down, and then we preach another message to the
believing. It's the same message. It comforts the believer and
it reveals Christ to the unbeliever. Paul was a single-minded man. Paul was a determined man. Turn with me to 1 Corinthians
2. We'll spend the majority of the
rest of our time here. 1 Corinthians 2, verse 1. Here Paul writes, I came to you
not with the excellency of speech or of wisdom. He said, I came
declaring unto you the testimony of God. Verse 2, for I determined
I'm of a single mind. I am determined one thing on
my mind, not to know anything among you save or accept what
Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That's my message. Paul was well-versed
in the Old Testament law. Paul had a great knowledge of
Greek literature. Paul was capable of conversing
with Jew and Gentile alike. But Paul was determined. He was
single-minded. He had only one thing on his
mind. I can't lay down at night anymore
with just one thing on my mind. My mind goes here, my mind goes
there. That's why I don't sleep well.
But Lord helped me to have a single-minded mind. Paul determined not to
know anything from anyone but one thing. What was it? Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. Jesus Christ, the only person
who can provide salvation and Him crucified, the only way that
a sinner can be saved. No other way. No other way. Now, men seem to think that there
are other ways, but there's not. That's why we declare the person
and work of Christ, which is Jesus Christ, He's the only person
who can save, and His perfect righteousness, which is the work
Christ alone did. Not hard. Impossible to believe,
impossible to bow to, unless God reveals it to you and gives
you life. And the only subject of Paul's
message was Christ, the Lord Jesus, and Him crucified. Who Christ was and what Christ
did. That's the title of this message. Who Christ was and what Christ
did. Paul's motto, you know, we talk
about having mottos. Paul's motto was this one thing
I do. One thing, I just do one thing.
Forgetting all those things behind me and pressing on to what's
before me. Just one thing I do. He always
came to the point quickly. We don't have the leisure of
procrastination, friends. We just don't. People are going
out to meet God every single second of every single day. I don't know how many, I don't
have an exact count, but 50 years out of high school, I think
this past year alone, I think we lost nine or 10, just in one
year. It was several of the years before.
Matter of fact, statistics show that 105 people die a minute. That's 1.78 deaths per second.
6,390 deaths per hour. We got here
a little before 10 o'clock this morning, so 13,000 people have
died in about the time we've been here, roughly. 153,000 deaths
per day. 153,000. 56 million deaths per
year. We've got to be single-minded people. Like our Lord, we must, we must,
we must be about our Father's business. Paul was a man easily
absorbed in one thought. Paul's subject was one that he
divided into two. So I repeat, the message of the
gospel is the person and the work of Christ. Well, don't I
have to know the doctrine of election? No. Don't I have to
know the doctrine of predestination? Nope. Don't I have to know this
and don't I have to know that? No, you've got to know one thing
divided into two parts. Jesus Christ, you've got to know
Him and you've got to know what He did in order to save a wretch
like you. He was crucified. He died in
your room instead to put your sin away. That's not hard. That's
not a hard Message to understand. Galatians 6.14, but God forbid
that I should glory, save, or accept in the cross of our Lord
Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto
the world. The world don't mean anything
to a believer anymore. Shouldn't, shouldn't. Now we
all have our moments, I know. Paul said, I'm crucified with
Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ live within
me, and the life which I now live in the flesh, in this body,
in this world, I live by the faith of the Son of God, not
my faith in the Son of God. Listen, if you start leaning
on your faith in God, pretty soon you'll make faith your God.
Did you hear me? People have, and people do every
day. But we live by our faith, the
faith of the Son of God, His faithfulness to God in my room
and state. Who loved me and did what? Gave Himself for me. I do not
frustrate the grace of God, for if righteousness come by the
law, then Christ is dead in vain. But Christ is not dead in vain.
So let us always exalt the master's person. God became a man. That
man is Jesus Christ. That's who you've got to trust
in. He's the only one that could have ever put your sin away and
gave you his perfect righteousness because he kept the law perfectly
for you and satisfied God's justice perfectly in your stead. No one
else could do that. And you sure can't do it for
yourself. God became a man. That man was Christ. He was a
real man. He wasn't a phantom. And may we always exalt the work
that He did for us. He was crucified. He was killed. He was buried, yet rose again.
And now He's seated at the right hand of God. Isn't that something?
And He's forever living. He forever lives. Eternally lives. Everlastingly lives. to make
intercession for you. He's praying to God on your behalf. Man, oh man, that's something,
isn't it? Paul declared Christ to be the
Son of the highest, the Son of God and God the Son. Co-equal
with God, not inferior in any way. The God-man, all God and
all man. The Old Testament declared that
he was coming. There's one coming. The New Testament
declared that He came. You know this. In the epistles,
the Christ's disciples told the message, He's coming again. He's
coming again. Christ was and is the wisdom
and power of God, in whom dwells the fullness of the Godhead in
a body. Bodily, that's what that means,
in a body. In Him dwells the fullness of
God. He must be worshiped as very
God of very God. And Paul spoke equally clear
on the Redeemer's work, especially upon his death. And how horrible
is our sin, so horrible that God must die to put it away.
You think about that. Our Lord Jesus did not die as
an example. I don't wanna hear that. I hear
men say that, well, he died as an example of how we must live.
Well, let me let you in on a little secret. You can't. You cannot
do anything, even with him as your example, in and on your
own. He has to do it for you. Christ
died as our Redeemer. The only one who could pay our
massive debt. I heard someone on the news here
say the other day how many trillions of dollars we're paying interest
on our debt as a nation. And if we go at the pace that
we're going now, we'll never get the interest paid. Well,
it's much more a massive debt, our sin debt, than our country's
debt. It's a massive debt. He was made
a curse for us, because curse is everyone. that hangeth on
a tree. How can one who died a felon's
death be honored and praised and boasted over? Because believers
are the felons that he died for. You're the felon. You're the
one that broke God's law. You're the one that will not
have Christ to rule over you. You're the guilty one, not the
Lord Jesus. The Christ of God was all in
all to Paul, and he's all in all to every single believer. And again, in verse one here,
Paul said, and I, brethren, when I came to you, not with excellency
of speech or wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. That word testimony there means
evidence. The evidence, the testimony of
the gospel declares God's love and God's grace and God's mercy
and the giving of his beloved son to be our savior and redeemer. In verse four, Paul added, in
my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's
wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and the power. Paul didn't talk about arts and
sciences and human wisdom or human persuasion. He spoke in
the power and demonstration of the Holy Spirit of God. Paul
said, I come to you as a plain spoken man. That's the way every
preacher ought to come. Plain spoken. I heard a man preach one time
and made about a 10-word sentence, and I'm gonna be honest with
you, I didn't understand one word of those 10. I had to look
every one of them up. What good is that gonna do anybody?
Unless you carry a dictionary around with you and it gives
you 20 minutes to look the words up. Talk to me plainly and simply. Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That's my only hope. That's my
only hope of salvation. Paul said, I came to you as a
plain spoken man. I came to you with a straightforward
message. I came to you as a redeemed sinner with evidence. I've got
evidence. I came with proof. I came as
a witness. You know, when a witness is brought
into a court of law to give testimony, the witness is often asked, do
you have any proof to what you're testifying? What did you witness? Can you tell us plainly what
happened? And Paul said, that's all I can
do. I gave God's testimony. There's
no higher. I have the testimony of God.
There's nothing truer. I have the witness of God. There's
none more accurate. The evidence of salvation is
Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Oh, and that's, those are such
beautiful words. It's not enticing words of what
wise men of the world have declared. That's the, this is the very
testimony of God himself. It's a single, simple, sovereign
message. Only one message. We say that
all the time, it's true. This then is the message. Jesus
Christ, God in the flesh, was crucified and slain by the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God. And you and I, who were
the ones who took our wicked hands and have crucified him. Paul said, this is all I'm determined
to know about you. This is all I want to know about
you. I desire to know nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I'm not here to tell you what
it is to be a Calvinist. There was a time I was interested
in that, not anymore. I'm not here to show you how
to be a good Christian. There is no such thing. There's
perfect Christians, those that are in Christ, but there's none
that are good in and of themselves. I'm here simply to tell you who
and what I know. I remember back in 1989 when
I moved here, I had heard all about the doctrine of Calvinism. I'd heard about predestination.
I bought books on the subject. I studied them. I could argue
with the best debater when it came to God's sovereignty and
God's election. And then I heard a man stand
right here and declare to me Jesus Christ and Him crucified
and God saved me by His grace. Because Jesus Christ is the only
hope I have. And Him crucified is the only
hope that I have. Who and what more do you and
I need to know to be saved? Huh? Tell me. Christ Jesus came
into the world, why? To save sinners. That includes all of us. All
of sin comes short of the glory of God. There's none that do
good, no, not one. There's none righteous, we're all sinners.
That's who Christ came to save. If you're a sinner, this is gospel,
this is good news. Mr. Spurgeon once said, if you
can tell me more about Christ than I know, I'll thank you.
And he said, if you can instruct me as to how I may become more
like Christ, how I may live near and fellowship with him and how
my faith in him may become stronger, I will be most appreciative.
If you can cause my belief in his holy gospel to become more
firm, I'll be ecstatic. But I won't be more saved. You
can't be more saved. You're either saved or you're
not. And you're saved by Jesus Christ and Him crucified. You
see, friends, we belong to a people who believe that neither pride,
nor intellect, nor pomp, nor knowledge can ever teach sinners
spiritual things. Only God can. I belong to those
whose mouths like bathing sucklings declare this one single message
of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Isn't that what you believe? I believe it. Because Christ
said it. I want no truth, but what He
says is truth. I have no ground for believing,
but what He says about a man's faith. Faith cometh by hearing,
and hearing by the Word of God. So Lord, enable me to hear, not
just anything, the Word of God. cause me to see. The only way
a sinner can be saved is that their sin be put away forever
and that they be made the righteousness of God, and I must add, in Him. That's the only way you can be
Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The only way that can be accomplished
is in Him. How many times do we read that
in the Scriptures? In Him, by Him, through Him. The Him is Jesus Christ and what
He did. The hymn is Jesus Christ, the
work is putting away the sin of His people. And He knew no
sin, and He had no sin, and He did no sin. His work exclusively
provided for the sin of those that the Father gave Him before
the foundation of the world. That's the beautiful thing about
election, is that God worked out our redemption before we
were ever born and before we could ever claim to have anything
to do with it. God settled that matter before
we was ever born. One who is perfect is going to
have to die to pay for your sin debt and my sin debt, and that
perfect one is Jesus Christ. You sound like a broken record.
Thank you. Thank you. I mean to. How so? By dying the death of
crucifixion on the cross. Paul determined, Paul decided,
Paul was convinced, distinguished, concluded to know nothing else. That's all I want to know. I
don't want to know what day you walked from the back of the church
to the front. I don't care nothing about the
day you joined the church. I don't give a flip about when
you was baptized. All I want to know is what do
you think of Christ? That was probably the most frequently
asked question that Paul asked. What think ye of Christ? What
think ye of Christ? What do you think of Jesus Christ?
Well, you know, I was baptized June the 12th, 1972. But what
do you think of Christ? You can get in the water and
get nothing but wet. The wrath, the judgment and condemnation
that you and I deserve, He suffered. The divine justice of God that
must be satisfied, He's satisfied. He's satisfied on the chosen
sinner's behalf. So I declare to you who can hear
my voice this morning that the real issue, the real solution
to our problem of sin is found in this urgent matter of life
and death question. What do you think of Jesus Christ? This is a personal question.
What do you think? I'm not gonna get in on your
righteousness and you're not gonna get in on mine. The only
way any of us are gonna get in is on Christ's righteousness.
What do you think of Christ? God who became a man and died
the death of a felon for you, what do you think of Him? If
someone, let's say you committed an awful crime, you got caught,
and someone took your room instead, said, he's got a 10 year sentence,
I'll take it, I'll go to prison for him. What would you think
of that man? You'd think highly of him. And the sad thing about it is,
is this message, the only message, the true message, is not preached in most churches.
The message found there is all about man. Not the God-man either, but men
who think that God is altogether such a one as they are. The message
found in religion is not what Christ did. The message of works
religion today is just that. It's about man's work. It's about
what man's done for God, not what God's done for man. How is man's work going to help
anything when our works are filthy rags? How's man's work gonna save anyone
when there's none that doeth good? There's none who can do
a righteous or a perfect work that God will accept. How's that
gonna help us? How's man's work gonna help us
when salvation is not by works of righteousness that we have
done, but by His mercy, the work that Christ did, we're saved.
But God's gonna solely, completely, and wholly save us on the finished
work of the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified. So again,
I ask you, are you single-minded? Are you determined by your own
experience to know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified? Now, I'll be the first to tell
you, I love the doctrine of election, but who can truly understand
such high mysteries as that? I don't understand it. I believe
it. Many today have the wrong idea of the doctrine of election.
They think that God looked ahead in time and saw if that man or
that woman was going to be a good Man or woman, or boy and girl,
or were they gonna accept Jesus? Were they gonna give Jesus their
heart? And then God elected them based
on what they did. That's salvation by works, nothing
short of it. Election is God choosing to give
life to a man or a woman that they might be able to see and
understand what God does for His elect people in Christ. He
died for them. Does it mean anything to you? The election of the Bible is
election in Christ. The redemption of the Bible teaches
always and gives special reference to the cross of the Lord Jesus
Christ. There are those who preach a
counterfeit election that do not even mention Christ. Through
Isaiah the prophet, God spoke and said, behold, my servant,
Jesus Christ, whom I uphold, mine elect, in whom my soul delighted,
and I have put my spirit upon him, and he shall bring forth
judgment to the Gentiles." Isaiah 42, 1. This speaks of giving
the judgment of truth to the Gentiles who were converted by
it. You know, the Jews didn't have
anything to do with the Gentiles, but God did. You can't believe in election
without believing that Christ is God's elect and that you're
chosen in Him. How are we chosen? In Him. According
as He hath chosen us, in Him. Before the foundation of the
world. That's when He did it. That we should be holy and without
blame before Him in love. And that's all that matters.
You can act holy and redeem in front of me, it won't get you
anywhere. Who am I? Who could think that their redemption
in any way could be apart from Jesus Christ and what He did? Some will say, well, that I don't
preach enough of my own experience. That man tell me that. He said,
you don't preach enough of your own experience. What's my experience
got to do with it? It's not my experience that saves
me. It was Christ Jesus who saved me by what He did on the cross.
Our experiences are nothing but wood, hay, and stubble. And it's gonna be consumed, and
you and I are gonna suffer loss. So will you, dear sinner, in
your faith, determine to know nothing but Jesus Christ and
Him crucified? Now, I could sit up here, and
we've got 10 minutes before 12, and I could open up the hymn
book, and we could sing, all the verses of Just As I Am over
and over and over, and your belly could start growling, and you'd
be thinking about the big whopper or whatever, and maybe I could
get you down front if I tried hard enough, but that ain't gonna
do you no good. What do you think of Christ? No gain found for me in my own
merit. There's nothing in me for me
to trust. There's nothing in me to rely
upon. And I'm not much on New Year's resolutions because I
could never keep them. We only wind up breaking them,
especially if our resolution has something to do with our
sin and why we sin. but a good resolution day in
and day out, not just first of the year, but every day would
be to determine to know nothing about ourselves or our own doings. I'm determined, Lord, it's my
resolution today and tomorrow and the next day to know nothing
about myself or my doing. Peter stood one day. He said,
Lord, though all men should deny thee, yet I'll never deny you.
And yet he was the first one that denied him. That ain't nothing to brag about. May God enable us to keep a single
eye on Christ and keep our faith fixed on Him alone without any
addition of our own works. Filthy rags. Without any addition
of our own strength. It's not by our strength. We're
without strength. When we were yet without strength,
Christ died for the ungodly. We just simply rest in who it
was that sacrificed himself for us in doing what we can never
do for ourselves. And as I said a moment ago, our
death And His crucifixion, our death and crucifixion would not
have put away the first sin, not the first one. But by the
sacrifice of Himself, the Lord Jesus put away all, all ever
sin. And that work's finished and
that work is accepted. and God in the flesh did it. His name is Jesus Christ. He
saved us by his own personal sacrifice. He was crucified,
murdered as a criminal, as one who had never committed a crime
or sin. Now, you can set a bird free
in a cage. You can set a bird free, but
that bird can be captured and re-caged. But you and I as believers
in Christ are made free. Big difference in setting free
and making free. This speaks of one who is set
free, and when they are, they grow in the grace and the knowledge
of the Lord Jesus, in the Lord Jesus, and the child of God grows
so rich in mercy and in grace by the Lord's mercy and grace.
that they'll never fit back in that cage. I can't fit in there
anymore. I've been set free and I've been
made free. In closing, turn with me to Romans
chapter 6. Let me read a couple verses here
for you. Romans chapter 6, verse 18. Romans 6. Verse 18. Being then made free from sin,
ye became the servants of righteousness. Look down at verse 21. What fruit
had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? For those
things is death, but now being made free from sin. and become servants to God, ye
have your fruit unto holiness and the end, everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death,
but the gift, gift, gift of God is eternal life. How? Through
Jesus Christ our Lord and Him crucified. Are you tired of hearing
that? No, never grow tired of hearing
that. Christ's person is the gift of
God. His work of substitution on Calvary's
cross is the gift of God. It's the gift of salvation. And
the child of God is no longer double-minded. They're single-minded
on the person of Christ. They are single-minded concerning
His finished work accomplished for them on the cross. What think
you of Christ? That's it. That's all that matters.