The PursueGOD Sermon Podcast

A church that truly values the Bible does much more than place a leather-bound book on the pulpit each Sunday morning. You can tell a church values the Bible when it treats Scripture as God’s inspired, authoritative Word in every decision, message, and daily action. They teach the whole counsel of God, submit to its truth even when culture disagrees, and lead people into a real relationship with Jesus Christ.

We are finishing up a 10-week journey through the book of James. Across this series, we’ve tackled some of the most challenging topics in the New Testament: examining whether a person is truly saved if their actions don’t reflect it, looking at how faith impacts our speech, and recognizing what worldliness really looks like. James is famous for his emphasis on a “faith that works”—calling believers to actively live out their faith rather than just talk about it.

We've all heard stories about the power of prayer. Maybe it was a last-second prayer before a high school football game that miraculously ended in a win. But what does the Bible actually say about the true power of prayer?

Today, we are in Week 9 of our 10-week series through the book of James. As we approach the end of this letter, James pivots to a topic that is foundational to the Christian life: prayer. Interestingly, seven other New Testament letters end with an explicit encouragement to pray, proving just how vital this spiritual discipline is to the early church and to us today.

While writers like Paul often used the end of their letters to ask for personal intercession—asking regular believers to pray for their boldness in chains rather than a prison break (Romans 15:30, Ephesians 6:19, Colossians 4:3)—James aligns more with general "keep praying" passages like 1 Thessalonians 5:17. However, James offers far more practical detail on how and when to pray than any other letter.

In our previous study, we examined the danger of ideological worldliness—how bad thinking inevitably leads to bad living. As Romans 12 famously reminds us, real transformation only happens when God changes the way we think.

This week, we are turning our attention to financial worldliness. Financial worldliness is simply the practical application of wrong thinking about wealth, and it is most clearly exposed in our checkbooks and bank accounts. James presents five stark warnings regarding riches. While these words were penned 2,000 years ago, they are arguably more relevant today than ever before.

Last week, we looked at James’s warning about “friendship with the world.” That lesson heavily focused on what you do—which is a major theme throughout the book of James. We exposed bad “acting,” from high-grade moral failures to the low-grade, subtle compromises. The truth is, worldliness has a sneaky way of creeping up on us when we least expect it.

But today, we are going to pivot from how you act to how you think. James calls this “wisdom.”

Here is the fundamental truth we have to come to terms with: Bad acting starts with bad thinking. Long before you ever act out on a high-grade or low-grade sin, you start thinking about the world in the wrong way. And in today’s culture, this is tougher than ever before. We are constantly bombarded with a flood of ideas. Many of these ideas “ring true” because they sound kind, tolerant, or loving on the surface—or they simply appeal to our “flesh.” But upon further inspection, they are completely unbiblical.

In our walk of faith, it is easy to assume we are doing just fine as long as we avoid the “big” sins. But as we dive deeper into the book of James, we hit a challenging question that forces us to look closely at our hearts: What does worldliness really look like? James doesn’t mince words. He calls worldliness exactly what it is—”friendship with the world”—and warns that it places us in direct opposition to God.

If you’ve ever watched a major soccer tournament like the World Cup, you’ve likely witnessed a familiar scene: a player goes down hard, clutching an ankle and writhing in apparent agony. You think their career might be over, but a minute later, they get right back up and sprint down the field. There is a massive difference between someone faking an injury and someone who is truly helpless.

When it comes to living out our faith, Jesus calls us to have a compassionate heart toward the actual helpless. In the fifth week of our study in James, we move from the words of our mouths to the actions of our bodies. Having genuine, saving faith means transitioning from “tongues and thumbs” to becoming the hands and feet of Jesus in a broken world. This looks like compassionate Christianity in action, defined by three clear markers.

We are officially in week two of our series through the book of James. Last week, we started with a bang. We discovered that James, the brother of Jesus, wrote this letter to scattered Jewish Christians facing immense persecution in the early church. He wasted no time addressing a massive question: What can we expect from the Christian life? His answer wasn't a prosperity gospel; it was a reality check. We can expect all sorts of trouble. Becoming a follower of Jesus doesn't place you in a protective bubble. In fact, you might encounter more trials. But James reframed these challenges not as a problem, but as an opportunity for God to purify and strengthen our faith.

It was a highly practical start to our series. Today, we continue digging into chapter one. You might assume James is going to stay in that strictly practical lane as he pivots to talking about temptation. However, we are actually going to get a little theological and historical today to answer a fundamental question: Did James believe in the gospel of grace?

At first glance, this might seem like a strange question. James was a leader in the early Christian movement; of course he believed in grace! Yet, throughout church history, the book of James has been incredibly controversial. This controversy stems from an apparent contradiction between James’s emphasis on good works and the Apostle Paul’s foundational doctrine of salvation by faith alone.