Sermon Study Guide | Series: What is a Follower of the Way? |
Sermon: Week 1 - The Mirror [Undivided Follower]| Scripture: James 1:1–8, 22–25  | Date: August 16, 2026

‍

James writes to followers of Jesus who were literally scattered, but his deeper concern is the scattering that can happen inside a person. His challenge is not to escape the places where they live, but to become whole, integrated people within them. This launches our four-week journey through James and a larger year of reclaiming the Way of Jesus: moving from simply knowing what Jesus said to actually building our lives around it.

‍

For this series we’ve developed a physical Journal for reflection and a What is a Follower of The Way — Resource Guide

CONNECT - “A Personal Reflection”

This section is designed to help you relate personally to the theme of the sermon. It encourages you to reflect on your own life experiences and how they connect to the message.

Nobody wakes up and decides, “I’d like to become scattered today.” It happens one reasonable yes at a time. A commitment here, an opportunity there, something for the kids, something for work, something we are afraid to miss; and eventually those individual decisions become a life we never consciously chose. If your calendar is a curriculum and your schedule is a syllabus, what is your life currently teaching you to become? Think beyond whether your schedule is busy. What promises are underneath the things getting your best time and attention, and are those promises actually delivering? Share with your Group

ENGAGE - “Exploring the Scripture”

This section invites you to dive into the biblical passage, discuss its meaning, and apply it to your life through thoughtful questions.

Read James 1:1–8 and 22–25 together.

• James writes to “the twelve tribes in the Dispersion”—followers of Jesus who were literally scattered. Yet he never tells them to escape their circumstances. Where are you externally settled but internally scattered right now?
  
  
• The message said, “You are graduating from a class you never knew you enrolled in.” If your current habits continued forming you for the next ten years, who would you become? Would you want to become that person?
  
  
• Read James 1:2–4 again. The word translated “count” carries the idea of accounting—placing something in the proper column of a ledger. James is not asking us to pretend painful things feel joyful. What trial or interruption have you been filing under waste that God may be using under formation?
  
  
• An Undivided Follower counts the interruption as the assignment. How does hurry make it difficult to see people as assignments from God rather than interruptions to our plans?
  
  
• James moves from being “complete, lacking in nothing” in verse 4 to “if any of you lacks wisdom” in verse 5. What might God be developing in us through seasons when we discover we do not have what we need?
  
  
• James says God gives wisdom “generously to all without reproach.” In other words, there is no divine sigh or eye roll when you ask again. What have you stopped asking God for because you think you should have figured it out by now?
  
  
• James describes the double-minded person with the unusual word dipsychos—literally, “two-souled.” Where are you currently asking God for direction while quietly keeping your own backup plan ready?
  
  
• Read James 1:22–25. Both people encounter the same mirror. The difference is that one glances and leaves while the other stays. Where have you clearly heard something from God but failed to stay with it long enough for it to change you?
  
  
• James calls us to become “doers” of the Word. The idea is not merely activity but making something from what we have heard. What is one thing Jesus has already taught you that needs to move from information to formation?
  
  
• James grew up around Jesus and still initially missed who Jesus really was. Where might familiarity with church, Scripture, or Christian language actually make it easier for you to hear without responding?

APPLY - “Putting the Scriptures into Action”

This section challenges us to take what we’ve learned and implement it in practical ways in our daily lives.

• Practice the Daily Consistency Audit. At the end of each day this week, write two questions by hand: Where did my actions match my words today? Where was I double-minded? Don’t try to fix everything. Stay at the mirror long enough to notice what God is showing you.
  
  
• Look at your calendar for the next seven days as though it belonged to someone else. What would you conclude that person loves, fears, and believes will make life meaningful?
  
  
• Leave some margin for interruption. Create one pocket of unscheduled time this week and pay attention to the person or need you might normally hurry past.
  
  
• Identify one place where you have been praying with a backup plan. Bring it honestly to God and ask for wisdom without prescribing the answer.
  
  
• Choose one thing God has already shown you. Instead of learning something new this week, act on something you already know.

PRAY - “Seeking God’s Guidance”

This section offers a short prayer to help us center our hearts and invite God to work in our lives through his scripture.

Jesus, our lives can become divided without us ever deciding for them to be. Our calendars fill, our attention fragments, and slowly we become people we never intentionally chose to become. Thank you that you meet us in the middle of our scattered lives. 

Give us the courage to look into the mirror of your Word and stay there. Teach us to see interruptions as opportunities to love, to ask you for wisdom without assuming you are disappointed in us, and to trust you without quietly keeping another life in reserve. 

Show us where our actions and our words have separated. By your Spirit, make us whole. Form us into undivided followers who do not simply know the Way of Jesus but increasingly live it. Amen.

FIVE-DAY DEVOTIONAL

The Daily Consistency Audit

For each of the next five days, read the Scripture slowly before reading the reflection. At the end of each day, return to the same two questions:

Where did my actions match my words today?
Where was I double-minded?

DAY ONE — SCATTERED

Read James 1:1.

James begins his letter to “the twelve tribes in the Dispersion.” Scattered people.

They did not choose their circumstances. They were following Jesus in places that did not necessarily reinforce their faith, and James never tells them to run somewhere easier. Instead, he goes after another kind of scattering—the fragmentation inside us.

You can live at the same address for years and still be scattered. You can be successful at work, present at church, involved with your family, and still feel like a different version of yourself keeps showing up in each place.

Following Jesus is not about adding a “Jesus part” to an already crowded life. He wants to form the whole person.

Reflect: Where are you externally settled but internally scattered?

Pray: Jesus, you know every version of me. Bring together what I have allowed to become divided and teach me to follow you with my whole life. Amen.

DAY TWO — MOVE IT TO ANOTHER COLUMN

Read James 1:2–4.

“Count it all joy” can sound cruel when life hurts.

But James is not telling hurting people to enjoy suffering. The word translated count carries the idea of accounting. Think about a ledger. James is asking you to reconsider which column something belongs in.

We often put interruptions, disappointments, delays, and suffering under waste. James says there may be another column: God is doing something here.

That does not make the painful thing good. It means pain does not get the final word about what God can produce through it.

Maybe the interruption you keep asking God to remove is one of the places where he is developing steadfastness in you.

Reflect: What are you currently filing under waste that God may be asking you to see as a place of formation?

Pray: God, I will not pretend this is easy or good. But I trust that you are good. Show me what you are forming in me here. Amen.

DAY THREE — THERE IS NO SIGH

Read James 1:5.

“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God.”

Some of us are very comfortable with the first half of that sentence. We know we lack wisdom. It is the asking that becomes difficult.

Maybe you have asked before. Maybe it is the same weakness, the same confusion, or the same decision again. Somewhere along the way, you learned that mature people should eventually stop needing help.

Then James tells us what God is like.

He “gives generously to all without reproach.”

No sigh.

No eye roll.

No reminder that you asked this last year.

No tally.

God is not annoyed by your dependence on him. Dependence was always the invitation.

Reflect: What would you ask God for today if you were completely convinced he was not disappointed that you needed to ask again?

Ask him.

Pray: Father, I need wisdom again. Thank you that my need does not exhaust your generosity. Teach me to depend on you without embarrassment. Amen.

DAY FOUR — TWO-SOULED

Read James 1:6–8.

James calls the divided person dipsychos—“two-souled.”

That is an uncomfortable picture because most of us know exactly what it feels like.

We ask God for wisdom while quietly engineering another solution. We say we trust him while keeping control within reach. We pray, “Your will be done,” while already deciding which answers we will accept.

James is not attacking honest questions. Questions can be part of deep faith. He is confronting divided allegiance.

An Undivided Follower is learning to become one person before God.

Reflect: Where are you asking God for something while keeping a backup plan warm?

What would trusting him there actually require?

Pray: God, I do not want to live two-souled. Show me where my words say trust while my actions say control. Make me undivided. Amen.

DAY FIVE — STAY AT THE MIRROR

Read James 1:22–25.

Two people look into a mirror.

The first sees himself and walks away. The mirror worked perfectly. He simply did nothing with what it showed him.

The second stays.

That is the difference.

We live in a culture built for glancing. Another notification. Another article. Another sermon. Another podcast. Another idea. We can consume enormous amounts of spiritual information without giving any one truth enough attention to change us.

James invites us to gaze rather than glance.

Maybe you do not need another insight today. Maybe you need to return to the thing God already showed you Monday.

Look back over your answers from this week.

Where is a pattern emerging?

Stay there.

Then do something with what you see.

Reflect: What has God shown you this week that you are tempted to walk away from without changing?

Write down one concrete response.

Pray: Jesus, keep me at the mirror long enough to change. I do not want merely to hear your words. Help me build my life around them. Amen.

Keep the practice going: For the remainder of this series, end each day with the Daily Consistency Audit. Don’t judge a single day in isolation. Over time, look for the places where God is making your beliefs and behavior look more like one life.

If you have feedback on this guide or ideas that would help your group engage more deeply, we’d love to hear from you. 

Your insight helps us continue growing as a church that wrestles honestly and walks faithfully together. Contact msummers@menlo.church

‍