“Wisdom for trials”BibleClass.com.au Teaching Series

Series: Faith that Works: Studies in the Book of James Part: #3

Main Scripture: James 1:5 - 7Teacher: Dr Paul Iles

Date: 17.02.2013

The MP3 audio of the study upon which this transcript is based and a learning guide are available from http://bibleclass.com.au/

Inline, direct scripture quotes are italicised. Block quotes are indented.The New King James Version is used unless otherwise stated.

This transcript has undergone minor editing to ensure readability.

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Faith that Works

S

tudies in the book of James

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IntroductionRemember that this section of James is dealing with the personal trials that come to the individual in order to test and prove our faith. The section extends from 1:1-18.

We will discover as we continue to examine these trials that there are those which are meant for our good. But from verse 13 onwards there are trials that are meant for our harm. James makes a clear differentiation between the two kinds. Although the same Greek word is used, its form in the latter case is slightly altered to indicate that it is intended for evil. James says that such trials do not come from God.

But in the verses prior to verse 13, we are talking about the trials which God brings to us and intends only for our good.

Wisdom for TrialsIn our studies we are up to considering verse 5:

James 1 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without re-proach, and it will be given to him.

This is not a change of subject, but rather a development on the theme of trials from the previous verses.

Ask for wisdomJames is now talking about wisdom because there are trials which come up in life concerning which we do not know what to do, and it’s important to realise that. Don’t ever take the attitude that you know what to do all the time - that’s a mistake. When in a trial, you are not just looking to suit yourself or to do what’s right for you - that’s what the world will tell you to do - but rather, you are looking to do what God wants you to do. If you like, you’re asking, “What is the right thing to do? Which thing is honouring to God?” And in order to know the answer to that in the various situations of life, we require wisdom. That is, we need to ask for it.

This is the thinking of someone who is truly a Christian and who wants to use their faith, in the realisation that it is there to be used in daily living for the glory of God.

Wisdom means, “Knowing what to do and how to do it.” And whether it’s concerning family, business, church or whatever avenue of life, you’re often not sure of precisely what to do. Some may be familiar with the feeling of standing still, completely overwhelmed. It happens to all of us at some point or other.

It is a great comfort to know that we can always come back here to verse 5: God is the source of wisdom, and without fail will give it to any of us.

You may be very educated and have no end of university degrees, but that doesn’t mean you are wise. You may have no education whatever, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be wise. This is something that comes from God, available to all from the poorest to the richest. None of us ever need to lack wisdom.

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I cannot recommend more highly than you read the book of Proverbs and get a grip on wisdom [Editor: there is a book study on Proverbs at http://bibleclass.com.au/]. Proverbs tells us that we must realise that we haven’t got it, then that we need to get it and then go searching for it. And wisdom can bring joy and contentment to our hearts, even when living in the midst of trials.

We can be sure that God has the right answer. Although the problem might not go away and our circumstances might not change, going through the trial God’s way will, in the final analysis, bring peace and strength and contentment.

This is not the way that the world finds contentment. When are people normally content? When they’re rich? When nothing bad is happening? The Christian is different. They understand this: they rest in the Lord, knowing what these circumstances are all about. They are about testing and trying our faith to make is stronger and fuller. That realisation is a product of wisdom which comes from God.

Unwise Christians are a tragedy, but we have all been there. We blame our circumstances, our church, other people... But so often we are where we are because we have failed to exercise the wisdom which comes from God by going through trials properly.

Proverbs tells us that we can be three kinds of people: simpletons, fools or scoffers.

The simpleton’s pitfall

What is a simpleton? We think that’s an insult, but Proverbs doesn’t use it as an insult. Solomon tells the young person that they are a simpleton purely because they are not equipped with the knowledge and experience to understand. In other words, they need to take in information. That is where we all start. Are you perfectly happy to come before the Almighty in all His wisdom and confess to Him that you don’t know? That you need to know? That you need His knowledge?

The scoffer’s pitfall

Some people are scoffers. The scoffer is someone who doesn’t listen to advice and never takes on new information. They never say as much, but whenever they hear advice they don’t listen. They lean to their own understanding and they do it their way regardless. You can’t teach a scoffer anything because they have never realised that they were and are a simpleton. They need to understand their need for knowledge and help.

I am sure that you and I can look back on times in our life when we thought that we knew. But the reality was that we didn’t know that we didn’t know. We had the attitude of the scoffer.

It is terrible when you meet a Christian person who never seems to get wisdom. Their lives are chaotic, irrational, erratic and destructive. It rebounds into their family, their work and their church life. Actually, we will see in James that they become unstable in all their ways.

When you and I do this in our lives, we need to come to a point where we realise that we’ve made a mistake. We made a mistake because we didn’t acknowledge our need for help, decide to open our minds to advice and ask for wisdom from the God who gives it liberally.

The “I’m too wise” pitfall

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Proverbs also addresses the wise person. You may think that, because he is wise, he doesn’t need to learn wisdom. That is wrong. A wise person is always learning. They have learned about their own weaknesses and failings; they know themselves. The wise person knows that they are prone to mistakes. Therefore, the wise person will be ready to receive more wisdom.

The education pitfall

A knowledge of these attitudes to wisdom exposes two potential dangers.

The first danger is education. If you are educated you may be lulled into the notion that you know it all. As for myself, I got a degree in medicine, but how much did I know when I started my first year as a doctor? Nothing! I stumbled into a large emergency department where everyone comes in half dead and my first serious situation quickly made my entire degree look ridiculous. This principle is relevant to all young people, especially since many of you are more educated than your parents. You must never look down your nose at your parents. Stop that! Your parents are wiser than you are if they are normal Christians who have been on the road longer than you have.

The experience pitfall

The second danger concerns ageing. As you get older, don’t get so rigid that you won’t learn and take on new information, especially with respect to reviewing what you thought was always the right or correct thing. Always have a teachable spirit; an attitude of listening and learning. Every situation in life will still teach you something. Every person that you meet and have to do with will teach you something, even if they are younger than you or on a different social level. The wise man gets wiser, humbler, more careful and more thankful to God every day.

The request for wisdom from God, as described here in James is impliedly an acknowledgement that there is a right way to deal with the issue. A way in which I can both honour God and bring peace and victory to me. It is true that wisdom is a key to a successful life in that respect. But success is not to be defined as money, education, standing in the community or any thing such as that. It is joy in your heart and peace with God and others. Wisdom give you that. You can deal with the matter through wisdom and in the process learn to live your life in peace, contentment and godliness. And the scripture tells us that there is great gain in Godliness.

We must not measure a person by their worldly success, imagining that a poor person hasn’t got the secret of life instead. Indeed, they probably have.

I remember doing medical work at a nursing home for some 25 years. It was often that I would be caring for someone of no real consequence. Perhaps a quiet old lady whom nobody ever knew too well. She never had any great successes or pedigree to her name, but you could sit down and talk to her and she would tell you more about life and the Lord than you could often hear in a church service. I learned more from those people who had learned the wisdom of life; learned themselves and learned the Lord, than I think I have from any other person in all my life.

James is simply saying here that, if you lack wisdom in a trial, then please go and ask.

Keep asking

The word, “ask” in the original Greek is in what is called the imperative mood. If you think of something that is passive - feeble, weak or indifferent - it is quite the opposite to that. It is

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imperative that you do it because, if you lack the wisdom you will do the wrong thing. Once you’ve taken one wrong step, your pathway will progressively get more twisted and you may never reverse it. It is therefore vitally important that, if you lack wisdom (and a wise man always has a sense of that in every situation) then ask with an imperative mood!

Who gives liberally...God is the person we ask because He is the source of all wisdom. Additionally, He is “the God who gives...” We could just stop there, couldn’t we? Let that sink in. God is a God who gives.

How does the ungodly person think of God? They think of Him almost as a being with a clenched fist, ready to jump on them and punish them. The Christian doesn’t have an understanding of the God of the clenched fist, but the God of the open hand as He gives and gives and gives again. That is something at which you will never cease to wonder - that God gives so much to you on a daily basis.

He gives more grace as our burdens grow greater, He sends more strength as our labors increase; To added afflictions He adds His mercy, To multiplied trials He multiplies peace.

When we have exhausted our store of endurance, When our strength has failed ere the day is half done, When we reach the end of our hoarded resources Our Father’s full giving is only begun.

His love has no limits, His grace has no measure, His power no boundary known unto men; For out of His infinite riches in Jesus He gives, and gives, and gives again.

- A. J. Flint

He saved you because He gave His Son for you. God is the God of the open hand.

He gives because that is His nature and the believer has discovered that. The scope of His giving is to all, generously according to verse 5.

The word, “Liberally” in verse 5 means, “As with a single eye.” That means that when God gives, His single objective is the benefit, the welfare and the blessing of the one to whom He is giving.

Remember therefore, when you go to Him in prayer that you are going to a God who gives, and He gives generously with one intent: that you will be richly blessed by what He gives to you. There is no double motive in what He is doing - just a single eye - one motive: your good.

It is for this reason that, if you pray and ask for a thing, but the answer you get is not what you wanted, God did not make the mistake. You or I made the mistake. And it is often the case that when you and I are looking for answers and they don’t seem to come, we get very upset and discontent or overwhelmed. We need to stop that. We should go back and ask for more wisdom and maybe the answer is, “Wait and see!” God has heard your prayer because He is a generous, single-eyed God who is allowing things to happen which are only going to be for your good. That is why James says, “Count is all joy!”

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This is what God is like toward us in our real, daily life.

Without reproof...Next we see that he gives without reproof. That means that he never chides you for being ignorant. He never gets angry at you for being stupid. If you ask Him for wisdom, He will grant it to you.

Asking in faithVerse 5 instructed us to ask. Verse 6 tells us the attitude with which we must ask.

6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.

The key elements are: faith and no doubts. When someone is doubting, it’s a bit like a wave on the sea. It doesn’t decide where it’s going to go, but it is driven by the wind. It lacks stability and control, and that is a picture of the person who does not ask in faith.

Sometimes a person can pray, and in their minds they have a niggling thought that, “He won’t listen to me.” That is asking without faith. Maybe you think it’s only a little problem. Maybe you think the Almighty isn’t much interested in you. Be careful! This is especially a pitfall amongst those who have a young faith.

It is not a question of whether God is interested in your problem, but whether God is interested in you and strengthening your faith in order that you may grow in faith.

When you ask, therefore, you believe that He actually wants to resolve your problem in the sense that He is actually interested in your welfare. Not only does He want to do it, but He can do it! Never imagine that anything is too hard for the Lord. But more: never imagine that He won’t do it!

He wants to. He can do. He will do.

Not Double Minded...There was some difficulty with the translation of this phrase, because James made it up to describe the situation. The idea here is of a person who is facing two ways at the same time.

We tend to ask Him, but not really want Him to give us the answer or to show us the way because we have already made our minds up about it. Already we are on the path that we think is right. We are going to take the path anyway, but we think we can ratify it by asking the Lord. Surely everyone has fallen into that trap! I call it prayer with a bias. James says it’s double-minded. Never ask as though you are looking for the answer, but the all the while facing the other way because you’re already looking toward or heading down your own path.

This is sadly very common. You see it most in family situations. For example, a father may say to his son or daughter, “I don’t think what you’re doing in situation X is right,” and the answer comes back, “But I have prayed about it!” As though their prayer ratifies what they are doing. That is extraordinarily common.

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Mostly I see this when it comes to the matter of getting married amongst young people. Be sure, young person, that the partner you’re running after isn’t the one you chose but the one God gave you.

7 For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

What a tragic outcome! You’ll get no answer. You’ll get no guidance. You will be unstable in all your ways.

By contrast, a Christian, as they grow, becomes predictable, stable and steadfast.

Not DoubtingWith respect to the grammar of verse 6, the Greek indicates the present tense and middle voice. That is a complex way of saying that the idea of consistent, ongoing practice is being conveyed. In other words this person’s spiritual life is practiced not in a two-facad way but in an unwavering way.

The two-faced way is to face God with some measure of respect and honour, but all the while having made your mind up. So something within ourselves is facing the other way. The grammatical tense of the verse is saying that this person is asking in this way because that is the kind of person that he or she is within themselves. That kind of person, who is of this mind, won’t receive anything from the Lord. Furthermore, because it is their underlying mode of operating, they will end up being unstable in all of their ways.

If this is your habitual practice then, there is something wrong inside of you which must be corrected. This is part of the struggle of a Christian learning to know themselves and understand that their rebellious nature asserts itself in rebellion against God’s word.

Never give in to the desire to do it your way, in independence from God. The wise man will always admit that he doesn’t know and will turn to the Lord. The simpleton must admit that he doesn’t know. The scoffer must admit that he needs to shut his mouth and listen.

Therefore, if you have a decision to make in any avenue of your life, go to God and ask for wisdom lest you make the wrong decision. Furthermore, go to Him in a single-minded manner without doubting and you will discover that He is the God who gives and is concerned for our faith.

See you in the next study.

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