Last month, I wrote about James 1, but there were a few verses that I didn’t cover, so I wanted to spend a bit of time to tie up loose ends from the last post. The last post dealt with trials and temptations and the differences between the two. I covered all of James 1, except for about 6 verses in the middle. So today I’ll be talking about the rest.
5 If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. 6 But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 8 Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.
The first thing we see stressed in these verses is wisdom. Now the importance of Wisdom is nothing new. Wisdom has always been important and was discussed throughout the Bible. In the Old Testament, the entire book of Proverbs is dedicated to wisdom. Proverbs 4:7 explains that we should strive to gain wisdom.
The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding.
It says, Though it cost all you have, you should get it. In one sense, Wisdom is expensive. It costs us everything we have. It costs us our youth, because it is the result of living and learning and experiencing trials. You need to give up and live through years of your life in order to acquire wisdom. To acquire wisdom, you need to go through failures and successes. You need to be disappointed sometimes. But if you allow yourself to be trained by life, and you submit to God’s plan for the universe He created, you gain wisdom through your trials. Remember, those trials are exactly what James was talking about before this interjection about wisdom. He mentioned how trials come. I wrote about the trials last post, but skipped this verse because I jumped ahead a few verses to talk about differences between trials and temptations. But trials are necessary to give us the information that something is wrong. It’s similar to when your body gives you pain when it needs something, whether it is the need to remove your hand from the hot stove, or when it needs dinner and sends hunger pangs. So you can compare tough times in life to bodily pain. It’s a signal, and when we experience trials it means that our will is conflicting with God’s. Sometimes in the trials, we get to a point where we realize we’ve been doing wrong or messing up, or at least not seeing the world the way God intends for us to. That’s the emotional or mental version of our physical sensation of pain. And its a way to come to realize we are lacking something. James explains in verse 5 that it might be wisdom that we are lacking. Unfortunately, it is typical for us to want to keep our pride intact and deny that there’s anything lacking. Sometimes we’ll make other excuses. “I just had bad luck.” “I can’t catch a break” “Maybe if I just had more time or money or whatever”. But the Bible tells us that we are lacking wisdom. Popular motivational speakers and pseudo religious preachers might tell you “You have everything you need deep down inside to succeed.” or “Search within”. They tell us what we want to hear, and that message is usually that we are self sufficient. We want to be told “you’re good.” We want to be assured that there’s nothing wrong on our end. But James is saying nope. You LACK. You are missing something.
And that something could be wisdom. To understand and actually acknowledge that we lack something is not enough, though. It’s a mandatory first step, but it doesn’t get us what we need.
So as sinful human beings, we all have a few roadblocks with gaining wisdom. Sometimes we don’t even want it, especially when we tend to realize that we lack it when we are right smack in the midst of a trial.. Put yourselves in the situation where you are experiencing a trial. Our goal typically doesn’t involve gaining the wisdom. Other goals seem more pressing than “growing in wisdom.” We want the solution to our particular problem or the trial that we face. And then we want to move on. We want to get on with our lives. Going back to the analogy of physical bodily pain, it’s like when we have pain in our bodies, we want the pain to just go away first and foremost. But then we don’t care to figure out why it’s there. If you have a painful tumor or infection, and all that you take is morphine to dull the pain, that’s dangerous, because you don’t address the root issue.
So let’s say we are going through a trial, and let’s give us the benefit of the credible doubt that we actually go to God with our trial. If we do go to God in this case, we just ask Him to fix things, instead of asking Him to change us and grow us. We treat God like a repairman instead of our guide. That’s being generous and saying that we even ask God. Usually we don’t; at least I know I don’t. I know myself, and I usually tend to try and fix things or motor through my trials on my own instead of asking God. Sometimes the motivation for that is that I think I can handle things on my own. Overconfidence in my abilities, and therefore under-confidence in God’s . Sometimes it’s that I don’t want to admit vulnerability. (Pride) Other times, I am so focused on the trial that I am not even thinking of God, but my own experience. In that case I have tunnel vision. But for whatever reason, I don’t ask God. So that’s another problem that sometimes we try and solve things on our own. We don’t ask God. He might be the last place we go for help. We ask anybody but God. It’s good to ask others for advice, especially when we consult Christians. We are called to strengthen each other. But the way we do it right is by being a community of believers IN God who rely ON God for everything. The Bible calls us to dependence on God. We just celebrate American independence on July 4th. Our nation prides itself on independence, but as Christians, we need to celebrate our dependence on God. We should be desperate for God’s provision in our lives. The Word of God, (the Bible) is the primary tangible source of our wisdom. It’s our way of understanding the nature of God and the world. So we should search scripture for wisdom. And when we study scripture, James tells us we should also ask God directly for wisdom. That means we need to be a people that take our problems to prayer. So let’s look at James 1:5 again.
What we find when we start asking God, is that God gives answers. God answers prayers, but not the way we always expect. Not necessarily by giving solutions to problems but He does answer prayer. He gives something better than just the solution or the “quick fix.” He gives wisdom. God GIVES to us. Not just a bit, but he gives generously. We see how generous God is by the gift he gave us in salvation. He gave his only begotten Son for our redemption. And that’s the same way that God gives wisdom. James tells us that God gives generously without finding fault. That’s amazing. Because we are sinners, and we all have so much fault. But when we approach God, he doesn’t find fault. He gives mercifully. This level of mercy is something kind of unique to God’s personality. Only God can give this much mercy. Did you ever ask a person for something and they found fault? That type of person will give you what you ask, but then they also give whole bunch more. They will give you a list of your faults. They will tell you why you’re wrong, or how you failed, or explain how they were right the whole time. They will remind you of times that you’ve come to them before and how they helped you in the past. They give something to you but it comes with strings, or a lecture, or hard feelings. We have all experienced this type of “giving”, both on the receiving end, but also on the giving end. Humans don’t forget transgressions or sins. We aren’t able to give like God gives. And when we receive from people, it’s not like receiving from God. God is not like us. He doesn’t find fault. But God promises that he will remember our sins no more.
Isaiah 43:25
“I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.”
Jeremiah 31:34
No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the Lord. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”
This verse in Jeremiah is quoted in Hebrews 8 and again Hebrews 10. It’s important because this promise in Jeremiah 31 is the promise of the New Covenant. This is the promise of Jesus Christ. This is what was fulfilled in the sacrifice of Jesus for us. Now remember, God is omniscient, so He knows everything including our sins. He can’t forget. But when the words “remember no more” appears here, it’s not an attack on God’s omniscience. It means that when we come to God with a humble heart, he doesn’t recall the sins or the failures when we approach. He doesn’t hold these sins against us. He nails the sins to the cross. Through Christ, through this New Covenant, the relationship we enjoy with God is one of mercy. But we take advantage of this relationship far too infrequently. Back to James 1:6-7
6 But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 8 Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.
Verse 6 says when we ask we need to believe and not doubt. We need to believe that we are getting through to God. We need to believe He exists and is able to help us. We need to believe that we are justified and able to approach him, so that means we need to believe in Christ’s completed work on the Cross. Sometimes we approach God with apologies and think that we don’t deserve to get an answer from him. We take our sins to God, but we don’t take them to God for repentance. We take our sins to God believing that they will nullify our standing before Him. We take our sins to God expecting that He won’t answer our prayers because of them. Our sins create an unhealthy doubt that Jesus is enough. That’s being double-minded because it illustrates a lack of faith in the sufficiency of Jesus works on the cross and his salvation. In James 1:9-11
9 Believers in humble circumstances ought to take pride in their high position. 10 But the rich should take pride in their humiliation—since they will pass away like a wild flower. 11 For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant; its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way, the rich will fade away even while they go about their business.
James then addresses another issue. He moves away from wisdom and starts talking about the people who are in humble circumstances verses the rich. James says if you are in humble circumstances you should take pride in your high position. What high position is he talking about? He isn’t saying to take pride in your poverty. He doesn’t tell people who are underachievers or underpaid to take any pride in a bad situation. If you can’t hold a job because of laziness, lack of training, disagreeability or any other reason, the resulting poverty is not something to take pride in. Back when I was in school people would almost have a pride in being a misfit, or behaving badly, or getting bad grades. He isn’t saying to take pride in that. He isn’t saying to be proud of the poverty or proud of any of the humble circumstances at all, no matter the cause. He is saying to take pride in your high position. So he’s talking about your position in God’s Kingdom. We are sons and daughters of God. We have been adopted as heirs to a Kingdom. We have been called to an eternity in the presence of Almighty God. It’s so much more of an important thing than whatever temporary condition we are in here on earth. People who are wealthy here should take pride in their humble position? Which humble position is he talking about? Again, he starts explaining that the rich will pass away. The sun rises, it scorches, it withers away and its beauty is destroyed. So the rich are supposed to take pride, not in their accomplishments here on earth. They are supposed to take pride in the fact that they will pass away. Take pride in the fact that you will be dead someday? Basically, that’s the idea. The point is that pride that people have should never be in what happens here. Our pride should be in what happens in eternity. Any possessions, wealth, property, prosperity that people have here is not something that will be enjoyed eternally. So the rich need to understand that they won’t be around forever; their wealth is fleeting. And that’s a GOOD thing. Because we have a BETTER thing afterward. In both cases, believers are taking pride in their place in God’s kingdom. This applies not just to money, but everything that people could possibly take pride in on this side of heaven. If you are rich in beauty or athletic abilities or popularity among people or achievements, or anything that you enjoy here, you should take pride in the fact that it is passing away and something better is ahead. If you are in any sort of humble circumstance, you can take comfort in the fact that the circumstances here are temporary, and what’s eternal is better.
I spent a lot of time wondering why these verses were in the midst of a whole explanation about trials and temptations. Why did James want to talk about the whole rich man / poor man thing now? What does this have to do with lacking wisdom? Why do either of these two topics get dropped in the middle of the first chapter of James, which is mostly focusing on trials and temptations?? I think the answer has to do with faith. James said in verse 2 and 3 that we need to consider our trials a pure joy, because testing of faith produces perseverance. Then in verse 5 he said to ask for wisdom, but verse 6 says to ask in such a way that you have faith and belief, without any doubt. Finally in verses 9 and 10 he starts explaining that the poor man has a high position to take pride in, and the rich man should be proud of his humiliation. They both seem like oxymorons on the surface. They both run counter to what we are told by the world. And whether you are in a rich circumstance or a poor one, both require the believer to have faith that the situation that is not what it seems on the surface. The common theme among all of these ideas is our faith. The great connector is faith, and James is calling the reader to faith. If you are going through a trial, then understand that your faith might be being tested. And trust that there will be good fruits that come from it. If you lack wisdom, ask God. And Ask in such a way that you have faith that God will provide wisdom. Have faith that God wants to help you. Have faith that in Jesus, you can approach God as one who is approved and justified. Don’t believe in your sufficiency, but have faith in the completed work of Jesus Christ on the cross. Believe that God is a God who loves His children and will answer their prayers. If you are in a humble circumstance, have faith that God will exalt you to a high position and you will share in experiencing the Glory of his Kingdom. If you are rich in money or in ANY way, take pride in the fact that the particular blessing that you are enjoying now is only temporary and will pass away. But have faith to know that in God, you will inherit something much better. The next thing he says in James 1 which we mentioned last post, but I’ll mention again, is to have faith that God’s word is true, and if you have that faith, you will be a doer of the word, not just a hearer of it. James tells us that every good gift is from above. That includes faith. So James’ message is not a call to have you all drum up faith on your own. James’ message is to critically ask yourself if you have that faith, and then go to God and ask for faith if you lack it. Just the same way you’d ask for any other gift, like wisdom. In Mark 9, there was a story about a father whose son was possessed by a spirit. The man explained how long the boy had been suffering. He then said
22 “But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.”23 “‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for one who believes.” 24 Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”
The Bible doesn’t require us to have everything perfect before we start asking God. If that were the case, nobody would be able to or qualified to ask for anything. The Bible doesn’t require us to have all the answers, or a faith that moves mountains regularly. (To be honest, I’ve never seen a mountain remove itself). When we study the Bible we learn that God gives us faith. Our faith comes from God, so when we lack it, we ask Him like that boy’s father from Mark 9, and He can help us to overcome our unbelief.