Ask For Wisdom Series

I. There are certain realities of life common to all believers – 1:2-1:18.

A. Trials and testing will come and can be overcome -- 1:2-8.

3. Ask for wisdom -- 1:5.

Text – James 1:5 (KJV)

If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

INTRODUCTION

James is not the James who was one of the 12 apostles and killed by Herod Agrippa I in the YEAR AD 44. Instead, James was the half-brother of Jesus (Matt. 13:55), the one who was a leader of the Jerusalem church (Acts 15:13; Gal. 1:19), the one Paul called a pillar in the church (Gal. 2:9), and the one, along with all the elders whom Paul went to see at Jerusalem after the third missionary journey (Acts 21:18).

COMMENTARY

If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

If any of you lack wisdom,

In speaking about wisdom, James develops the principle that we can trust God to provide for us. “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.” (James 1:5). It may seem surprising that we can ask God for wisdom about the tasks of everyday work—making decisions, assess¬ing opportunities, trusting colleagues or customers, investing resources, and so on—but James tells us to “ask in faith, never doubting” that God will give us the wisdom we need. Our problem is not that we expect too much help from God at work, but we expect too little (James 1:8).

It is essential to grasp this. If we doubt that God is the source of all we need, then we are what James calls “double-minded.” We have not yet made up our mind whether to follow Christ or not. This makes us “unstable in every way,” and we will not be able to accomplish much for the benefit of anyone or able even to “receive anything from the Lord” on our behalf (James 1:7). James is under no illusions about how hard it can be to trust God. He knows all too well the trials his audience is already beginning to experience throughout the breadth of the Roman Empire (James 1:1–2). Yet, he insists that the Christian life must begin with trusting God to provide.

The perfection that Paul speaks of should not be understood as happening in this life, since the Apostle immediately supposes that they lack wisdom, and he did not doubt that they wanted it. Instead, he assumed that they did. Saints often want wisdom to decide if God is their maker, for they do not look upon themselves as a product of mere chance. God has his hand upon them, as He did Job; who does not ascribe his calamities to the thieving Chaldeans and Sabeans, to the boisterous wind, and the malice of Satan, but to God. They want wisdom to observe the sovereignty of God in them, and bow unto it, and be still, and know that he is God, who does all things well and wisely; and likewise to see and know that God is love, and very faithful, and always for good. They shall learn useful lessons from Him, and mainly to take the Cross well, to bear it patiently, and even to count it all joy, and reckon it to be right, necessary, and useful: it requires abundant wisdom to learn all this, and act upon it.

Moreover, this may be applied to other cases as well, in which wisdom is wanted. Men want wisdom for the ordinary affairs of life, and especially the people of God; for the children of the world are wiser in their generation, for themselves and posterity, and in the management of worldly affairs, than the children of light; and to detect the providences of God, make good use of them, and behave suitably under them, and not be elated too much in prosperity, nor be cast down, and become distressed in adversity. But to take into account that the one is set against the other, and both work together for good. Saints need wisdom in spiritual things; they want more grace, which is the truest wisdom, and more extensive knowledge of the Gospel, which is the wisdom of God, the hidden wisdom of God. They lack the understanding to know how to walk with them without, and towards them that are within, so as becomes the Gospel of Christ: and as this is more or less the case of every one.

Next, the Apostle moves on to the thought of heavenly wisdom, not the knowledge of the deep things of God. Still, that which can make us wise unto our latter end “Hear counsel, and receive instruction, that thou mayest be wise in thy latter end.” (Proverbs 19:20). Few may be able, save in self-conceit, to say with Isaiah “The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned;” (Isaiah 50:4), and, on the other hand, the wisest and most gifted of men may be lacking in the wisdom descending from above.