You Know You’re Getting Old When…
1. You and your teeth don’t sleep together.
2. Your try to straighten out the wrinkles in your socks and discover you aren’t wearing any.
3. At the breakfast table you hear snap, crackle, pop and you’re not eating cereal.
4. Your back goes out, but you stay home.
5. Your idea of a night out is sitting on the patio.
6. Happy hour is a nap.
7. You’re on vacation and your ENERGY runs out before your money does.
8. It takes longer to rest than it did to get tired.
9. You are on first name basis with your pharmacist
10. Getting “lucky” means you found your car in the parking lot.
11. It takes twice as long - to look half as good.
12. Everything hurts, and what doesn’t hurt - doesn’t work.
SHOULD KNOW YOU ARE GETTING OLDER BY THE WISDOM YOU HAVE!!
1:5 But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
• Anybody here not lack wisdom?
• Most serious and most common when we don’t have wisdom in the midst of a difficult situation.
James reminds us that trials are certain and unavoidable.
The question is not what to do if trials come, but what to do when trials comes.
Verse 5, he tells us how to pray and what to ask for when trials come.
James tells us that we should ask for wisdom.
Most always ask for deliverance or revenge but rarely wisdom
What is this wisdom for which we should pray?
First, wisdom is not knowledge. It is possible to have knowledge and not have wisdom.
‘Education without instruction in religion and morals will merely result in a race of clever devils’
We live in a day and time when man’s knowledge is expanding rapidly.
• 1845-1945(inch) 1945-1975(3inches) 1975-today(out of sight)
A new pill that patients can take. It is not a pill that relieves pain or cures some sickness but is actually a camera that will take pictures of a person’s intestines.
Who would have ever thought that the day would come that we would be swallowing cameras?
Man’s knowledge has made him capable of doing things that defies imagination.
Yet the knowledge explosion of our generation does not necessarily translate into man being wiser.
A person can have a PhD from Harvard or Yale and not be wise. You can know a lot about certain things and be considered an expert in a certain field, yet not be wise.
Wisdom is not knowledge - not education - not the possession of information.
Job 32:9, “Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgment.”
What is wisdom? “the God-given insight into our human circumstances and situations that enables man to see God’s will…”Wisdom is seeing life from God’s point of view.
James talks about seeing our trials from God’s point of view and evaluating from His perspective.
1. WISDOM REQUIRED!
“Unless there is within us that which is above us, we will soon yield to that which is around.” When James talks about wisdom he is talking about something within us that comes from above that equips and enables us to deal with that around us.
A. The Lack Of Wisdom. “If any of you lack wisdom…”
The word “lack” speaks of something that is “absent or missing.” It is very obvious that James views an absence of wisdom as a serious matter.
Wisdom teaches us to that our trials are not without rhyme and reason. ROMANS 8:28
Wisdom equips us to face our trials and enables us to trust God with the purpose and end result.
If we do not see that trials have a divine purpose, our trials can make us bitter, leaving us frustrated, discouraged, and complaining.
We need to pray so we can see trials from a divine perspective and be able to face them.
A lack of wisdom leaves us unable to see the trials for what they are and leaves us without the ability to face and cope with the trials.
B. The Longing For Wisdom. “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God…”
“ask” means more than just asking for something. The word carries the idea of “desiring, craving, or begging.” James is telling us that our asking for wisdom comes from a longing for wisdom. When we face the trials of life we should ask God for wisdom.
We should ask with a deep desire that God give us what we need to understand and face our trials.
Wisdom is the ability to understand that trials have a divine purpose and the ability to face our trials and go through them.
2. WISDOM RECEIVED! “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God…”
“God-given insight.” This wisdom does not come from within us or from any human or earthly resource. This wisdom only comes from God. “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God…”
You can’t get this wisdom from reading a book. You can’t get it from going to Seminary.
You can’t get it from a counselor. It only comes from God.
A. Wisdom Comes From A Giving God. “gives to all men.”
James says in verse 5 that God, “gives to all men.” God is a great giver!
James 1:17, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.”
The “good” and “perfect” gifts that we enjoy all come from the hand of God.
Do you need wisdom? Then ask for wisdom. God will give you wisdom if you ask.
B. Wisdom Comes From A Generous God. “liberally.”
James tells us that God gives “liberally.”
Word literally means, “to stretch out.” It pictures God stretching or spreading out a table.
He bountifully and liberally bestows His gifts upon us.
Psalm 68:19, “Blessed be the Lord, who daily loads us with benefits, even the God of our salvation. Ask God for wisdom and He will not only give you wisdom but wisdom in abundance.
C. Wisdom Comes From A Gracious God. upbraideth not.”
James also tells us in verse 5 that when we ask for wisdom that God “upbraideth not.”
The word “upbraideth” means that God does not “scold” us for asking.
You can come to God as many times as you want and never have to worry about Him saying, “Why are coming back again? You just asked me yesterday for something.”
3. WISDOM REFUSED! We must ask in a certain way in order to receive.
1:6 But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind.
1:7 For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord,
1:8 being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
A. Unbelieving Prayer. ask in faith, nothing wavering
We read in verse 6, “But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.”
We must ask in faith and not ask in doubt or unbelief. We are not to waver in our asking.
The words, “nothing wavering,” simply mean, “do not doubt.”
James describes the person who doubts like the waves of the sea. They are up and down, tossed about by the wind. Lack of faith will leave us hot one day and cold the next; up one day and down the next; in one day and out the next.
We are to pray in faith, which simply means that when we pray we must believe that God will give us the wisdom for which we ask.
James speaks of those who do not believe when they pray as a double-minded man.
“A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.”
The word literally mean, “two-souls.” There is a divided heart.
There is a part that says, “I believe” and a part that says, “I doubt.”
B. Unanswered Prayer. let not that man think that he shall receive any thing
Why is faith necessary when we ask for wisdom? Verse 7, “For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.”
Who is “that man?” It is the doubting man.
James says that If we will not ask in faith, we might as well not ask at all.
We will not receive one thing from God if we do not ask in faith. Our prayers will be unanswered.
Are you going through a trial? Then you need to ask God for wisdom.
Wisdom will enable you to look at your trial from God’s perspective and when you see it from God’s perspective, you will face your trial with a different attitude.
Andrew Murray was going through a personal trial. One morning while he was eating breakfast, his hostess told him there was a woman downstairs that was going through a great trial and wanted to know if he had any advice for her. Murray handed her a piece of paper he had been writing on and said, “Give her this advice I’m writing down for myself. It may be that she’ll find it helpful.”
“In time of trouble say,
‘First, He brought me here. It is by His will I am in this strait place; in that I will rest.’
Next, ‘He will keep me here in His live, and give me grace in this trial to behave as His child.’ Then say, ‘He will make the trial a blessing, teaching me lessons He intends me to learn, and working in me the grace He means to bestow.’
And last, say, ‘In His good time He can bring me out again. How and when, He knows.’ Therefore I say, ‘I am here (1) by God’s appointment, (2) in His keeping, (3) under His training, (4) for His time.’”
