Let Them Ask
Text: James 1:5-8
Introduction
1. Illustration: Automaker Henry Ford asked electrical genius Charlie Steinmetz to build the generators for his factory. One day the generators ground to a halt, and the repairmen couldn't find the problem. So Ford called Steinmetz, who tinkered with the machines for a few hours and then threw the switch. The generators whirred to life--but Ford got a bill for $10,000 from Steinmetz. Flabbergasted, the rather tightfisted car maker inquired why the bill was so high."
a. Steinmetz's reply: For tinkering with the generators, $10.
b. For knowing where to tinker, $9,990. Ford paid the bill.
2. When we started our study of the Letter of James we talked about how our troubles can be an opportunity of joy. We also talked about asking the right questions in the midst of our troubles. Instead of asking, "God, why are you doing this to me?," we should ask, "God, what are you trying to teach me?"
3. In our text today, James tells us to...
a. Ask For Wisdom
b. Ask In Faith
c. Ask With Steadfastness
4. Let's stand together this morning as we read James 1:5-8.
Proposition: When we face troubles in our life we should ask God for the wisdom to understand what He is doing in our lives.
Transition: First, James tells us to...
I. Ask For Wisdom (5).
A. If You Need Wisdom Ask
1. As believers we believe that everything that happens has a purpose because we believe that God has a purpose for our lives.
2. Jeremiah 29:11 (NLT)
11 For I know the plans I have for you,” says the LORD. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.
3. However, there are times in our lives when things seem to be going against us
A. During these times our faith can be severly tested, and it may become difficult to hang on to our faith.
B. While we are walking through those spiritual deserts we may wonder why God is allowing us to go through these moments.
4. James tells us in v. 5, during those difficult times, "If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you."
A. The first question we need to answer is what does James mean by wisdom?
B. Wisdom: (Sophia) Practical wisdom, Christian enlightenment, a right application of knowledge. Wisdom in the Bible is often coupled with knowledge. In anticipation of our needing guidance and direction, God tells us to ask for wisdom, assuring us of generous response (Word Wealth, New Spirit-Filled Life Study Bible, 1385).
C. The wisdom that we need has three distinct characteristics:
i. (1) It is practical—The wisdom from God relates to life even during the most trying times. It is not a wisdom isolated from suffering and trials. This wisdom is the tool by which trials are overcome. An intelligent person may have profound ideas, but a wise person puts profound ideas into action.
ii. (2) It is divine—God’s wisdom goes beyond common sense. Common sense does not lead us to choose joy in the middle of trials. This wisdom begins with respect for God, leads to living by God’s direction, and results in the ability to tell right from wrong.
iii. (3) It is Christlike—Asking for wisdom is ultimately asking to be like Christ. The Bible identifies Christ as the “wisdom of God” (Barton, Life Application New Testament Commentary, 1071).
D. The wisdom which may be had by asking with unwavering faith is not intellectual knowledge or philosophical speculation, but spiritual understanding of the purpose of the troubles.
5. But we might be thinking, "God's awfully busy, he might not have time for my insignificant problems," or we might say, "Won't God get made at me for asking? Won't he consider it a lack of faith?"
6. James aswers those questions for us by saying, "...He will not rebuke you for asking."
A. Rebuke: (oneidizo - on-eye-did-zoe) This word originally meant to behave in a very juvenile and immature way. Then the word came to denote mocking, ridiculing, scolding or insulting, and using worlds angrily or sarcastically. This verse assures us that God gives wisdom without reminding us of our unworthiness (Word Wealth, 1633).
B. You may ask God for the wisdom you need without fear, for God gives without holding your failures or lack of wisdom against you.
C. This is the assurance, with which the Christian approaches God, that God is not a harsh Father who responds to our needs by reminding us of our faults.
D. Christ has made atonement for our sin; we receive justification by responding with faith, not by trying with good deeds to become righteous enough to deserve God's favor.
E. This salvation by grace, the very heart of the gospel of Christ, will certainly not be contradicted by God when we come to him for wisdom.
F. God responds to his own people with grace his undivided, unwavering intent always to give good gifts (Stulac, 41).
B. Ask God For Understanding
1. Illustration: Wisdom is the power to see and the inclination to choose the best and highest goal, together with the surest means of attaining it (J.I. Packer, Knowing God, 80).
2. God assures us that He will be with us even in the midst of our troubles.
a. Isaiah 43:1-3 (NLT)
1 But now, O Jacob, listen to the LORD who created you. O Israel, the one who formed you says, “Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name; you are mine. 2 When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you.
3 For I am the LORD, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior...
b. God never promised us that there wouldn't be troubles.
c. He never promised us that there wouldn't be deep waters.
d. He never promised us that there wouldn't be rivers of difficulty.
e. He never promised us that there wouldn't be fires of oppression.
f. However, he did promise us in the deep waters he will be with us.
g. He promised us that we won't drown in the rivers of difficulty.
h. He promised that the fires of oppression will not burn us.
i. He tells us not to be afraid, not just when things are going good, but especially when things are going bad!
j. He assures us that He is our God and we are His people.
k. He declares that He will be with us during difficult times and if we need the wisdom to see what he is doing all we need to do is ask!
Transition: James also tells us that when we ask, we should...
II. Ask In Faith (6).
A. Be Sure Your Faith Is In God Alone
1. So James tells us if we need wisdom to understand what the Lord is trying to do in us during our troubles that all we have to do is ask. However, he now tells us that the asking has a condition that needs to be met in order to hear from God.
2. He says we must ask in faith. In v. 6 he says, "But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind."
A. The one condition for receiving this gift of God is faith—being sure that we really expect God to answer.
B. God will generously give wisdom, but we will not receive it if we do not have confidence that God will answer the request.
C. That lack of confidence reveals a doubtful mind. “Doubt” means “a divided mind.”
D. Doubting here has nothing to do with doubting whether God can do something; rather, it describes a people “divided” between being self-centered and being God-centered.
E. This is the reason why James adds the idea of the wave, because it really means to be driven and tossed between self and God.
F. The behavior of sea waves is unsettled, going back and forth, driven by the wind, like the doubter’s mind.
G. Such a person wavers between choices and may, in the end, make no decision at all. Circumstances become the decision makers in that person’s life.
H. When God’s promises and commands are given equal authority with our feelings and desires and the world’s ideas, the result is an unsettled sea of indecision and chaos (Barton, 1072).
3. There are certain distortions of this teaching common today which should be recognized.
A. The first distortion occurs within what is popularly known as the "name it and claim it" philosophy, when Christians are taught that they should name whatever they need in faith and so claim it as given to them.
B. The dangers are the misplacing of faith and the raising of unbiblical expectations.
C. Christians are sometimes led, in effect, to place their faith in the force of their own believing, and then to expect freedom from hardship or deprivation.
D. What James is prescribing is something quite different: faith in the grace of God, which enables faith to be exercised even within hardship and trouble.
E. A further distortion of the biblical teaching occurs when Christians treat James's warning against doubt superficially, taking it to require a willful suppression of mental doubts.
F. This can become an unrecognized attempt to manipulate God by one's own power of positive thinking.
G. The error has left many in bondage to fear, afraid of their own thoughts and afraid of the God who might hold their doubts against them and therefore not grant the wisdom needed.
H. The result is a crippling of people's faith and a perversion of the very truth James is teaching: that God gives freely, without finding fault (Stulac, 42).
4. So let's look at this in it's proper perspective. James is not saying that we can manipulate God with positive thinking. On the other hand he is saying that we should expect God to answer.
a. Would you give something to someone if when they ask they would say, "Not that you're really going to give it to me!"
b. Of course you wouldn't. Then why should God.
c. God loves us and cares for us. He wants what's best for us, and He knows what that best is better than we do because He know and sees things we do not.
B. Expectant Faith
1. Illustration: Faith for my deliverance is not faith in God. Faith means, whether I am visibly delivered or not, I will stick to my belief that God is love. There are some things only learned in a fiery furnace.(Oswald Chambers in Run Today's Race).
2. When facing troubles in our lives we need to believe that God loves us and will, in His time, show us what he is trying to teach us.
A. Matthew 6:30 (NLT)
And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith?
a. One of the greatest, if not the greatest, truths in Scripture is that God loves us.
b. It teaches that God loves us so much that He is willing to sacrifice everything, even His own Son, for us.
c. And it is because of His great love for us that He allows us to go through times of testing and proving.
d. Several places in Scripture it talks about the fact that fire is used to purify gold and silver. When heated these precious metals impurities rise to the surface and are easily skimmed off.
e. You my dear friends are far more precious to God than silver and gold, and he allows times of trouble in our lives to purify the imperfection in us.
f. If we will trust Him, ask Him for wisdom during these trials, and believing that He will answer, He will!
Transition: Not only should we ask in faith, we should also...
III. Ask With Steadfastness (7-8).
A. Their Loyalty Is Divided
1. James continues his thoughts on asking in faith, telling us that we need to continue to be steadfast in our faith.
2. In v. 7 he says, "Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord."
A. "Such people" is a somewhat derogatory reference to the doubter, whom James has just compared to the tossing wave.
B. Here he is further characterized as "double minded" and "unstable."
C. The Greek word being translated here literally means "double souled."
D. It is as though one soul declares, "I believe," and the other in turn shouts, "I don't!"
E. This sort of instability is not only apparent when the man prays, it marks "all he does."
F. In his personal life, his business life, his social life, as well as in his spiritual life, indecisiveness negates his effectiveness.
G. A person like this will not "receive anything from the Lord."
H. But one may wonder how this man is different from the anguished father who cried, "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24).
I. Such an exclamation seems to suggest that the father was "a double-minded man." But there is a difference. The father was not oscillating between belief and unbelief.
J. He desired to believe—and even asserted his belief—but because he felt keenly the inadequacy of his faith, he asked for help in believing.
K. He was not facing in both directions at the same time like the "double-minded man" of James 1:8.
L. In spite of his conscious weakness, the father had set his heart to believe. And Christ responded to his faith and healed his son (Mark 9:25-27).
M. In response to this kind of faith, God will give wisdom to those who ask for it, and will enable them to persevere in times of trial (Burdick, The Expositor's Bible Commentary – Volume 12: Hebrews through Revelation, 169).
3. James continues this thought in v. 8 when he says, "Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do."
A. When loyalty is divided, a person is drawn in two opposite directions.
B. His allegiance is divided and because of his lack of sincerity he vacillates between belief and disbelief, sometimes thinking that God will help him and at other times giving up all hope in Him.
C. Such a person is unstable is everything he does, not only in his or her prayer life. The lack of consistency in their exercise of faith betrays their general character (Ruthven, 1633).
D. These people may “trust” God and claim to be believers, and yet be filled with doubt, keeping other options open in case God does not prove to be dependable.
E. Wavering people are walking contradictions. Such instability is revealed not only in their prayers, but in all they do.
F. When indecisiveness marks a relationship with God, that instability will affect all of life (Barton, 1072).
B. Steadfast Belief
1. Psalm 51was written by King David about a year after he had an adulterous affair. While his men were off to war he was home relaxing. The story results in a series of events that went from adultery to deception and finally murder to cover his tracks and hide his transgressions. When his sin caught up with him David wept and grieved deeply. Through his tears and pain he wrote Psalm 51as he clutched words like "Have mercy" (v 1); "Blot out my transgressions, wash away all my iniquity" (v 1-2); "Cleanse me, wash me" (v 7); finally leading to verses 10-12.
We now appreciate more deeply why David pleaded with God to renew a loyal heart within him. David compromised steadfastness with corruption. He wanted steadfastness back. Through the pain of his misbehavior and sin God redeemed a broken man. Through his pain David learned the art of being loyal or steadfast and became staunch in his pursuit of God.
2. Clinging to our faith in God in the midst of hardships is the key to being an overcomer.
A. Habakkuk 3:17-19 (NLT)
17 Even though the fig trees have no blossoms, and there are no grapes on the vines; even though the olive crop fails, and the fields lie empty and barren; even though the flocks die in the fields, and the cattle barns are empty,
18 yet I will rejoice in the LORD! I will be joyful in the God of my salvation!
19 The Sovereign LORD is my strength! He makes me as surefooted as a deer, able to tread upon the heights.
B. It's easy to follow God when everything is going good and life is both hunky and dory, but real faith is still believing and trusting when life is falling down around your ears.
C. Real faith is trusting God when there's no money in the bank and a pile of bills on your counter.
D. Real faith is not knowing where your next meal is coming from but sitting down at the table with a fork in your hand!
E. Real faith is praying for rain during a drought and showing up with an umbrella!
F. Don't believe God because of the circumstances, but rather believe God in spite of the circumstances!
Conclusion
1. In our text today, James tells us to...
A. Ask For Wisdom
B. Ask In Faith
C. Ask With Steadfastness
2. Three things to remember...
a. In the midst of your troubles ask God to open up your eyes, your ears and your heart.
b. In the midst of your troubles trust God regardless of what is going on around you.
c. Keep trusting and keep believing in spite of your circumstances.
