The Book of James, God’s Recipe for Answered Prayer, James 1:5-8 - Lesson 3

Our main study will be of verses 5-8 of James 1, but before we begin I want to make further comments on our passage of last week.

We read in James 1:2-4,  My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

We sing many songs with words coming out of our mouths but the message of those words has not made it to our hearts in a way that we live those words.

I sing the song where I tell the Lord that I am pressing on the upward way, telling him that new heights I’m gaining every day with the prayer that the Lord will plant my feet on higher ground.

But in answering this prayer am I ready for the adversity that may come in order to reach this higher ground?

I think many times we simply want the Lord to reach down and boost us up to a higher plane without the trials and difficulties that come with the quest for higher ground.

There are no elevators to the tops of mountains and in order to enjoy the victory of conquering that mountain climbers always have to overcome great struggles.

Someone has said: "The heights charm us, but the steps do not; with the mountain in our view we love to walk the plains."

But if we expect to catch a gleam of glory bright and stand on the mountain top we must be ready for the trials it takes to get there.

James has told us that the trials will come for it is God’s will to perfect his children.

It is the Father’s will to work works that bring patience to His children, to bring His children to a state of completeness, a place where His children conform to his Son.

In that effort God chooses to bring trials into our lives as a part of His sanctifying process.

Every adversity tests the strength of our faith.

Every adversity met by calling upon God for grace increases strength for the next trial for there is no cessation of trials in the Christian walk.

Every practice mile of the athlete, every hurdle jumped, every pole vaulted, every javelin thrown, brings greater strength.

But not greater strength to rest on ones laurels, but greater strength to run faster, to jump higher, to throw farther.

You may ask that your feet be planted on higher ground but as long as your heart beats there will always be still higher ground to be gained in the Christian walk.

Trials bought into our lives as a result of serving Christ will push us up to and beyond our limits.

This is where our Father wants us, for this is the only place where we will recognize our dependence upon Him and call for help in time of trouble.

It is so easy to become self sufficient in good times and forget that the only safe place is in the Lord, good times or bad.

If trials bring us to have a trust in God and God alone then we can indeed count it all joy when they come into our lives.

Whenever I think upon this idea I am led to Psalm 107.

This psalm tells of those who see the works of the Lord and the wonders of the deep.

These are not those who stand on the shore afraid to enter the water.

But these are they that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters, those that are seeking higher ground.

They are those who come to see the stormy wind, the waves that mount up to the heavens.

These are those to reel to and fro and stagger like a drunken man and are at their wit’s end.

But that end brings them to cry unto the Lord in their trouble and when they do he maketh the storm a calm so that the waves are still.

Our Father wants us at times to be at our wit’s end for at that end we recognize our weakness and our need to depend upon God and call upon Him for help.

A man named Edwin Lutzer said this: God often puts us in situations that are too much for us so that we will learn that no situation is too much for him.

That is why ye are to count it all joy when ye fall into diverse temptations which again I say means all sorts of trials and testings while in the Lord’s survive.

As God’s children the lesson to be learned in life is that we have nothing to offer God, and that we need everything from Him whether it be in good times or bad.

Life’s lesson from our Father is that we are not self sufficient and if we think we are, we lie to ourselves.

Every trial is designed to show that we must call upon our maker to supply what we lack.

All of the Christian walk is a learning process whereby we recognize our limitations and only when we do that, will we call upon God’s grace to meet the need in our life.

The Christian who is growing does not avoid adversity but willingly chooses to go down to the sea in ships for only by doing that and coming to the place where he sees his limitations will he see the works of the Lord.

One of the marvelous things about adversity, about trials is that very fact that they reveal to us our limitations for that is where God comes in if we let Him.

If we hold back in our service to God, if we choose to stay on the shore we choose to go through life, rarely calling upon the Lord for help, relying only on ourselves.

I think of the trials that our young people accept when they are called upon to play the piano in church.

That acceptance of that trial brings to their mind their limitations and a great need to call upon God, even at their young age, to help in time of trial.

To resist the perfecting work of God brought about by trials is as if a raw block of marble chose to resist the pounding of the mallet on the chisel of the sculptor.

To resist is to remain a block of marble instead of conforming to the sculptor’s will.

Contrary to the nature of the old man James tells us to rejoice with every chip of marble that the chisel brings for every chip brings us closer to the will of God for our life.

This is the wisdom of the ages and James is careful to tell the reader from whence wisdom comes for in:

James 1:5-8 we read,  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.  ⁶But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.  ⁷For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.  ⁸A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.

James begins this passage of scripture with the word "if".

He is not asking for a show of hands expecting some to raise their hands admitting that they lack wisdom, and with the remainder satisfied that they have no lack of wisdom.

It is not that kind of an "if" for I believe that James knows that 100% of his readers are deficient in wisdom.

He asks this question for he has just brought to their minds the subject of adversity, of trials in the life of believers.

He knows that if there ever is a time when our lack of wisdom is apparent, it is when we are in the middle of adversity.

For this is when our adversary the Devil, most likely will assume attack mode and bring to our minds all kinds of doubts concerning God’s care of his children.

This is the time when we most need wisdom to see our situation as God sees it and what our response should be to any trial which we are going though.

Especially at this time do we need divine wisdom which we do not possess within ourselves.

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 does not direct the reader to any source except God.

God’s wisdom is the only kind of wisdom that will provide the help that is needed.

God is at the ready to hear your pleadings and to provide you with answers liberally.

James is telling us that we are to be single minded in this and to not wonder about other sources of wisdom that the world offers, but to instead bring all of our wisdom needs to the throne of God.

And in so doing we are not to think that we will overload God with our requests nor should we think that God will shame us or humiliate us because our wisdom knowledge is so lacking.

He says God gives wisdom to all men liberally and upbraideth not.

That word upbraideth is a strong word which means to defame, to rail at, to chide, to taunt, to revile.

This is not what God will do in response to a request for wisdom that is asked in faith.

A constant message of scripture is that God desires to fully be our Father.

And as a father he delights when we come to Him and show ourselves dependant on Him.

He is pleased when his children grow because they believe His word.

He is glorified when we confess our dependency in all things and His sufficiency in all things.

Now note that that statement has no room in it for wavering.

It is not 90% dependency on our part or a recognition that God is 90% sufficient.

God gives wisdom liberally but there is one condition to that liberality.

James sets down only one condition and that is that we pray in faith, without wavering.

Here is where that 90%, 10% thinking comes into play.

You many say in your heart: Certainly I will ask of God for wisdom but I’ll cover myself by having some escape plan if I think that wisdom will be too hard to execute.

But God does not play that game for he tells us: For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. ⁷For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.

The message is: Don’t go to the Lord with a wavering heart.

Don’t seek wisdom from the Lord unless you intend to receive that wisdom and act upon it.

Don’t expect to receive wisdom from the Lord if you have an escape plan from the requirements of that wisdom.

Now wavering means to withdraw from or to oppose, to hesitate, to differ.

It is vacillation between one thing and another.

It is not being 100% with God but having an "out" to not do what God’s wisdom dictates.

God has given us His written word.

It is the answer to all our requests for wisdom.

James warns us to only ask God for wisdom if and only if we intend to obey God’s answer from His word.

Now if you go to God without that intention but have other sources in mind to weigh God’s wisdom against, God tells you you are double minded, which literally means two spirited.

James is the only Bible writer to use this description of the faithless person.

He uses it again in James 4:6-10:

But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. ⁷Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ⁸Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded. ⁹Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. ¹⁰Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.

Here, in the use of the description, double minded, James is talking about pride and humility.

Throughout the Bible and in this passage we learn that God opposes the proud, but He gives grace to the humble.

The humble submit themselves to God and in so doing they resist the devil.

In humbling themselves before the Lord He will lift them up.

In humbling themselves before the Lord they are to grieve, mourn, and weep.

So the double minded are described as those who waver between humility and pride.

The double minded are those who waver between submitting to God or submitting to the devil.

So it seems the message of James in the first chapter is there is a choice that one must make between drawing near to God in adversity or arrogantly going one’s own way, which is Satan’s way.

We should therefore understand that James is telling us that we ought not ask God for wisdom unless we are also willing to follow the wisdom He provides.

When Jesus told the disciples to not cast their pearls before swine he meant don’t give wisdom to those who will not use it.

And it is very clear that this is what God means here in James when He says, let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.

How often I believe this instability is expressed.

Parents pray for guidance in the rearing of children but when that guidance in given from God’s word they don’t use the guidance.

Young people pray about marrying but go ahead against the wisdom of the book and in so doing show their double-mindedness.

We pray for God’s will but if we see the carrying out of that will as too difficult we waver to some other source than God’s word.

Would the author of a cook book honor the results of her recipe by those who choose to deviate from the instructions?

So James tells us that faith is revealed by stability, steadfastness in the middle of life’s trials.

And on the contrary an insufficiency of faith is revealed in instability.

The faithless move about like the waves of the sea never grounded in obedience to the pure word of God

Faith rests on the fact that God is in control and that adversity comes from a father’s hand, a perfect father who desires to build us up in His strength, predestinating us to be conformed to the image of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Faith then brings his children to rejoice in adversity, because it is for our good, and for His glory.