A Call to be Singleminded
Notes
Transcript
Verse 5
Verse 5
Can someone tell me what we talked about in the first 4 verses last week? Today, we go from talking about trials to talking about wisdom and maturity. I think it is safe to say that we have a lack of maturity in professing Christians today. I know people that you would call part time Christians. They are only Christians part of the time. And I have seen them on their days off and it isn’t pretty. They walk out of church on Sundays and become someone different. This is not our directive as Christians.
We are to be mature. Not only with our actions but, as we will see in this passage, in our wisdom and in our faith. I want to read us our passage for today. James 1:5-8
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
James starts off this section by saying that if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God. So I think when we come to something like this, it is best for us to define what wisdom is. The literal definition for the word used here is σοφία (sophia). n. fem. wisdom. Refers to the quality of having knowledge, skill, and experience in the sense of mastery over a particular subject or trade through practice and learning.
R. P. Nettelhorst, “Wisdom,” ed. Douglas Mangum et al., Lexham Theological Wordbook, Lexham Bible Reference Series (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014).
But what does this really mean for us? For us, what is wisdom? Making godly decisions, having a godly response to trials, being calm in tough situations. All of these can come from having wisdom. So how many of us in here would actually want to admit that we lack wisdom? I know I do. I have to ask people for advice all the time. Sometimes I think lacking wisdom might be my superpower.
But from what I just told you, I am not having the correct response all of the time. I just said that I ask people for advice all of the time. But that is not what James is telling us to do here. He tells us to ask God for the wisdom. What we get when we seek the world and man is not wisdom. It may be knowledge. But there is a difference in knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge is having information. Wisdom, as was defined, is having knowledge, skill and experience. So how do we get wisdom from God.
In all of his tough situations, we shouldn’t be surprised that Job had questions about wisdom. There is a longer passage that I want to point us to in the book of Job that will really give us some insight in the manner of seeking wisdom.
English Standard Version Chapter 28
12 “But where shall wisdom be found?
And where is the place of understanding?
13 Man does not know its worth,
and it is not found in the land of the living.
14 The deep says, ‘It is not in me,’
and the sea says, ‘It is not with me.’
15 It cannot be bought for gold,
and silver cannot be weighed as its price.
16 It cannot be valued in the gold of Ophir,
in precious onyx or sapphire.
17 Gold and glass cannot equal it,
nor can it be exchanged for jewels of fine gold.
18 No mention shall be made of coral or of crystal;
the price of wisdom is above ppearls.
19 The topaz of Ethiopia cannot equal it,
nor can it be valued in pure gold.
20 “From where, then, does wisdom come?
And where is the place of understanding?
21 It is hidden from the eyes of all living
and concealed from the birds of the air.
22 Abaddon and Death say,
‘We have heard a rumor of it with our ears.’
23 “God understands the way to it,
and he knows its place.
24 For he looks to the ends of the earth
and sees everything under the heavens.
25 When he gave to the wind its weight
and apportioned the waters by measure,
26 when he made a decree for the rain
and a way for the lightning of the thunder,
27 then he saw it and declared it;
he established it, and searched it out.
28 And he said to man,
‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom,
and to turn away from evil is understanding.’ ”
Wisdom only comes from God. We need to stop seeking boundless amounts of information and look to God for our wisdom. I think it is wise to be honest with ourselves and admit that we lack wisdom. And this admission should point us to who? To God for our wisdom. So when we lack wisdom, which we all do, we need to ask God for wisdom. And when we ask God, it says that he gives generously or liberally. He doesn’t skip out on what he gives us. We are the ones in need, not God. We lack knowledge, perspective, and experience. (God, on the other hand, possesses all knowledge, He has an eternal perspective, and in Christ He has experienced every kind of test and has prevailed. And we can ask God because He “gives to all generously and without criticizing”
David Platt, Exalting Jesus in James (Nashville, TN: Holman Reference, 2014), 8.)
I believe that we should also make a distinction that God doesn’t always give us wisdom to get out of trials. God sometimes gives us wisdom through the use of trials. I know that we don’t want to hear that. None of us want trials, but we all want wisdom. Well, as Christians, there is a price of experiencing trials that comes with wisdom. Why is it that when many of us think of the most wise, Godly person we all know, that they have went through some of the most intense trials. There is a direct correlation with that.
As we see throughout scripture, we must remember that wisdom begins with a healthy reverence for God. We see it in Job, the Psalms, Proverbs. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. Not being afraid of God but this healthy, reverential fear.
So we go through these trials and what should our reaction be? Joy but also we should ask God for knowledge and he will give it to us generously. It may be after the trial that we get the wisdom and it is because of the situation. But God will give wisdom to his children.
Verse 6
Verse 6
James continues the idea of asking for wisdom in verse 6. (6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting.) We are to ask for wisdom but with that, we must ask in faith. Let’s be clear, to receive wisdom, we must have faith and not doubt it. How many of us have thought that we should ask God for faith and then not recieved it? Maybe it is a faith issue or a doubt issue. Because James tells us what happens when we doubt.
English Standard Version Chapter 1
6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.
He relates this to someone being at sea and being tossed around the sea because of the wind. Has anyone ever been on a boat that was moving around like this? I would say that my greatest example of this would only be on a boat that is hitting choppy waves. I can imagine that this is scary and unstable.
What James is trying to say is that you cannot have faith and doubt at the same time. As Christians, our whole lives are built upon a level of faith. We believe the truth of the bible because of faith. We believe in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus because of faith. We believe that our salvation guarantees us eternity in heaven and not hell because of faith. So you can see how this cannot work out. You cannot have both faith and doubt.
He tells us that someone who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is tossed around. This is a picture for us to see how unstable someone who doubts can be. They cannot rely on anything to help them out. Waves are unpredictable. You may get hit from the left side one time and the next time get hit from behind. So the person who doubts cannot rely on anything and James makes that clear in verse 7.
English Standard Version Chapter 1
7 For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord;
If this person is you, you don’t need to think that you will receive anything from the Lord. We have to have faith. In the words of the great philosopher George Michaels, “you gotta have faith”. Hebrews 11:6 “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” All of this is centered around faith. Faith in what? Good question.
It should start with faith in Jesus Christ, faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ. That we are born sinners destined for hell and we need a savior. So God sent Jesus to earth to live a perfect sinless life, die a brutal death, and then be buried in a tomb. But that 3 days later, he rose from the tomb because of the power of God. This is the beginning of our faith. But in the context of what we are talking about here, it should go deeper than this.
We need to have faith that God will do what he says he is going to do. This comes from believing that the bible is more than just a novel, a book of fiction. We need to believe that the bible is inspired by God himself. We need to believe that the bible is without fault and contains no errors. We need to have faith that when we read the words of God, that it is true. So if God says, in his word, that when we ask for wisdom, we need to believe that God will give us wisdom. We need to shy away from any form of doubt. Doubt is unbelief. And James goes on to describe this person.
he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
He is literally a “two souled man”. He is straddling the fence. He cannot be a man that has faith and a man that doubts. In “Pilgrims Progress”, John Bunyan uses a character to describe this man who is named “Mr. Facing-both-ways”. In his commentary on James, R. Kent Hughes asks this question of this verse. Is the Lord demanding that we have perfect faith and we never waiver? This is a wonderful question.
Because if we expect that God wants us to have perfect faith, then we will abandon having faith at all. We would just leave Christianity behind and just be people of the world. But this is not what James is saying that God requires. If our faith needed to be perfect, then we would rarely receive anything from God because we are all doubters. We have many great figures in the faith, just in scripture, who were far from perfect in their faith. Do not forget that.
What we need to understand when we read a verse like this in James is that James is not throwing this at someone who is wrestling with doubt. James is speaking of the person who has two different minds. Someone who looks to God but yet they say that they don’t need anything from God. We could almost equate this as someone who professes one thing with their mouth but believes differently in their heart.
Because James says that they are unstable in all their ways. When I think of something being unstable, I think of chemicals or bombs. The thought that at any point, it could explode. I believe this to be true of this type of person. One wrong move, and everything goes up in smoke. None of us want to be this type of person.
So this is what we need to think about.
Are we asking for wisdom in our trials? Can you give specific examples of the trial and what you asked for?
Are we asking for wisdom in faith? Have you ever asked God for something because you know that you needed to but then didn’t really believe that God would do it?
Are we singleminded or doubleminded? What can we do to make sure that we are singleminded?