James 2

James 1:5-8

In our last discussion we looked at the virtue of patience and the development of this virtue through persevering in trials. While it is wonderful to understand the goal of trials to understand that they are not meaningless, just understanding the goal may not always be enough the see us to the other side of the storm. Continuing then in verse five we see that James gives us the next steps for after we have reached understanding.

James 1:5 “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.”

Our first and primary line of defense to overcome and persevere in the midst of trials in life is and always will be going to our Father in prayer. For now we will skip over the first section of the verse and focus on the latter half. We will come back to the first clause in just a moment. Looking at the back half of this verse we get a wonderful praise of God for who He is which is always important to remember in our prayers so that A. we honor Him properly, and B. so that we understand just who we are praying to. The first bit of praise is that He gives to all liberally. Our Father is generous. God is continually giving to us far more than we could ever deserve even when we are not asking for it. The air we breathe, the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the very fact that you are alive right now is proof of His great generosity. We are not deserving of anything good yet later in James we will actually see that everything good is from God. All that we have that is good is a gracious gift from our Father. This being said if He is so generous to us when we do not even ask, how much more generous to us will He be when we come to Him with a broken and contrite heart, as the psalmist says in Psalm 51, and ask for His assistance in our time of need.

Next, He gives without reproach. I know that personally I hate to ask anyone for help. I am a do it myself kind of guy and will very rarely ever ask for help. I don’t want people to see me as weak or incapable in any way to be a man. Many of us are like this, we feel like we cannot ask for help from others, we are to proud and arrogant to lower ourselves and ask for aid most of the time out of a fear for what others will think if we take aid. Know then that if this is you, the Father never looks down on you for asking for help. God does not expect you to face all trials and burdens of life on your own without asking for His help. He then is not going to judge you or scold you when you ask for the aid He is offering, it comes free from judgement.

And thirdly, we are promised that what we are asking for here is going to be given to us. Our Father is faithful to follow through with what He says He will do. In John 14:14 Jesus states that we may ask anything in His name and it will be given to you. Now these ideas of God’s great faithfulness to fulfill our prayers has gotten misused by many to say that if we have enough faith then when we pray we can obtain anything on this Earth such as riches, fame, or glory. This is not the meaning of passages like this when we look at them in context. When Christ and James are both teaching here is that when what we ask for aligns with what is in God’s will then our prayers will be answered because God does not fail. Prayer is our opportunity to align ourselves with God’s will and bring our hearts closer to His will so that what we ask for is not fulled by selfish ambition but rather selfless submission to Christ.

Now then let us circle back to the top of the verse to see what we are called to ask God for in our times of trials. (reread first part of verse). James instructs us to ask for wisdom when we are facing trials. Wisdom in a trial is far better than immediate deliverance. If God were to swoop in and solve all problems for us then we would never learn anything and the trial would have been pointless. It instead is far more beneficial for the believer to be granted wisdom in order to discern what is right in a situation. We see this in practice in the life of Solomon who is the author of Proverbs which we often consider to be the Old Testament counterpart to the book of James both being labeled as wisdom texts. After Solomon becomes King following the death of his father David God appears to him in a dream telling him to ask anything of God and it will be granted. Solomon recognized that he now was in a position of great authority and recognized his own insignificance and rather than asking God for great wealth and riches he instead asks God for wisdom and discernment so that he can rule justly. God honored this request and made him the wisest man to ever live, and because of his earnest request God also gave Solomon great riches and life so long as he followed the Lord.

Through the story of Solomon we see God’s great generosity in giving more than we ask for when we align our heart with His will to serve and do good. Now then when we ask of the Lord to give us wisdom because of His great faithfulness and generosity we must have faith that He will give that wisdom to us.

James 1:6–8 “But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.”

God is faithful to give and so He expects us to be faithful to trust in Him. Think of Peter when he walked on the water with Jesus. Peter was in the midst of the storm on the sea there was Jesus standing strong on the raging waters. That is where we start, when life is going astray and things are going in the wrong direction if we stop and look we will see Christ standing in the midst unshaken and unbothered by the world around us. After Christ announces His presence to the disciples Peter immediately has enough faith in Him to say if it is You then You can call me out onto the water and I will walk to You. Here is our moment of prayer when we ask God for the wisdom and the ability to face the storms of life. We need to have that strong faith in saying that we know that if it is what Christ calls us into then we will surely be able to accomplish it. This is what Paul is saying in Philippians when he says:

Philippians 4:13 “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

When we pray and ask for God to strengthen us through a trial then we need to then have the faith to step out of the boat and into the storm knowing that we have been strengthened by Christ and He will not fail. This is exactly what we see Peter do in this story, Jesus calls for him to take that first step and Peter does. Sure enough we see Peter walk onto the water and start making his way toward Jesus. As he is making his way though the storm continues to rage and Peter looses his focus on Christ and looks to the world around him which causes him to doubt the Lords power making him start to sink into the waves. When we are facing hardships we tend to start out well taking that first step in faith but once we are in the middle of it we forget who strengthened us to make that first step. We start to worry again that He isn’t going to pull through or that He hasn’t given us what we need to succeed in what He has called us to do. Just like Peter when we start doubting as James says we cannot suppose that God will give us anything. We will start to sink into the storm that is hitting our life because we don’t believe that God has the strength to do what He promised.

Here’s the great thing though, Peters story does not end there.

Matthew 14:30–31 “But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink he cried out, saying, “Lord, save me!” And immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and caught him, and said to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?””

When Peter began to sink his first instinct was to call out to the Lord and ask again for Christ to rescue him. When we notice that we have started to drift away from Christ it should be our instant response to call out to God and ask for Him to help us. There are two other responses that we tend to have when we are in the midst of a trial and notice we are stating to sink, the first is to resent God and not take responsibility for our own doubt. When we do this we run to other sources to find a way through the storm which does nothing but digs a deeper hole for ourselves. The other possible response is to feel so much guilt and shame that we do not ask the Lord for help because we don’t deserve the help, the thing is you’re right we don’t deserve the help but look at what Jesus does when Peter calls out for help, He immediately helps him. Jesus doesn’t say oh well you did it to yourself, He doesn’t give Peter a lecture first, He immediately reaches out and pulls Peter up to safety. No we don’t deserve to be rescued by Christ when we are in the midst of a storm and have just doubted His power to pull us through, but there is nothing He has ever done for us that we deserved. Praise God He does not do to me what I deserve but rather by grace God continues to stick that hand out and give me a second chance.

When facing the trials of life we must ensure that we are going to Christ to begin with by asking for wisdom knowing that because of His great generosity and faithfulness He will give us what we need to make it through the trials. But our job is not done with the initial step but rather we must constantly check ourself for doubts and fears praying that God continues to renew our strength and rescue us from the world around us.