Active Faith (Part Three): The Way of Wisdom

Transcript

JRNT 3
10/09/2022
Active Faith (Part Three): The Way of Wisdom
James 1:5-8
Jesse Randolph


Well, last week our study of God's Word hit us right between the eyes with a familiar, if not somewhat confounding command. We went through James 1:2-4 and I'll remind you that says, “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” Now on the one hand there is a simplicity and a straightforwardness to the first few words of that passage that makes it so clear to understand. There is really no way to escape what is being said. In fact, that's why I think so many of us left here last week feeling like, myself included, a cruise missile of conviction had just been dropped on us. “Consider it all joy,” count it all joy means just what it sounds like. We are to consider it all joy when we encounter, James says, the various trials that will inevitably arise as we live this life, to borrow from Ecclesiastes, under the sun.

But on the other hand when the Lord deals us a trial and when we are fighting through the fog of war of a trial, a command like that isn't so simple to grasp or comprehend, is it? Let's say you are going through a trial related to your health or a loved one's health, a trial related to your marriage or related to an incarcerated relative or an addicted family member or your own financial well-being. You know the command to count it all joy as you go through that trial, and you strive, you earnestly strive, to count it all joy during that trial. You want to submit to the Lord's will in the midst of your trial. You want to honor Christ and His Word as you walk through the trial. But perhaps what you lack is understanding. You lack wisdom about how to think about your trial. You are having a really hard time grasping what is happening. You are struggling to wrap your head around what the Lord's purposes are in the midst of your trial. You are at a loss when it comes to understanding what God appears to be teaching you through that trial.

So what do you do? Well, I can tell you what some will do. Some will turn to watered-down and otherwise unhelpful sources of so-called wisdom. They'll run to the self-help shelf. They'll watch the most highly rated TED talks. They'll consult the realm of the psychological. They'll pursue the so-called wisdom of the world. That's what some will do. Some will turn to false theological teachings and false teachers, especially in our day. They'll find their ears being tickled by especially health-and-wealth prosperity preachers. And teachers of our day who dupe those who are truly suffering, into believing that the trial that they are going through is on account of their lack of faith. And of course those false teachers will teach that what the sufferer needs to do to evidence their stronger faith is to sow a seed into that person's ministry, a financial seed, of course. Still others will turn to their own sense of tough-minded resolve to try to will themselves through the trial, to stiffen their upper lip, to square up their shoulders, to double down on their naturally hard-working nature. Not realizing that what they consider to be grittiness or resolve or being country-strong could be an evidence of being self-willed, self-righteous, self-deceived and having a pride sick heart.

But is this how God has instructed us to navigate our trials? Has He instructed us to navigate our trials through worldly wisdom or prosperity theology or sheer will-power and resolve? Absolutely not. No, what God tells us we need as we navigate our trials is wisdom. We need wisdom to endure our trials. We need wisdom to understand what is happening in our trials. We need wisdom to understand what God may be doing through our trials. We need wisdom to understand how the trials that God has allowed us to go through ultimately are going to be of benefit to us. And we need wisdom to understand not only how those trials that God appoints for us will be of benefit to us eventually, but actually are something to rejoice in.

James understood this which is why he wrote the words under the direction of the Holy Spirit in our passage for today. If you're not there already, I'd invite you to turn with me in your Bibles to James 1 and we're going to work through verses 5-8 this morning. James 1:5-8, God's Word reads, “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. 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. For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.”

This passage as we are going to see is a road map for tried and true Christians to obtain the wisdom that we need to walk faithfully through life's many trials. And what this passage is going to do is instruct us and prepare us as we go through the various trials that James has already told us will come. It's going to equip us and train us to not cry out. Lord, why me? Lord, get me out of this. Lord, rescue me. But rather will train us to say, Lord, give me wisdom. That's exactly what James is commanding us to do in today's passage, to cry out for wisdom.

Now in previous passages we've come to understand a little bit about James. Who James was, who his audience was, and the significance and the importance of the context in this passage. We've seen that the author of this book, humanly speaking, was James, the half-brother of the Lord Jesus Christ. We've seen that this James was the apostolic anchor and theological leader of the early church in Jerusalem. We've seen that James would soon become a martyr for the faith. We've seen that James, who with his other brothers, had not only disbelieved and doubted Jesus, but in their earlier years had actually thought He was out of His mind. We've seen that James, who after the resurrection, not only became a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ but was now calling Him in verse 1, the Lord Jesus Christ. And now James, this James, this “doulos” this slave of Christ, is now writing to this dispersed group of believers, this dispersion, early Jewish followers of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And with that we come back to our text, verse 5. Again, we've worked through the greeting in verse 1. We've worked through this first set of exhortations in verses 2-4. And remember these exhortations in verse 2 start with counting it all joy when we encounter various trials. Saying that when we do so, when we consider it all joy, the testing of our faith produces endurance. Another word for endurance would be steadfastness. And steadfastness is an important and underused virtue in the church today. To be steadfast is to be immovable. Doesn't mean you'll never move, you can ask Duane Nelson about that one. But it means to be immovable in heart, in countenance, in disposition. It means you are not being tossed to and fro by every challenge or trial that comes upon you. You're not operating on one level one day and a different level the next day. You're not blown around by every wind and wave of doctrine. You're not bouncing from church to church because the church down the street has better programs or because someone at your church looked at you funny last week. No. Steadfastness is the state of faith which has absolute confidence in God and His purposes. And the one who is steadfast can endure any trial or any temptation or anything else that might come. And they do so as they progress toward that level of maturity that we ended with last week in verse 4 where they're “perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

With that we'll get back into our text, the four verses we are covering this morning. We are going to have three preaching points that correspond to these four verses. And the preaching points are these: point 1 will be “The Ask,” that's verse 5; point 2 will be “The Approach,” that's verse 6; and point 3 will be “The Admonition, verses 7-8.” The Ask, The Approach, The Admonition.

Let's start with “The Ask,” looking at verse 5 again. It says, “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.” This marks the beginning of a paragraph that is going to take us all the way through the end of our text today, verse 8. And with these words we are entering into some very important territory. Now we have to consider that this statement that James is making here in verse 5 is highly contextual and very tied into a major theme of the book of James, which is the pursuit and living out of wisdom. We have wisdom literature in the Old Testament, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes and Job and so on, and James is considered by many to be the proverbs of the New Testament. It's been called that in many places and I would agree. And James is quite clear in this book that he wants these early believers in this dispersion, these scattered early Jewish Christians, to be full of wisdom, to be pursuing wisdom, and to be growing in wisdom.

In fact, if you would flip over with me to James 3 where we'll see this desire of James for his listeners, his addressees, to be growing in wisdom. Look at James 3:13 and see how many times you pick out the word wise or wisdom here. James 3:13, “Who among you is wise and understanding? Let him show by his good behavior his deeds in the gentleness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth. This wisdom is not that which comes down from above but is earthly, natural, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy. And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.”

Turn back with me, if you would, back to James 1, back to our text, James 1:5. The passage begins with a first class conditional statement, “But if any of you lacks wisdom.” By first class conditional statement, what I mean, is this language here actually assumes, for the sake of the argument that James is developing here, that his audience will lack wisdom. They will lack wisdom. And the “any of you” that he is addressing as he is writing to this dispersed or scattered group of early believers means all of them. “Any of you” means all of them. There was not one of them and there is not one of us who are not in need of greater wisdom, specifically as we encounter various trials. And note, that still is the context for our passage this morning. Trials. As James here addresses the reality of our own lack of wisdom and our own need of wisdom, what he is referring to specifically is the wisdom that we need in the midst of our trials.

And how do we know that? I'm glad you asked. Do you remember verse 4, the end of our passage last week? It says, “let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete,” and it ends with “lacking in nothing.” And then look at how verse 5 starts this week, “But if any of you lacks wisdom.” That word “leipo,” “lacks,” is the link here. Verses 2-4 are telling us we will be lacking in nothing if we joyfully persevere through our trials. And now verses 5-8 are telling us that if we are lacking in something, namely wisdom, we are to ask. James here is saying something like, look forward to that day, if you take this whole section, look forward to that day when you are going to stand complete, lacking in nothing. But until then as you navigate the various trials the Lord sets before you, you need wisdom. So ask for it.

So he begins with “if any of you lacks wisdom,” which again means he is assuming they do lack wisdom and that they do need wisdom. That sort of begs the question, what is wisdom? The Greek word for wisdom is “sophia.” The English term, our term “philosophy,” means a love of wisdom, “phileo,” to love, “sophia,” wisdom. Although when we think about how that definition gets applied today, for what passes for wisdom today, the word “philosophy” might be a bit of a misnomer. But I digress. So what is wisdom? And importantly what is the wisdom that James has in view here? Well, the wisdom that James has in view in this passage appears to be very simply striving to know and do the Lord's will which stems from knowing Him in the first place. Striving to do and know the Lord's will which stems from knowing Him in the first place. And one theologian [Hort] put it this way, wisdom is “that endowment of heart and mind which is needed for right conduct in life. See, wisdom involves having hearts and minds that are aligned with God so that we are even capable of doing what He has commanded us.

To set the table for what James is describing here when he refers to wisdom though, we have to go back to the Old Testament. Which makes sense considering the Jewish background of James' audience. And in the Old Testament one of the clearest contrasts, one of the most direct dichotomies that is laid out is that between the wise and the fool, the one who has wisdom and the one who is foolish. Now for us, we have the natural tendency to make certain connection points when we think about those concepts of wisdom and foolishness. Under the category of wisdom we might naturally default to having thoughts about the sage, old grandfather or the college professor with the patches on his elbow or the witty, pithy wisdom of Benjamin Franklin or Mark Twain, or the 30-something entrepreneur who already has retirement in view in light of all the savvy investing he has been doing. That might be how we naturally think of wisdom. And we might default to thinking about foolishness by going to certain other categories like the high school dropout or the low income couple who is just striving to make ends meet or the person whose parenting styles or levels of cleanliness or other preferences might be different than our own. We naturally, in our flesh, might lump them into being foolish.

But if we look at the Old Testament, what comprises wisdom and what comprises foolishness ultimately traces back to one's overall disposition toward God. Wisdom, true wisdom, is marked by one's knowledge of the living God, one's acceptance of His revelation and one's commitment to living in accordance with His commands. That's Proverbs 9:10 all wrapped in one package. “The fear of the Lord.” the revering, the reverence of the Lord, “is the beginning of wisdom.” That's where true wisdom is to be found. The fool by contrast is the one who does not believe in God. That's Psalm 14:1, “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ ” Or the fool can also be the one who lives by precepts of practical atheism, maybe saying he believes in God, but otherwise lives as though God doesn't exist. Or the fool is the one who doesn't worship the God revealed in Scripture, but rather some false god, that they have concocted or conceived in their own mind, which is an idol. And idolatry, we know from Scripture, is the epitome of human foolishness. Worshiping God not His way, but our way. Worshiping God not as He has revealed Himself, but rather as we want Him to be or wish He was or hope He is.

In fact, flip with me, if you would, back to Isaiah 44. Isaiah 44 I think presents the folly of idolatry in peak form. I'm not going to go through this whole passage but my reference point will be Isaiah 44:9-20 and I'm just going to make some general observations here and you can follow along. But what we have in Isaiah 44 is this worshiper of an idol. He has planted a tree and after the tree grows he cuts down the tree and with half of the cut-down tree he does what a wise person would do. He uses it as fuel for fire, for warmth, for kindling. And he cooks meat with it so he can feed himself with it. But with the other half, it says he carves the wood as into an idol and bows down before it and worships it and prays to it. And look at verse 17, what he says to it, “Deliver me, for you are my god.”

And Isaiah calls such a person a fool. In fact, at the top of this passage in verse 9 it says, “Those who fashion a graven image are all of them futile.” And if you drop down to verse 20, speaking of this idolater, it says “He feeds on ashes; a deceived heart has turned him aside.” See, he is so deluded, this idolater, that he doesn't even know that what he is holding in his hand, the thing that he is now worshiping and bowing down to and praying to is the very thing that he himself made. Idolatry is foolishness. Godlessness, which is just another form of idolatry, namely self-worship, is also foolishness. Albert Einstein may have been a genius in atomic theory but he had no fear of God which means he was a man without wisdom, which means biblically he was a fool. In more recent times there have been many intelligent people who are open in their rejection of God and they have likewise shown themselves to be fools. Bill Gates, Neil de Grassi Tyson, Richard Dawkins, Bill Nye the Science Guy. All fools.

Wisdom in contrast is that which is rooted in the knowledge of God. “The fear of the Lord,” again, Proverbs 9:10, “is the beginning of wisdom.” And how do we come to know God and glean that ultimate wisdom? Well, through His Son Jesus Christ. That's all over 1 Corinthians 1, specifically verses 18-25. The truly, wise one then in our day, the one who has the ability to act in wisdom, to walk in wisdom, to endure trials in wisdom, is the follower of Christ. The one who has been purchased and redeemed and saved by Christ. The one who truly knows God through Christ. It is he or she who has the supreme form of wisdom.

But what James is actually really drilling down on in this passage, when he says we ought to ask for wisdom as Christians, is the practical wisdom that we are to seek and employ to understand what God is doing through our trials, how He wants us to navigate those trials. Yes, we are instantly given the opportunity to become wise when we come to Christ, when the scales fall off our eyes, when the Spirit indwells our hearts. But we need to search for wisdom. We need to seek wisdom. We need to pray for wisdom. We need to pray that God would give us wisdom. Not by means of some special sign or miracle or wonder, but rather from His inerrant and sufficient Word. As we navigate the various tests and trials of life. As we seek to honor the Lord in our lives. We’ve already got a head start as Christians in knowing that by God's grace we have come to know Him as we have trusted in His Son. But if you are looking for daily wisdom you must go to the Scripture. Not a Farmers' Almanac or the funny pages, not Forbes or Fox news, not the backyard fence or the barber's chair, but to Scripture. In Scripture, the Word of God, is found true wisdom. And the Holy Spirit who breathed out His Word illuminates the Word so that we can understand the Word and then in turn apply the Word. Wisdom comes to the one who studies God's Word and applies it to his or her heart, to the one who hides God's Word in their heart so that they may not, as Psalm 119 says, sin against their Maker. True wisdom in found in Scripture.

Now an important clarifying point I think I need to make here and I've already kind of alluded to it by calling Albert Einstein a fool, and the point is this. In the biblical worldview wisdom does not equate to intelligence. The two are not exactly the same thing. Knowledge is not wisdom, although wisdom does include knowledge. That's Proverbs 2:6, “For the Lord gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding.” A good education can give you knowledge, but it does not necessarily give you wisdom. Knowledge is basically an accumulation of facts where wisdom is the proper use of those facts. Some can know an enormous number of facts and details but not know how to use them. It's very possible, and I'm sure you can testify to this in your practical daily living, it is surely possible to have a lot of head knowledge but not a lot of wisdom. It's very possible to read and write and study and preach and think and cogitate and barely know how to use a toaster, not that I know anything about that. But this can happen. The point is this can happen in the spiritual realm. It is possible to know many facts from the Bible and yet not be able to apply those facts in any given situation. But wisdom is not merely knowing about, it's knowing how to.

Note what James does not say here in verse 5. He doesn't say if any of you lacks wisdom go get a Ph.D. If any of you lacks wisdom go read a stack of well-footnoted scholarly resources. If any of you lacks wisdom go camp out for hours in the library. No. He says, “If any of you lacks wisdom let him ask of God.” That's a third person imperative which means he or she must ask. This isn't optional, this is mandatory, this is a command and it's a command to pray. In fact it's as much a command to pray as Paul's command in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 to “pray without ceasing.”

Also you'll note that word there, “ask,” where it says “let him ask of God.” That's in the present tense which suggests an ongoing action. Meaning he is to be repeatedly and continually in prayer. Which is totally appropriate because our various trials, our multifaceted trials, our ongoing trials, have a way of regularly driving us to our knees. Do they not? They move us to call on God through prayer. To recognize the bankruptcy of our own desires, the bankruptcy of human reason or wisdom, the bankruptcy of answers that might be offered from various inferior sources. And instead, to seek the wisdom that comes from above. Pure wisdom, true wisdom, God's wisdom as He has given it to us in His Word. That sort of wisdom doesn't come secondhand. That sort of wisdom doesn't come from reading other people's wisdom as they have written that wisdom in books. That kind of wisdom isn't learned by routine or by having a certain IQ score or a certain size library. Rather that sort of wisdom comes from an ongoing process of reading and meditating on God's Word, applying it to our lives and then watching how it works. That type of wisdom is priceless. To borrow from Job 28:15 which says, “Pure gold cannot be given in exchange for it,” meaning wisdom, “nor can silver be weighed as its price.” And then a few verses later, Job 28:18 says, “The acquisition of wisdom is above that of pearls.”

James here is urging believers to pray for wisdom and as we have seen, true wisdom comes from knowing God and daily wisdom comes from mining, searching, the Word of God. And James here in verse 5 is telling his audience to pray to the God of the Word for wisdom in the midst of their trials. And God is waiting to bestow that wisdom in answer to our prayers. Again verse 5, he says, “Let him ask of God.” All Christians need wisdom regarding the trials that come into our lives. We need wisdom to bear the trials. We need wisdom to understand the purpose of our trials. We need wisdom to find joy in our trials. We need wisdom to learn lessons that God is teaching through trials. We need wisdom to learn whether maybe sin is involved in some aspect of why this trial came upon us. We need wisdom to learn for future trials that may come and not make the same foolish mistakes that led us into certain trials. We need wisdom to learn how to refrain from complaining in our trials. We need wisdom in all of those areas, and we need such a great amount of wisdom in each of those areas that if we are going to gain wisdom in any one of them we need to ask God. We need to pray to God for wisdom.

And then look at this precious reminder that follows. After he says, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God,” then it says those prayers are addressed to a God “who gives to all generously and without reproach.” Let's start with that first part of the phrase, “God, who gives to all generously.” This is an intentional echo of what Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 7:7, “Ask, and it will be given to you.” And of course Jesus would go on in that same section of that Sermon on the Mount to say that our heavenly Father loves to give good gifts to His children in answering our prayers, Matthew 7:11. James here is following a similar pattern. God gives us wisdom, James says, when we ask for it because He is a God who gives to all generously. God is a giving God. In fact, why don't you drop down to James 1:17 for a familiar passage. He says, “Every good thing given,” James 1:17, “and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.” “Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above,” from God the Father.

And one of the gifts God gives specifically in trials is wisdom, wisdom from His Word. And that is consistent with His character. God has always been, and is, and always will be, a generous giver. Acts 17, Paul at Mars Hill in addressing the Athenian philosophers. Tells them that the God that they are questioning the existence of gives us life and breath and movement. John 3:16, everybody knows that passage, says that God gave His only Son. Or consider Romans 8:32, Paul there says, “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things.” And as it relates to the giving of wisdom, God is no less generous. He does not give wisdom begrudgingly, He gives wisdom unreservedly. He gives generously to His children who ask. He truly is a good Father.

Back to verse 5, the text says when we ask of God, He is the God “who gives to all generously,” but then it also says, He gives “without reproach.” Meaning there is no sense of scorn or shaming when we approach God in prayer for wisdom. When we draw near to the throne of grace for insight. There is no sense of ‘him again?’ ‘Her again?’ ‘What are you doing here?’ ‘You're coming to Me again?’ ‘Haven't you learned?’ ‘Don't you know?’ There is none of that. God doesn't rebuke us for coming to Him. He doesn't belittle us for our density. He doesn't mock us. He doesn't, as the text says, “reproach” us. So there is no need to be apologetic about coming to Him, coming to the Lord in order to ask for wisdom. Instead, He will not give us less than the very wisdom that we are asking for. That's what James is saying here. He is saying that the request will be given, the wisdom we request will be given to the one asking. God gives wisdom ungrudgingly, without fault finding, without reproach. The older translations that some of you might be holding say, He “upbraideth not,” which means basically He withholds nothing. So when you are going through trouble, when you are going through trial, go to God in prayer.

Now this is the point in the sermon where I have really considered, should I sing the lyrics to “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” (which I don't think is normal around here) or should I just state them. I think I am going to play it safe and just state them. Maybe I can sing for you in the south lobby after.
What a Friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear.
What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer.
And you drop down a few stanzas and it says:
Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged, take it to the Lord in prayer.

And when we do that, James is telling us God is not going to bargain with us. He's not going to barter with us. He's not going to lay out certain terms or conditions before us. Rather, what James is saying is God will freely and generously give us the wisdom that we will need to respond to whatever trial we happen to be walking through. He may not grant you immediate deliverance from the trial, but immediate deliverance, as we saw last week, isn't always what is best. More dollars and less tears is not always what is best. Smoother waters and less bumps in the road is not always what is best. Smoother skin and less bumps on the face is not always what is best. But He will give you wisdom. He'll give you practical wisdom from His Word as He allows you to navigate the various trials He has appointed for you as His chosen vessel, as His instrument of grace, as one He has purchased and has prepared to place in glory. That is praiseworthy. That makes me want to sing. But again you'll have to wait.

So in verse 5 James is calling on us to ask God in prayer for the wisdom we lack as we navigate these various trials in life. But now in the rest of our text for this morning James will make clear that the way that we ask for wisdom, meaning our approach to God in seeking wisdom, is also important. So we've seen the command in verse 5 to ask, next in verse 6 is “The Approach.” Look at James 1:6, it says, “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.” James very clearly is concerned with believers having wisdom, as we've seen, specifically in their trials. And so in verse 5 he says very straightforwardly, if you lack wisdom ask God for it. And if you ask the Father for wisdom He'll give it to you, because He gives it freely to all who ask, without reproach. But now in verse 6 James gives this condition required for receiving from the Lord. Or at least an approach that is dictated when we approach the Lord. Look at the first few words of verse 6, “But he must ask in faith,” and then it goes on to say, “without any doubting.”

Now when James tells us to ask in faith without any doubting there is a context here, there are definitions that have to be laid out here. Now let's start by exploring what James means by faith. The Christian who asks for wisdom is to “ask in faith.” Now here faith does not mean initial belief like when a person initially puts their trust in Jesus Christ. Rather, faith here refers to a continuing confidence in the identity and nature of our God and our relationship to that God through Christ. Faith also here means more than the narrow and potentially self-interested belief that God will give us what we ask all the time. Rather, it refers to a broader, confident trust in God. Faith, you could say, is a deep-seated, unwavering trust in God. A deep-seated, unwavering trust in God. An immovable and unshakable belief in God which leads to this resolute faith that God will always do what He has promised. A person with faith like that, with trust like this, when they ask God for wisdom in faith will see their prayers answered. And not some of the time. All of the time. 1 John 5:14 says, “This is the confidence which we have before Him,” meaning God, “that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.” Well, James 1:6, our passage this morning, tells us that asking for wisdom in trials is always in accordance with God's will. So if we ask for it, He'll give it. So that's what James means by asking in faith.

Now what about doubt? What type of doubt is James referring to here? Again definitionally, it translates a word that means to dispute with oneself or to waver. And in context, doubting here is doubting the reality of the existence of God, doubting His revelation and what He has revealed about Himself, doubting His character and His purposes, doubting His promises. Scripture wholly condemns that sort of doubt. Rather, Scripture presents the Christian as the one who is wise. As we've already established, the one who believes God, the one who trusts in God, the one who is absolutely secure in his or her knowledge of God. Such a person receives the Word of God, God's written revelation to our age, and he receives it as eternal truth. And then builds his life upon it, come what may. The form of doubt, though, that James is calling out here in verse 6 runs completely contrary to everything I've just said. Doubt undercuts that basic confidence in the existence of God, the revelation of God, the truth of God's Word, the character of God and the assurance that God will always do what He has promised.

So what are you to do when you have doubt? Because let's just be honest. I'm up here preaching against doubt. But there are moments when even the strongest of believers will experience something that could only be rightly called doubt, especially in trials. Well, when that doubt creeps in there is that proverbial fork in the road that one must take. And one of the forks leads down the path to faithfulness and the other fork leads down a path of unfaithfulness. And you really do have to decide which you are going to take. The path that leads to faithfulness when we experience the doubts that creep in is the one that leads the Christian into an even deeper study of God's Word. It is premised on a belief in God, a belief that God loves you, a belief that God has given you the wisdom that you need in His Word to navigate your trial. The faithful response in the face of doubt is to ask God for wisdom, to go to the Scriptures, to sit under faithful preaching, to have discussions with other mature believers, to seek guidance from the leaders of your church. That's the wise response to doubt. As one commentator puts it, “The wisdom that Christians are to pray for has deep roots in the soil of faith.”

But there is also this response to doubt that leads to unfaithfulness, and this is the type of doubt that leads the doubter to look further within, not without, not in the Word. This is the response that leads the doubter to say, I can figure this out, I'm smart enough, I've read enough, I don't need to pray. In fact, I know I've read so much. In fact, I took your “Summer in the Systematics” class and I know that God is sovereign. So why should I bother praying? Each of those responses would be idolatrous, prideful, and wrong. Each forgets that we are the creature, not the Creator. And each forgets that we are not only commanded to seek wisdom from God, but that we desperately need wisdom from God in our trials. And so James here is saying, don't doubt. Ask in faith.

And then look at this descriptor he gives of the one who does doubt at the end of verse 6. He says, “for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind.” If you've done any study of the book of James, and as we'll see in weeks ahead, James has this fondness of analogies from nature, it is very characteristic of his writing. Look down at James 1:11, it says, “For the sun rises,” verse 11, “the sun rises with a scorching wind and withers the grass; and its flower falls off and the beauty of its appearance is destroyed; so too the rich man in the midst of his pursuits will fade away.” Using instances from nature to illustrate the spiritual truth. Of course, go to James 3 and you see the horse's mouth and the fiery blaze and the fig tree and the salt pond. Or James 5:7 says, “The farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil, being patient about it, until it gets the early and late rains,” illustrating with nature.

And here in James 1:6 that's what he is doing again, he's painting this picture, using this idea of the swaying sea, whitecaps being whipped up through the wind. And we know that James was raised in Nazareth which isn't all that far from the Sea of Galilee. And certainly early on he would have witnessed those strong winds causing these storms on the Sea of Galilee in the late afternoons and the early evenings. So when James says here, “the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by wind,” he is working off this picture he has from his youth. And what he is picturing here, what he has in mind here, is that strong type of doubting, that division of mind in the believer which brings about wavering and inconsistency in their attitude toward God. And which ultimately leads either to inertia and inaction or to really foolish and unwise choices.

Now that word I just highlighted there, “waver,” is key. In Romans 4:20 Paul used that word in describing the faith of Abraham. Paul said of Abraham in Romans 4:20 that he “did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God.” Now Paul certainly would have been aware that Abraham actually did doubt God's promise on at least one occasion. Namely when he laughed when told that God would give him a son. Paul's point there, though, in Romans 4 is not that Abraham never entertained any doubt about any one of God's promises or that there weren't times in Abraham's faith where that faith wasn't a little bit weaker than it was stronger. Rather the point is that Abraham, over many years, displayed a consistency in his faith in God. He did not waver in unbelief.

Now for James that image of the surf of the sea that he gives us here is an illustration, not of the faith like Abraham. But rather, that ongoing agitation in the heart of the doubter. He is encouraged one moment, then discouraged the next. He is up and down, he has no anchor for his soul, if I can borrow from Hebrews 6 [verse 19]. And when that doubter acts that way, he is actually acting, though he may be a believer, quite like an unbeliever. Isaiah 57:20 says, “the wicked are like the tossing sea, for it cannot be quiet, and its waters toss up refuse and mud. ‘There is no peace,’ says my God, ‘for the wicked.’ ” See, when we begin to doubt God, when we let the doubts creep in, when we let the doubts control us, what that may imply is that either we do not believe that God is who He has revealed Himself to be or we are unwilling to trust Him with our lives. We are both. And when you think about it, isn't that a bit ridiculous? If you have trusted in Jesus Christ to secure your eternal destiny, to secure for you a place in an eternal abode of glory, to spare you from the horrors of an eternal hell, if you have trusted in Christ for those eternal realities, why wouldn't you trust Him for your daily realities right there in front of your face? That's the folly of this type of doubt.

By contrast the man of faith, the one who doesn't doubt, but the one who has faith is stable and mature. He is holding fast to his anchor. He may not possess wisdom for every situation, but when he does need wisdom, he does ask and he does so in confidence that he has gone to the right source. So he comes to the Lord in prayer for wisdom through his trials, but he is not coming with a divided mind. He's not coming with a doubting mind, he's not choosing between two options—between plan A or plan B—or to borrow the Old Testament terminology, he's not limping between two opinions. He's not vacillating. He's not waffling. Rather, he's asking without doubt and in faith. That's what we have pictured here in verse 6.

So we've seen the command to ask, that was verse 5. We've seen the approach, that's verse 6. Next in verses 7-8 is “The Admonition,” which also means the warning. But warning doesn't start with “A”, hence admonition. Verses 7-8, “For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.”

In these two verses, 7-8, we're looking at the consequences of doubting. “That man,” it says in verse 7. “That” refers back to the doubter of verse 6. And James here is declaring in these verses that such a person, as he says in verse 7, “ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord.” This is another one of those places where James appears to be channeling the words of Jesus. And we'll see many more of these as we work through James. Remember Jesus said, For everyone who asks, receives, Matthew 7 [verse 8], Luke 11 [verse 10]. It's a very straightforward and simple statement. And James appears not only to be incorporating it here, but he'll incorporate it in his writing later in James 4:2 when he makes the converse point when he says, “You do not have because you do not ask.” What we can glean from these passages in James and from the earlier testimony of our Lord is that the doubter, he might, in fact, receive good things from the Lord as a function, as an outworking, of God's common grace. We know that from Scripture God does provide sunshine and rain to fall both on the unrighteous and the righteous, Matthew 5:45. We know from Acts 14 [verse 17] that God provides fruitful seasons and joyful times both for unbelievers as well as believers. But it won't be on account of the doubter's faithful praying. Instead, it will be in spite of his sluggish, prideful silence.

And then James gives this type of person, the doubting person, a label. He gives a lot of labels in this book. Look at verse 8, “being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.” He is “dipsychos,” dipsychos. The word “di” would be two. “psychos” is where we get our English term psychology. It literally means, dipsychos, two-souled, double-souled. We get it in English as two-minded or double-minded. The word appears just two times in Scripture, here in James 1:8 and if you flip with me to James 4:8 we'll see it again. Look at James 4:8, it says, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded,” dipsychos.

The main idea behind this term (which is likely a term that James himself coined) is that such a person has a divided allegiance. They are divided between God and the world. They are trusting but at the same time they are not trusting. They are believing but at the same time they are not believing. They would call themselves a friend of God but at the same time they would say they are a friend of the world. In fact, go back to James 4, you know where I'm going. What does James 4:4 say about being a friend of the world? James 4:4, “You adulteresses.” Reminds me… come back for our Hosea sermon tonight. “You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” This type of person, the dipsychos person, the double-minded person, is the type of person who says he loves God but also loves the world. He's the kind of person that says he loves God but he wants to hold onto the world. Which is the very thing not only James 4:4 but 1 John 2:15 goes after, “Do not love the world.”

And this double-mindedness, this divided soul, has real ramifications and real consequences. Sometimes this double-minded man thinks God may help him, God may be there, but other times this double-minded man totally abandons such hope. This double-minded man finds himself often to be unsettled and restless and vacillating. The mark of the double-minded man is that he is jumping from one activity to another, from one service to another, from one calling to another, from one path to another. The mark of the double-minded man is his will is totally unsubdued, his ego is inflated, he is self-reliant, he is self-willed, rather than Spirit led and God directed. Another mark of the double-minded man is that he is never sure of anything. Never knows what God wants him to do. Frequently spooked by his circumstances. Quick to hit the panic button. Prone to despair. Often viewing himself as a victim of his own circumstances, rather than seeing that God is the author of all his circumstances. Which is why John Bunyan in his “Pilgrim's Progress” rightly called the dipsychos, the double-minded man, Mr. Facing Both Ways.

In reality, just putting it bluntly, the double-minded man is a hypocrite. On the surface and when times are good he'll say, I believe in God, I'm good with God. WWJD [What Would Jesus Do] is slapped on my car, on my wrist. But when the trial comes, that's when the divided loyalties start to rise to the surface. Now he is a spiritual schizophrenic. Now he is a walking civil war. At best he is unsteady, at worst he is unsaved. He is “unstable,” James 1:8 says, “in all his ways.”

Now why do we say the double-minded man may be unsaved? Well, a few reasons. First, it appears from the text that he is not marked by his singular love for the Lord and his singular devotion to Christ. Rather, right there built into this title of having a double mind, a double heart, he is running afoul of the Lord's statement that no one can serve two masters. Second, his identity, the way James identifies him, appears to be his very instability rather than his identity in Christ.

It's an interesting thought and an interesting way to talk to people about their faith. Is your identity in your addiction? Is your identity in your family? Is your identity in your you-name-it? Or is your identity in Christ? What is the first thing you say about yourself and your position and your status in this world? Is it that other thing or is it Christ?

This man's identity, it says from the text, is that he is a double-minded man, a dipsychos, not a doulos. The third thing, though, that makes you wonder is this an unsaved man is that James (I think I talked about this two Sundays ago) is very frequent in his use of the term “brethren,” “adelphoi.” “Count it all joy,” verse 2, “my brethren.” But all of a sudden when he talks about the dipsychos, the double-minded man, he does not call him my brother, he simply calls him “that man” in verse 7. He goes from “Count it all joy, my brethren” to “that man.” That man who is double-minded, double-souled, divided and hypocritical. “That man,” verse 7 says, “ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord.”

Well, I'm going to close our time this morning, not with a song, but I will close it with an old, anonymous poem. I think it is a helpful way to kind of put a bow on what James is saying here in verses 5-8. It says:

My life is but a weaving
Between my Lord and me;
I cannot choose the colors
He worketh steadily.
Ofttimes He weaveth sorrow.
I in foolish pride
Forget He sees the upper
And I the underside.
Not 'til the loom is silent
And the shuttles cease to fly
Shall God unroll the canvas
And explain the reason why,
The dark threads are as needful,
In the Weaver's skillful hand,
As the threads of gold and silver
In the pattern He has planned.

I think that poem helpfully expresses the truth that James is communicating to us here. Which is that in this life we are never going to fully understand the specific blending of joys and woes that happen in our lives. Because we are only able to see, to use the illustration given in this poem, the underside of the tapestry that the Grand Weaver is putting together. It is only when, to use the language of this poem, when death silences the loom, as he says, and we're standing before God that He turns the tapestry over and lets us for eternity see in some sense what He has done. In the meantime our commands are to walk by faith, to walk in wisdom. And to ask for wisdom, knowing that God is the source of all wisdom. As our text today tells us, we are to come to the Lord through prayer for wisdom. We are to pray prayers like, Lord, I'm stuck, I'm struggling, I'm hurting, I'm suffering, I'm confused. But I want to honor You in this trial. So, Lord, I don't know what You are doing in the trial, but I do know I want to honor and glorify You as I walk this road. So, would You please give me wisdom to navigate this trial in a way that is good for me. But ultimately brings You glory. That prayer, James tells us, God will give answer to every time. God in His generosity will give the wisdom we are seeking without holding back, without reservation, without reproach.

Let's go to Him now in prayer. God, we thank You again for Your Word and thank You for the clear and timeless commands it contains. We thank You for its sufficiency, for its inerrancy, for its perfection, for its timelessness and ask that as we leave this place this morning that we would take it to heart. May we not be the people who merely store up knowledge for knowledge's sake, but may we be the people who walk in wisdom in light of what we know from Your Word. Pray that You would work in our hearts, that You would sharpen our faith, that You would increase our resolve to walk faithfully and prayerfully through the trials You assign us. We love You and give You thanks and praise. In Jesus' name, Amen.