James: Wisdom in the Trial

Transcript:

The following transcript was completed using AI software. Please note that there may be mistakes.

Last week we talked about walking through trials. And really, one of the things we talked about was the reality that at some point in your life, you will walk through a trial. Again, we're either finding ourselves, maybe this morning you're like, I'm in the middle of it.

And a trial really just, it's a time of difficulty. It's a challenge. Oftentimes it's unexpected.

Was it something that we were seeking after or looking for? It's just something that life has happened. And sometimes it can be, God allows it. Sometimes it can be a natural consequence of our own decisions.

Sometimes it's just life, right? And things happen. But oftentimes we either find ourselves, we're in the middle of a trial. We're going through it right now.

You feel like you're in the thick of it. Sometimes we feel like we're walking out of it. Like, oh, praise God, right? Like I can see light at the end of the tunnel.

I'm coming out of this season. And if you're in that side, then guess what? We're probably going to be walking into a trial, right? Maybe it's not the next day. It could be months.

It could be years. You never know. But at some point in time, you will walk through a trial.

Now, the book of James is not all about trials, but this is how it begins. Because if we remember from a couple of weeks ago, what we learned is that James, who is the half-brother of Jesus, is writing to Jewish Christians, okay? And that context matters because, again, a lot of people are going to try to theologically put Paul and James against each other, right? They're going to say, see, there's inconsistencies in the Bible. Because James is going to go on to talk about faith and works, and Paul's really going to talk more about faith.

And again, the context matters because Paul really ministers a lot to Gentiles, people who aren't Christians or those who don't have that biblical foundation. We know that James is writing to Jewish Christians, so the context is already there. And these aren't just like letters of encouragement, right? It's not just like a, hey, your church is thriving.

Things are going really well. What we learn is that they've been scattered. They've been dispersed.

So Acts 7 and 8, you learn that Stephen is martyred. He's killed. It's the first public execution or death that we have on record for Christianity.

And it says that the church is scattered. And again, we have to understand, the persecution is not just like a slap on the wrist. It's not just being made fun of.

It's not even social disconnection from your community, okay? We're talking about imprisonment. We're talking about separation from your family, from your children. We're talking about people being put to death for following Jesus Christ.

And James begins by saying, count it all joy. Consider it a great joy when you walk through trials. And so last week we talked about our response to trials, that we get to choose joy.

We talked about the purpose of trials, how God is refining us, that our faith might be stronger in that process. And we talked about trusting God through the trials. Today, James is gonna take us a step further.

And he's gonna say, if you're in the trial, this is what you need to seek. Now, most of us, if we're being honest, when we go through a trial, a hardship, a difficulty, most of us are not gonna do what James says and say, we wanna ask the Lord for wisdom. Most of us are gonna say, Lord, get me out of this situation, right? And I think that's honest.

And I think that that's fair. And I'm not saying if you've ever prayed that, that that's a bad prayer. What I'm saying is, James is really gonna challenge us to say, don't just ask the Lord to take you out of the situation you're in.

He's gonna say, seek the Lord in the situation, in the trial, in the difficulty you find yourself in. And so he's gonna tell us this, seek the wisdom that only comes from God. And you're gonna find that in a trial most often.

Now, I wanna define wisdom for us this morning, because culturally there's a few, right? Kind of like, what is wisdom, right? Oftentimes, for whatever reason, we associate wisdom with an owl. I've always kind of wondered where that association comes from. And if you ever see like a cartoon, right? The owl has glasses, right? Doesn't make sense.

The owl is reading a book, again, doesn't make sense. And so because of that, we tend to associate wisdom as just knowledge, right? Or it's the old man with the long white beard who does one of two things. Either he sits and meditates all day, and that's a wise person, or he's like sitting and reading a book all day.

And again, it's very knowledge-based kind of assumption. Maybe oftentimes we even think of it as like, you know, that person we go to. You know, we're struggling.

We're trying to figure things out. You have someone you go to, and we see oftentimes good advice as wisdom. And all of these components do equal wisdom in some ways, but here's how I want to define it for us, more from a biblical perspective, is wisdom is the ability to see life from God's perspective, and the skill to live accordingly.

Wisdom is not head knowledge, although knowledge is a part of wisdom, absolutely. Wisdom is not just sitting and meditating on what the Lord has done. There is wisdom in that, right? Wisdom is not just having good stage advice, okay? Because you can just naturally have some wisdom just from lived experiences.

These things are all components of wisdom, but I want to challenge us to think of this, is do you have the ability, and through the Holy Spirit, if you're saved, you have this ability, okay? Or so I guess we could almost say, do you have the practice? Do you try to see life, not from our perspective, but from God's perspective? See, we have such a limited perspective on what we can actually see. I heard somebody once equate it to, it's almost like buying a puzzle, and then you're trying to put these pieces together, and it's still not complete, right? That's kind of like how it is for us, right? We can only see part of the whole, but at the same time, right, how many of us would buy a box of puzzles and not trust all the pieces are in there, right? At the same time, we don't often trust that God, creator of the universe, who knows the number of hairs on your head, who, before the foundations of the earth, established good works for you to do, we don't often trust him, that what we're walking through, he sees the whole picture, and he has everything complete for us. So, do we see life from God's perspective, and do we live accordingly? Because again, I think a lot of times what Christians have is a head knowledge of God's perspective.

We know that God sees us, and he has grace for us, and God loves us, and he shows mercy to us, but we know these things to be true according to scripture, but we don't live accordingly. If we knew the immeasurable grace that God has lavished on us through Jesus Christ, it would change the way we live. If we knew that his mercies were, if we didn't just know, but we lived like his mercies were new every morning, everything would be different.

If we could even grasp the unconditional love that God has for us, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, then it would change everything. So again, it's not the head knowledge that we lack. A lot of times, it's the heart application, the skill to live accordingly.

And wisdom truly, here's the thing, can only be found in Jesus Christ. First Corinthians 1, verse 30 says this, It is from God that you who are in Christ Jesus who became wisdom for us. So Paul's literally writing to the church of Corinth, and he says, it is through Jesus Christ who became our wisdom that we find righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.

And so this morning, we're gonna talk about the source of our wisdom and the opportunity for our wisdom. If you guys have your Bibles, go ahead and stand. If you don't have your Bible, please stand anyway, as we honor the reading of God's word.

I said that, and then I was like, I didn't wanna make anyone feel like they couldn't stand up. We're gonna read verses five through 11 this morning. Here's what the word of the Lord says today.

Now, if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith without doubting, for the doubter is like the surging sea, driven and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord, being double-minded and unstable in all of his ways.

Verse nine, let the brother of humble circumstances, boast in his exaltation, but let the rich boast in his humiliation, because he will pass away like a flower of the field, for the sun rises, and together with the scorching wind, dries up the grass, its flowers fall off, and its beautiful appearance perishes. In the same way, the rich person will wither away while pursuing his activities. Let's pray this morning.

Father, again, we thank you for your word. God, we thank you that it's your word that changes us. We thank you that it's your word that was how we understood who you are.

We thank you that Jesus became the word incarnate for us. So God, this morning as we hear your word, again, may our hearts be open, our minds ready to receive your word, because I know that you are not finished with us, that you have something for us, that the Holy Spirit is actively wanting to speak to us. So God, give us the humility to silence our minds, to still our hearts, to set aside our circumstances and our situations, but just for a moment that we might hear you speak today, that we might know even greater the plans and the purposes that you have for us.

Lord, give us just a glimpse even of who you are and all that you have in store for us, that we might be changed and transformed this morning by your word. It's in the name of Jesus we pray, amen, amen. You guys can be seated again.

I'm gonna break pastor preaching rules. I only have two points this morning. If you guys have ever grown up in church, for whatever reason, pastors always have three points.

I only have two points for us this morning. The first thing I want us to look at this morning is this, is I want us to see the source of wisdom, the source of wisdom. Now, James starts, and again, he's just talked about all these trials and we understand the context, again, of the persecution they're walking.

And he says, now, if, and I just think that's really funny because I'm over here going, no, it's almost more like now because, right? You lack wisdom. He says, if anyone, any of you, again, to these Jewish Christians who are being persecuted and they've been scattered from their home, he says, if you lack wisdom, you should ask God. And this is the remedy that James gives us to the trial.

It's not pray that God will remove you from your situation. It's not even that pray that God gives you peace in your situation. It's not pray that God gives you the resources or the feelings or anything like that.

He says, in the trial, if you lack wisdom, go to God. And again, wisdom is that ability to see life from God's perspective and the skill to act accordingly, to actually live it out. So what James is challenging the people here is he's saying, listen, if in this moment of persecution, of trial, of difficulty, of challenge in your life, if you lack that wisdom, the inability to see life from God's perspective, the strength to live it out accordingly, then you should do this.

You should go to the source. Wisdom comes from God. True wisdom does not come from old age.

It doesn't come from reading a ton of books. It doesn't come from the cartoon of the sage owl. Again, there are components of that that can add to wisdom.

But what James is saying here is, listen, if you're in that trial and you find that you are lacking wisdom, then here's what you need to do. You need to go to the source. And so it's really an invitation.

And that's what I actually love about the word if here. I do think that it's kind of funny because I'd almost make the argument that almost everybody in that moment of trial and difficulty probably lacks wisdom. But it's an invitational moment that James is saying is, listen, this is where you should go and this is what you should do.

And again, we talked about this last week, how quickly in the trial do we turn our eyes and our attention and our focus onto our situation? How often do we minimize it so that we kind of put it on the back burner? And how often do we elevate it to make sure everybody knows what we're going through? And again, we have to find that kind of happy medium, right? We can't elevate it more than Christ, but James 5 talks about going to each other, right? That the prayers of a righteous person has much effect. You have to tell each other what you're going through. So we can't minimize it.

And at the same time, we can't elevate it. But we have to be honest about our trial. But oftentimes the first place or the person we go to is not the Lord.

Oftentimes we kind of, again, we draw in or we seek other people's validation. And James is saying, listen, this is an invitation to go to God. And here's what I love about this.

There's no really condition here initially. And we'll talk about the condition here in just a second. But James, what he says is, listen, if you go to God and you ask for this wisdom in the middle of your trial, God is not stingy.

God is not sitting up in heaven waiting to withhold, but it says that he is a generous father. That if you ask, he will give generously. And by the way, you don't know what generosity is because the Lord lacks nothing, right? All the treasures and resources on earth don't even catch a glimpse of what the Lord has.

And ungrudgingly. Now, this is where I think a lot of us struggle. Because we know that God is generous, or at least we know the scripture again, head knowledge, we know that God can be generous.

Like one of the names of God is Jehovah Jireh, the Lord, the God who provides. I think sometimes what we struggle with is the ungrudgingly part. And I love that James adds that because it's not just enough to know that God can give, but he has a heart that wants to give.

Like I don't know if you've ever been with someone or something and you're going to buy something. I don't know if you ever, just those situations, right? Where people kind of like give, but it's kind of like eh, you know what I mean? Like feeling a little stingy with their money, right? Again, and it could be something really serious, it could be something very, very simple. But you know those moments where you're just like, man, like I'm in need and you're withholding.

And it could be a little painful. And again, we have lived experiences that tell us that people are this way and we tend to think that God is this way. But the Bible tells us here is listen, not only does God have ample supply to give in terms of wisdom, but he's not sitting up in heaven going like, I don't know about that.

But it's that desire that he wants to give. And it says that he will give it. So here's my point.

And in a trial, right? I've never really understood this phrase, but you don't have to white knuckle it. I was like looking up phrases and I was like, how do you describe this kind of moment, right? Like I'm just gonna hold on really, really tightly. And if I can just hold on and if I can just grin and bear it and just push through it, then everything will be okay.

And what James is saying is listen, you don't have to do that. You don't have to just try to figure it out on your own. You don't have to just try to get through it on your own.

You don't even have to try to rely on the resources of other people. You need in the middle of a trial to go to your heavenly father because he's gonna give you not maybe what you want, which is to get out of the situation, but he's gonna give you what you need, which is wisdom. And again, he lacks in nothing to give.

And he desires that he might give you that wisdom to see what he's doing, that you might better understand how again, like we talked last week about how this is forging your faith, how it's refining you and making you more like Christ, how it's strengthening you to trust in the Lord more. You don't have to do it on your own, but he says, go to the source of wisdom. Now, there's a little caveat here, okay? And I think this is important because a lot of times you'll hear a pastor preach on this.

Hey, if you lack anything, go to the Lord. As a general principle, I agree with that, right? The Bible says, pray without ceasing. And we can even look at Matthew chapter seven, it says, asking it will be given to you, seeking you will find, knock and the door will be open for everyone who asks receive and the one who seeks finds and to the one who knocks the door will be open.

That's Matthew chapter seven. A lot of times what happens is pastors try to connect these things together. And again, as a general principle, I would encourage and say, yeah, if you lack in anything, go to the Father.

What I think a lot of people miss is two things. One, the context here is not monetary. I don't know why we always think of it as money.

And I have heard this preached in such a way that if you need money, go to the Lord and he gives generously. I do believe God is a good father. Again, he is Jehovah Jireh.

He is the Lord, the God who provides. Don't hear the scripture twisted that if I just lack in something, I can just go to the Lord. Again, general principle, always go to God in every situation.

I want you to hear though, the context of this. The Jewish Christians don't need money. They're not in a trial because they lack in financial resources.

They're in a trial because they're being persecuted for their faith. And James is saying, what you need is the source who will give you all wisdom. And he says, but there is a caveat here.

He says, but, okay, so we have a little moment of correction, but let him ask in faith. Now, here's what I think is kind of the contention here. The trial is to build and produce faith.

And at the same time, we are to ask in faith. Man, what a challenge that is. And I think this is part of that testing.

You're in a trial. It's not just that the Lord wants you to go through hard things. He wants you to learn how to build your faith.

He says, but let him ask in faith without doubting. He says, for the doubter is like a surging sea driven and tossed by the wind. This is essentially a person who's like, God, I know you can, but I don't know that you will.

God, I believe in faith, but also I'm kind of doubting. This is the person who says, God, you can do it. And also then the next day goes, I'm going to figure out how to do this on my own.

That's what the Bible says. It's this person who's just back and forth and back and forth. God, you can, God, you won't, God, you're able.

I can do this on my own. And again, it's not that, we're all human. We have moments where these things are true.

But what he's saying is in this moment, listen, don't doubt that the Lord is generous and ungrudging. He wants to give you what you need. And that what you need in the trial is not to get out of it necessarily, right? But it's wisdom.

He's, James says, this person, again, the doubting person, the back and forth person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Being double-minded and unstable in all of his ways. As you read commentary on this, one of the things that they really get, I won't get into all the Greek text on it, but it's very fascinating to kind of read and study.

What you kind of learn is that it's not just do I doubt, but it's kind of where am I putting my faith and my trust in? And really we can do it one or two ways. We can put our faith and trust in God, or we can put our faith and trust in the things of this world, our own skills, our own abilities, our own financial resources, our jobs, our relationships, all of these different things. And again, good things that God has given us to enjoy, but we need to trust in the creator, not the creation.

What James is saying here is it's kind of like a person who's trying to stand on two things at once. I'm with God and I'm with the world. And he says, listen, that person's double-minded and that person is unstable.

It's kind of that old adage, right? You can't ride two horses at once. It's not exactly how the phrase goes, but that's the G-rated church version for you, okay? You can't. You can't do two things at once.

You can't say I'm all in with God, but also I'm kind of halfway in my own world and my own skills and ability, right? That's what James is saying. He says that's someone who shouldn't expect to receive anything from the Lord. I also want to encourage you with this.

Oftentimes what ends up happening is we pray one time and we don't see God move in the way that we think he should move. And we go, all right, I'm done. Again, it's not what we want.

Godly wisdom is seeing what does God see. And what happens oftentimes, we go, God, here's what needs to happen in this situation. And we pray to God.

And then guess what? That doesn't happen. So we start relying on our own self again. We start trusting in the things of this world rather than God.

And what godly wisdom says is no, no, no, I trust the Lord. And I trust that he is working all things out for my good and for his glory. That I don't understand all the pieces of the puzzle, but I believe in faith that God is at work.

And when we fall into sin, and when we start trusting in our own ability, when we start walking in our own way, what we are saying to the Lord is I don't actually trust you. And so I wanna encourage you this morning, find your trust in God and what God has done. If God has shown himself faithful before, I promise you he will show himself faithful again.

And it may not be in your timing, and it may not be in the way you want. And oftentimes I find that it's not. I find that very, very rarely do I ever pray, God, this is how I'd like for things to work out.

And he's up there like a waiter taking my, okay, absolutely, Bryson. You want that on the side too? All right, here we go. Yes, I will get that to the kitchen.

We'll get that made for you. That's not how the Lord works. Would like it if he did, but that's not often how the Lord works.

This is humble submission to the source of wisdom. If you're in the middle of a trial, if you're going through it when you go through it, it's really how I should say it, ask in faith because God is generous and he's ungrudging. And I know you have real world lived experiences that tell you the opposite, but I promise you your knowledge of what it is versus the truth of who God is are not lining up in that moment.

We must go to the source and total surrender. The second thing is this. Not only do we need to go to the source of wisdom, I want you to see the opportunity for wisdom.

And here's what I love. James basically says, I don't care who you are or where you're at. This is what you need, right? Because sometimes we can, if we're not careful, we tend to go, well, that's really for them, right? Or he really needs that or that person that really needs, you know what I mean? We kind of dissociate our need for it.

Here's what James says, verse nine. So this is someone who's in a very, very low place in their life. Again, this could be relationally, financially, could be with a job, could be all, you know, could be a sin, could be all kinds of things.

Humble circumstances, boast in his exaltation. So what he's saying is, listen, let the person who's really going through it boast in the fact that Christ is bringing him up through this, okay? But let the rich, and this is not the word rich as in wealthy, okay? This is kind of where our English translation from the original Greek struggles a little bit. We have to associate humble circumstance.

He's contrasting it with rich circumstance, okay? Not humble circumstance and a person who's wealthy, okay? This is a very common misconception. It does not matter how much money you have. What he's saying, listen, is if you're in the low spot, we would say humble circumstance, or if you're really, life is good.

Again, maybe not as good as somebody else, but like your life is good, you're fine. It says, let the rich in their circumstances boast in his humiliation because he will pass away like a flower of the field. What James is saying here is, listen, if you're doing well, life is going well.

Your job is good, your family's healthy, right? Like you feel stable. Maybe even economically you're doing well. I don't know, everything in between.

He says, listen, you need to boast in your humility. James will go on in James chapter four, it's to say this, but God gives greater grace. Therefore, he says, God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

So we're gonna see that in a few weeks, but I want you to hear this. When things are going well, this is not the time to boast it up, like, look how good I'm doing. Look how well my life is doing.

Look how good the decisions I made have been, right? It is often when things are well that we don't look to God. And James says, no, no, no, listen, when things are well, and again, he's writing to people who have been ostracized from their home, who are being persecuted, and he's saying, listen, when things go well, I just, I find that kind of interesting, but he's saying this is for everyone. This is where you need to humble yourself, and you need to go, you know what? Everything I own, everything I have, I give to Christ.

This is why parent-child dedication is such a big deal, because our children are not our own. They are a gift and a heritage from the Lord. Parent-child dedication is an opportunity for us to say, you know what, Lord, whatever you have for them, I put my full faith and trust that you're gonna watch over them, you're gonna care for them, you're gonna take care of them in a way that my human flesh just never could, but when things are going well, this is not the time to say, look at me and how great I am.

It's the time for you to say, no, everything I have, I have because of Christ, and when you're in a lowly situation, you lose your job, you have health issues, relationally, everything is falling apart, all the things in between, right? Your car breaks down in the middle of all that. You get an unexpected bill. These things happen.

Again, sometimes God allows it. Sometimes it's our own human consequences. Sometimes it's just the realities of the world we live in.

Sometimes it's all of the above, and he says, listen, this is where you, in your lowly situation, say, I have nothing but Christ, and it doesn't matter how much is taken away from me. All I have is Christ, and I can boast in that. One of my favorite kind of Bible nerdy tidbits of information, again, chronologically, similar to the book of James, it's not chronologically in order, but it's believed that Job is the first recorded, written down book in the Bible, and now again, Genesis, Exodus, all of these things happened probably before Job, but it's believed that Job was written before Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible, and Job is all about suffering.

Job has everything taken away, and the Lord allows it. Satan goes, and he says, who might I find to convince them to disown you, God? And God literally says, look at my servant, Job. There's moments where I'm like, nope, take your eyes off of me for just a moment, and he loses his property, his wealth, he loses his children.

The only thing that Satan allows him to maintain is his naggy wife, literally, that's it. His friends try to convince him to, but literally, everything's taken away from him, and that's literally, I mean, again, from a thematic perspective, that literally will be the theme of Scripture. If everything is taken away from you, will you boast that you have the Lord, that the joy of the Lord is your salvation, that everything you have in this world can be removed, and yet, you will stay faithful to God? How fitting is it, then, that James, we believe, is the first book written in the New Testament, and James is calling the people of God to something.

He's saying, listen, if everything is taken away from you, if you are a lowly circumstance, things are hard, he says, I want you to boast in your exaltation. I want you to boast in the one who brings and raises you up, and that is Christ, and Christ alone. You will not do that, though, if you don't first go to the source.

Whatever your source is, that's who you will boast in. If that source is a family member, you're gonna tell everybody about your family member. If that's your counselor, you're gonna tell everybody about your counselor.

If that's your own skills and abilities, you're gonna tell everybody about how great you are and what you've done, and what James is saying here is, listen, this is for everybody, whether you're lowly or doing well. Find it in Christ. Everything I have is Christ.

I have nothing, but I have Christ, and I submit everything to him. So if anyone in here lacks wisdom, you're going through a trial, or maybe this is preparation for a time where you will go through a trial, go to God, because he gives to all, generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given. Trials often reveal our lack of wisdom, but God doesn't scold us for needing him, right? It says that he gives generously, again, the perspective that we need to endure.

So two questions for us this morning. Am I dwelling on what I'm going through, or am I exalting Christ, the source of my wisdom through it? Am I elevating my situation above Jesus Christ? And I would just encourage and challenge. If people know more about your situation than they know about how you're seeking Jesus and how good God has been to you through it, then people are missing opportunities to hear you.