We all know that the more complex life becomes and the more complicated situations we face, all the more urgent is our need for wisdom.
And now we can go back to James 1-5. If any of you lacks wisdom. The past year and a half has certainly brought new and unique challenges to our lives, hasn't it? We have had to navigate social upheaval and health concerns, and those things have required us to think deeply about life, about what matters most, and about where we turn to find wisdom.
Today on Renewing Your Mind, Reformation Bible College President, Dr. Stephen Nichols, takes us to James 1 to show us that divine help is available to everyone who asks for it. There's one verse in particular that I'd like to discuss with you. Back when I first became president of the college, actually a few months before we made the move down here and began the work, received a letter from an older friend of mine, and he was just passing on some advice, and he ended up writing out a number of points. Some of those points were just a sentence long. Some were a whole paragraph.
But one of those points stands out, and I often go back and read that letter, and as I do, my eyes are just sort of drawn almost like a laser-guided missile right to that point. And that point simply said, James chapter 1, verse 5. Well, that's the verse that I'd like to look at with you in this time that we have together. So let's look at God's word, this book of James.
In order to set the context here for verse 5, let's just pick it up at the beginning, at James 1, 1. Here we read, James, servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the 12 tribes in the dispersion, greetings. Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness, and let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. Well, as we spend some time together in God's word, let's just spend a moment in prayer asking God to bless our time and to guide our steps. Our Father and our God, we are so grateful for your many good gifts, and we are grateful for the gift of your eternal and abiding word. As we think about this verse together, and as we think about this moment in which we live, this urgency that we all sense to be wise, to have wisdom, may you guide us, may you guide our steps, may we see what is only truth as we look into your words. May we not only hear it, but as this very book instructs us, may we be doers of it as well, and may that be pleasing and honouring to you, our loving and holy Father. We pray these things in Christ's name.
Amen. In these first four verses of chapter one, I think James is actually demonstrating wisdom. He has wisdom when we see him reflecting on who he is and his own self-understanding. Many commentators, and I'm sure as you read this verse, it just jumps out to you in verse one that James introduces himself as a servant. That strikes me as wisdom. We could easily see James, and I think if it were up to us, we would want to say, I am the brother of Jesus Christ.
That's where we would start. We would introduce ourselves as the brother of Christ, but not James. He has this incredible view of himself, doesn't he? And what a self-understanding to simply say servant. He's not lording over his audience. He's not lording it over us, his readers, that he is the very brother of Jesus. No, not James. He's a servant.
That's wisdom. And then look at verses two to four. He talks about counting it joy when you fall into trials. James is able to do that because as those verses unfold, he shows us that he has the long view in mind. He's able to get out from under the weight and the burden of the current circumstances. He can sift through the rubble, as it were.
He can get past the noise and the clutter. And he can have that perspective that these trials that come upon us that no one wants, I don't want them, you don't want them, but these trials produce steadfastness. And when that steadfastness has its full effect, well, that's Christian maturity. For James to see that and for James to say that, I believe that's wisdom.
So here, even in these first four verses, James is demonstrating wisdom, and then we come to verse five. If any of you lacks wisdom. Well, let's talk about wisdom for a little bit. Nearly every culture has a sense of wisdom, the pursuit of wisdom. Cultures have depositories of wisdom, be they written texts or oral traditions.
There are individuals who are seen to be wise or a collective group that is seen to be wise. That's certainly true of the Greeks, and if we go back to the ancient Greeks, we see them as lovers of philosophy. In fact, all those who teach philosophy, I teach philosophy over at RBC. I know Dr. Sproul has mentioned this often back both when he was a college student studying philosophy and as a professor of philosophy. Well, you start with writing the word philosophy on the board, and then you break it down, don't you?
It's a compound word. It comes from two Greek words, phileo, which is that wonderful word of love, and then Sophia. And that's what philosophy is, the love of wisdom, the pursuit of wisdom. We go back to those first philosophers, to Socrates and his pursuit of wisdom, and he's wise because he knows that he doesn't know.
He knows what he does not know, and that's his wisdom. We also see that this pursuit of wisdom is true of the Old Testament. In fact, we have a whole significant portion of the Old Testament that we call wisdom books.
There's Job, which is that epic tale. There's the Psalms, which are prayers and hymns. There's Proverbs, which is considered a wisdom book with its aphorisms. There's Ecclesiastes with all of it stacked up, many narratives that ponder what is the meaning of life and upend conventional wisdom and point us to that life under the sun and where we can find meaning only, right, by fearing God.
And then the wisdom books, these five books of the Old Testament end with the Song of Solomon, that great love poem. The Hebrew word for wisdom is hokmah. Can you say that with me?
Hokmah? It's one of those words that you've got to start from the back of your throat. It means skillful living. It's this idea that we not only have knowledge, but we know exactly when and exactly how to apply that knowledge in the situations that we face. If you were to look up wisdom in the dictionary, you would see that it is the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgment. We could put some of this together and say that wisdom is thinking, deciding, and acting upon knowledge, which of course we would say is truth.
So it's the thinking, deciding, and acting upon truth and experience, what we have learned in the past, so that we can make and execute sound judgments. Well, we all know that we need wisdom. We all know that the more complex life becomes and the more complicated situations we face, all the more urgent is our need for wisdom.
And now we can go back to James 1.5. If any of you lacks wisdom. Do you put yourself in that category of lacking wisdom?
I certainly do. In fact, I think it might almost be more appropriate for James to say, since all of us lack wisdom, I think that's probably more appropriate. But the idea here is you almost need to feel your inadequacy. It's important for us to know our limits, to know our deficiency. There are those, and we've met them, folks who think they have it all together, and they think they have everything they need to know, and they don't see themselves as lacking anything.
Well, there's really nothing that can be done for that person, is there? But if you feel, if you intimately know that there's a breach there in your defenses, that you have a weak link somewhere, well, if you feel that, if it's palpable, James comes alongside us and says, I can help you. Isn't this fundamental really to all prayer, even to the Christian life, to maturing in the Christian life, to recognizing that we come to the end of ourselves and that we have a true need? Well, this is James 1-5, this, if anyone lacks wisdom. I want to read that, and I want to say yes, I lack wisdom.
Now, what do I do? Well, James has an answer. He says, let him ask God.
Isn't that great? The simplicity of that, the straightforwardness of that, how clear that is. Let him ask God. We know this is the right answer because, first of all, God is the source of all wisdom. We go back to that Old Testament wisdom book, Proverbs.
We go back to Proverbs chapter two. We find here in verse six of Proverbs chapter two, for the Lord gives wisdom. From his mouth come knowledge and understanding. He stores up sound wisdom for the upright.
He is a shield to those who walk in integrity, guarding the paths of justice and watching over the way of his saints. We ask God for wisdom because God is the source of wisdom. He is perfect and infinite in wisdom. This is truly a bottomless supply of wisdom.
It makes perfect sense to go to God. He's the source, and not only is he the source of wisdom, but he is the subject of wisdom. Flip back a chapter to Proverbs chapter one. That great verse, so many of us, you, I'm sure, have it memorized. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. So, we ask God, this God who is the source of wisdom, this God who is the subject of wisdom.
Do you remember that opening line from Calvin's Institute? Nearly all the wisdom that we possess, that is to say true and sound knowledge, is comprised of this, the knowledge of God and the knowledge of ourselves. And so, we ask God. We also find out, going back to James chapter one, verse five, we find out there in verse five that we should ask God because of who God is.
And this is what James says. He gives generously to all without reproach. One of the wonderful characteristics of God that I just find overwhelming, and I'm sure you do too, is how gracious our God is.
We don't often use the word liberal, do we? We like to call ourselves conservatives, but God is liberal. God freely gives. God is generous.
God is generous to all. Interestingly, Calvin commenting on this very verse says that even he who has made the greatest progress in being wise is yet far from the goal. Isn't that the great thing about this prayer, this notion really of growing in wisdom, that no matter where we find ourselves on the continuum, a new Christian who is just beginning that trek of maturing in wisdom and maybe, and it's not always linked up chronologically, but even a young person who just recognizes there's so much life ahead of them that they realize that they're only on the beginning path of wisdom. And then there are those closer to the other end of the continuum, aren't there, who have a great deal of experience behind them. And God has taught them many things and has shown them many things.
And through that, they've been open to learning and have asked and repeated this prayer many times throughout their Christian journey. And so, they have wisdom. And here's the beauty, no matter where we are on that continuum, all of us have room to grow. And as Calvin reminds us, a great deal of room to grow. So, God gives generously to all, to all who may be just starting out and have a great need for wisdom. And to all who've been at this for a while, and yet they too remain with a great need for wisdom.
And then notice what is said here too, without reproach. What if I ask too many times? What if I ask for too much?
Am I coming back to the well too many times? You know, you sense this with other people. You've perhaps been in the presence of someone, you know their time is precious. You have a lot that you would like to ask of them, or you have a lot that you'd like to put in front of them. And you have to sort of parcel it out, don't you?
And you have to prioritize. And you almost wonder, am I asking too much? You don't have to worry about that when you ask God for wisdom. You do not have to fear being reprimanded for asking for too much.
You can keep coming back to this well as often as you like, because this well is bottomless. And what does God do when we make this request before him, when we ask God for wisdom? Well, it's very simple. He gives it. Look at how verse five ends. And it, that is wisdom, and wisdom will be given him.
That's very clear what we need to see there. First of all, it's wisdom that will be given. And secondly, it will be given.
This is one of those promises that we can claim and we need to claim. But notice that it's wisdom. I find this very fascinating. It's not saying that, say, knowledge will be given to this person. You know, we actually have an obligation to acquire knowledge, don't we? We all wish we could learn by osmosis. Do you remember the old trick of sticking the physics textbook under the pillow the night before the exam? And then you wake up and you're all set to go ace the exam because all of that knowledge just migrated from between those covers and into your brain.
No, that doesn't work. We have an obligation. We have to acquire knowledge, and that requires diligent study. And even when it comes to experience, we need to learn from our experience, don't we? We need to be observing, evaluating, and reflecting.
And we need to be remembering. But into all of that, as we acquire knowledge and as we seek to learn from our experience, what do we find? God gives wisdom. And God helps us.
He enables us to apply that knowledge and that prior experience in this new situation that we face to this new decision that is in front of us. The promise this is for us to claim that this generous God gives us wisdom. What a privilege we have that we are invited to pray and to ask for wisdom.
Well, let's just think through two applications of this. One is very simple, and that is we should pray for wisdom for others. You know, we are obligated to intercede for one another in prayer. In fact, I like to think of it not as an obligation.
Really, it's a privilege, isn't it? What a blessing it is that God invites us to pray for one another. What a way we can care for one another. And so we must pray for our leaders, our political leaders. We need to pray for our presidents, our legislators, our governors, our local officials. We need to pray that they have wisdom, that as they sort through all of these data points that are coming at them, and as they make decisions that affect hundreds and thousands and millions of lives, that they would have wisdom.
We need to pray for our pastors, don't we? That they have wisdom. That as they commit themselves to the study of God's Word and to shepherding God's flock, that God would grant them wisdom. I'd call upon you to pray for the leadership team here at Ligonier, that we would have wisdom as we navigate moving Ligonier through these tumultuous and challenging times. And as we think about, there's so many ministry opportunities that are before us. And as we try to honor you, our ministry partners, and those friends and donors who come alongside of us, and we try to think about the ministry resources that we have, the dollars that we have, and the opportunities that are there before us, that we would have wisdom as we make these decisions for the ministry and as we think about moving the ministry forward. You should pray for your employers and the executives at your companies and for your managers, that they would have wisdom in the decisions that they have to make, and as they make decisions that do impact people's lives.
And we need to pray for our family, don't we? For our spouses and our children and our loved ones, that as they grow and experience life, that they would be wise. So, we need to pray for wisdom for others, and then we need to pray for ourselves. You know, I've heard it, you've heard it many times, that we can have knowledge but not have wisdom. I remember back when I started teaching, back in 1997 when I started teaching college, I noticed something. I almost noticed that there was sort of a step even before knowledge, that students as they were just coming into the information age and flooded with billions of bits of data at their fingertips. It was almost as if they were focused on data and information. And before they could get to wisdom, they just needed knowledge. They needed some way to arrange and hierarchicalize and prioritize and systematize all of that data, all of that information.
They needed knowledge, let alone wisdom. And now, I wonder if we find ourselves in a moment where we even need just data and information. It's hard, isn't it, to know what's reliable, what's trustworthy, what's a good source. What can we count on as we hear just information and data points coming at us? Well, we need to have good data, good information. And we need to have knowledge to organize all of that data into a coherent and cogent whole. And then on top of that, what do we need? Well, we need wisdom.
Like you, I feel this every day. Our lack, my lack, my deficiency. And so, let's remember James 1.5. Let's remember, if any of you, if any of us, in fact, let's just say it. Since all of us lack wisdom, let us ask of God. And what will our gracious and generous Heavenly Father do for us? Well, He will give us wisdom. I pray that for you. I pray that for us here at Ligonier. Thank you for this opportunity to spend a moment with you.
I pray that you will pray for wisdom. And thank you, as we often, so often like to say, thank you for helping us here at Ligonier Ministries and at Reformation Bible College. Please know that we could not do what we do here without you standing with us in this great fight. That's Dr. Stephen Nichols with a convicting yet comforting message from James 1.
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This one by Dr. Burke Parsons. Many Christians would admit they've always felt like it's just a struggle to live each and every day, that life is war, that the battle between the flesh and the spirit sometimes rages so mightily in our hearts and in our lives that we barely feel like we're making it from one day to the next. But as we'll hear tomorrow, we find hope in the great and precious promises in Scripture. I hope you'll join us Wednesday for Renewing Your Mind. .
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