Got Wisdom?

 “Got Wisdom?”

 Message @ Jericho Ridge Community Church – Sunday, Sept 14, 2014

Text: James 1:5-8 // Series: Mirror, Mirror: Reflections in the book of James

Good morning everyone.  I know it still feels and looks like summer outside but I am here to burst your bubble and tell you Christmas is just around the corner. If you’ve been to Costco anytime since, oh, June, you know this already – I will not ask for a show of hands as to who has already bought wrapping paper – you know who you are.  But just like last weekend where I provided you a public service by assisting you with a topic of conversation for social environments – remember what that was? Yes, border crossings – and we talked about how just like a good border guard, you are to ask when trials come into your life “what is the purpose of your visit?” This week, I am here to serve again with my 2014 Holiday Gift Guide.  To kick things off, I want you to watch this clip which is a Christmas ad for E-bay by comedian Jim Gaffigan that ran a few years back.  Let’s watch this together.

VIDEO [30 sec]   

We’ll all likely been on the receiving end of presents that just don’t work.   Gaffigan has a hilarious bit on this in another one of his routines.  He says “we’ve all opened up a piece of clothing given as a gift and gone ‘not even close’.  Or he ask “what kind of would give another person a robe as a gift?  Oh gee thanks.  Now all I have to do is catch a cold so I can use this weird gift.  So your present comes with your wish for a communicable illness?” 

Being a gracious recipient can also be hard work.  I can remember getting a gift one time from a family member and it was something that I had broken when over at their house some months back.  I wasn’t sure – was this a kind of revenge gift?  The gift was supposed to sit on the shelf and remind me of my clumsy gaff every time I looked at it?  It was kind of confusing to me.  It was like they couldn’t let it go (I won’t sing it this week).  And then there’s my least favorite – the person who gives you a gift but continuously tells you how much it cost them.  “Oh, you are going to LOVE this – do you know why? It cost me a small fortune.”  It’s like they want that to hold that price point over my head and perhaps compare it to what I gave to them. 

Gift giving can be confusing at the best of times.  But we’re going to look this morning at an amazing gift that is available to all of us that comes from a generous and loving Giver.  It may not be a snowmobile but it’s also not socks that smell like church. Let’s pray together as we dig into God’s Word

Last weekend we started our fall teaching series called “Mirror, Mirror: Reflections in the Book of James”.  This little book of the Bible tucked away towards the end of the New Testament is filled with practical wisdom for living.  Last week we looked at James 1:1-4 and talked about trails and temptations and how they can develop in us what we lack – perspicacity and perseverance.  But sometimes, we find ourselves in the midst of a trying situation or faced with a complex decision that has multiple factors and we’re really not sure what the right thing is to do.  We get stuck.  Let’s look together at what God says to do when you find yourself not knowing what to do.  I’m going to read from James 1:5-8 in the New Living Translation.  Follow along on your YouVerion app on your smartphone or in your Bible.  If you don’t have a Bible, you are welcome to grab one at the welcome Centre anytime – they are brown and James 1 is on page __. 

James 1:5-8

One of the amazing pieces of good news that James unlocks for us here in these verses is his revelation of God as a good giver of good gifts.

Here’s what he says about 1. How God WANTS to Give.

• Generously

James is going to tell us later on in this chapter that every good and perfect gift that we receive in our lives comes to us from God.  The rain that falls on the just and the unjust.  The sunlight that we receive.  The ability to think and process complex pieces of information.  The ability to create meaning in our lives and enjoy vocation that allows us the resources to live.  All of it is given to us generously and lavishly by God.  Why?  Because that’s just who God is.      

–      Giving lavishly & liberally is part of God’s nature. 

It’s like generosity is bound up in his DNA.  We read over and over and over again in the Scripture about God’s generosity toward us as people.  Even what is perhaps the most often quoted verse from the Bible has this truth resident in it: “For God so loved… that He gave.” (John 3:16)

It is in God’s nature to give and to give generously.  God is not a stingy or miserly giver – when He gives, He gives His all, He gives His best.  Romans 8:32 says “he who did not spare his own Son, but gave Him up for us all. How will he not also along with Him, graciously give us all things”     

Giving generously and lavishly and liberally is just part of God’s nature.  And so when it comes to wisdom, God’s posture is the same: He gives generously.  The book of Proverbs in the Old Testament over and over again helps us understand not only the value of wisdom, but also its source: Wisdom comes from God.  We’ll see this later on in our study in the book of James as well – that wisdom has some specific characteristics.

But there’s another description of God as a gift giver in these verses that helps us understand how God wants to give.  James says God gives generously to all without finding fault.  In other words, God gives

• Freely

Each one of us is born with a fatal flaw: we’re not God.  Therefore, we don’t know everything.  We don’t know what to do in all situations.  Each and every one of us is goes through our lives suffering from a case wisdom deficiency.  Some have more acute cases than others.  But here’s the amazing thing: when I give someone a gift that I know is in an area that they are lacking, I have a bad habit of holding that over their heads just a little bit.  “Oh you need something from me, perhaps my help, do you?  Well, that must be because I’m such a great or wise or resourceful or rich or smart person.  And by inference, that must mean that you are not.”  But that’s not how God gives.  Not only does he give generously, he gives freely.  He is ready and willing to give with no strings attached.      

–     God doesn’t ‘keep score’ of our wisdom deficiency

When I come to Him and ask for help again to overcome my fear or anxiety or my pride or my lust or my anger, God doesn’t pull out his records and say “weren’t you just here yesterday asking me for the very same thing?”  Didn’t I give you wisdom to handle that already – why are you back here again?”  No.  God is ready and willing to give. “God does not reprimand us for past failures or remind us endlessly of the value of the gifts he gives.” (Moo, 63). I love how Eugene Peterson puts this in his translation of the book of Hebrews which we have been reading in our Life Journaling this past week.  Hebrews 4:16 it says

“So let’s walk right up to Him and get what He is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help.” (Heb 4:16 MSG)

So if God wants pour out wisdom into our lives generously, freely regularly, lavishly why don’t we seem to have more of it?  If the wisdom deficiency problem isn’t with the giver, then it must be with me as a receiver. 

Here too, James is very insightful and he gives us a word picture that helps us to understand that the problem is not How God wants to give, it’s HOW we Usually ASK. 

James has just walked us through an amazing journey.  We all have troubles and trials come into our lives, we get stuck and don’t know what to do. We ask God for wisdom – He is willing to give it to us – how awesome is that!  Divine wisdom available to me for every situation – I will know how to face whatever is in front of me!  It sounds too good to be true.  There’s just one teensy weensy little catch.  And it’s a problem with how we ask. 

We say we want wisdom from above, BUT we also want to keep our options open.  We ask, but our faith James says “our faith is not in God alone.”  We are of two minds about it.  Meaning we want God to help us, but we also want to have some pretty solid back up plans just in case He doesn’t do anything.  We ask God for wisdom and for help but when He tells us something we don’t want to hear or gives us a timeline that we find unacceptably long, we tell Him to get lost.  Now to be clear… when the text says “believe and not doubt” this is not talking about honest intellectual doubts and questions that you may have about prayer, about God and about faith.  You need to know that these are not only permitted, they are encouraged!  Here at Jericho, no matter where you are at on your spiritual journey, you’ll find a safe place to explore and ask questions.  The kind of doubt that James is talking about is found if you were to ask yourself three litmus test questions about your prayers. 

1. Ask: “Do I harbor secret doubts as to whether or not I really want God’s help with this?”

Sometimes when we really need wisdom, the issue is not that God is hesitant to give it to us, it’s that we sometimes hesitate to ask.  This might be an indicator that you don’t actually want God’s help – that you want to solve this challenge on your own to prove how strong and independent and smart you are.  This is how James distinguishes between a smart person and a wise person.  Wisdom here is a moral, not just an intellectual quality.  Yes, it involves the application of knowledge, discernment and intellect. But it also involves seeing the situation from God’s perspective.  And sometimes, we don’t actually want to do that. We say we do, but if God steps in, we tell Him to back off.  Do you really want God’s help?

The second litmus test question to ask yourself is

2. Ask: “What is my plan when/if God doesn’t help in the way or timing that I think He should?”

You see if you already have a plan all mapped out in your mind for when God doesn’t show up, then why are you asking for His help in the first place?  You are saying God please help me – give me wisdom to face this situation.  But under your breath you are muttering “and when you don’t, here’s exactly what I am going to do!”  I see this all the time with my kids.  They’ll come to me and say “hey dad, what do you think I should do about this? But they already have their minds made up as to what they are going to do about the situation.  Which drives me crazy because I think “then why the heck did you waste your time and mine asking my opinion if you were going to go out and do whatever the heck you wanted to do anyways?”  (I’m sure this would NEVER happen in your house J).  But how often do we approach God with minds already made up & plans already in place? 

The third question

3. Ask: “If God was to grant me wisdom that seemed counter-intuitive to the ways of the world, would I still be willing to act on it?”  

Sometimes when we ask God for wisdom, He tells us to do things that don’t seem to make immediate sense in the eyes of this world.  The Bible is filled with stories like this.  Later on in this teaching series you’ll hear from Darryl and Jodi Bueckert who are moving with their two kids to Mazatlán, Mexico this fall to live and serve people who are under-resourced.  Our missions team met with them this past week to hear their story and one of the themes that comes up over and over again is how they are stepping out in faith into a whole lot of unknowns.  “What are you going to do each day?” The answer “whatever God puts in front of us.  It might be cutting fruit to serve to the people who live at the dump.  It might be helping to fit kids with shoes so they can go to school.”  But they are willing to depend on God and seek His wisdom and His ways as opposed to having every aspect of things mapped out in advance.  And this is a faith-stretch because it causes them to trust God and seek His wisdom and seek Him in fresh and daily ways.  And    

Here at Jericho, one of our 5 year strategic outcomes is a funny little one called “measuring properly” where we say “We see people responding to the situations of everyday life with appropriate definitions of success, measuring their accomplishments by Kingdom metrics and not suburban expectations.”  This will cause us to do things that often look counter-intuitive to the ways of the world – to give generously, to make alternative vocational choices that allow time for service and family and not just making the most money.  But that is being willing to act on the wisdom that comes from above and step out in faith that it’s the right thing to do. 

Be here’s the other problem – I may feel that way a one moment – full of faith and confidence in God, and the next day, I might wake up a nervous wreck.  James paints a bleak picture of this kind of life.  He says you can’t be like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed about by every wind blast and every swirl of the tidal current.  If you are that fickle, that unstable, that prone to ask God for wisdom one minute but to discard everything He ways to you the next, you are a double minded person.  Unreliable in the way that you think, feel, make decisions.  If that’s the way you approach God, James says, you have divided loyalty and that’s a problem. 

So if those ways of asking are not helpful, then how should we ask? Thankfully, someone asked Jesus that very same question while he was on the earth some 2,000 years ago and then someone else wrote his answer down so we don’t have to guess at how to approach God in prayer when asking for wisdom to face the situations we find ourselves in.  In Matthew 21, Jesus says this: ““Then Jesus told them, “I tell you the truth, if you have faith & don’t doubt, you can do things like this and much more… You can pray for anything and if you have faith, you will receive it.”

The key to getting wisdom from above is to ask in faith and don’t doubt.  Don’t doubt that God is willing to give it.  And don’t doubt that when He gives it to you, that you need to act on it.  This is the same thing James says.  Stop being non-committal, stop constantly changing your allegiances and your mind.  Ask boldly. Believingly. Trusting God to guide and direct.

Don’t hear what the text isn’t saying.  This is not to suggest that we use God as some kind of magic 8 ball when we get into trouble.  This is also not to suggest that when you pray for something, if God doesn’t answer you that clearly you didn’t have faith or you had a speck of doubt somewhere in your heart.  This is not what the text addresses.  I think that the text is addressing one simple question that I would invite each of us to reflect on this week:

WHAT we are willing to ask reveals a lot about our belief in God;

HOW we ask reveals a lot about us

The message translation of these verses says it this way: “If you don’t know what you’re doing, pray to the Father. He loves to help. You’ll get his help, and won’t be condescended to when you ask for it. Ask boldly, believingly, without a second thought. People who “worry their prayers” are like wind-whipped waves. Don’t think you’re going to get anything from the Master that way, adrift at sea, keeping all your options open.”

My prayer for my own life, and for yours and for this church is that we would be willing to seek the wisdom that God is so willing to give. And perhaps the more challenging part of that equation, that we would be willing to live out resolutely and faithfully what He shows us.  Let’s pray together.