Doubt and Faith James 1:5 8, 4:1 8 June 1, 2014 All of us have had unanswered prayers maybe MANY unanswered prayers. Not selfish prayers not, Lord, help me to win the lottery prayers. Or as I prayed more than once in school, Lord, You know I didn t study as much as I should have, but please help me pass this test! Not those prayers they don t DESERVE to be answered! But the Lord, please heal my grandmother of cancer prayers the good and generous and even faithfilled prayers. We asked for something GOOD for someone else someone deserving and we asked with all the faith we could muster and heaven was silent. It was like we were crying into a vacuum! Nothing. No answer. No change. James talks about this dilemma in chapter 1:5 8. We know from our discussions these past two weeks that he s talking here primarily about praying for wisdom to understand the struggles and trials of life. But surely he s not limiting his teaching about prayer to prayers for wisdom. What he says is true for ALL prayer. If any of you lacks wisdom, he [or she] should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him [or her]. Fair enough. But then James continues with some qualifications that [at least at first blush] make me uncomfortable for reasons that I ll talk about: But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed about by the wind. That person should not think he [or she] will receive ANYTHING from the Lord; [they are] double-minded [people], unstable in all [they do]. Do you see why I m uncomfortable with this? I can just hear some super-spiritual, self-righteous Christian telling me, I know exactly why God didn t heal your gramma of cancer you didn t have enough FAITH! After all, James says. And so I go back and try again. And this time I ratchet up my prayers and pull out all the stops and muster up as much faith as I possibly can And STILL no healing! 1
So what do with do with James?! Of course, that s really the WRONG question, isn t it? Now, not only do I have a very sick gramma, but I m beating myself up with guilt for not being able to somehow scrape together enough faith to get God to listen to me! We don t stand in judgment over the Word of God; we sit under its teaching. So let s see what James is teaching us here. I want us to start by listening to what James is actually saying we need to let him speak and then I ll finish by asking three questions. 1. God gives us the wisdom we need without raising all sorts of embarrassing questions about all of our shortcomings! Listen again to vs. 5: If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ASK OF GOD, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given him. Notice again: God is a GENEROUS giver to all who ask and He s a GRACIOUS giver He doesn t pick at our faults and use them as an excuse to say, No! He doesn t embarrass us by parading our sins before us and berate us for even asking. No! He gives generously to all without finding fault. 2. So, James tells us, If God is not reluctant to give to us, we shouldn t be reluctant to ASK! That s what he s saying in vs. 6: But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed about by the wind. That one should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does. James is saying that when we ask half-heartedly, it s like we re not sure God is up to the job, and so we shouldn t be surprised when He doesn t come through for us. The doubter, James says, is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does. I think he has in mind a couple of ideas one from the Old Testament and one from the New: a) The great Shema passage from Deuteronomy 6: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength. 2
That passage was the foundation for what Jews BELIEVED and for how they LIVED. Because God is ONE and is undivided, they are to love and serve Him with all their heart an undivided heart for their undivided God. b) Second, James is thinking of all kinds of places where JESUS says this same sort of thing Matthew 7 Just ASK and you ll receive. But especially, Luke 8 right after Jesus stills the storm while he and the disciples are being tossed by the winds and the waves, and He says to them, Where is your faith? I m right here with you, being blown and tossed by the wind, and you didn t think I could handle this?! So, James is saying to us, we have this generous God who gives when we ask, who doesn t ask us embarrassing questions about our weaknesses, and simply asks us not to meet His single-mindedness with our own double-mindedness! Now, my three questions: 1. Who are the doubters James is talking about? We get a HINT in 1:8 when he says that, he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does. [Literally, in all his ways. ] The doubter in James is not just someone who has some questions, some mental reservations, who is trying to figure it all out, as we saw in 1:2 5. He s a person whose CONDUCT in life betrays whatever faith he professes to have. And this idea is amplified when we go to chapter 4:1 8: What causes fights and quarrels among you. You quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. You adulterous people, don t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Then he finishes up by returning to the theme of double-mindedness in vs. 8: Come near to God, and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. So, when James is talking to double-minded people, he s talking about people who have some SERIOUS issues with how they were living fighting and quarreling among themselves, focused on having a good time, all tangled up with pleasure, full of pride. No wonder he calls them, double-minded and unstable. These are the doubters he s talking about in vs. 6 not the poor believer who s just trying to figure it all out. 3
2. Does God HAVE to answer all our prayers that we ask in faith? Some, of course, would argue YES! Just say the word, and if you have the right amount of faith, it s YOURS! [And you can tell whether or not you have the right amount of faith by whether or not you get it!] But this is not PRAYER, it s MAGIC. In magic, I m in control I just say the magic words and it happens. It HAS to. In prayer, our Heavenly Father is in control, and so every prayer is an echo of Jesus prayer, Nevertheless, YOUR will be done. The best example of this is Paul s prayer that he talks about in 2 Corinthians 12, for God to take away his thorn in the flesh presumably some kind of physical condition that he felt strongly was keeping him from being a more effective missionary. So, it was a GOOD prayer, prayed for all the right reasons. It was a FAITH-FILLED prayer Three times, Paul says, I pleaded with the Lord. But, in the end, it was an UNANSWERED prayer (at least unanswered the way Paul wanted), as God shows him a better way: My strength is made perfect in your weakness. 3. May God answer prayers asked with wavering faith? I think it s instructive that James says in vs. 1:7, that man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord. that he should not EXPECT an answer! I go back to that father with the demon-possessed son who asked Jesus to free him. [Mark 9:17ff] And Jesus said, Everything is possible for him who believes, and the father honestly answered, I do BELIEVE; help my unbelief! I think Jesus had every right to say to that scarred father, Sorry, sir. You must believe and not doubt. Come back when you can do better. But, of course, He didn t! He honored that father s mustard-seed tiny faith and freed that boy from the devil s power. That man is my hero because he dared to be honest with Jesus. And, of course, JESUS in my greater Hero, because once again He showed His true colors 4
As John tells us, God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world but to save the world through him. God can and will do as He pleases when we pray to Him with great faith or with faltering faith. He owes us nothing. But, how comforting to know that He pleases to shower us with His grace and mercy in Jesus! That he pleases often to answer even our most imperfect of prayers. Rev. Robert Smallman Bible Presbyterian Church (Presbyterian Church in America) 1605 Highway G Merrill, WI 54452 www.biblepreschurch.org 5