Are You Rotting with Your Riches? - James 5:1-6

A message by Tyler Sanborn on James 5:1-6.

South Valley Student Ministry is a ministry of Compass Bible Church South Valley located in Kuna, ID. 

For more information about Compass Bible Church South Valley, please visit compassbiblesv.org.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Through hiking. Hiking, but for a long ways. Not tens of miles, not hundreds of miles. I'm talking about thousands of miles. The Pacific Crest Trail stretches over two thousand six hundred miles from Mexico to Canada. Two thousand six hundred and fifty miles passing through California, Oregon, and Washington. People that go on this adventure of a lifetime hiking along the Pacific Crest Trail take five months out of their life to hike and see beautiful creation, to experience and overcome a great challenge in their life physically, mentally, maybe for some people spiritually. And through hiking requires a lot of preparation. It requires a lot of forethought. It requires a lot of planning and preparation, a lot of just practical knowledge that comes along with succeeding. You don't go on a one does not simply walk into Mordor. One does not simply walk along the Pacific Crest Trail and succeed. You need people helping you out. You need to resupply. You need people to know where you are just in case you get in trouble. And as one prepares for this journey of a lifetime walking along the Pacific Crest Trail, you're going to do some homework. You're going to do some research. You're going to figure out if I'm going to fail, what does that look like? If I'm going to fail, where am I going to fall? Now there's a lot of hazards along the way. There are incredibly steep inclines. There's extreme heat, extreme cold, and there's a specific time typically that you're going to want to leave. You're not going to leave in the fall and hike through the winter. That would be extremely dangerous. You're going to leave in the spring, and hopefully, if the conditions are good, uh are in your favor, you would finish sometime in the fall. You're literally hiking 20 plus miles a day, trying to pace yourself. Oftentimes, these hikers that go through these three hikes are losing significant amounts of weight. They're in a calorie deficit day after day after day, and there's a ton of dangers. So, in a similar way that you would go about preparing your mind, preparing your understanding of the dangers ahead, what it's going to take to finish this through hike, James today is going to talk to us about the dangers and the pitfalls of life concerning wealth, concerning great riches. Now, as a what is the word I'm looking for? Pre-teeners. Some of you are preteenagers, yes. Some of you are preteens. A disclaimer. God does not in and of itself speak to someone who has great wealth and great riches, sinful in and of itself. There's nothing wrong with making large amounts of money in a way that honors the Lord, with a heart that seeks to please him and honor him with that. No, that's not what James is saying. James isn't speaking to those in this church that are wealthy and that are loving and obeying and following the Lord. James is speaking to people that are utterly failing and sinning in grievous ways, and he's grabbing them by the collar and saying, You need to stop. You need to check yourself. You need to stop doing this. You are making a mess of your life and a mess of the lives of everyone around you. There's a reason, there's a reason why through hikers don't carry king-size mattresses or large sofas along with them on this great journey. It makes it extremely difficult to carry along these large burdensome comforts and treasures that you would enjoy at home. You have a very specific mission to accomplish. And in a similar way, it's a challenging thing for anyone to accrue large amounts of wealth and finish this through hike of life. So that's kind of where I want to begin our time tonight. Having great wealth is not a sin. How you go about getting it and how you use it for yourself could be. That's what I want to be clear before we start. Let's dive into our text today. James chapter five, verses one through six. Read along with me. Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you, and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days. Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter, you have condemned and murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you. James is addressing people of great wealth. James is calling their attention to the ways that they are going about living their lives and the ways that they are treating the people around them. You might be looking at the title on the note sheet and be like, rotting riches? What do you mean? Like, are you talking, are you talking about the $15 that I have in my piggy bank, Tyler? No, I'm not talking about those. I'm not talking about those. I'm talking to you today, and it's for the application of where this text lands with you primarily is in your in your hearts. And it's a great warning for you students to think about the ways that you go about making money in the future and what's what the potential harms and dangers are for you. James is speaking to a mixed group of Christians and non-Christians, and he is calling to the spotlight the rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. And I couldn't help but think about discipline, thinking about judgment as I'm reading this text. I'm thinking about the ways that I disobeyed my parents. I'm thinking about the ways that I mistreated my siblings and the things that I did that were so self-centered and selfish when I was a younger person. And what came after that? When my faults were found out, some of you might be tracking with me. You're thinking, well, Tyler has had some loving parents. They surely disciplined them. He did. My parents, my mom and dad, and ultimately my dad disciplined me when I was falling short, when I was sinning against God and sinning against the people around me. And there is this physical response when you look forward to the judgment that is approaching you. If you are one day in a jury and you might find yourself with your jury members, left and right of you, saying, This person is guilty of this crime. That might be you one day. And in a court setting, you get very strong reactions when the verdict guilty is pronounced by the judge. People weep, people cry, people lash out in anger, people are visibly, physically upset and angry. And James is calling the readers, he's calling his listeners who are reading this, both Christians and non-Christians, look, there is some misery ahead of you. There is some suffering ahead of you. If you continue this path, if you continue this path, things are on their way for you. Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. Now I have some shirts that I've had since high school, believe it or not. Some of them, actually, I think some shirts are one or two shirts from high school. They're they're holy. They're holy. They're not like set apart holy, but they're like, they've been washed like literally hundreds of times to where they have holes in them. Like the collar is starting to like get holes in it. There's holes, there's stains. And that's not that's not what uh what James is talking about here to his readers. He's talking about, he's talking to these wealthy landowners and farmers that have so much clothing that they lose track of it. They they can't wear it often enough, and insects are creeping in and starting to consume it because it's sitting idle, folded, or or hung up in their closets. Um, and James is is really he he has people in mind. He has people that are in need in mind, surely, and he is drawing the reader's attention to how much they have. How much they have. There's there was a show a while ago, I'm not sure if it's still going um now, but it's called Hoarders. It's kind of like a cringy show where, for the sake of entertainments, I say that in air quotes, entertainment, people go and help kind of reveal people's struggles when it comes to hoarding. And typically it's like they have a bunch of dogs or cats, or they they they have newspapers from like the past five decades. There's there's a lot of things literally piled up in their house and they're keeping it and they don't want to let it go. In this show, there's not like neat and nice tiny stacks of like silk clothing, shoes, gold bars, hundred dollar bills. No, it's typically things that aren't really that valuable, typically. James here is drawing the attention to how much wealth is being stacked up. This self-satisfying accumulation, stacking, amassing of resources. I mean, that could look like a refrigerator that is just being added to, added to, added to to where you just can't you can't get to the back of it because there's so much. You never see the back of the refrigerator. That could look like clothes that you buy that still have the tags ten years later. And that could look like money that you lose track of because you're just stacking it and shoving it in your mattress or tearing down walls and putting the drywall back. James is is drawing the attention of the readers that clearly have a wild amount of wealth. Wild amount beyond what you can imagine. Your gold and your silver have corroded, he says, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. Having wealth in and of itself is not sinful. But when you do it in a way that's saying, I'm gonna provide for myself, I'm good. I have enough, I have enough money, I have enough resources to last a lifetime. The thought of God providing from for you fades and fades and fades. The more that you get, the more that you get, your dependence and reliance and thoughts towards God fade and weaken as you stack up more and more. That's that's the heart behind James. James is talking to these people who are looking to their wealth as a status symbol that's betraying them. People are feeling good about themselves, that they're doing well for themselves because of how much they have, and they're losing track. They're losing track of what is really going on, what they need to be doing. The last days, James is saying, you've laid treasure up in the last days. Your wild amounts of resources will be evidence against you in God's court. They're gonna eat your flesh like fire. They are the road that leads to your destruction because you are self-indulgent. You are finding everything and anything that you can stack up and it's all for you. And it's corroding. It's corroding, it's a it's a perishable prize, a perishable resource that one day will be gone. You cannot take your fancy clothing with you. You cannot take your dream car with you. You cannot take your first place K1 speed metal with you. So stop trying to stack them up and hang them up on your wall and impress your friends. Look how fast I am. Look how good I am. Look how much time I've spent racing and saying yes to myself, saying yes to pleasure day in and day out, day in and day out. Riches look more like the things that you chase after. Anything can be a rich. Hot Wheels. Hot Wheels cars can be a rich for you, or riches, a source of pleasure and satisfaction for you. Shoes that are just the coolest, the newest, the most popular. Clothing. The way that you go about uh uh accruing things and accumulating things for you will show you where your heart is. They'll show you what what your heart interprets as riches. And they're gonna, if you continue to stack them up like James is warning, they're going to to betray you ultimately one day. One day they will no longer comfort you, they will no longer bring you satisfaction, they will be evidence against you. That's what James is telling his readers. Now, have you ever have you ever thought about a time where your parents warned you about something? Like, hey, if you keep doing this, this is gonna happen. If you keep, if you keep struggling with telling the truth, eventually you're gonna have no friends and people aren't gonna believe you. You're gonna get into a job, this pattern is gonna continue, and then your your boss is gonna chop you because your word is not reliable, your word is not true. You deceive people with your mouth. Now, this is what James is saying. He's trying to help his readers understand. If you keep doing this, destruction awaits. If you keep on this pattern of just stacking wealth and just having more and more and more for yourself, and you keep saying yes to any kind of whim that might bring you pleasure, you're living for this life. You're not living for the life beyond the grave. We gotta wake up. Wake up, guys. His his his listeners are are probably blinded by the pleasures and the comforts that are at home on their on their ranch or or at their at their hacienda. That's a cool word. Hacienda. A little casita. You have a casita behind your mansion. Maybe that's where they're stacking up all the all the gold and all the silver. No, the the things that we chase after, chase after in this life reveal what our hearts value the most. What we long for, what we what we seek to get more of, whether that's more time in front of the screen, whether that's more time on vacation, more time, more time at K1 speed. It reveals something about our hearts. Now, enjoying the things of life, don't hear me, don't hear me wrong. Enjoying the things that are fun and good and pleasurable in this life, we like to have fun. We like to go go fast at K1 speed. We like to see who's gonna be the winner. There's nothing wrong with that. But if that's what you're living for, that's what James is saying. If you're living for the pleasures that this life, this world, this here and now can bring you, he's saying, watch out. Watch out. If you're living just for here and now and you're just trying to get as much enjoyment out of this life as possible, and you're doing whatever it takes to enjoy more and more and more pleasure in this life, and you're not thinking about the life beyond the grave, you're not thinking about King Jesus and his return, that's what James is concerned about. That's what James is hoping his listeners will see. You have laid up treasure in the last days. The last days, what does that mean? The last days, like well, like like like Friday, Saturday, and today, the last days? No. No. The time in between Jesus' ascension and the time that he comes back to earth, that time period when Christ ascends and then Christ descends and returns, these are the last days. That's what James is talking about. The time here and now, when your life started, when you took your first breath, till Jesus returns, the last days. That's what James is talking about. You're stacking up treasure, James is saying to his readers. You're stacking up treasure in the last days. When Jesus ascended, he said, go and make disciples. He didn't say go and stack as much riches as you possibly can. Go and go and stack the most beautiful clothing, the most beautiful dresses, the most new era fitted caps as you can, and just line your closet with them. Everywhere you look, there's a new flavor, everywhere you look, there's a new outfit just waiting for you to try on for the first time. No. No, we got to be thinking about what is beyond. What is beyond this life? It's important for us to think about that. Philippians chapter 3, verses 18 to 20 says this for many of whom I have told often, who I've told uh often told you, and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction. Their God is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. Destruction awaits if you just indulge and indulge and indulge on the pleasures and the riches and the wealth of this world. This world. If you're seeking after only what will bring you more pleasure, the excitement that you could that you could have in this life here, and you're not thinking about what God has called you to do, about what awaits beyond this life, the judgment that awaits every human being at the end of their life, we need to be concerned. We need to be concerned about how we go about gathering resources and why we do it. It's not wrong to be prepared, to have a game plan, an emergency fund. It's not wrong to have money set aside so like you your car gets in an accident and you can have to go get a different one. It's not wrong to have money saved for specific things that are responsible. James is talking about the foolishness of hoarding, the foolishness of stacking and stacking and stacking wealth for yourself that ultimately could be stolen, that can ultimately be caught up in a fire. I always think it's weird that people like put large amounts of money in their homes. It's like they don't trust the banks, they don't trust the government, they don't like your home could go up in flames and that money's gone. It's gone. Someone could break in no matter what kind of security system you have, gone. Your wealth, gone, your shoes, gone, your Kobe jersey gone. Your favorite horse stolen. Never to be seen again. I don't care if it has a chip in it. Do you guys chip your horses? Is that a thing?

unknown 21:49

No.

SPEAKER_00 21:50

No. You can feed them, yeah. They might they might like chips. I know the chips are more like a cat, right? You put chips in cats, dogs, dogs. I'm not a pet guy. Yeah, I have a lot to learn. Anything that you could touch and put your eyes on that that isn't a human being, an image bearer of God. This is such a temporary thing that we were talking about. Let's write this down for point number one. We need to see the foolishness of hoarding earthly riches. See the foolishness of hoarding these things. Anything can be lost that is hoarded. Anything. Thieves break in, steal, and destroy. Matthew in chapter six is charging his listeners to not lay up for themselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. He says, but lay up treasures for yourself in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. And later on in Matthew, he says, No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. Money is something that is a big distraction. At the same time, it's it's a necessity in this life. It's kind of a slippery thing to hold on to and not get caught up in. Like you need to be paying your bills. One day you'll have a job. You might even have a job right now. One day you might lose a job. One day you might be eating away at your savings account that you're really excited about because, like, man, like I God's providing. Like, wow, look how much I have. I'm saving for a house, I'm saving for a car, I'm saving for an engagement ring. And all of a sudden, that money can be gone in moments. Someone can hack into your bank account and just take it. It's so easy, it seems, for money to be gained and money to be lost. We cannot serve God and money. I'm sure that's on your minds. You're thinking, well, Tyler, I need money. I need money to go to K1 speed. I need money to go and get my favorite dessert. I need some money to get some new shoes. Surely my parents are going to buy me some new clothes when these ones don't fit anymore. They need money. I hope they have enough money to get me some new shoes when these ones wear out. We need money, but we we shouldn't serve it. We shouldn't worship it. It's dangerous. It's a dangerous thing to get caught up in. Luke in his gospel talks about God providing. He's talking about how he takes care of the birds of the air. He's talking about how they don't plant and they don't reap the harvest and they don't have storehouses where they keep their seeds and grains for the winter, though squirrels do. Yet God feeds them. God is taking care of the birds. How much more of value are you than the birds? If you're doubting that God will provide for you and you're trying to take into your own power, your own ability, I must have more. I must provide for myself. Because if I don't, my future is unsecure. Now think about how God takes care of these birds that are flying around. It's springtime. The robins are out. You might see some hawks. I saw an osprey the other day. God is taking care of the birds of the air who don't have a bank account. They don't have a pantry to walk into. They don't have cabinets with cereal boxes and there's no fruit bowls for them to go and pick from. No, they they're taken care of day by day. And God is saying, you're much more important than them. And God's going to provide. He will take care of you. So don't feel like you need to take this into your own hands and amass this wealth, this large amount of wealth, like God isn't going to continue to provide. He will provide. He will continue to sustain you and give you the ability to work. And if you don't, there's even opportunities for assistance to be had. There's opportunities for people in this church, people in your life to take care of others. What to do with excess? What to do with large bank accounts? God has blessed business owners. God has blessed ranchers, farmers, businessmen. Look around and see who has a need. Look around and see what needs can be met. That is the purpose. That is the purpose of great wealth. To use it to expand the kingdom, to take care of the needs of the people around you. During winter weekend, we looked at this text and I'll read it for us. 1 Corinthians 9, verses 24 to 27. Do you not know that in a race all runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you might obtain it. The prize is not large amounts of wealth in this world, right? It's not what we can gain here and now. It's not the nicest car, the nicest food, the nicest clothes that we can amass for ourselves. No. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. Self-control, saying yes to the things that matter and no to the things that don't. They do it to receive a perishable wreath. These athletes that compete, they're going after something that literally will wilt the next day. But we, Paul is saying, we an imperishable, something that cannot be corroded, moth-eaten. So what does Paul say? So I don't run aimlessly. I do not box as one beating the air, but I discipline my body and keep it under control. Living a life that honors God with large amounts of wealth takes a large amount of self-control. It takes a large amount of saying, this is a want, this is a need, and these are the needs of people around me. Discipline yourself. You keep your body under control, lest after preaching to others, Paul says, I myself should be disqualified. He doesn't want to say one thing and do the opposite. He doesn't want to say, live, live for eternity. And on the other, the next day it's saying, Man, I wonder how much how much food is left at the all-you-can-eat buffet. I cannot wait. I cannot wait to go there again and again and again. I can't wait to expand, expand my kingdom for the here and the now. He's identifying those who are self-indulgent. He says in verse 4, Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you. And the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. When you have a large amount of property, when you have a lot of responsibilities, when you have a lot of animals, you have lots of fields full of crops that are ready to be harvested, you can't do it all by yourself. You need people that are going to work for you. They're called employees, they're called laborers. And that's who Paul is, or that's who James is talking to here. He's saying, you told them you would pay them. You told them that after the job was done, they would earn their wage. But you have frauded them. You have said, actually, nope, I'm not going to pay you. It's for me. And also, thank you, by the way, for helping me do the job. I'm going to go to market and sell this now. So I'm going to make money and also save money by not paying you. So thank you. Good job. You can go on now. Thanks for your efforts. Thanks for your labor. Thanks for your work. God is a God that sees all. He sees when you are cheating people around you. He sees when you say, hey, hey, sis, you want to help me help me with this chore? I'll give you like one of my gumballs after we're done. And then when the chore is done. What are you talking about? I didn't say that. What are you talking about? Or maybe you you give them, not a gumball, but you give them like a sticker or something instead. Like, oh, here you go. That's what I actually meant. No. No. Be honest. Be an honest person. If you say you're going to do something, go and do it. If you're saying you're going to pay someone, pay them. James is calling out some serious crimes against people in this church in Jerusalem. People are crying out. People's livelihoods are at stake. People are not being able to feed their families because these wealthy people are saying no to their responsibilities to pay, saying no to taking care of the people who are working for them. And the cries of the harvesters, their stomach grumblings, their sorrows, their tears, their frustrations. God is aware. God is aware. The Lord of hosts, the Lord of angel armies is aware. Imagine committing a crime against someone who is an image bearer of God. Imagine behind them is a large army that could immediately end you, could immediately destroy you. This is the imagery here. You're not getting away with this. You're not getting away with this fraud. Your bank accounts are telling on you. Nothing is hidden. We see the crimes, James is saying. We see the crimes, and it's wrong. It's sinful. You're wronging the people around you, and you're sinning against a holy God who is the commander of legions and legions and legions of angels. Countless angelic warriors. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence, luxury, excess, the best of the best, the finest clothing, the finest furniture, the finest sandals, the newest, the best, the freshest, all the time, always having the newest, the latest, the greatest. You've lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. Have you ever had something right in front of you that you know is like it's kind of nice, kind of tasty? And you're like, actually, no, like I'm I'm I don't need it. I know it tastes good. I've seen it before, I've had it before, but I don't need it. Like you had one dessert and you see another dessert that's readily available for you. You just had a slice of pie or a bowl of ice cream, but mom and dad are saying, like, well, it's up to you. If you want to have more, you can. You could have more. At a certain point, your body's gonna say, No more, I'm done. I literally can't take any more. I can't take it anymore. That's that's the kind of attitude mentality that we need to have when we're looking at the pleasures of this world. Are they available to you? Can you chase after them? Could you have them? Sure. Do you need to have them? Do you need to experience them? No, you don't need to. Saying no to yourself is a good practice in self-control. The opposite of self-control is what James is speaking here: self-indulgence. Always saying yes to the things that might sound good, might taste good in your mind, might bring you a new thrill. Now, with a smaller bank account or a smaller wallet or a smaller piggy bank, you're like, well, I can't really afford all these exciting things. But maybe one day you will. And one day you'll have a greater responsibility and a greater task at hand to say no to getting the latest and the greatest and the best and the things that would, in the world standards, try to convince you that this is what you need. This is what you want. This is what you must have. There's things in this life that even now you're tempted to want, and you're looking around and say, Well, so-and-so has that. Why can I have it? So-and-so next door, so-and-so across the streets. My friend in class, my friend on the other side of town, I know that they're doing these things. Why can I have that? It's okay for people to enjoy nice things, to have quality things, but there comes a point when in your life you're thinking, I must have it. I must have it, I need it. And you're willing to do the things that James is saying in here in chapter five. You're willing to cheat people in order to get what you want. You're you're willing to defraud people, you're willing to manipulate people to get what you want so that way you could have more. We need to be thinking forward. There's some times coming in your life that this is going to be your reality. You're thinking, Tyler, this doesn't apply to me now. But one day it will. One day you'll you'll be in a situation like, oh, I think this is what I think this is what we were talking about when we were at initial point. I think, haha, this is this is this is it. This is it. Are you going to choose to live a life of luxury for the here and now, for of self-indulgence? Are you going to fatten your hearts in a day of slaughter? Now, I know we we're in we're in this is cuna. We're in cuna, Idaho. I I live a little bit up the street and is like at a certain point and becomes a meridian. This is cuna. There's a lot of there's a lot of animals down here as opposed to other parts, other other regions of the valley. There's there's animals, did you know? There are animals that are fed for the sole purpose of eating. Their only job one day is to be human food. And that's okay because we have dominion. That's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. But James is drawing our attention here to his listeners and saying, you yourself are consuming and consuming and consuming, and you're not saying no to yourself, and you're getting more plump and you're getting more rich for the butcher, and you're getting to the point where it's almost time to go and be slaughtered. This is some real imagery that James is bringing to our attention. He's saying, what you're doing is leading you straight to the slaughterhouse. You're going to be destroyed one day. And you are accelerating your life in that direction. You fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. You have slaughtered slaughtered, you're going to be food. You're going to be destroyed. You're going to be consumed by the Lord one day. Why? Because you're cheating people, because you're you're a fraudster, because you're swindling people, all for selfish gain, all to have more of what you want whenever you want it. That's the point. James is saying you're creating destruction for yourselves. You're doing it in a way that says, me first above all, and you're doing it in a way that's not honest. Let's live the opposite of that. Can we make an effort to say no to that lifestyle and saying yes? Let's write this down to point number two. Let's say yes to live humbly, to live a humble and honest life. To live a humble and honest life that's thinking about the day when the Lord Jesus Christ returns. We want to be thinking forward to when the Savior comes to meet his bride and take them for himself, take them into his rest. You've condemned, verse 6, you've condemned and murdered the righteous person. The ways that they are going about business, these wealthy individuals that James is calling out, you have condemned and murdered the righteous person. Now, this is most likely not one person in general, but speaking to people that are being manipulated, people that are being taken advantage of. And how are these people responding to the wrongdoings? These people are not resisting. These people are not fighting back. These people are not taking them to the court. These people are just wearing it on the chin. They're being ruined and they can do nothing about it. They have no power. They're not exercising any kind of legal justice. They're not going and seeking retribution. They're not resisting. And James surely is drawing his readers and listeners' attention to a certain righteous man who came and lived a perfect, sinless life, perfectly obedient to God, never once sinning, always doing good, always obeying his Father, the Lord Jesus Christ. He's drawing these wealthy to consider the Lord Jesus Christ. They are not resisting, he says. They're not resisting you. They're not calling out, they're not making a scene. They're being mistreated with their mouths closed. They're being mistreated, but their cries are heard. Their tears are seen. They're not going to get away with it. And James is saying, if you don't turn back, it's going to be a ruin and destruction for you. If you don't turn back, if you don't repent, if you don't stop this, it's destruction. It's the day of slaughter for you. You are being accused of murder. You are in trouble. The suffering servant is much on his mind, the Lord Jesus Christ, and he's drawing his drawing attention to the use of wealth, the use of other people, and the use of power for selfish gain to abuse the weak and the weary. Isaiah 53 7 draws our attention to the way that Jesus suffered. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that is before its shears is silent. So he opened not his mouth. James has Christ's suffering in mind when he's looking at these people who he calls righteous. He's calling these people, they're doing nothing wrong, and you are persecuting them, you are sinning against them, you are doing so much wrong to them that they might as well be on their way to the grave because you are not paying them, you are mistreating them, and you are you are sinning greatly against them. And judgment is coming. Judgment is coming. Right now, you might not have a lot of wealth. You might be looking at your parents for like, surely there's many more families that are more wealthy than mine. Like, we're actually not that rich. My desire tonight is for you to look at wealth as a tool and and not something that you slide on. Use it as a resource for good, for the good of others and not yourself. It's not sinful to be wealthy. It's not sinful to be rich. What James is saying is, though, if you're going about it in a way that's sinful, if you're going about it in a way that's abusing and using other people to get what you want, if you're self-indulgent, you're living a life for the here and now, and you have no care about tomorrow or the future or your eternity, that's what James is warning the rich about. Be careful. Be careful what you're living for. Are you living for yourself for the latest pleasure, for the latest tech, for the latest shoes, for the latest earthly thing that's going to pass away? Be careful. Be careful. If that's you, he's saying you're heading towards destruction and you need to turn. You need to turn. So wealth is not sinful. Having lots of money is not wrong. Your attitude and your worship of it does matter. If you're worshiping your wealth, if you're worshiping your resources that you have and going about it, that's all you think about. That is that is the problem. You should be concerned if that is you right now. Let's pray. God, we want to be people that are not like the individuals described in this text in James chapter 5. We want to be people that are living a humble life that is generous, a humble life that is seeking to be truthful and honest in all the ways that they go about their lives, whether it's school, work, social life, whatever it is, God, I want for these students. I want them to know that to please you is to live a life that is honoring to you, that is a life of humility. God, help them to have a humble heart. Help them to have the faith to follow and to see that being a humble person and someone that tells the truth and someone that is living for tomorrow, that is living for eternity, that is that is good and that is best. God help help these students not to live for today, to live for the riches that this world can offer. God help them to live for the abundant riches and wealth of knowing you as Savior and the future eternity that awaits for those who believe and have turned from their sins and place their faith in Christ. God, will you be honored in the discussion time tonight? I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.