SPEAKER_00: For those of you who might be visiting, if you're new to the Bible or if you don't own a Bible, you can use that Black Pew Bible in front of you to follow along, and you can take that home with you if you do not own a Bible.
SPEAKER_00: We want to make sure everyone has a copy of God's word.
SPEAKER_00: The big numbers are the chapters, the little numbers are the verses to help you follow along.
SPEAKER_00: Well, as we continue in James chapter five, you guys might have been listening to Tim read those verses and think, okay, well, this sermon doesn't apply to me because James is just talking about a bunch of wealthy people.
SPEAKER_00: Well, in the grand scheme of the universe of over seven plus billion people, all of us in this room would be considered wealthy.
SPEAKER_00: So this applies.
SPEAKER_00: I remember uh Martin Lloyd Jones, some of you are familiar with him.
SPEAKER_00: He was a great 20th-century preacher.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, he was a physicianslash preacher as well, but um, he shared this story once of a married couple that, you know, owned a farm, and they had a cow that gave birth to two identical uh calves.
SPEAKER_00: And the husband decided, you know, sweetheart, we are going to dedicate one of these calves to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And being a good wife, she said, Okay, well, should we at least name one of them so we can differentiate which one is ours and which is the Lord's calf?
SPEAKER_00: And the husband said, No, no need for that.
SPEAKER_00: We'll we'll just raise them up and we'll dedicate one to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Well, as time went on, they they raised these calves, and one day the husband comes in the house just looking really sad and discouraged, and his wife said, Like, sweetheart, what's wrong?
SPEAKER_00: What what what happened?
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Sweetheart, the Lord's calf has died.
SPEAKER_00: That story is funny, but it illustrates a point that James is even getting at.
SPEAKER_00: The subtle danger of our selfish greed when it comes to our relationship to the resources God entrusts to us and how we should have a heart posture that's God honoring with what the Lord calls us to steward.
SPEAKER_00: In our text this morning, James is speaking to believers who are really hurting and suffering.
SPEAKER_00: They're being mistreated, they're being overlooked and worn down by injustice in the workplace, so to speak, to use modern vernacular.
SPEAKER_00: Some are being crushed by wealthy landowners who are taking advantage of them while living comfortably, while God's people are suffering by injustice.
SPEAKER_00: And underneath all of this struggle and suffering, there's this deeper question that I'm sure James's audience was wrestling with, and that is does God see this?
SPEAKER_00: Does he see this injustice we're enduring?
SPEAKER_00: Does he care about this injustice we are enduring?
SPEAKER_00: And James answers by lifting their eyes off of their earthly circumstances and pointing them towards their God.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I believe what James wants us to see in chapter five is this you must live with eternity in view because God sees injustice, judges righteously, and calls you to patient faith.
SPEAKER_00: You must live with eternity in view because God sees injustice, judges righteously, and calls you to patient faith.
SPEAKER_00: Let's look at verses one through six, where James just really dives in here.
SPEAKER_00: And I want us to see this.
SPEAKER_00: God sees what wealth can't hide, and he will judge it.
SPEAKER_00: James, as usual, doesn't ease into his teaching, does he?
SPEAKER_00: He comes, he comes in strong.
SPEAKER_00: This is one of the sharpest warnings in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: He starts out, Come now, you rich people, weep and wail over the miseries that are coming on you.
SPEAKER_00: Now, some struggle with who is James talking to here?
SPEAKER_00: This is a letter written to a Christian community of believers, to a church.
SPEAKER_00: But it seems what James is doing here.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, James was a Jew.
SPEAKER_00: He had been very familiar with the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: And an Old Testament theme was sometimes prophets would speak to God's people, but they're addressing people in the culture.
SPEAKER_00: And I believe that's what's happening here.
SPEAKER_00: James is writing to these followers of Christ, but he's addressing the sinful uh people who are unjustly mistreating the people of God who are business owners, landowners, and so on and so forth.
SPEAKER_00: So I don't think he's addressing members of the church because his typical pattern when he's addressing the members is he'll call out a sin, but then he'll also provide the way of repentance of that sin.
SPEAKER_00: But in this text, it's just condemnation for sin.
SPEAKER_00: So contextually, it seems what he's doing is more of an old testament prophetic teaching of I'm going to speak to you, Christ followers, by addressing the injustice in the world around us that we are all living in.
SPEAKER_00: And so he comes with strong language and he's he's getting right to it.
SPEAKER_00: This is one of the sharpest warnings in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: He's calling out specifically people who are using their wealth with no sense of reverence or fear of God or love for neighbor.
SPEAKER_00: Their riches, he says, will one day rot, their clothes will fall apart, their gold corrodes, which is interesting because if you're familiar with gold, gold does not corrode.
SPEAKER_00: So it's almost like James is, he's trying to just show the exceedingly evil wickedness of what these people are doing.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying it's like gold rotting, which can't happen, but that's how evil their injustice is in the sight of God.
SPEAKER_00: Their riches rot, their clothes fall apart, their gold corrodes, not because money itself is evil, but because hoarded wealth turns into evidence against the unjust wealth of these people.
SPEAKER_00: What they trusted to protect them will end up testifying against them.
SPEAKER_00: Think about, you know, in our culture here in the West, we we look at celebrities or those who are multimillionaires, billionaires, and maybe they they get a court case or something.
SPEAKER_00: And we all, you know, we've we've seen some of that play out where, well, because they have uh a large amount of wealth, they're likely gonna get a smack on the hand because their money will rescue them, so to speak, in this predicament.
SPEAKER_00: However, what we see in the Bible, what James is warning against, is the opposite.
SPEAKER_00: In God's kingdom, which is a topsy-turvy kingdom, your wealth, if used unjustly, will actually pretend you're in a court of a court a courtroom and you're the one on trial.
SPEAKER_00: James is almost saying your wealth will actually be entered in as exhibits A, B, and C to testify against you before the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: That's the warning he's giving.
SPEAKER_00: Very, again, very strong language.
SPEAKER_00: Come now, you rich people, weep and wail over the miseries that are coming on you.
SPEAKER_00: Now let's be careful and guard our hearts this morning.
SPEAKER_00: If we have, you know, a subtle aversion towards wealthy people, right?
SPEAKER_00: You might hear this and say, Yeah, James, get them, right?
SPEAKER_00: Well, hold on, because this applies to all of us as well.
SPEAKER_00: But he gives very strong language here.
SPEAKER_00: And in verse four grounds this warning.
SPEAKER_00: If you look down at verse four, he says, Your gold and silver are corroded in verse three, and the corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire.
SPEAKER_00: You have stored up treasure in the last days.
SPEAKER_00: Look, the pay that you withheld from the workers who mowed your fields cries out, and the outcry of the harvesters has reached the ears of the Lord of armies.
SPEAKER_00: What James is getting at here is uh there's several passages, one in Leviticus, but one of the most helpful is in Deuteronomy chapter 24, where Moses gives us uh a warning to the nation of Israel on how to justly treat other people who are their workers.
SPEAKER_00: In Deuteronomy 24, verses 14 through 15, uh the text says this do not oppress a hired worker who is poor and needy, whether one of your Israelite brothers or one of the resident aliens in a town in your land, you are to pay him his wages each day before the sun sets, because he is poor and depends on them.
SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, he will cry out to the Lord against you, and you will be held guilty.
SPEAKER_00: Fathers are not to be, or I'm sorry, fathers are not to put their uh put to death for their children, and children are not to be put to death.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry, I'm not supposed to read that.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, verse 15.
SPEAKER_00: But listen to this language.
SPEAKER_00: Do not deny justice to the resident alien or the fatherless child, and do not take away a widow's garment as security.
SPEAKER_00: What is happening here is God is putting into his into the nation of Israel these parameters on how they are to love their neighbor and how they're to honor God and how they conduct themselves in business.
SPEAKER_00: Now keep this in mind, this is a primarily agricultural society.
SPEAKER_00: So to withhold wages from a worker who's working in their fields is almost to put a death sentence on them.
SPEAKER_00: Because that was the primary means by which they fed their families, put a roof over their head.
SPEAKER_00: And so to take their labor, but then to not justly pay them was to do them severe harm.
SPEAKER_00: No check meant no food, no shelter, no safety net.
SPEAKER_00: And James says those unpaid wages are not silent because those people will call out to God and he will hear their prayers and he will enact justice.
SPEAKER_00: And these people are crying out.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine if you were one of these people suffering this type of injustice from a business owner and you attend church and James, James is addressing this.
SPEAKER_00: It would bring you some sense of comfort of like, God, okay, God does see, God does address these things.
SPEAKER_00: So I have I have biblical data on how I could respond to what I am facing.
SPEAKER_00: My God is a God who hears, he is paying attention.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, the best example I can think of is when you look at the nation of Israel who called out to the Lord after experiencing hundreds of years of slavery and injustice in Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm guarantee you there were many who prayed and said, Does not, does God not care?
SPEAKER_00: Does he not hear our prayers?
SPEAKER_00: Because he took hundreds of years before finally deciding to act according to his will.
SPEAKER_00: But God does pay attention.
SPEAKER_00: Our prayers do rise to him and he responds.
SPEAKER_00: And and this teaching that James is giving here blows up a lie that I think some Christians adopt.
SPEAKER_00: We even see this in the Bible, especially in the Jewish culture, they tend to have this view that if someone was wealthy, that naturally was a sign that they had God's favor.
SPEAKER_00: And I think sometimes we can think that too.
SPEAKER_00: If someone is wealthy, if they're beyond normal wealth and they're a follower of God or profess to be a follower of God, then that is an automatic, automatic sign of God's favor.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm not saying that God is not blessing people.
SPEAKER_00: Let me be careful what I'm not saying, but it does not mean an automatic blessing of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: There are those who name the name of Jesus and unjustly accumulate wealth and hurt other people in the process in a way that dishonors God, and God will address that in his own timing.
SPEAKER_00: But we got to be careful not to let like a subtle prosperity gospel creep into our theology where we think prosperity, wealth, or someone just having a great life naturally just equals that's God's blessing all over their life.
SPEAKER_00: We are not the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: We can't see people's hearts, and that's what God cares about the most, not our outside external circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: But according to James, he says, if you live like the world is, or rather like like this side of heaven is all that there is.
SPEAKER_00: If you're just living for this earthly life, this is all that there is, he says, you are stacking up judgment without even realizing it.
SPEAKER_00: Look down at verses one through three again.
SPEAKER_00: Verse two, I'm sorry, verse three.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Your gold and silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire.
SPEAKER_00: You have stored up treasure in the last days.
SPEAKER_00: He's obviously giving a warning there saying that is the wrong choice.
SPEAKER_00: If you are storing up treasure for this side of heaven, you have missed the mark.
SPEAKER_00: And just because God is, you know, addressing the those who are suffering that James is writing to, because they could be guilty of, well, God, your word says that what they're doing is unjust.
SPEAKER_00: This is sinful.
SPEAKER_00: What are you going to do about it?
SPEAKER_00: Why are you waiting?
SPEAKER_00: Why are you prolonging your justice?
SPEAKER_00: Why aren't you vindicating us?
SPEAKER_00: This is a good application for us, friends.
SPEAKER_00: Just because God is patient doesn't mean he's indifferent.
SPEAKER_00: Just because God is not moving according to our timetable doesn't mean he's passive.
SPEAKER_00: It just means he's not enacting his full will in a way we can fully realize at this time.
SPEAKER_00: And let me be honest, that can be very difficult, can't it?
SPEAKER_00: Because we tend to judge God's goodness and his faithfulness and love and sovereignty based on what we can tangibly see and measure right now.
SPEAKER_00: What we can fully understand.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what these dear saints, I'm sure, are struggling with as well.
SPEAKER_00: But before we distance ourselves too quickly from these wealthy people, James warns against and assume, you know, this warning is only for them, James turns the spotlight toward us because the danger of wealth isn't just exploitation, but it's also a subtle allegiance to resources.
SPEAKER_00: And that's where uh verses one through six, I think, makes us a little uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00: We must guard our hearts against living for earthly treasure instead of eternal riches.
SPEAKER_00: This is a theme throughout the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: Let's let's look down at verse four again.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Look, the pay that you withheld from the workers who mowed your fields cries out, and the outcry of the harvesters has reached the ears of the Lord of armies.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 5, you have lived luxuriously on the earth and have indulged yourselves.
SPEAKER_00: You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter, you have condemned, you have murdered the righteous who does not resist you.
SPEAKER_00: While James speaks directly to the unrighteous rich, some of these texts and their implications come a little uncomfortably close to us, Christ followers, as well.
SPEAKER_00: When he says you have stored up treasure in the last days, this exposes how easy it is to live our lives as like functional materialist while professing faith.
SPEAKER_00: When we say we love and trust God and we find all our security and love in him, but really what dictates our comfort and security is our bank accounts.
SPEAKER_00: Or we say, yes, I I trust God, but you know, I keep refreshing my bank app every day just to make sure everything's good.
SPEAKER_00: For modern American Christians, this rarely looks like overt greed because, you know, we we all know as Christians greed and and all these things like that's covetousness, that's sinful.
SPEAKER_00: We can't showcase that, right?
SPEAKER_00: So it creeps into our hearts in a more subtle fashion.
SPEAKER_00: It often looks like quiet accumulation or constant upgrading, emotional security tied to our savings accounts and generosity that never stretches our faith.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus gave a warning in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter six, where he says, Where your treasure is, your heart will follow, didn't he?
SPEAKER_00: When comfort becomes untouchable, obedience becomes negotiable.
SPEAKER_00: When financial stability becomes our ultimate aim, eternal priorities fade into the background.
SPEAKER_00: And James forces us to ask whether our lives reflect confidence and eternity or anxiety about tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: Let me just give some practical tips here.
SPEAKER_00: Three ways I believe we can be tempted as Christians to store up treasures on earth and be guilty as these wealthy uh people who are unjustly using their wealth.
SPEAKER_00: The first is letting money be what brings us peace and calm.
SPEAKER_00: We say we trust God, but what really settles us is our possessions, our material things, our bank accounts.
SPEAKER_00: So then when things feel shaky in life, we don't first go to the Lord in prayerful dependence, but rather we go to what we can tangibly see to give us assurance, such as, well, I got a good job or I got a steady income, I got, I got a decent savings, I got a 401k, that brings me comfort for the future.
SPEAKER_00: But if any of those things were to somehow just be washed away, we would just panic and run around pulling our hairs out.
SPEAKER_00: Or second, building our lives around staying comfortable.
SPEAKER_00: Now, don't get me wrong, comfort is not inherently sinful, friends.
SPEAKER_00: But if comfort becomes a ruling desire where our joy in the Lord is determined on how comfortable our lives are, something is terribly wrong.
SPEAKER_00: So building our lives around staying comfortable can be another way we store up treasure on earth.
SPEAKER_00: When a lot of our decisions come down to one question, is this going to mess up my lifestyle?
SPEAKER_00: Because I want everything I've set up to keep going exactly according to my plan so that nothing gets disrupted.
SPEAKER_00: And when that happens, guess what?
SPEAKER_00: When following Jesus starts costing us our comfort, our time, and our convenience, we start pulling back.
SPEAKER_00: And obedience becomes difficult because, well, Jesus, I know, I know you command me to do that, but but but I was planning on this.
SPEAKER_00: That's gonna mess up my plan.
SPEAKER_00: That's not comfortable.
SPEAKER_00: Well, it wasn't very comfortable for Jesus to be beaten, mocked, and killed on the cross to redeem us.
SPEAKER_00: A third way we can store up treasure on earth is always planning to be generous later.
SPEAKER_00: Always planning to be generous later.
SPEAKER_00: We in our hearts say we mean to give more and to be hospitable, but once things slow down, once the bills ease up, once life feels more stable, once the problem uh that I'm facing goes away, but then that season never shows up.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, there's the pastor talking about money and giving.
SPEAKER_00: There is an ethic throughout the Bible in which our giving is not based on tithing 10%, which has I won't get in my soapbox about that.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a biblical teaching.
SPEAKER_00: We are to reflect the generous hospitality of God the Father, who in Genesis 3, when humanity rebelled against him and brought sin into the world, and he was generous enough to offer his son eternal riches to redeem us.
SPEAKER_00: He gave according to his riches to save us, and we are to model that generosity in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not just talking about monetary generosity, I'm talking about our generosity of time, of our resources, of everything the Lord has entrusted to us, our homes.
SPEAKER_00: We do so in a heart posture of I just want to reflect the generous generosity of my heavenly father.
SPEAKER_00: Now, that's those are some negative examples.
SPEAKER_00: What let me give three ways we can store up treasure in heaven by being rich toward God.
SPEAKER_00: I love that phrase that Jesus uses in the Gospel of Matthew, being rich toward God.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, living open-handed instead of tight-fisted.
SPEAKER_00: Living open-handed instead of tight-fisted.
SPEAKER_00: We as Christ followers, we give, we share, we bless, we show hospitality, not because we've got it all figured out or because what we think people could give us in return, but because we believe that our God will take care of us.
SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus told us not to be like the Gentiles, anxious about where we're going to get our meal and all these things when, like, God knows what we need.
SPEAKER_00: He promises he'll take care of all of our needs.
SPEAKER_00: If he is sovereign over every bird that flies around, why would he not care for his children whom he sent his son to die for?
SPEAKER_00: Second, we can store up treasure in heaven and be rich toward God by following Jesus, even when it costs us.
SPEAKER_00: We choose faithfulness when it's uncomfortable, inconvenience when it's uncomfortable, or when it doesn't make sense on paper because we believe eternity is real.
SPEAKER_00: This is one I think, friends, we need to just blow up as American Christians.
SPEAKER_00: We prioritize way too much our comfort, our quote unquote rights.
SPEAKER_00: And that gets us into the snare of pursuing what we think is most convenient and comfortable for us.
SPEAKER_00: But that is not the Christian ethic, is it?
SPEAKER_00: That is not the Jesus, uh, the example Jesus left us in prioritizing comfort and convenience, but rather quite the opposite, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Let me give one more.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry, two more.
SPEAKER_00: Using what God's given us for eternal things.
SPEAKER_00: We invest our time, our money, our energy, all the resources God has called us to steward for his kingdom, his people, and the advancement of his gospel, because we know that this world isn't our home and that all our stuff isn't even our stuff in the first place.
SPEAKER_00: We want to advance God's kingdom and live for eternity.
SPEAKER_00: Last one, number four, living with heaven in mind, not just tomorrow in mind.
SPEAKER_00: If I'm honest, this might be the one that convicts me the most.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how often I truly am thinking about eternity when I'm making decisions, rather about the next day, week, month, or year.
SPEAKER_00: But living with heaven in mind, not just tomorrow in mind, we make decisions asking questions like, will this matter in eternity?
SPEAKER_00: Just imagine what, just think about this, friends.
SPEAKER_00: What would your week and month look like if you just asked that simple question?
SPEAKER_00: Will this matter in eternity?
SPEAKER_00: How much stress and anxiety would just be moved out of our lives if we just asked that question?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I gotta figure this thing out, or oh, my family's pressuring me to do this, or it's like, will this matter in eternity?
SPEAKER_00: No?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay, cool.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a big deal then.
SPEAKER_00: Will this matter in eternity instead of will this make life easier right now?
SPEAKER_00: We have to fight to live for eternity.
SPEAKER_00: These are all just helpful, hopefully helpful practical ways we can guard our hearts from exactly what James is warning against in James chapter 5.
SPEAKER_00: I love Proverbs 30, verses 8 through 9, where this Proverb gives us warning about a heart posture of covetousness and desiring wealth more than the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: In Proverbs 30, verse 8 through 9, he says, Keep falsehood and deceitful words far from me.
SPEAKER_00: Don't give me poverty or wealth.
SPEAKER_00: Feed me with the food I need.
SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, I might have too much and deny you, saying, Who is the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: Or I might have nothing and still profaning the name of my God.
SPEAKER_00: That is a good prayer, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, Don't give me poverty.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I appreciate that.
SPEAKER_00: That's a good, honest prayer.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to be too broke, Lord, but I also don't want to be too wealthy.
SPEAKER_00: Because I know my own heart.
SPEAKER_00: Give me what I need.
SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, notice he's he's being honest about his heart.
SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, I might have too much and deny you saying, who is the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: Now let's be careful.
SPEAKER_00: If a Christian has wealth, that does not equal they don't know and love God.
SPEAKER_00: But wealth does provide a unique temptation for people to think I don't need God, I'm self-sufficient.
SPEAKER_00: I can, at my own disposal, get anything I please, accomplish whatever I please, simply because I got some dollars in my account.
SPEAKER_00: We need to pray, Proverbs 38 through 9.
SPEAKER_00: Epicureus once said this: wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having a few wants.
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
SPEAKER_00: Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having a few wants.
SPEAKER_00: Now we are all human.
SPEAKER_00: If I were in this community, I know my own heart strings would probably be struggling with, okay, here's where, James, Pastor James, here's where I'm struggling.
SPEAKER_00: All these people in our community, these landowners, these business owners, they're not paying us fair wages.
SPEAKER_00: We're putting in hard work.
SPEAKER_00: We're trying to work as unto the Lord and have a God-honoring Christian ethic.
SPEAKER_00: They're not paying us our wages, and yet they're prospering, man.
SPEAKER_00: They're buying rental properties, they're going on vacations, they're not struggling.
SPEAKER_00: They got food in their fridge, and yet we're trying to obey the Lord and we're over here struggling.
SPEAKER_00: Like, what do I do with that?
SPEAKER_00: This is why I love my man Asaph in Psalm 73.
SPEAKER_00: You can turn there if you like.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 73, I am so grateful, is in the Bible because it shows that God understands the human experience.
SPEAKER_00: In Psalm 73, my man Asaph is just being honest.
SPEAKER_00: Asaph is like, look, man, I'm doing the new Cameron Urban translation here.
SPEAKER_00: But he's saying, Look, I'm striving with all my might to follow God.
SPEAKER_00: I am staying away from that which is unrighteous.
SPEAKER_00: I am seeking to walk in holiness because my God is holy.
SPEAKER_00: And yet I go through hardship, I suffer.
SPEAKER_00: But then when I look at all these wealthy people, they mock God.
SPEAKER_00: They do whatever they please.
SPEAKER_00: They they indulge themselves in every sinful pleasure that God condemns, and they seem to prosper.
SPEAKER_00: They're laughing, they're partying up.
SPEAKER_00: But notice, as ASAP is being honest, the Psalm takes a turn in verse 13.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 73, Asaph starts preaching some truth to himself.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Did I purify my heart and wash my hands in innocence for nothing?
SPEAKER_00: For I am afflicted all day long and punished every morning.
SPEAKER_00: If I had decided to say these things aloud, I would have betrayed your people.
SPEAKER_00: When I tried to understand all this, it seemed hopeless.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the change, verse 17.
SPEAKER_00: Until I entered God's sanctuary.
SPEAKER_00: Then I understood their destiny.
SPEAKER_00: Indeed, you put them in slippery places, you make them fall into ruin.
SPEAKER_00: How suddenly they become a desolation.
SPEAKER_00: They come to an end, swept away by terrors, like one waking from a dream.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, when arising, you will despise their image.
SPEAKER_00: When I became embittered, and my innermost being was wounded, I was stupid and didn't understand.
SPEAKER_00: I was an unthinking animal toward you, yet I am always with you.
SPEAKER_00: You hold my right hand, you guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me up in glory.
SPEAKER_00: Who do I have in heaven but you?
SPEAKER_00: And I desire nothing on earth but you.
SPEAKER_00: My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart, my portion forever.
SPEAKER_00: Those far from you will certainly perish.
SPEAKER_00: You destroy all who are unfaithful to you.
SPEAKER_00: But as for me, God's presence is my good.
SPEAKER_00: I have made the Lord God my refuge, so I can tell all so I can tell all about so I'm sorry, so I can tell about all you do.
SPEAKER_00: Let me ask you a question.
SPEAKER_00: Do you talk like that?
SPEAKER_00: When you look at the struggles of your job, the suffering you endure, when you see people around you who can care less about Jesus and his gospel and yet seem to, from your human perspective, be prospering and thriving, living their lives, do you comfort yourself like that?
SPEAKER_00: Notice what brought the perspective change for ASAP.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 17, he essentially says, But when I went to church, when I entered into your sanctuary, then it clicked.
SPEAKER_00: Then I understood, wait a minute, I'm the wealthy one because I know God.
SPEAKER_00: He is my refuge, not these earthly things, not these dollars, how much money I have, how I'm thriving, so to speak.
SPEAKER_00: No, for him, he realized I am wealthy because I know God and God knows me as his child.
SPEAKER_00: And that entire truth changed his whole perspective, didn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Often, friends, sanctification, holiness is not always about, you know, checking boxes and doing the right thing.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's just fighting to have a God-centered perspective in the midst of your circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing in ASAP's situation changed whatsoever.
SPEAKER_00: Those people were still unjust, they were still flaunting their wealth all around him, but what changed was his perspective and how he viewed their wealth and their flaunting of that wealth.
SPEAKER_00: And then he saw clearly that real wealth isn't circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: It's knowing God, belonging to him, and having eternity with him.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we need to fight to keep that perspective at the forefront.
SPEAKER_00: That's what James is trying to help his church community understand.
SPEAKER_00: Like, friends, God will deal with them.
SPEAKER_00: I heard a story a pastor shared once of uh this was long ago, but a gentleman who was an atheist who owned some farm property directly across from a church.
SPEAKER_00: And just to mock this church, every Sunday when they gathered, he would actually get out and plow his field very loudly to try to disrupt their service.
SPEAKER_00: And one day he wrote to a local paper saying, Hey, I've I've been doing this for years, just plowing my field as this church gathers, and God has never punished me.
SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, my my my um my produce has grown exceedingly more, even more than those farmers in the church who don't work on Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: So obviously God is not real.
SPEAKER_00: And he submitted this to a local paper, and the editor published uh this article from this gentleman.
SPEAKER_00: But what was funny is at the bottom of the farmer's article, the editor added a line God does not settle his accounts in October.
SPEAKER_00: That editor understood what James is saying here.
SPEAKER_00: These wealthy people who are being unjust with their resources are simply storing up treasure for the last day, where God will finally judge.
SPEAKER_00: Another great example is uh Solomon.
SPEAKER_00: Solomon reaches the same conclusion James does.
SPEAKER_00: In Ecclesiastes, specifically chapter two, keep in mind Solomon was, he was, he was him, as we would say today.
SPEAKER_00: Like Solomon had wealth you can't even imagine.
SPEAKER_00: He had resources beyond our imagination.
SPEAKER_00: And with those resources, he pursued every fleshly desire he ever had.
SPEAKER_00: He did not restrain anything from himself.
SPEAKER_00: And what's his conclusion?
SPEAKER_00: In Ecclesiastes chapter 2, verse 11, he says, When I considered all that I had accomplished and what I had labored to achieve, I found everything to be futile in a pursuit of the wind.
SPEAKER_00: There was nothing to be gained under the sun.
SPEAKER_00: A man who, from our worldly perspective, would say had everything: women, resources, the man practically built his own city for himself, all these beautiful plants, you name it, art.
SPEAKER_00: He says it was all like a pursuit of wind.
SPEAKER_00: There was nothing to be gained under the sun.
SPEAKER_00: James echoes Solomon's wisdom: earthly treasure without eternal perspective is ultimately empty, regardless of how impressive it appears.
SPEAKER_00: Just think about this, friends.
SPEAKER_00: Our culture trains us to, from a young age, you gotta go to college so you can get a great job, so you can make a ton of money, get a good retirement, and guess what?
SPEAKER_00: You die and somebody else gets all your stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Is that a dream we all want to pursue?
SPEAKER_00: Or do we want to be rich toward God?
SPEAKER_00: Once James exposes what earthly treasure can do to the heart, he knows the next question we might be asking.
SPEAKER_00: So, what do we do when obedience is costly and when justice feels slow?
SPEAKER_00: That's where James calls believers not to panic or retaliate, but to wait on the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Look down at verse 7 of James 5.
SPEAKER_00: James 7.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, brothers and sisters, be patient until the Lord's coming.
SPEAKER_00: Now let me just pause there.
SPEAKER_00: If you're suffering injustice at the hands of someone else who is far wealthier, far more influential and powerful than you, and you show up to church and you're looking for a word from the Lord, how am I to live in light of this injustice?
SPEAKER_00: And you heard, brothers and sisters, be patient until the Lord's coming.
SPEAKER_00: Will that bring you enough comfort to say, okay, I can follow Christ in what I'm going through?
SPEAKER_00: But listen, he says, see how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth and is patient with it until it receives the early and late rains.
SPEAKER_00: You also must be patient.
SPEAKER_00: Strengthen your hearts because the Lord is coming, because the Lord's coming is near.
SPEAKER_00: Brothers and sisters, do not complain about one another, so you will not be judged.
SPEAKER_00: Look, the judge stands at the door.
SPEAKER_00: Brothers and sisters, take the prophets who spoke in the Lord's name as an example of suffering and patience.
SPEAKER_00: See, we count as blessed those who have endured.
SPEAKER_00: You have heard of Job's endurance and have seen the outcome that the Lord brought about.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord is compassionate and merciful.
SPEAKER_00: Now, we're all city folk.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, some of you might have grown in a farm setting, but we all understand that if you plant seeds and water them, you don't keep going out every day to pull up the seeds to check if it's growing, do you?
SPEAKER_00: You lay the seed in fertile soil and you let nature take run its course, don't you?
SPEAKER_00: James's main pastoral word of encouragement to these dear Christians who are suffering great injustice to their own detriment tells them to be patient and wait on the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: James doesn't tell these suffering believers to fight back.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't tell them to grab their pitchforks and revolt, start a revolution.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't tell them to give up.
SPEAKER_00: He calls them to wait.
SPEAKER_00: And not because injustice doesn't matter, but because God matters.
SPEAKER_00: And God's justice matters more than their own.
SPEAKER_00: That kind of waiting he's describing, friends, here's where we can struggle.
SPEAKER_00: We we like to, if you're like me, we we like to fix stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Where it's like we see something wrong, like I want to, I want to be a part of the solution immediately.
SPEAKER_00: How can I make this right?
SPEAKER_00: But I think we need to realize in Christian in the Christian faith, this this kind of waiting on the Lord, James is describing, is not passive or weak.
SPEAKER_00: It's entrusting yourself to a faithful God who judges righteously.
SPEAKER_00: It's active trust in God's timing and God's character.
SPEAKER_00: We see this same heart posture.
SPEAKER_00: I love this verse in Revelation chapter 6, verses 9 through 11.
SPEAKER_00: Here's a great example.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is injustice at its peak.
SPEAKER_00: In Revelation, there are martyrs who are speaking to the Lord, pleading with him, When are you going to execute justice for us?
SPEAKER_00: When are you going to vindicate us, Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: In Revelation 6, 9 through 11, it says, When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who have been slaughtered because of the word of God and the testimony they had given.
SPEAKER_00: So these are people who were killed simply for following Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 10, they cried out with a loud voice, Lord, the one who is holy and true, how long until you judge those who live on the earth and avenge our blood?
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus' response here is a word of comfort for everyone in this room who's a Christfather and has endured any form of suffering, and you're waiting, Lord, when will you make all things right?
SPEAKER_00: Verse 11.
SPEAKER_00: So they were each given a white robe, and they were told to rest a little while longer until the number would be completed of their fellow servants and their brothers and sisters, who were going to be killed just as they had been.
SPEAKER_00: The martyrs cry out to the Lord, asking, Lord, how long?
SPEAKER_00: They rightly want justice.
SPEAKER_00: They know that Jesus is just and has promised to execute justice, but they don't take it into their own hands as we are not called to as well.
SPEAKER_00: They don't lash out against Jesus and question his goodness and love or whether he will keep his word, but instead they hand themselves over to the judge who judges justly.
SPEAKER_00: And God doesn't look at God's response.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't brush them off or deny what's been done to them.
SPEAKER_00: He assures them that justice is coming and it is coming right on time, just not their time, but his own.
SPEAKER_00: James then points out to us the prophets and Job.
SPEAKER_00: These were people who suffered deeply, who spoke truthfully and kept trusting God, even when they couldn't see how things would turn out.
SPEAKER_00: He's giving them character studies.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, friends, this is nothing new.
SPEAKER_00: God's people have always suffered injustice, and God has always promised to vindicate us.
SPEAKER_00: And when eternity is settled in your hearts, it steadies you in the present.
SPEAKER_00: And when you know, because Christians, we all have a cheat code, because we know how the story ends.
SPEAKER_00: When you know how the story ends, you can keep obeying without growing bitter, without growing anxious, or without growing afraid of how things will turn out.
SPEAKER_00: Because even in the worst case scenario, like these martyrs, if you were to lose your life for following Jesus, guess what?
SPEAKER_00: Death is simply an usher into the presence of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: This is what James is wanting to encourage these Christians with.
SPEAKER_00: You know, the past couple of books we've been preaching through, one thing the Lord has come for me in is just this realization that our default when we suffer and go through hardship is God remove it quickly, please.
SPEAKER_00: And God can do that.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying we shouldn't pray for that.
SPEAKER_00: It's okay to pray to ask God to remove that which brings us pain and hardship.
SPEAKER_00: But when we look at the Bible, you see this theme though of just patiently waiting, fighting to have a God-centered perspective in the midst of your suffering, a call from Christ to suffer well to the glory of God, and not necessarily a promise that, hey, that thing that's hurting you, I'm gonna completely remove it.
SPEAKER_00: But rather, uh, I'm gonna give you my grace to sustain you and to help you persevere in the midst of it.
SPEAKER_00: And if we're honest, that's a struggle sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: Because we don't, I mean, that's hard work, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: It's like, why not?
SPEAKER_00: It's a lot easier, Jesus, if you just removed it.
SPEAKER_00: But here's the thing, guys.
SPEAKER_00: Is anyone in this room all knowing?
SPEAKER_00: I know sometimes we act like we are, but no one in here is all knowing.
SPEAKER_00: God is.
SPEAKER_00: So whatever God brings about, we can always say, okay, he knows something I don't, which means this is for my good, because he's a good and righteous God, a just God.
SPEAKER_00: All he can do is good and righteous.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, Father, help me to just trust you and to endure.
SPEAKER_00: Help me to suffer well for your glory.
SPEAKER_00: Even if I don't get an answer as to why on earth you're allowing this, why are you allowing it for this amount of time?
SPEAKER_00: But what I do know is you're a good God and you are going to vindicate me and bring justice to all injustice on the last day, and it's none of my business as to why you're doing what you're doing.
SPEAKER_00: That's hard to believe.
SPEAKER_00: That's hard to fight to trust God with that.
SPEAKER_00: But look at look at James's final warning in verse 8.
SPEAKER_00: You also must be patient, strengthen your hearts.
SPEAKER_00: So notice they're called to do something.
SPEAKER_00: You are to be patient.
SPEAKER_00: You are to fight to strengthen your faith, strengthen your heart because the Lord's coming is near.
SPEAKER_00: Brothers and sisters, do not complain about one another so that you will not be judged.
SPEAKER_00: Look, the judge stands at the door.
SPEAKER_00: Does that sound like a passive Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Does that sound like a Jesus who's like in heaven just on the couch taking a nap and has no idea what's going on on earth?
SPEAKER_00: No, James says he's stand, the Lord's coming is near, and the judge stands at the door.
SPEAKER_00: We all understand that picture.
SPEAKER_00: If a judge is standing at the door, that means he's he's ready to do something, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: He is coming and he will judge.
SPEAKER_00: But look at verse 12.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Above all, my brothers and sisters, do not swear either by heaven or by earth, or with any other oath, but let your yes mean yes, and your no mean no, so that you won't fall under judgment.
SPEAKER_00: Now, verse 12 might seem out of place.
SPEAKER_00: Like, what on earth is he talking about?
SPEAKER_00: Number one, when he says don't swear, he's not talking about cussing.
SPEAKER_00: So let's just clear that up.
SPEAKER_00: What he's getting at, I believe, is because when you read this contextually, it kind of seems like, what on earth are you talking about?
SPEAKER_00: Why are you talking about these oaths or vows right after you're saying all this about unjust wealth and landowners and all these things?
SPEAKER_00: Here's what I think James is doing.
SPEAKER_00: I I think he's referring to what we can be tempted to do sometimes when we're going through a hard trial, which is we can start making promises to God.
SPEAKER_00: When life gets heavy or where we're tempted and we we start talking a big game to God, where we start bargaining with the Lord, so to speak.
SPEAKER_00: So think about sometimes how as Christians we can respond to, you know, our lives falling apart, job trouble, health issues, family stress.
SPEAKER_00: And we start saying things like, God, I promise I'll change if you just fix this.
SPEAKER_00: Or Lord, I swear I'll never do this again if you just answer this prayer like this.
SPEAKER_00: And I believe contextually, what James is doing here, he's saying is that kind of talk is not trust.
SPEAKER_00: That's that's like an anxious panic.
SPEAKER_00: That is not trusting in God.
SPEAKER_00: That's that's trying to bargain with God, negotiate with him for your own personal benefit.
SPEAKER_00: But steady faith doesn't make deals with God.
SPEAKER_00: It learns to just speak honestly before him, to remind yourself of his character, his sovereignty, his power and love and goodness and faithfulness, and to fight to trust him, to remind yourself of his attributes like his justice.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, if I could give a short definition of justice, I would say giving people what they deserve is justice from a biblical understanding.
SPEAKER_00: Justice is given people what they deserve.
SPEAKER_00: If you agree with me, the question then is what do people fundamentally deserve?
SPEAKER_00: If you understand the gospel of Jesus Christ, the only thing anyone in this room deserves is the eternal wrath of God poured out on them for all eternity.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, everything you receive outside of that, outside of eternal wrath, is infinite mercy and grace.
SPEAKER_00: That would radically change our perspectives of how we endure the hardships of this life if we truly understood what we deserve.
SPEAKER_00: But we also serve a God who is just.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever the Lord does, therefore, is just.
SPEAKER_00: Our standard of what is just is the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: He is justice.
SPEAKER_00: He's not 25% just and 25% holy.
SPEAKER_00: He is the embodiment of justice, which means all that he does towards his creation and his children is just.
SPEAKER_00: And that brings James to his final burden for hurting believers.
SPEAKER_00: When life feels unfair and doing the right thing doesn't seem to pay off from our human perspective.
SPEAKER_00: The real question isn't whether God is faithful or whether God cares about our suffering and the injustice inflicted upon us.
SPEAKER_00: It's whether we'll live like eternity is real.
SPEAKER_00: It's whether we are truly leading our lives as if this is not our home.
SPEAKER_00: We are elect exiles longing for the day where we will see our Savior face to face.
SPEAKER_00: So, in conclusion, friends, James leaves us with one simple but heavy truth.
SPEAKER_00: The way you and I live now shows what we believe about what's coming.
SPEAKER_00: How you live now, so these wealthy landowners and business owners were living as if this life was all there is, so they had no problem with prioritizing their own selfish ambition and storing up wealth on earth.
SPEAKER_00: But how we live now shows what we believe about the life to come.
SPEAKER_00: The word of God is very clear.
SPEAKER_00: God sees every act of injustice in the globe.
SPEAKER_00: Every act of injustice.
SPEAKER_00: This world's wealth will fade away, but belonging to Christ will last forever.
SPEAKER_00: Now I know we're honest, we're human, we struggle, we hear sermons like this, we read verses like this, and we agree because we know that's a Christian thing to do.
SPEAKER_00: But in our heart of hearts, we're like, yeah, but God, if you just added two or three more zeros to my bank account, like I'd be, I'd be one of those good Christians.
SPEAKER_00: Like I would, I would do it right.
SPEAKER_00: But friends, we cannot anchor our lives in the treasures of this earth.
SPEAKER_00: And when our hope is anchored in Christ, then and only then are we free are we truly free.
SPEAKER_00: Then and only then can we truly be generous as God.
SPEAKER_00: Then can we suffer faithfully and wait confidently because our greatest treasure is already secure in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to truly be wealthy, I'm not trying to be overly spiritual here.
SPEAKER_00: I'm saying work hard, pursue careers, invest, start businesses, be Christian entrepreneurs, do all that stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Get the Christian bag to the glory of God with the right heart posture, okay?
SPEAKER_00: However, if all those things were taken away, would Jesus still be your treasure and joy?
SPEAKER_00: If you were to die today and go to heaven and you're on the new heaven and new earth, there's streets of gold and all that, but Jesus isn't there, would that still be a treasure to you?
SPEAKER_00: We must fight to make sure Jesus is our true treasure.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.