James 5:1-6

[00:00:00] Alright, today is James 5 verse 1-6. Let's read this text together. Verse 1, James writing says,

[00:00:09] 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.

[00:00:30] You have laid up treasure in the last days. Behold, verse 4, 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.

[00:00:50] 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. Let's pray together.

[00:01:08] Lord, we just come to you this morning and I think in my heart, Father, just thinking about a passage like this as a church committed to moving through books of the Bible. Here we are, Lord. And what I think what we want to say to you is we are glad and happy and rejoice and celebrate and receive all of the positive, uplifting, encouraging passages in your word.

[00:01:34] But we also are very thankful, Lord, for the moments in your word where there's a confrontation because we know from you, our loving Father in heaven, that if you are saying it, it must be not only for our good but for the good of your mission here on earth and the flourishing of human beings.

[00:01:58] And so, Lord, we want to be a people who say to you that we love all of it, Lord, the whole book. So thank you for giving us scripture. Thank you for giving us the book of James. And thank you for giving us these six verses. And we pray by your spirit that you'd use them in our lives this morning. We thank you and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.

[00:02:24] All right. So if you've been here as we've been going through the book of James, you've probably noticed that James is a straight shooter.

[00:02:32] Okay? James doesn't mix many words. No one would accuse James of having a secret or hidden agenda or that he's not willing to say what he really thinks.

[00:02:42] He's candid. He's honest. He says hard and challenging things to the church that he is ministering to.

[00:02:51] And for James, today, that direct and frank conversation, it's like it kind of hits a crescendo, hits a real peak.

[00:02:59] He's very honest. There's a group out there. We're going to talk in a moment about who this group was, what they might have been guilty of.

[00:03:05] But there's a group out there that has drawn James' ire and he gives these very strong words in their direction.

[00:03:12] I mean, just to reflect on a few of the phrases.

[00:03:15] Chapter 5, verse 1, he tells these people to weep and howl for the miseries that are certainly going to come upon them.

[00:03:22] Verse 3, he says that the corrosion of their gold and silver was going to eat their flesh like fire.

[00:03:29] In verse 4, he explained that their injustices towards their laborers had reached the ears of the Lord of hosts, which means the Lord of angel armies.

[00:03:41] God has seen what you've done, he says to them.

[00:03:43] In verse 5, he says that their lifestyle was akin to fattening livestock up for the day of slaughter.

[00:03:52] This is intense.

[00:03:53] This is a real face-melting kind of passage of Scripture.

[00:03:57] James is being direct.

[00:03:59] Frank and honest with the church, with this particular group.

[00:04:04] This is like James saving a burst of energy for the very end.

[00:04:12] I was watching the marathons at the Olympics this last summer.

[00:04:16] And the men's marathon, it was a gentleman from Ethiopia who just got thrown in there at the last second.

[00:04:22] Because somebody from his country withdrew.

[00:04:24] So he got to run.

[00:04:25] But you could tell that he had prepared himself because there was a huge hill in this marathon.

[00:04:30] That's not normal usually in these road races.

[00:04:33] And he had prepared himself for that hill.

[00:04:35] When they got to it, he just attacked that hill.

[00:04:38] It's like he saved something, left it in reserve.

[00:04:41] And it just, everyone else behind him trying to keep up with him.

[00:04:45] They just expended all their energy and he just won the race in a landslide.

[00:04:49] James feels like that right now.

[00:04:51] Just like James, you've been holding back this.

[00:04:55] This is what you've been sitting on.

[00:04:57] This is the kind of energy that you've got here at the close of your letter.

[00:05:02] It's just, it's powerful.

[00:05:04] It's intense.

[00:05:05] Now, you probably noticed I put the title of the message as The Mature because we've been thinking about James as a profile of Christian maturity.

[00:05:16] The title of my message is The Mature Navigate Finances with God.

[00:05:21] And I'm just going to tell you this morning, I just don't like that title.

[00:05:24] Okay?

[00:05:25] I know I wrote it.

[00:05:26] I know that I've given it to you.

[00:05:28] But doesn't it just feel like a little weak compared to what James said?

[00:05:33] But I just felt like my title couldn't be an apostolic nuclear warhead attacking the erroneous misappropriation of wealth.

[00:05:44] But that would probably be a better title for this passage or for this particular portion of scripture.

[00:05:51] But my hope is that for us, we'd be able to look at this text in the eye long enough so that we could be mature, grow in maturity regarding our finances and what we do with what God has entrusted into our care.

[00:06:08] This is really important.

[00:06:09] Christians need to have a good relationship with money.

[00:06:11] We need to know how to handle it.

[00:06:13] Paul said in 1 Timothy 6 verse 10 that the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils.

[00:06:18] There's a lot of bad stuff that can come out of a person's life when they become enamored with wealth.

[00:06:27] Okay?

[00:06:27] So a couple questions, though, that we need to ask.

[00:06:30] One is who did James address in this passage?

[00:06:35] Who is James thinking about in this text?

[00:06:38] These are always hard questions to ask when you're going into scripture because with the New Testament, which is the newer portion of the Bible,

[00:06:46] we're talking about documents that were written almost 2,000 years ago.

[00:06:50] So it takes a lot of work to kind of go back and try to figure out who is the original audience?

[00:06:56] Who does James particularly have in mind?

[00:06:59] I'll say it like this.

[00:07:01] There's two major views of who James is thinking of.

[00:07:05] In one camp, there's a group of people who think that James is not writing to anybody in the church, but he's writing to the world.

[00:07:12] He's writing to people who were persecuting God's church.

[00:07:16] I mean, this makes a lot of sense because these were mostly Jewish believers.

[00:07:20] And so perhaps what James is doing is he's saying, hey, these Jewish believers have gone out into the world because of persecution in Jerusalem.

[00:07:27] Now they're in these other Jewish communities far from Jerusalem.

[00:07:32] And the Jewish communities they've embedded themselves in are economically persecuting them,

[00:07:38] not giving them the jobs that they would normally get because they're proclaiming Jesus as their Messiah and as their Savior.

[00:07:44] So that's one camp.

[00:07:46] James is addressing the non-believing or yet-to-believe world.

[00:07:50] And then there's others who think, no, James is addressing the church.

[00:07:53] These are atrocities that some in the body of Christ are committing against others within the church.

[00:08:02] I'll be honest with you.

[00:08:03] The majority view is the first one, that James is writing to people outside of the body of Christ.

[00:08:09] And the reasons for it are pretty simple.

[00:08:10] One is just it's so bad.

[00:08:13] Like what they're doing is so bad.

[00:08:15] They're not acting like Christians.

[00:08:17] They're not doing Christian stuff.

[00:08:18] So it's so bad.

[00:08:19] Another reason that some would hold is, and the judgment that James holds out is so severe.

[00:08:27] Like these can't be believers, some people would think.

[00:08:33] The minority view, I think I lean towards it, is that James is talking to Christians.

[00:08:41] Part of the reason I think this is because, look, I get that it's hard to imagine Christians behaving like this.

[00:08:48] But, like, let's be honest for a second.

[00:08:49] It's not that hard.

[00:08:52] It's not that hard.

[00:08:53] It's not that hard to imagine believers behaving like James described.

[00:08:57] I mean, I don't mean to get, you know, to get offensive here.

[00:09:02] But, like, how can we look the transatlantic slave trade in the eye and not say, yeah, people who name the name of Jesus could be guilty of atrocities like this.

[00:09:11] And I know a lot of people used the Bible to put an end to that system.

[00:09:16] But there were also a lot of people using the Bible to hold that system up as well.

[00:09:21] All right?

[00:09:21] So it's possible, I think, for people who are at least maybe not real Christians but naming the name of Jesus to act like this.

[00:09:31] The other reason I think maybe he's talking in-house is because he's acting like a prophet right now, an Old Testament prophet.

[00:09:40] And the Old Testament prophets did at times talk to or speak against the nations around Israel.

[00:09:48] But usually their messages were in-house.

[00:09:53] We're talking to the people of Israel.

[00:09:55] So you imagine maybe, like, remember we went through the book of Micah a few months ago?

[00:09:59] Micah from Moresheth in the valley below Jerusalem.

[00:10:03] He saw the economic injustice happening by God's people up in Jerusalem.

[00:10:07] And it had trickled down into the valley that he was part of down there in Moresheth.

[00:10:13] He did talk about the surrounding nations from time to time and rebuke them.

[00:10:17] But most of his rebukes were reserved for God's house.

[00:10:21] So like Peter said, judgment begins at the house of the Lord.

[00:10:26] I think my leaning would be that James is addressing an in-house audience.

[00:10:33] Partly because it seems a little odd to me that James would have this letter where it's like,

[00:10:36] Hey, church, I want to say this to you.

[00:10:38] Hey, church, I want to say this to you.

[00:10:40] Hey, church, I want to say this to you.

[00:10:42] Hey, church, I want to say this to you.

[00:10:43] And then also, hey, world, who will never, ever read this in the first place,

[00:10:47] I want to say this to you.

[00:10:48] It seems to me like he's still aiming inwardly to those who are at least naming the name of Christ.

[00:10:57] Okay, so whether he's talking to the world or talking to a worldly church

[00:11:03] or talking to a churchy world or talking to all of them,

[00:11:08] what was the big sin that James saw?

[00:11:12] That's the other big question.

[00:11:13] What is the big sin that James saw in this passage?

[00:11:17] And I think what I want to say here is that if you're to read James 5, 1 through 6 superficially,

[00:11:25] you might come away saying, Oh, here's what James was rebuking.

[00:11:29] James was rebuking the presence of wealth.

[00:11:34] You know, if someone has wealth, then they are guilty before God.

[00:11:38] But what I want to tell you is I think that's a very superficial and inaccurate reading,

[00:11:44] not only of this passage, but of all of the Bible.

[00:11:47] The scriptures are actually not a book that condemn money.

[00:11:53] I actually used to talk about money, and I'd say money is a neutral.

[00:11:57] You know, it can be used for good, and it can be used for evil, but it's neutral.

[00:12:02] It depends on who's possessing it and what they're going to do with it.

[00:12:06] I've kind of adjusted over the years, and I've said a little bit more money is actually a net positive

[00:12:12] in that you can use it for evil, but it's one of the greatest instruments that we have

[00:12:19] to love our neighbor as ourself and to develop and build a society.

[00:12:23] Like, I don't know about you, but I'm super happy that I can go to Trader Joe's,

[00:12:27] and I can buy those little chocolate-covered espresso beans.

[00:12:31] Like, I don't know how to grow espresso beans.

[00:12:33] I don't know how to make chocolate.

[00:12:35] I'm so thankful I don't have to do all that myself, but that I can give them money,

[00:12:39] and I get those chocolate-covered espresso beans in return.

[00:12:42] You guys following me right now?

[00:12:43] Okay, so money is fine.

[00:12:47] Scripture is pro-saving, pro-planning, pro-generosity, pro-good stewardship.

[00:12:54] The scripture is all of that.

[00:12:57] Jesus had wealthy followers, people like Joanna, Joseph of Arimathea, Barnabas in the book of Acts,

[00:13:05] Lydia, who we'll talk about in a few weeks when we get into the book of Philippians together.

[00:13:11] So the Bible is not anti-wealth.

[00:13:15] In fact, look at what Paul said in a very strong little section in 1 Timothy 6.

[00:13:20] He tells Pastor Timothy, he says in verse 17 of 1 Timothy 6, he says,

[00:13:26] teach those who are rich in this world not to be proud and not to trust in their money, which is so unreliable.

[00:13:35] Their trust should be in God, who gives us all we need for our enjoyment.

[00:13:40] Tell them to use their money to do good.

[00:13:42] They should be rich in good works and generous to those in need, always being ready to share with others.

[00:13:48] So here's Paul.

[00:13:49] He's got a lot to say about money.

[00:13:51] He's got to those who have great means.

[00:13:54] And in the midst of all of his exhortations, notice what's absent.

[00:13:59] He doesn't say, you know, Timothy, you've got to really hammer down on those people in the church who are rich in this present age.

[00:14:08] They just shouldn't be.

[00:14:09] That's not allowed.

[00:14:11] No, he doesn't say that.

[00:14:12] He says, if that's their station of life, this is how I want you to encourage them to operate.

[00:14:19] But he doesn't come out hard against the idea of wealth at all.

[00:14:25] So I'm just trying to build a biblical theology of finances for you guys.

[00:14:32] So if the presence of wealth is not the problem that James saw, what was it?

[00:14:40] Well, it's right there in the text.

[00:14:44] Notice in verse 2, he basically tells them, you guys have held on to your riches for so long that they have now rotted.

[00:14:55] I think this is maybe like in God's sight.

[00:14:59] And your trove of garments that you've collected aren't clothing anyone, but they're feeding moths.

[00:15:07] It's like James is pointing out the irony.

[00:15:10] Your closet is full.

[00:15:11] There's people out there hungry.

[00:15:14] And you are satisfying hunger for moths.

[00:15:18] Okay?

[00:15:19] It's basically, I think what James is saying is you guys have gone beyond practical saving and planning and living in your world and society,

[00:15:27] but now you've begun to hoard your resources.

[00:15:32] Okay?

[00:15:32] And then secondly, I think another little facet of this is in verse 5, he says,

[00:15:41] you've lived on the earth in luxury and self-indulgence.

[00:15:46] I think what James is seeing is this group where he's saying, you've gone beyond a comfortable life.

[00:15:52] You've gone beyond appropriate saving into realms of luxury not fitting for God's people.

[00:16:00] And then lastly, in verse 4 and 6, he talks about how they've been unfair with their staff,

[00:16:07] the people that had mowed their fields, their laborers, had not treated them right.

[00:16:12] And James says, it's like you're guilty of murder.

[00:16:17] You know, they're trying to live, and you are making it harder for them to live.

[00:16:22] What's the opposite of life?

[00:16:23] Death.

[00:16:24] He's saying, you guys are propagating death in their lives.

[00:16:27] He accuses them because of their unfair treatment of their employees of being guilty of murder.

[00:16:36] Now, these are strong words from James.

[00:16:41] And here's the thing.

[00:16:42] You know, I try really hard with a lot of these passages in the Bible that we come up to.

[00:16:48] I try really hard not to just let them kind of like wash over us and just move on.

[00:16:55] You know, I want to like pause and really think about what's being said here.

[00:16:59] I've read James 5, 1 to 6 hundreds of times in my Christian life.

[00:17:04] You know, it would be very easy to just kind of approach it, just go like, man, I don't know.

[00:17:08] There's some like gnarly sin going on back there 2,000 years ago.

[00:17:12] Don't know who these guys were.

[00:17:13] Don't know what they were really doing.

[00:17:14] But, man, that's not me.

[00:17:17] And to just kind of move on.

[00:17:18] But I think we really can't escape James' rebuke today.

[00:17:23] Because hoarding and luxury and the unfair treatment of others, which to God is akin to murder, these things are still on display in our modern time.

[00:17:35] There are still, to borrow from the Old Testament terminology, Ahab's who steal Naboth's vineyard.

[00:17:42] There are still, to borrow from Jesus' parable in the New Testament, rich men who ignore poor Lazaruses.

[00:17:52] There are still, to borrow from the New Testament world, Sadducees who cling to their economic power by saying whatever the wealthy want them to say.

[00:18:04] And there are still those, to dip back into the book of Proverbs, who hate the idea of gathering little by little,

[00:18:12] but want to get rich quick by wealth gained hastily rather than patiently just stocking away and being obedient to the Lord.

[00:18:22] And so I think for us, we just have to kind of step back with a passage like this and just say, look, Holy Spirit, just search me.

[00:18:30] You know, search my heart.

[00:18:32] Search my life.

[00:18:34] I need to be led by you.

[00:18:36] I can't adopt what someone else is telling me to be or telling me to do.

[00:18:40] But, Lord, is there hoarding in my life?

[00:18:43] Lord, have I caved to luxury in my life?

[00:18:49] Lord, have I mistreated or looked down upon those who are around me who are economically challenged?

[00:18:56] Like, is that my position?

[00:18:59] Have I been unfair to people that I've hired or that have worked for me?

[00:19:03] Like, we got to go to the Holy Spirit and ask that searching question of him.

[00:19:09] All right, so this is what I want to do with the rest of our time together to wrap this up.

[00:19:13] I want to think about some exhortations that James gives to those who are rich.

[00:19:20] And then I'm going to just, like, very quickly, like in a minute, give you a handful of exhortations that I think would flow from this passage to the laborers.

[00:19:30] And the reason I'm doing it like this is because this passage really isn't for the laborers.

[00:19:35] This passage is for those who have means.

[00:19:38] So let's think about three things that James would be saying to this particular group.

[00:19:44] What would James say to the rich?

[00:19:46] Well, the first thing that he would say is you need to mourn your condition.

[00:19:52] You need to mourn your condition.

[00:19:55] Look what he says in verse 1.

[00:19:56] He says, come now, you rich.

[00:19:57] Weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you.

[00:20:02] I think if I could just apply this in our modern time and in our modern space,

[00:20:08] we just have to recognize that wealth, treasure, riches, luxury, it really can be a distraction for a Christian.

[00:20:18] It can be something that fogs up reality so that we're not seeing things the way that God sees things.

[00:20:27] And it can dilute us into a life that is less than what God has for us.

[00:20:34] The president of Bread for the World, which is an organization trying to end world hunger, once said this,

[00:20:41] An affluent culture turns our hearts towards fleeting satisfactions and away from God.

[00:20:49] Unprecedented prosperity, that's us, has left our lives full but not necessarily fulfilled.

[00:20:57] The problem is not that we've tried faith and found it wanting, but that we've tried mammon and found it addictive.

[00:21:06] And as a result, we find following Christ inconvenient.

[00:21:13] I mean, we have to recognize when we read the New Testament, just let's confess to this,

[00:21:19] Following Christ is inconvenient.

[00:21:23] It will not be a convenient experience for us.

[00:21:26] It will be an inconvenient experience so often.

[00:21:29] I came across recently a church website where, you know, you just, stuff's on church websites.

[00:21:34] You're saying stuff.

[00:21:35] You're trying to present yourself to the world.

[00:21:38] And there was just a line that said something like, come and build a life of meaning and purpose.

[00:21:45] Yeah, I could quibble with the sentiment, but whatever.

[00:21:49] Like, I get it.

[00:21:50] You know, the idea is, hey, you know, you want to come to church.

[00:21:53] You want to hear about Jesus.

[00:21:54] And you're going to hear from him.

[00:21:56] And then, boom, like, you just become part of this community.

[00:21:59] And your life will have meaning and purpose.

[00:22:01] And then right below it was so ironic.

[00:22:03] Right below it was a little plug or advertisement for their online ministry, which I'm a huge believer in.

[00:22:09] Like, we should be getting our stuff out there and all that.

[00:22:12] But the sentence was, because you shouldn't have to inconvenience your life to hear a message of hope and encouragement.

[00:22:22] And just seeing those two lines together, I was like, I think maybe Jesus might say, like,

[00:22:26] I want you to have a life of meaning and purpose, and it won't happen unless you let me inconvenience you.

[00:22:33] Like, I can't just, like, be like a co-pilot or a little buddy on the side.

[00:22:39] I'm looking to be the Lord of your life.

[00:22:41] There will be times where this is hard and challenging, difficult.

[00:22:44] I think, though, what I'm trying to say is we have to, in a society that is swimming in opulence and wealth,

[00:22:53] and we live in a beautiful place with lots of money and all that, we have to recognize that that could lull us to sleep.

[00:23:03] And we have to grieve, like James is telling these people to grieve,

[00:23:07] the moments that we've overspent or we've oversaved or we've looked over those with less.

[00:23:15] But this is like just a, we're constantly attacked with this.

[00:23:19] It's constantly in our face.

[00:23:21] Last weekend, my wife and I, we had the blessed opportunity to have our, her older brother.

[00:23:29] It's just a super cool story.

[00:23:31] He'd run from God for many, many years.

[00:23:33] And then when he was in his early 40s, he started, he gave his life to Christ, started walking with Jesus.

[00:23:40] And God just did that, like, you know, in the book of Joel, it says, like,

[00:23:44] and I will restore the years that the locust has eaten.

[00:23:46] That's what began happening for him.

[00:23:48] And he ended up going, you know, in church meeting a young woman.

[00:23:53] They get married.

[00:23:54] And they start, and just a few years ago, so he just had his 50-year birthday.

[00:23:59] But he's got a three-year-old little boy.

[00:24:02] And so my nephew, his name's Joshua.

[00:24:04] And we got to watch him, Christina and I, for the weekend.

[00:24:08] It was his first time away from mom and dad.

[00:24:11] And he was just like a pro.

[00:24:12] He's like one of those little kids.

[00:24:13] It's just like, bye, mom.

[00:24:15] You know, like, no big deal whatsoever.

[00:24:16] Mom's crying.

[00:24:17] He's good, you know.

[00:24:19] And we just had so much fun.

[00:24:22] I don't know what they're saying in their house up on the, you know, North Bay.

[00:24:27] I don't know what they're saying about me to him.

[00:24:30] But I'm, like, legendary to him.

[00:24:32] Like, I'll just be, like, in my bedroom, you know, changing or whatever.

[00:24:36] And I'll come out.

[00:24:37] And it's like I take his breath away.

[00:24:39] He's like, Uncle Nate.

[00:24:41] You know, like, he just stoked.

[00:24:43] And all he wanted to do the whole weekend, the only thing he wanted me to do was just wrestle.

[00:24:48] I mean, that's all it was.

[00:24:49] It was just a nonstop, like, round one, round two, round three.

[00:24:53] It was like 98 rounds of wrestling with me and this little guy.

[00:24:56] He wanted me to tickle him.

[00:24:57] You know, I'm like, what do you want to do?

[00:24:59] You want to read a book?

[00:25:00] You know, no, tickle me.

[00:25:01] Okay, what do you want to do?

[00:25:02] You want to eat a snack?

[00:25:03] No, throw me.

[00:25:04] You know, like, that's all he wanted to do the whole time.

[00:25:07] And he was just always ready.

[00:25:08] And it just brought me back.

[00:25:09] It brought me back to the time that my kids were real little.

[00:25:12] And I remember all of them, especially my middle daughter, just, like, they had this thing where it's just, like, we are going to attack dad at any moment.

[00:25:20] At any moment.

[00:25:21] You know, we'll just be, like, on top of a dresser behind the door, you know.

[00:25:25] And, like, he comes in and just, you know, we'll jump on him, you know, kind of thing.

[00:25:29] Got to the point where I'm like, look, you guys are getting bigger.

[00:25:31] You're, like, 16, 17 years old.

[00:25:33] You can't be doing this.

[00:25:34] My back hurts, you know.

[00:25:37] And I was just thinking, I think when it comes to the constant bombardment that we experience being tested with the temptation to follow after wealth, that's what it feels like to me.

[00:25:50] It's just, like, lurking around every corner.

[00:25:53] You know, look at what they got.

[00:25:55] Look how they're living.

[00:25:57] You know, it's just constantly.

[00:25:58] We're being advertised.

[00:25:59] Who's sold?

[00:26:00] All that.

[00:26:00] So just a word of caution I think James would give us.

[00:26:03] And then a second thing I think James would say is that the rich need to live life backward.

[00:26:14] They need to live life backward.

[00:26:16] Notice how the whole passage, eternity is on James' mind.

[00:26:22] You know, he talks about, in verse 1, the miseries that were going to come upon them one day.

[00:26:28] He talks about their riches being rotted and moth-eaten because they're just temporary in nature.

[00:26:36] He says in verse 3 that those things are going to be evidence against them one day.

[00:26:41] Instead, they should have stored up better evidence for the law core of life.

[00:26:46] In verse 3, I mean, he wrote this 2,000 years ago, but he said, you're storing up treasure in the last days.

[00:26:56] The implication is that they should have used their treasure for something good, but they didn't.

[00:27:00] They overstored, hoarded.

[00:27:03] And then he uses a metaphor to say it's like you guys are livestock that are feeding yourselves, fattening yourselves up for the inevitable day of barbecue, the day of slaughter.

[00:27:16] I mean, it's hard language.

[00:27:19] And then James says that God has heard the cries, the agonizing of either his people or the parts of the world where there is financial suffering, hunger, and thirst.

[00:27:40] He says God has heard.

[00:27:43] I think what James is saying to this group is he's not saying you're doomed.

[00:27:48] I think what he's saying is fix it.

[00:27:51] This is a lifeline of hope.

[00:27:54] Fix it.

[00:27:55] You don't need to be in that spot.

[00:27:57] Fix it, he's saying to them.

[00:27:59] These people should have taken a picture of Moses and put it up on their refrigerator or put it up on their bathroom mirror.

[00:28:06] You know, because Moses is depicted in the book of Hebrews as a man who made a decision at some point in his life,

[00:28:14] rather than enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin with all the opulence and wealth that he could have tapped into as the grandson of Pharaoh,

[00:28:24] the wealthiest, most powerful man on earth at that time.

[00:28:28] Hebrews extols Moses for his decision to instead suffer right along with the people of God.

[00:28:37] He made that decision.

[00:28:39] He reverse engineered his life.

[00:28:42] You ever have those moments where you kind of wonder, like, what would I have said to my, like a younger version of myself?

[00:28:49] You know?

[00:28:49] You know, if you haven't had that conversation, it's because you're young still, you know?

[00:28:55] But the older you get, you just kind of look back.

[00:28:57] Like, what would I have said to a 15-year-old me or a 25-year-old me or even a 35-year-old me?

[00:29:02] What would I have said?

[00:29:03] What would I say?

[00:29:04] What would I say?

[00:29:05] You know?

[00:29:06] And when I was talking to, like, 15-year-old Nate, I'd be like, hey, just so you know, there's this guy named Steve Jobs.

[00:29:12] He's kicking around.

[00:29:13] He's going to create some stuff.

[00:29:14] Just throw a little money his way.

[00:29:16] You'll be good.

[00:29:17] You know?

[00:29:17] Like, I would have said stuff like that to him.

[00:29:20] But here's the thing.

[00:29:21] Perhaps when we have those little conversations, we're not going far enough out in our lives.

[00:29:26] Maybe we should be thinking about what would, when all that is unimportant burns away.

[00:29:33] When I am there in the presence of the holy triune God, when his kingdom has come and sin and death and terror and tears have evaporated,

[00:29:44] what would I say to a younger me from that vantage point about how to live life, about what to prioritize?

[00:29:54] James is giving that kind of exhortation to the church.

[00:29:59] Think about the end.

[00:30:03] This is so important.

[00:30:05] This is actually so important for just being able to process it all in the first place.

[00:30:11] And I don't know if you guys have thought about the book of Psalms like this, but Psalm 1, a lot of people consider it the gateway to the whole Psalter.

[00:30:21] Psalm 1 talks about how the blessed man or woman is the person who they delight in the law of the Lord.

[00:30:30] They meditate on it day and night.

[00:30:33] They prosper then.

[00:30:34] They flourish.

[00:30:35] They're like a tree planted by rivers of water.

[00:30:38] And whatever they do prospers.

[00:30:40] They flourish.

[00:30:41] And you read that there in Psalm 1, and it's like, okay, I'm on the path.

[00:30:45] That's what I want to be.

[00:30:46] I want to walk with God.

[00:30:47] And then it also says, and the ungodly, the unrighteous, the scoffers, now their lives have a chaff-like quality to them.

[00:30:58] Not like the wheat, not valuable, not purposeful, and it'll pass away.

[00:31:04] So there you are as a worshiper, and you're like, okay, cool.

[00:31:07] I know where blessing comes from.

[00:31:08] I'm going to walk with God.

[00:31:10] And then you start going through life, and you're like, wait, hold on a second.

[00:31:14] It doesn't always feel like this.

[00:31:16] That's why you have Psalms.

[00:31:17] Like Psalm 37 or Psalm 73, where the psalmist is looking around, seeing the prosperity of the wicked.

[00:31:26] Looking around saying, I don't get it.

[00:31:28] I read Psalm 1 about who's blessed and who's not.

[00:31:32] And it looks like we've got it all wrong here.

[00:31:35] It's backwards.

[00:31:36] But inevitably, those songs end with, but the end is coming.

[00:31:42] But the story is not fully written.

[00:31:46] But this is not the final destination.

[00:31:48] But there is a God who will wrap up all that evil and will deal with it once and for all.

[00:31:55] Remember that day.

[00:31:56] And what James seems to be saying is, man, we've got to remember that day, reverse engineer our lives from that point backwards.

[00:32:06] Okay.

[00:32:07] And then the last thing I would say that he's saying to these wealthy individuals is that they need to become ethical and compassionate.

[00:32:15] You know, they robbed their laborers.

[00:32:19] He said in verse 4, and they did not give them their deserved wages.

[00:32:24] Good model for them, this group, would have been Zacchaeus.

[00:32:28] You remember his story in the Gospels?

[00:32:30] Jesus touches his life, like, barely.

[00:32:34] And Zacchaeus, this wealthy tax collector, he's like, I'm going to make every economic wrong that I've ever committed, I'm going to make it right and more so.

[00:32:43] I'm going to go above and beyond.

[00:32:44] It's like grace just launched him into this incredible response before Jesus.

[00:32:51] They needed that.

[00:32:52] They needed to meditate on the prophecies of Micah, of Moresheth, and correct the ways that they decimated the lives of others through their ruthlessness.

[00:33:04] I think at this point we'd be unfaithful to the book of James if we did not pause for a second to consider how believers really ought to be, if we're employers,

[00:33:18] we should be some of the best employers walking on the face of the earth.

[00:33:23] We really should.

[00:33:25] Just the way that we treat people that are working for us, the atmosphere and environment that we set.

[00:33:31] And I realized, like, what happens when you're in industry and you're in positions of leadership.

[00:33:38] You begin thinking about, okay, so I want to do it the Jesus way.

[00:33:42] And one of the first questions is, won't I get totally taken advantage of if I act like Jesus as a leader?

[00:33:52] And look, you might at times, but here's what I want to suggest.

[00:33:57] I think Jesus had, if I could say it like this or borrow the word staff,

[00:34:04] I would say Jesus had the most dedicated staff you could ever find.

[00:34:11] Those disciples, that early church, they went to the ends of the earth carrying his message so often to the point of death.

[00:34:18] Why did they do that?

[00:34:20] Because he acted like Jesus for them.

[00:34:25] And they responded to what he had done for them.

[00:34:29] So, yeah, you might have a Judas.

[00:34:30] Jesus did too.

[00:34:32] But you also, in leading in that way, you might find yourself having the most devoted people ever

[00:34:39] because of the atmosphere, environment, care that you have given to them.

[00:34:46] All right, so that's his word to the rich.

[00:34:48] I told you I was going to give you one minute, though, on what James would say to the laborers.

[00:34:54] And the reason I'm only giving one minute is because that's not who James is really talking to.

[00:34:58] He's talking to the rich, so I didn't want to weigh it in the wrong direction.

[00:35:01] But here's what I would think that we could surmise from what James says to the rich for the laborers,

[00:35:08] for those who are employed or underemployed or staff or whatever.

[00:35:13] I think he would say, God sees you.

[00:35:17] I mean, isn't that clear throughout this whole passage?

[00:35:19] God sees these people who have been mistreated.

[00:35:23] They don't, they can't, he says, they can't defend themselves.

[00:35:28] But God sees you.

[00:35:29] Just like he saw Hagar back in the Old Testament after she'd been mistreated.

[00:35:34] God sees you.

[00:35:36] It's part of his nature.

[00:35:38] Another encouragement I think James would give is hang on.

[00:35:43] Hang on.

[00:35:45] You know, the story is not finished.

[00:35:48] The day is not over.

[00:35:51] Hang on to the Lord.

[00:35:54] Paul said that he considered the sufferings of this present time not worth comparing to the glories that are coming in Christ.

[00:36:02] So, as he said in Galatians 6, 9, do not grow weary in doing good.

[00:36:06] And then lastly, I think James would hold out the promise.

[00:36:14] Judgment is coming.

[00:36:16] Look, every religion and non-religion on the face of the earth has to wrestle with the question, what about evil?

[00:36:23] Where's that come from?

[00:36:25] What's it about?

[00:36:26] Where's it going?

[00:36:28] Everybody's got to wrestle with that difficult question.

[00:36:30] Don't let anybody think that it's just a Christian question.

[00:36:32] It's everybody's got to deal with that question.

[00:36:35] But the Christian, even if they struggle with the answer to that question, which I don't think we have to, but even if they do, we know where it is going.

[00:36:47] God's going to deal with all of it.

[00:36:49] And I think he holds that out.

[00:36:50] James would hold that out to these beleaguered believers and say, God sees, hang on, and judgment is going to come.

[00:37:01] So, my prayer for us is that we would take this little passage of scripture and that we would just kind of let it mess with us.

[00:37:08] Like, if we don't let the Bible mess with us, then what are we doing here?

[00:37:11] You know?

[00:37:11] Like, let's let God's word, God's spirit mess with us a little bit.

[00:37:17] And so I pray that that would happen for us as we consider these six verses from the book of James.