Rich Men and Poor Men

Haiti I dont believe in i before e except after c, its been disproven by science

Whats made of leather and sounds like a sneeze? A SHOE

This morning we continue through our series in this letter from the Brother of Jesus, James. So far, James has told us we have to have joy when we face trials in our lives, because they produce fruit and help us to develop wisdom. Basically, he is telling us we need to look at the trials in our lives with the right perspective, we have to see what it can really do for us from a Go dly perspective and not a worldly perspective. He goes on to tell us if we do not see trials as joy because they produce fruit then we need to ask God to change our perspective so we can see it in the right way. He says if we ask God, he will give us generously what we need. He warns us at the same time we have to make sure we are asking properly, with a faith that is true and without doubt. We spent some time talking about how this is not James telling us we aren’t supposed to have moments of doubt in our lives, because it is clear through the writings in Psalms and elsewhere even David had moments where he had some doubts in his lives. What James is pointing at here is we can’t be Christian atheist - we can’t do things out of blind ritual without any real belief in it. The fear is we would just pray because that is what you are supposed to do without having any real belief he can actually do it.

This kind of relates to the same fear I talk about all the time as a pastor. My fear is always we will have these people that come to church every single week and we will show up when the doors are open and maybe even do some stuff when we feel like we can, but still not have a relationship with Jesus. And I always say it scares me because that was my story, I was the guy who would have told you I was a Christian but I realized I didn’t have a relationship with Jesus and started to realize as I dug deeper into the word that Jesus wants so much more for us than just checking a box. It scares me because Jesus tells us there will be people who come to him on the day of judgment and tell him, “Lord, didn’t we cast out demons in your name… didn’t we do all this stuff in your name…” and Jesus will look at them and say “Away from me, I never knew you,” and that hits me like a ton of bricks because I know that would have been me. So let me just stop before we get even deeper into James this morning and let me just tell you, Jesus wants more from you than a checkmark off your lists. See, that was exactly what the Pharisees did, they have tried to make sure they could control their faith and connection with God by checking boxes and Jesus doesn’t want a box checker, he wants a relationship. Its so much deeper than that. He wants to connect with you not just because its what you feel like you have to do, but because you love him and want a deeper relationship; because you realize he is better than anything the entire world has to offer you.

So, let me read to you the verses we are going to be looking at this morning…

James 1:9–11 NASB95

9 But the brother of humble circumstances is to glory in his high position; 10 and the rich man is to glory in his humiliation, because like flowering grass he will pass away. 11 For the sun rises with a scorching wind and withers the grass; and its flower falls off and the beauty of its appearance is destroyed; so too the rich man in the midst of his pursuits will fade away.

It may seem like there is a shift here from everything that has come before it in the book of James, in fact, the ESV and NIV both kind of make this a brand new paragraph, and I don’t necessarily think that is wrong, because I do believe these verses can stand by themselves. However, I kind of think what James is actually doing in these verses is giving us a illustration of how if we have Godly wisdom our outlook on life will change; the way we see the things happening in our lives don’t look the same when we have Godly wisdom as they do when we don’t have it. The way we see our money, our status, and other things becomes completely different when we have Godly wisdom.

The thing we need to understand about these verses is in the first century there was a huge gap between the rich and the poor. It reminds me a lot of what you learn in Haiti, in Haiti when I was able to go, it was the 19th poorest country in the world; I want you to just let that sit on you for a little bit. Now in Haiti, everyone was poor, in fact the week before my first trip to Haiti, the people rioted in the streets, and you want to know why? Because the price of gas went up .02 per liter. Thats enough to cripple the poor people of Haiti, its life altering. Now, I said everyone in Haiti was poor, but thats not exactly true, because there are 8-9 families that kind of decide everything that happens in Haiti, they are the wealthy people, and they live up on the mountain where we would take people to what is called, “The Overlook.” Basically you get up there and you can look out and see everything in the valley below, and its beautiful, but you also see all the poverty. But as you are going to the overlook all of a sudden the houses start to change from these two bedroom cement block homes to these much bigger homes where they have electric poles and electricity running inside the home. Anyway all of that is to say, there is this huge definable gap between the wealthy and the impoverished. They didn’t have kind of the middle class that we have now, it was either you were very wealthy, or you were poor, there was no in between, and in this moment is where James is saying these things.

This idea of wealth and poverty will show itself over and over again in the writing of this letter, and James is kind of setting up a this illustration of how we are supposed to view our lives and circumstances. He is telling us we need to take this step back as we look at our lives, whether we have a lot, or we have a little, and look at it with wisdom because in the end, whether we have a lot or a little, it is all going to pass away; its all going to crumble. We can’t take any of it with us, so we have to look at it from a biblical wisdom perspective to really understand what is going on.

So what is the first thing he tells us? Look at verse 9

James 1:9 NASB95

9 But the brother of humble circumstances is to glory in his high position;

So really his words first are to the poor in the situation.

We typically translate this word as humble, but really the word means to be placed low, so he is saying the person who is in low places should find hope in their high position. This makes absolutely no sense to any of us, that is if we are looking at it from a worldly wisdom point of view, because it almost seems to contradict itself, but that is why it is so important to connect it to the verses in front of it, we have to look at with the Godly wisdom he was talking about before.

So, you think how is it this lowly, poor person has such a high position? How is it such a good thing? Well it may take a minute for us to get there, but lets talk about it for a second. In verse 7 he is telling us all of our worldly wealth will go away, its like when we have wealth its an hour glass of wealth and if we have a lot its slowly trickling away, with every step and every day, and if we don’t have a lot it means we are having to depend on God for everything.

See the problem is when we have a lot of wealth, what tends to happen is we don’t need God. We can pay for anything we need. Car breaks down? No problem. Lose a job? No problem. Need lots of medical treatment? No problem. Want to sit in the dinners with the dignified people? No problem. See our wealth takes care of all of those things, so we don’t really need any help from God. We are our own contingency plan, because have money that can take care of any problem that may arise. In fact, Oswald Chambers had similar ideas when he wrote My Utmost for His Highest when he says the reasons crisis come in our lives is so we can make a decision to follow Christ. He is saying it isn’t at the top of the mountain where we find God, because when we are there we don’t need Him. Instead, we find him when we are at the crossroads and realize the only way is him.

It shouldn’t surprise us then as you look through history the places the church has grown has always been in the margins. The church grows when the context in which it is living is poor and distraught and needs some help, because it is no longer depending on itself to get things done, but instead is depending solely on God and the Holy Spirit. And it makes sense, because Jesus told us in Matthew 19:24

Matthew 19:24 NASB95

24 “Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

Not he didn’t say it was impossible, he said it was easier, and its because when we have all the money, we have no need for a God, we are our own God, we are our own problem solver.

So James says, look, if you are poor, you should take pride in the high position you have. This does not mean James is telling us if we have wisdom all of a sudden God will send us all the riches we could ever possibly imagine, its not a prosperity message of once you apply wisdom to your situation, God will open up the windows to Heaven and poor out riches, its not even close. What he is saying is, if you have biblical wisdom, and you look you will see you are already rich.

And the pushback in our culture, is how can you say that? The car I am driving is 15 years old, and James and Jesus both would say, yes, you’re rich. But I haven’t gotten a raise in 3 years, yes, youre rich.

What James is telling us, is if we truly have that Godly wisdom and perspective what we will see is we have Jesus, and that is worth more than anything this world has to offer. And let me explain it deeper. When we are poor and we look at it from this perspective what we realize is he is giving us everything we need so we don’t have to do it for ourselves. We’re rich because we are letting him fill all the gaps in our lives we need and we aren’t depending on ourselves for it, that is true richness friends. Let me remind you of Jesus’ words.

Matthew 6:26–30 NASB95

26 “Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? 27 “And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? 28 “And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, 29 yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. 30 “But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith!

See, if you are poor, just know you are blessed because you have to depend on the Lord for all of it, and you don’t have to fear because you know he will take care of it.

So, then James flips to the person in high position.

James 1:10–11 NASB95

10 and the rich man is to glory in his humiliation, because like flowering grass he will pass away. 11 For the sun rises with a scorching wind and withers the grass; and its flower falls off and the beauty of its appearance is destroyed; so too the rich man in the midst of his pursuits will fade away.

So, make sure we understand, he isn’t saying there is something wrong with being wealthy, much in the same way as he wasn’t saying there is something wrong with being poor. This was a lesson I really needed to learn in life, because I grew up in a household that taught me the wealthy were evil, and listen I think this can easily be the thought process of many people who are poor. It took me many years to break the cycle in my life, in fact there were some people who were members of my church who really taught me how wrong my upbringing about that subject had been. So, he isn’t saying either being wealthy or rich is wrong, but he is telling us its all about the perspective.

So this visual is these little flowers that spring up and you look at them and you think, oh my gosh its going to be great and then this heat wave rolls through and the next thing you know, they are all dead, killed by the heat before it has a chance to really take root and grow.

And Jesus is telling us that is what our wealth is like in this life, we think we have all this time to use the money and to do something with it and before we know it its all gone. So really its about perspective and what are you going to do with it? Its not that its bad to have it, but what are you going to do with the wealth you have? It reminds me of the story in Luke 12 where Jesus tells us of the the rich fool, who he said we have to guard ourselves against that kind of greed. Anyway, this guy had an amazing crop and was trying to figure out what to do with it, so he could have given some of it away to the poor to help them out, right? He could have doen all kinds of things, but what he chooses to do is tear down all of his barns, and build bigger ones so he can store up even more for himself, but then the man was told that very night he would die, and all the work and all the grain had become useless. So James is telling us its all about perspective.

So, its not that it is impossible for a rich man to get into heaven, but we have to have godly perspective says James, what do we do with what he has given us, are we using it wisely, are we giving to kingdom work, are we giving generously in the same way we have been given, or are we storing it up foolishly for ourselves when we don’t even know how long we have to use it?

And because this wealth is so fleeting, because it can come and go easily, what we will see from Godly wisdom is that true wealth isn’t in the possessions of this world, but in something so much deeper.

The godly wisdom he talks about in the beginning of the chapter then show the poor it doesn’t matter because we can continue walking in faith because we know he has us under control and he won’t leave us alone, that he has us exactly where he wants us. Conversely, Godly wisdom shows the rich he doesn’t need to let the temptations of the money hold him up and trap him. Don’t allow it to make you think this is all you need and the only thing that can sustain you, instead hold on to him and realize he has given you all you have and react with Godly wisdom in how you use it in the world.

Can, I be honest, this is a hard subject, because if we don’t have godly wisdom wealth is a matter of perspective. What I mean is, if we aren’t thinking correctly we can easily think we are poor when we compare our riches to those of someone else down the street or across town. To prove a point a few years ago, I held up at the beginning of my sermon a $10 dollar bill and said whoever wants it could come and get it, and do you know no one came forward to grab it, I just dropped that bill on the ground and kept going with my point which is 52% of the world lives of less than $10 a day so where does that put us when it comes in to terms with the world.

I think the point of what James is making is this, no matter what we have, money wise, material wise, the goal for all of us is to have the right perspective. Do you realize no matter how little how much you have we have to depend on God for everything. Whether it be a little, whether it be a lot, he is the giver of all and our perspective needs to be we have to look to him and use what he has given us for Kingdom good, and never get to a place where we think this will sustain us. We have to realize He is all we need and he will take care of us no matter what our material situation looks like at the moment.