Faithful Finances

WORKING OUT YOUR FINANCES

JAMES 4:13-5:5

MAIN POINT

Every aspect of your life--from your time, to your body, to your finances--belongs to God.

INTRODUCTION

Describe your first job.

How old were you? What did you do? How difficult was it acclimating to your new role, relationships and responsibilities?

What did it feel like receiving your first paycheck? Did you feel like the time and effort you invested was accurately reflected in the amount you were paid? Why or why not?

The world is full of different kinds of resources, but none are as important to us as time and money. Therefore, they are often the hardest areas to release to the Lord. When challenged to give away our money or to spend time helping someone else, the kind of attitude we hold towards these sacrifices reveal where our true affections lie. Our willingness to be free with our schedules and our pocketbooks reveals how much we trust God to take care of our lives. James 4:13-5:5 discusses that our resources are a gift and not a necessity. While we may think that our schedule is ours or that our money was made by the works of our hands, the reality for us as transformed new creations of Christ is that we are not our own.

UNDERSTANDING

James 4:13–17 ESV

13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— 14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. 17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

Are you the type of person who loves to make plans, or are you generally more spontaneous and non-committal? Give an example that illustrates your preference.

In what sense can we be prideful in making plans? In what sense can we be prideful in not making plans?

How does thinking about our lives as “smoke” check our pride about our lives and how we live them?

James is not discouraging the keeping of a day-book. Rather, as illustrated in verses 15-16, James is condemning the arrogance found at the root of a person who clings to his or her plans or makes them in such a way that is boastful of their certainty.

This passage provides a Kingdom mindset on how we view and use our time. We are not the masters of our fate. It is good to be organized and to create routines. The danger, however, lies when we become slaves to our schedules. Furthermore, the presumption that we can live by our means and our means alone is an attitude that needs to be cut from the root. Verse 15 reminds us that it is the Lord Whose will reigns supreme. Man can make plans, but the Lord directs his steps

Proverbs 16:9 ESV

9 The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.

The boasting mentioned in James is a pride in our time, the belief that we control the time we have, rather than letting the Lord use the time that He has given us. Verse 16 claims that “all such boasting [in our time and our plans] is evil.”

James 5:1–5 ESV

1 Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. 2 Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. 3 Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days. 4 Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. 5 You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter.

Explain your reactions to this passage. What emotions do you feel when you read it?

Do you consider yourself financially rich? What would your life look like on a daily basis if you, according to your own definition, were rich

Based on what James writes, do you think it’s OK to be rich? Why or why not?

This passage is entitled, “Warning to the Rich.” James 5:1-5 is not an indictment against the wealthy for being affluent; rather, it is a warning to wealthy landowners who mistreated their workers. These people were not being condemned for being rich, but for their polarizing focus on money and riches. The landowners’ singular focus on their wealth became a barrier to properly loving others, including their employees.

Focus on verses 2 and 3. What are some material goods that you depend more upon than your heavenly Father?

Do “riches” necessarily mean material possessions? What are some other ways we can be “rich” and misuse those resources in ways that hurt others?

Verse 3 partially states, “You have laid up treasure in the last days.” Is there anything wrong with gaining wealth here on earth? Why or why not?

James 5:1-5 exists to give readers a Kingdom-minded perspective on finances. This passage is not condemning the rich for the sake of being rich. Rather, James 5:1-5 provides eternal perspective for earthly living. The unrighteous in this passage (who happened to be affluent) lived lives of self-indulgence and failed to care about those working for them. These landowners focused on the present, their glamorous lives here on earth, with no regard for eternity. The landowners did not think about how their actions have consequences. They were not concerned with salvation, or with heaven.

APPLICATION

In what kinds of circumstances are you most tempted to cling to your time and your money?

How does James 4:13-17 provide you with a Kingdom mindset on how to spend your time

In reference to James 5:1-5, how does holding a Kingdom perspective on eternity affect how to use the financial resources at your disposal?

What does giving God control over your time and money look like practically in your life?

PRAYER

Ask God for forgiveness for all the times you have not held a proper perspective on your time and your money. Seek forgiveness for when you have made your possessions idols in your life. Pray that the Holy Spirit would convict you to have a Kingdom mindset towards your finances. Thank God for all that He has given you, and ask Him to show you ways in which you can give to others, impacting them for eternity.

COMMENTARY

JAMES 4:13-17

Do not yield yourselves in-blind confidence to your planning, to go from city to city with a view to traffic and gain, but realize your transitoriness and dependence on God! Otherwise all your knowledge of good will turn to sin and judgment (vv. 11–17). Ch. 4:4–17.

JAMES 5:1-5

These admonitions, the Apostle concludes, in the seventh place, by a powerful denunciation of woe on the rich, doubtless on the Judaizing Jewish-Christians and Jews who called themselves poor but thought themselves rich in their Jewish privileges, and here the affinity of his mode of statement with that of the prophets, becomes quite prophetical. It contains the prophecy of judgment, of a judgment which, with the destruction of Jerusalem, soon afterwards came upon Judaism. Let them weep, i.e., be penitent. Their riches are corrupted etc., i.e., all their self-righteousness has turned to sin and disgrace. They confide in and boast of this treasure before the near day of judgment. But that which brings judgment rapidly near is the crying of the hire withheld from their labourers and reapers, the ingratitude to and the rejection of Apostles and believers, who had undertaken the harvest of Israel. The day of slaughter, which shall come on their pleasure-life, is nigh at hand, and has opened with the condemnation and murder of the Just, who now no longer arrests their running into destruction (ch. 5:1–6).