James Chapter 5

Big Idea: Recap the entire book of James and all of the different wisdom sayings. Recap what James wants us to understand about faith and works, wisdom, and trials. We will then tie it all together with James’ final words about final things found in chapter five. Chapter five is ultimately about the motivation for living perfect. Jesus is returning soon and with him comes the judgment and reward for all that is done. James operates a lot like the book of Ecclesiastes in its final chapter: It considers all that has been talked about up to this point and directs our attention to one singular grounding reality…all of this is temporary. Even though bad men prosper and good men are oppressed, even though trials come, even though we will struggle with our tongues until the day we dies, and even though we are tempted to live only in light of the present, there is coming a day when all will be called into account…so live perfectly.

Talk about why I am so bad at social media and why it would be great to have a social media manager…the only way to really get better at something is to practice it. So, this week, I took some time to practice my social media skills by being James’ twitter account manager.

We’ve been in the book of James for going on six weeks now, but this morning, we are going to finish it out. The question is, how do we conclude something neatly that runs off in so many different directions? James gives a dozen or so different, and seemingly unrelated, concepts for us to consider which makes tying it all together really hard.

This is really funny considering that James does a really good job of concluding all of his teachings. He does so with these super catchy and tweetable one-liners. I tried to think that if James could be here this morning wrapping up his own letter how would he do that. We have this platform that I think James would love…twitter.

I’ll let you into a bit of pastor envy that I harbor in my own heart. I have a friend named Chad Graves…he’s a pastor in Arkansas and Chad is like the most tweetable dude on the whole planet. I think people have told that to Chad long enough that he’s started taking it seriously and now Chad puts out a short 500 character or less devotional or catchy Biblical axiom food-for-thought every day. You should totally follow Chad…I would honestly love to get a call from him wondering why in the world all these random people from Washington state just started following him.

I have spent a lot of time considering why James wrote the way that he did. James has these deep biblical roots and every single word and concept he writes is hyperlinked back to Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Old Testament Prophets, and Jesus’ sermon on the Mount. James will give these short expositions over these deep and super heavy theological concepts that other biblical writers use pages and multiple chapters to deal with. And then, James will conclude those teachings with an even shorter one-liner.

For a guy who regularly speaks longer than he intended, this has been quite the puzzle for me to understand why James would choose to communicate this way. 280 Characters or less seems to be James’ sweet spot. Here is the answer I came up with about why James writes the way he does and it comes from a concept we talked about a couple of weeks ago.

I think James truly believes what he wrote in chapter 3 verse 5.

James 3:5 NASB95

5 So also the tongue is a small part of the body, and yet it boasts of great things. See how great a forest is set aflame by such a small fire!

When is a forest fire a bad thing? When it is in the wrong area and when it is out of control. A controlled burn in the proper places not only keep forest fires from getting out of control, but they actually encourage new life by clearing downed trees, undergrowth, and returning precious nutrients back to the soil. And catch this…both the good and the bad forest fires are started from the same small source.

Just think about it for a second. Have you ever heard something super simple and yet it changed your life in some big ways? I remember back early on in ministry, I really struggled with feelings of inadequacy and qualification. And then I heard a statement that you’ve probably all heard at some point: God doesn’t call the qualified but qualifies the called. What a trite simple sentence. That isn’t a Bible verse that you’ll find anywhere but the concept is definitely biblical. Just look at Jesus’ disciples…these dudes were not the number one draft pick of any biblical teacher in Jesus’ day. They were uneducated, poor, and lacking in any powerful social connections that could serve them or Jesus’ mission well and yet they are the ones that God chose. Those men are the one’s who’s writings we open up and read week in and week out over 2000 years later. None of the educated dudes have anything we look back on. God did that…not them…not a prestigious school…not money…and not any social or political connections. If God can do that through them…surely He can work through me as well.

Such a simple statement went on to change the way I felt about my calling into ministry in ways that I still cling to to this day. James uses that concept over and over again in his writing to inspire major change through a small amount of words. And so, this morning, I want to journey back through James to hit the highlights and any of the things we have yet to cover. But, staying true to James’ own style, I want to do them all in 280 characters or less. And at the end, we are going to let James close it all out with the motivational kick in the pants we need to get serious about growing in our maturity.

Here we go.

In chapter 1 we read this in verses 13-18.

James 1:13–18 NASB95

13 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone. 14 But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. 15 Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death. 16 Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. 17 Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. 18 In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we would be a kind of first fruits among His creatures.

Trials and temptations are not sent by God but He is big enough to see you through them if you love Him more than your sin and trust Him more than you trust yourself when negative circumstances arise.

Tweet: God didn’t send the trial you are in but He’s powerful enough to use it. Perhaps the greatest thing God can offer us in our trials isn’t deliverance but maturity and the opportunity to grow in faith and love for God. #shiftyourperspective #yourgoodandHisglory

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James has a few things to say about riches as well in chapter one.

James 1:9–12 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. 12 Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.

This echoes Jesus’ words from Matthew chapter 19 when he says this in verse 23-24:

Matthew 19:23–24 NASB95

23 And Jesus said to His disciples, “Truly I say to you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. 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.”

Its actually not any harder in the literal sense for a rich man to enter into God’s kingdom than it is for anyone else. Repentance, trust, and asking Jesus to save you are the three components of salvation and they are the same for a homeless person as they are for Jeff Bezos. What makes it harder is the trust piece. It’s hard to trust God in something you can’t see (although I’m not sure why because the death rate for humanity is still sitting firmly at 100%) when you can trust yourself for the immediate and tangible things.

James is saying that trials have a way of showing what we trust in more. Are we going to look to God or are we going to rely in our own strength, character, and riches to remove the stresses of bad circumstances? And in the highly pragmatic James fashion, he is saying:

Don’t place your hope in earthly riches because they can evaporate in an instant.

Tweet: You want too little! Quite striving for earthly riches when only heavenly ones will truly satisfy. One will rust before your eyes and the other is an eternal crown of life. Love God and be rich, love riches and lose them both. #trulyrich

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In chapter two, James moves on to three other topics that by themselves have hundreds of pages dedicated to them elsewhere in the Bible. Let’s look at two of those that haven’t been covered in detail yet:

First, James says this:

James 2:1 NASB95

1 My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism.

That is to say:

Do not claim to follow after the way of Jesus and proceed to treat people differently based off of what you stand to gain from them.

When we categorize people based on appearances and treat them with love in proportion to what we stand to gain, it is the antithesis of how Jesus loved you and if you are following after Jesus, and fail to love people the way He did are you really following?

Tweet: Jesus didn’t stand to gain anything by loving you…in fact, it cost Him everything. His love was based on who he was not what you could do for him. Followup question: What if Jesus loved you the way you love others? #loveregardlessof...

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Then James goes into how we view ourselves in terms of our morality.

James 2:9–13 NASB95

9 But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. 10 For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all. 11 For He who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not commit murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery, but do commit murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. 12 So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. 13 For judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.

James is saying the root of our favoritism and judgmental attitude stems from a falsely derived attitude of superiority and when we judge people based on that, our judgments will always be merciless.

That we can somehow view ourselves as superior to others as we redefine God’s law in favor of ourselves. We aren’t murders or adulterers so we are blameless. Right?

Wrong! James looks back on Jesus’ words from the Sermon on the Mount and says nope! If you have hatred in your heart towards another person, you are a murderer. If you look with lust on another person you are an adulterer. Don’t deceive yourself because you definitely have broken the law and if you break one part you are guilty of breaking it all. We then go on to judge some with favoritism and others we judge in harshness and without mercy. And don’t miss this tweet:

Tweet: When your false sense of moral superiority causes you to judge your neighbor w/o mercy, you stand convicted by the same measure of judgment. You've never experienced Jesus' mercy and forgiveness if you won't extend it to others. #shownmercyshowmercy #theforgivenforgive

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That is to say, true mercy and forgiveness cannot simply be conjured up by our own strength. True mercy and forgiveness only comes out of the overflow of that which has already been extended to you through Jesus.

Even though we’ve covered all of chapter three in detail, I want to let James work us over one more time in an issue that we will never talk about enough here at The Outpost…our tongue:

James 3:8–12 NASB95

8 But no one can tame the tongue; it is a restless evil and full of deadly poison. 9 With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God; 10 from the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way. 11 Does a fountain send out from the same opening both fresh and bitter water? 12 Can a fig tree, my brethren, produce olives, or a vine produce figs? Nor can salt water produce fresh.

We carry and immense power through our words and even the smallest thing is enough to spark a forest fire of problems. Even though most of us have been burned by the fires our tongues ignite, for some reason, we still fail to respect the power for what it is.

James tells us that what we communicate with others is the clearest indicator of what is going on in our hearts. To simply try and be more pure in our speech is an impossibility.

Yes, our tongues are the source of all sorts of evil according to James and yet our tongues have a source themselves. They are set on fire by hell itself. That is to say: our rejection of God, His principles, and commands in our heart is what makes it to the surface of our tongue. That is why simply controlling the tongue won’t do. We need a heart transformation as we submit to Jesus in all of life.

Let’s look at James’ tweet...

Tweet: Controlling your tongue is like trying to turn a cruise ship with a canoe paddle…pointless. You don’t just need a better rudder, your heart needs a new captain. The tongue is controlled by the heart and a heart controlled by Jesus has a controlled tongue. #tonguetwister

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In Chapter 4 there are two things worth looking at. One we covered in detail last week that can always stand to be foot stomped again and the other we missed talking about last week.

First we see this in 4:1-4

James 4:1–4 NASB95

1 What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? 2 You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. 4 You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

We said that God has placed in all of us desires, needs, and areas needing to be gratified. And yet, when we seek gratification and pleasure outside of God’s intended design it will ruin us. C.S. Lewis has a famous quote about this very subject from his book Mere Christianity that some of you may have heard:

“The Christian says, 'Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or to be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that country and to help others to do the same.”

Honestly I cannot add anything to that of value…that’s beautiful. Let’s just look at James’ tweet:

Tweet: Does your pursuit of pleasure outpace your pursuit of Jesus? See the conflict in your life for the answer… #eye emoji

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Finally from chapter 13-17 we see this:

James 4:13–17 NASB95

13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.” 14 Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.” 16 But as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil. 17 Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.

In these five short sentences James includes just about every concept he has highlighted thus far in the book. James is beginning his conclusion. This is why James is so brilliant and tweetable. In these short verses James hits our words, our wisdom, our arrogance, our pursuit of pleasure, our pursuit of riches, and the reality that it can all evaporate before our very eyes in an instant.

This has echoes of Ecclesiastes and even Jobs story…one day he is one of the wealthiest men in the world with a happy family and a successful business and within the span of a few hours, it all disappeared. His health goes next, his friends just the worst, and even his wife is pretty terrible in the story.

To think about tomorrow with such certainty and hope is an indicator of pride and sets you up for some major letdowns. The truth is, your story could be Jobs story and you just don’t know it yet.

I’m going to put that on the big screen and say it again because I think we need to go existential for just a second:

Your story could be Jobs story…or even worse… and you just don’t know it yet.

Here is the deal…we all live in this sort of low level pride when we have mapped out a trajectory or a plan for our life.

Do Heath Ledger’s Joker quote…super sanity.

We all have this sort of trajectory for our life of things we are expecting or working towards. And, barring any major mess-ups from me, that is what my life should look like. We obviously know there will be a day when our health begins failing, when we stop working, and when people we love and eventually we die. But its all expected.

I shared an article on Facebook this week about a serious mental health crisis in our nation…tell story of the guy losing his mind.

It could be me or you walking the streets of Yelm six months from this talking openly to yourself and screaming profanities at passing cars.

To think “that could never be me” and to place your hope in the certainty of some perceived life trajectory is a destructive pride.

I think James might say something like this:

Tweet: You can roll the dice by putting your hope in an imaginary tomorrow (because that’s what every tomorrow is) or you can put our hope in God. Both are unseen but only one can give guarantees.

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I am not going to re-read chapter five because Becky did an amazing job at that already. I’m just going to give you James’ tweets.

James 5:1-6 is about the little injustices we perpetuate for our own benefit, how they rot away our soul, and heap up judgment from God.

We do this in thousands of ways. If you want an example of this, go back on our YouTube channel, pick out any sermon at random, and you’ll hear an example of it. What James is getting across here isn’t the reality that we do this…no, he’s already attacked that head on elsewhere in the letter…but the fact that we do this without seemingly any consequences.

We can delude ourselves into thinking the people’s cries who we’ve dealt unjustly with go no higher than the ceiling. Think early 1800’s in the fields of slavery here in America. What good did it do for you to cry and scream about the injustice of your oppression? The only people around to hear your cries were fellow slaves who were also being oppressed or the cruel masters who were doing the oppressing. That’s in large part why it lasted as long as it did. First, because people benefited from the injustice being perpetrated and secondly, because nobody was coming to the cries.

It only stopped when levies were put into place that made it really hard to benefit from perpetrating that type of injustice for personal gain and when that failed, it was only finally put to death when an army from the north answered the cries of the oppressed.

And then again same story in the 1960’s. And with women’s rights. And the list goes on and on. But those are just the major ones.

I said that we do this all the time in a thousand little ways.

What James wants us to realize is that someone else is in fact hearing those cries.

And so in keeping with the theme of Humility James has been weaving up to this point:

Tweet: Humility doesn’t assume it’s rightness first. Humility assumes God’s rightness and whether it’s actions love God and neighbor before serving itself. #thereisnothingunseen

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Here is how James concludes all of these various teachings 5:7-20:

Ask the question of who remembers all the points or tweets without looking at their notes?

What about just the second tweet? Anybody remember even the topic of the second tweet? (If yes, say that’s about right…a room this size, there should be 5 or 6 of you that can remember it). Here is the deal…you will forget 80% of what I have said before you stick your keys in the ignition and that’s if you took good notes. If you didn’t, you will dump 95% before you even start your car here in like ten minutes. The numbers just get more abysmal for every day after today.

ITS TOO MUCH!!! That isn’t because I talk too long either…it wouldn’t matter if I only gave you a single point in fifteen minutes and foot stomped that single point with a dozen funny, catchy, and memorable illustrations…research says those numbers are the same.

Do the, you can never keep all of these things James has given us in the front of your mind: Words, humility, wisdom and how to seek it and test it, what to do about other people or your finances and how to see worldly possessions and pleasure…you’ll never keep it all in the front of your mind. If you do, its paralyzing.

Now, that’s not to say that you don’t need to know it. James says we need to know and have the word pressed deeply into our hearts. That’s why we’ve spent six weeks diving deeply into it. That’s why I’ve put over a hundred hours of study and writing into this series to deliver it in the most memorable way I know how. No, don’t be like the man who looks at his face in the mirror and immediately forgets it when he walks away James says. Press these truths deeply into your heart and know God’s Word. It’s just that you can’t live life with all of these principles and the thousands of others that James didn’t even mention in the forefront of your mind.

Here is the deal. James says, I don’t need you to. I need you to know all of these things but I only need you to keep one thing in the forefront of your mind.

Its this...

James 5:8 NASB95

8 You too be patient; strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near.

He is coming back soon.

Let me show you how this works using the thing James is perhaps most famous for…out tongue.

I said a few weeks ago that we think temporally and God does not. I said that our tongues are like a lit smoke bomb thrown into a dry forest. We are rarely if ever fully aware of the drastic and far-reaching consequences of our words. Typically only when we get burned by the fire are we aware of the destruction our words can cause and yet God who stands above everything gets to see those far-reaching ripple effects.

There is coming a day, however, when you will know. On that day, as you stand there in full realization of the forest fires set ablaze by every careless word, you will be speechless. The weight of your undeniable guilt and the reality that there are no hidden or unseen things will leave you speechless. And one of two things will happen.

Before I say that though, I want to give a side note. You guys know me…I’m not a hellfire and brimstone kind of guy. I also think that fear is a very poor motivator and so I’d rather not use that. That is not my intention here. I just want to deliver faithfully what James is saying.

Do the below bit…just written down for remembrance sake:

One of two things will happen. First, you will either be condemned by your silence and go on to pay the penalty of those words, the injustices, the pride, the grabs for pleasure at the expense of others, and ways you have slapped Gods seal of approval on your own wisdom. OR…Second, (and it’s important to note that you’ll still be silent) a voice will pipe up from beside you saying, “I paid for that.” You’ll have an advocate in Jesus if you’ve placed your faith in him who will say: yes he or she did that and yes it was incredibly destructive but I paid for. And because they followed me with sincerity, there were much fewer forest fires than there would’ve been otherwise. I paid for that…next item.

Explain how it works keeping this reality in the forefront of our minds. It causes us to stop before we write something, say something, purchase something, treat someone a certain way, constantly evaluate our actions and the way we view our life.

When you live constantly digesting this truth that God is coming soon and there is no unseen thing it changes everything. Without Jesus, it is an existential terror that will drive you into either madness, unbelief, or outright militant rejection. And yet, with Jesus, it is the key to true joy and perfection between our beliefs and actions.

And so I think if James were going to conclude his entire letter with a single tweet, it would be five reality shaping words:

Tweet: HE’S COMING AGAIN SOON SO…

INSERT TWEET 9

Give an invitation to deal with that reality by going back to the quote and completing the sentence after the word “so”…