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Good Morning!
I hope everyone enjoyed Memorial day weekend and a short week last week.
We are in the middle of a study the book of James and our focus is on the type of faith that James describes in his letter to the Messianic Jews.
It is widely believed that this was in fact the first letter written after the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Jesus’s brother, James, became the leader of the messianic Jews and wrote this to describe for them the type of life that Jesus and his followers have.
James’ intent was to define the life of a follower of Jesus.
For generations the religious leaders were described by Jesus as “white washed tombs, clean on the outside, but full of deadness on the inside”.
James wanted to show these believers a reflection of what they could be if they follow Jesus instead of pretending to be something they aren’t.
We do not want to move through this study, trying to conform our lives to look like James’s description.
Our goal is to develop True Faith.
True faith develops as we encounter the truth of the gospel and apply its teaching to our daily lives as we abide in Christ.
True Faith never stops growing.
Through an abiding relationship, we learn more every day as we walk with Jesus.
We want to abide in Christ and let Him lead us into His likeness.
Last week we talked about wisdom and our need for it.
No one left here shocked by a revelation that they need more wisdom.
What we learned is that James refers to very specialized wisdom that comes only from God.
We distinguished the difference between worldly wisdom and God-given wisdom.
Worldly wisdom comes from our experience, knowledge, and the application of those things in our lives.
Godly wisdom comes from God’s experience, and knowledge, and us applying that to our lives as he leads.
There is a huge difference between the two.
We also talked about doubt and its role in receiving anything from God.
James coined the phrase being “double-minded” and said specifically that a person who has such a mind won’t receive from God.
We also saw that Jesus taught the same about faith.
It occured to me this week that idea of trusting God is foundational to our restoration.
The way Satan convinced Adam and Eve to disobey God was to call into question what God said.
Satan planted a seed of doubt and we have to relearn how to trust God.
Our desire to grow in faith is a desire to know God as He intended for us to know Him.
The journey that we are all on is to continue to know God, by experience as we abide in Him.
I also want to mention, because it came up in one of our life groups, that there is a difference between trusting God and discerning from God.
I’ll clarify.
If you are asking God for direction, but you are unsure as to what he is saying, that is not doubt.
That is still the process of discernment and that is a really good and healthy thing to do.
You don’t want to shortcut this step.
In fact, you probably heard Josh and Lana talk about waiting for God to speak a few weeks ago when they shared their testimony.
Doubt, on the other hand, is when you know what God has said, but you aren’t sure it can happen.
You may want to believe that it can, but deep down, you just don’t know.
Do you see the difference?
I think it is also worth mentioning that if you have recognized that you are doubting that is a good thing.
At that point, you can address it with God.
God wants us to know him and by virtue of that relationship, trust Him.
James starts his letter addressing trials, brings in the idea of wisdom, and then we are going to see today that he turns briefly to speak of possessions.
These few verses can seem out of place, but I think when we take into account what he says before and what he will say after, they are connected.
Many of those that he is writing to have experienced exile and persecution.
James addresses both the poor and the wealthy in verses nine and ten.
Let’s look at our section for today and we will jump in.
In this passage, James is addressing people in two different socioeconomic groups.
The poor and the rich.
He offers encouragement to them both because they both are going to one day experience a great reversal.
Raise your hand if you have played Uno before.
Uno can be almost as bad as Monopoly about not ending.
I can remember times as a kid where those of us that were playing had more cards in our hands then there were in the draw pile.
Have you ever experienced that moment when someone changes the color of the cards being played because they know you don’t have that color?
What a punk move.
It’s even worse when you know they don’t have that color either.
Have you ever had that happen when you are holding a reverse in the color they just choose and now they are the one drawing cards trying to get the color they just changed it too?
I don’t know about you, but to me that just feels like justice.
Especially when you have been working so hard to get all those cards out of your hand and right at the end, someone changes the color.
This is similar to what James is talking about in this passage.
It doesn’t matter what end of the socioeconomic scale you currently find yourself on, at the end of your life, a reverse card is going to get played.
There is a fancy word to describe this theological idea.
The Eschatological Reversal
es-ˌka-tə-ˈlä-ji-kəl
This is just the fancy way to say that the roles or status of the rich and poor will reverse upon death.
The poor will become rich and the rich will become like the poor.
While this may seem to be a bit out there or make you feel uncomfortable, James’ didn’t come up with this idea on his own.
Obviously, I didn’t come up with this either.
He get’s this teaching both from the old testament and from Jesus himself.
Consider the following verses as you think about this idea.
Here Mary is singing her song of praise about Jesus and is referencing a passage from 1 Sam 2:7
Or...
We see God speaking through prophets, Jesus, and apostles that His Kingdom is going to flip the world upside down.
As I talked about earlier, since the fall, we have been focused on building up kingdoms for ourselves.
Even if a person doesn’t have much, that is often what they focus on.
They want to gain more and the same is true for those who are blessed with more than others, they too want more.
This is how we are trained to think from the time we are born.
James is drawing on two common themes to remind the people that gaining more isn’t the goal in life:
The brevity of life - death is the great equalizer.
Worldly status means nothing in the kingdom of God.
We will talk about the brevity of life in a moment, but let’s focus on status first.
If you were around for our study of Ecclesiastes, I’m sure you are remembering the author talking about this idea of wealth and status not living up to the hype.
One of the commentaries I read this week drew on this as well.
The poor man may say he would not mind swapping his problems for those of the rich, but the Bible is clear that the problems of prosperity are as keen as those of stringency.
Indeed, they constitute, if anything, a more insidious threat to a committed life with God.3
Here is the point...
You will have problems (trials) either being wealthy or not.
You may know this to be true as well.
I can tell you from my own adult experience, that you are going to have difficulties no matter how much money or status you have.
For example, when Bethany and I were first married, and were college students, together we made $1,000 a month (before taxes) and over half of that went to rent.
We were broke as a joke and spent a lot of nights eating at my parent’s house.
Now, I still don’t make a lot of money, but it’s more than when we first got married.
Guess what, I still have troubles, they are just different than they were back then.
On top of that, the fact that I make a bit more money doesn’t make me any happier.
Bethany and I were broke and absolutely loved life!
I would venture to say that you have experienced something similar in your life.
Look with me at a familiar passage from Ecclesiastes.
There is a common theme of American culture that professes that if we just had more, we would be happy.
King Solomon would disagree because, he had more than any of us could ever hope for, yet he found that all of that was hevel.
It was like a breath of wind, here for a moment and then gone.
Look what he says just a few chapters later.
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