Real Wealth

A man was a regular diner at a restaurant. The owner always did his best to please him. One day he complained that he only received one piece of bread with his meal, so the waiter promptly brought him four slices. The man said, "That’s good, but not good enough. I love bread!" So, the next night he was given six slices with supper. He said, "Good! But aren’t you still being a bit frugal?" Even a basketful the next day didn’t stop the complaints. Finally, the owner decided to end this for good. The next night he had a colossal loaf of bread baked. It was six feet long, three feet wide. It took the manager and two waiters to carry it to the complainer’s table. When they laid it on the table the huge loaf took up five place settings. They stood there and smiled, waiting for the man’s reaction. The man looked at the gigantic loaf of bread and said, "So, we’re back to ONE piece again?"

This morning we are going to look at the first part of chapter 5 in our study on the book of James. James addresses the issues of wealth, money, and possessions. He addresses the rich in Jerusalem. Most of us turn off at this point. We say, “Ha, if he is talking to the rich, then he is not talking to me!” But I urge to turn back on, think about this. We are Americans! Most of us are considered middleclass Americans. We represent the top 10% of the wealthiest people in the World. If you or I were to travel to the majority of the planet, we would be considered wealthy. I think this text applies to us all, so let’s read it together.

James 5:1–6 (ESV)

James 5:1–6 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. 6 You have condemned and murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you.

1Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you.

2Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten.

3Your 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.

4Behold, 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.

5You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter.

6You have condemned and murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you.

The first thing James does in this passage is give us three things to look out for. Three pitfalls that we can fall into if we are not careful. He mentions wealth, clothes, and gold and silver, precious metals.

In his typical fashion, he is telling us to examine what we love! Turn with me to

Mark 12:30-31 (ESV) These verses are the greatest commands that we have. All other commands are covered by these verses. You cannot be a Godly man or woman unless you attempt to obey these commands.

Mark 12:30–31 (ESV)

Mark 12:30–31 ESV

30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

30And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’

31The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

We know who God is, but the question of a neighbor is a little different than a lot of people think. Who is my neighbor? I would love to show you a video. After seeing this video, you tell me, who is our neighbor? Who are we supposed to love as ourselves? Who do you see?

Video

Who did you see? Did you see your Neighbor?

Well pastor, what does that have to do with wealth? What does that have to do with what James is telling us.

James is saying:

Love God and your Neighbor more than Cash

Love God and your Neighbor more than Cash – paycheck, money

Do you place your paycheck ahead of God? Well let’s, see? Do you ever skip out on church to make an extra buck? I understand that sometimes we have obligations, we have a boss that schedules us on a worship day. But is this a regular thing? Could you find another job? What is more important? Your God or your paycheck? Is your paycheck more important than your neighbor? How about your family? How many parents neglect their kids and their spouses to make an extra buck? Have you ever hurt someone, taken advantage of someone to make a profit?

Love God and your neighbor more than your Clothes

Do you place what you wear over your love for God and the love for your neighbor? You know, in studying for this message, I was challenged by something. Did you know that a lot of clothes are made in sweatshops that employ slave children? I think it would be vigilant to research and find out where are clothes are made, and to not support companies that profit off the backs of children. They are our neighbors.

Love God and your neighbor more than your Crown

– Jewelry, house, car, truck, bling

I could get in trouble for meddling here. This is a topic that we Americans are touchy on. Our Bling! Did you know that everyone’s bling is different? For a guy it might be his truck, or his motorcycle. It might be His house or his yard. It might be his car or his boots! For a lady it might be her diamond ring, or a necklace, her shoes, or her handbag, it might be her car, it might be her hair. James is talking about things we purchase to draw attention to ourselves. BLING! Like the NBA stars wear. The Gold hubcap necklace they hang around their necks!

We need to ask ourselves, what do we love? Do we love God and our neighbor more than we love our possessions? Do we really need that new car, that new truck, that new house, that new ring, or necklace? Could we use that money somewhere else that would benefit God’s kingdom, To glorify the Lord, to feed the hungry, to cloth the poor, to bring life giving water to a child, to bring medicine to a dying mother?

What do you love?

James finishes this passage with the results of these dangers. He shows that overindulgence on these material things will cause you to:

Dangers:

Hoard things you don’t need

o We’ve heard of people like that. People who hoard every penny they have, but never have the joy of spending it or giving it away. There is the story of John G. Wendel and his sisters. Even though they had received a huge inheritance from their parents, they were some of the most miserly people of all time, they spent very little of it and did all they could to keep their wealth for themselves. John was able to influence five of his six sisters never to marry, and they lived in the same house in New York City for 50 years. When the last sister died in 1931, her estate was valued at more than $100 million. Yet, her only dress was one that she had made herself and had worn for 25 years. The Wendels had such a compulsion to hold on to their possessions that they lived like paupers. Even worse, they were like the kind of person Jesus referred to "who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God" (Luke 12:21). Daily Walk, June 2, 1993. Or take Bertha Adams. She died in 1976 at the age of 71, on Easter Sunday in Palm Beach, FL. Coroner’s report ... she died of malnutrition, weighing 50 pounds. Begged for food. Her home was a "pigpen .. a colossal mess!" They thought she died penniless, two keys were found among her possessions... These keys went to 2 safety deposit boxes One had over 700 shares of AT&T & $200,000 cash. 2nd had only cash, $600,000.

That is about $850,000!

Dangers:

Hoard things you don’t need

Neglect your spiritual well being

o Do you need an illustration to think of someone that has done this? I dare say that if we are honest, we all have! Simply ask yourself, “Have I ever worked through a Sunday service because I “needed” the money?” Have I ever skipped a Bible Study to make money I didn’t really need? Have I ever skimped on my devotional time or prayer time to accomplish a monetary goal?

Dangers:

Hoard things you don’t need

Neglect your spiritual well being

Cheat others

o There are two ways to look at this, some people literally cheat others to make money, you maybe say, well that is not me. Well look at this way, how many times have you cheated your church family to make an extra dime? How many hours have you cheated your family to make an extra dime? It is a matter of perspective. How many times have you skipped on giving your tithes and offerings? That is essentially robbing God and starving the His work.

Dangers:

Hoard things you don’t need

Neglect your spiritual well being

Cheat others

Become Self-indulgent

o Remember the guy with the bread?

Dangers:

Hoard things you don’t need

Neglect your spiritual well being

Cheat others

Become Self-indulgent

Hurt innocent people

Dangers:

Hoard things you don’t need

Neglect your spiritual well being

Cheat others

Become Self-indulgent

Hurt innocent people

o Sweat shops. By simply ignoring your neighbor, you may be doing them harm.

I want to close with an illustration about what can happen when a single person decides to change their perspective on wealth.

Charles Colson told the following story in an address at Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi: Colson said, in 1985 I was on the Bill Buckley television program, talking about restitution and criminal justice. A few days later I got a call from Jack Eckerd, a businessman from Florida, the founder of the Eckerd Drug chain, the second largest drug chain in America at the time. He saw me on television and asked me to come to Florida. He agreed Florida had a criminal justice crisis, would I come down and do something about it? And we did. We went around the State of Florida advocating criminal justice reforms, and everywhere we would go Jack Eckerd would introduce me to the crowds and say, "This is Chuck Colson, I met him on Bill Buckley’s television program. He’s born again, I’m not. I wish I were." Then he’d sit down. About a year went by and I kept pestering Jack Eckerd about faith in Jesus. Eventually one day he read some things including the story of Watergate and the Resurrection out of my book, Loving God, and decided that Jesus was, in fact, resurrected from the dead. He called me up to tell me he believed. When he got through telling me what he believed I said, "You’re born again!" He said, "Marvelous!" The first thing he did was to walk into one of his drugstores and walked down through the bookshelves and he saw Playboy and Penthouse. He’d seen it there many times before, but it never bothered him before. Now he saw them with new eyes. He’d become a Christian.

He went back to his office. He called in his president. He said, "Take Playboy and Penthouse out of my stores. The president said, "You can’t mean that, Mr. Eckerd. We make $3M a year on them." Eckerd said, "Take them out of my stores." And in 1,700 stores across America, those magazines were removed from the shelves, because a man had given his life to Christ. Colson called Jack Eckerd and asked, "Did you do that because of your commitment to Christ?" He said, "Why else would I give away $3 M? The Lord wouldn’t let me off the hook." Isn’t that marvelous? God wouldn’t let me off the hook. And what happened after that is a wonderful sequel and a wonderful demonstration of what happens in our culture today. Jack Eckerd wrote a letter to all the other drugstore operators, all the other chains, and he said, "I’ve taken them out of my store, why don’t you take them out of yours?" Nobody answered him. So, he wrote them more letters. Then Eckerd’s Drugs began to get floods of people coming in to buy things because they’d taken Playboy and Penthouse out. And so, People’s Drug Store, and then Dart Drugs, and then Revco removed them from their shelves. While the pornography commission in Washington was debating what to do about pornography, across America, one by one, stores were removing them. And the 7-11 chairman, who sits on Jack Eckerd’s board, finally gave in, and 5,000 7-11 stores removed them. In 12 months, 11,000 retail outlets in America removed Playboy and Penthouse, not because somebody passed a law, but because God wouldn’t let one of His men off the hook. That’s what brings change. — James S. Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc, 1988) pp. 46-48.

Real wealth is simply a loving relationship between you and God. If you Love God, you will keep his commandments, and the two most important are to simply love Him with all that you are and love your neighbor as yourself. Do you have real wealth this morning? Do you have a relationship with God? Is living for God the most important thing in your life? Or are you settling for a poor substitute? Are you settling for the material things that this world has to offer? Are you chasing after money, power, prestige, and things? Do you see and love your neighbor the way God sees and loves them? Are you willing to give of the abundance that you have been blessed to serve your neighbor? What do you need to repent of this morning? What do you need give up this morning? What do you need sell? What do you need to give away? What you need to give up? Jesus said,

Matthew 6:24 (ESV)

Matthew 6:24 (ESV)

24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

24“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

Who will you choose to serve today? You cannot serve both. You must Choose.