November 12, 2023 | James 5:1-6 | Pastor Chris Baker
Good morning, First Baptist Church!
If you’re going to children’s church you’re dismissed at this time. We’ll be in James 5 this morning. While you turn there I want to share a story from an Ann Landers column. For the Google generation, Ask Ann Landers was a syndicated advice column that ran in newspapers for decades. Instead of asking your question to Google, you’d write a letter—with a real pen and paper—and mail it off to Ann to get advice.
One of her columns was the story about a girl who had a rocky relationship with her uncle. He wasn’t a kind man. To illustrate his greed, this young lady wrote about how he squirreled away a portion of every paycheck he ever earned. He didn’t trust the banks, so he hid the money under his mattress, in closets, in various hidey-holes all over the house.
Eventually, he fell ill. He was placed on hospice after a prolonged season of poor health. When he knew death was approaching, he called his wife over to him and said something that brought his selfish heart into focus. "I want you to promise me one thing." "Promise what?" she asked. "I want you to promise me that when I’m dead you’ll take my money from under the mattress & put it in my casket so that I can take it all with me." A lifetime of setting aside money—money he never used in his lifetime. He was incredibly cheap, motivated by greed, and his outlook on life had soured most of his relationships.
It really was a sad way to end a life. He died, and his wife fulfilled his dying wish. She gathered all the money from under his mattress. She gathered all the money from the closet. She gathered all the money from the various places he had stashed it across the decades.
Then she went to the bank. Then she went to the funeral home, wrote out a check, and placed it in his casket.
(https://skipheitzig.com/teachings_view.asp?ServiceID=934)
Your attitude toward money (and material things in general) is a window to your soul. Genuine faith views material things as a means to glorify God.
Jesus said in Matthew 6: 19 “Don’t store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves don’t break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Hoarding material wealth can hijack our attitudes and our affections. Money is one of the easiest idols to chase because our sinful hearts want heaven now and we think money allows us to buy it. Money can become our god.
Your attitude toward money (and material things in general) is a window to your soul. Genuine faith views material things as a means to glorify God.
What Jesus tells us there in Matthew 6 is that what has monetary value in this life worthless in the next. In fact, how you use money in this life can tell us a lot about what you truly believe and, according to James, it’s an indicator of whether or not you really belong to Jesus. Genuine faith views money as a means to glorify God. False faith uses money primarily to store up treasure, push down others, and feed the sinful desires of our fallen hearts. That’s what we’ll learn in the text today. Let’s read it together.
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The last couple of chapters in James have been tough, haven’t they? He has shown that he understands our sinful hearts, he understands our struggles, and he wants us to grow. As we read this text, though, you might think get a pass this week.
“Good, James is talking to rich people. That ain’t me.” But before you get too far down that line of thinking, know that James isn’t pointing this section of the text at a certain demographic. He does’t have a dollar figure in mind. He’s pointing to a heart attitude about money and material possessions.
We’d all define rich differently. However much money we have or however much we make, we tend to think that another $10,000 or so would solve most of our problems.
And if we’re honest, we’re much wealthier than we want to think we are. Just by virtue of living where you live and when you live, you’re among the richest people in history.
We live in the wealthiest nation the world has ever known. We’re the wealthiest Christians the Kingdom has ever known.
Think about it this way, just in terms of comparison with the rest of the world today. The poverty line in the United States—our definition of poor—is $14,580. If you earn less than $14,580, you are considered in poverty in the US. But that still puts you in the riches 85% of people in the world. Poor in our country is having more than 85% of people alive today.
If you’re average here, which is pegged at just over $61,000 for our area. Average here means you’re wealthier than 99.1% of the globe. No matter where you are, you’re among the wealthiest Christians who have ever lived. We’re probably wealthier than everyone in James’s original audience. So everything he writes here applies to all of us because it's about a heart attitude more than a dollar figure.
James calls on the rich, us, to weep and wail and repent. He wants us to take stock of how we use whatever measure of wealth we have in light of God’s Kingdom. God cares what you do with your money. We see that specifically in Jesus’s parable of the talents back in Matthew 25. Go back this week and read that in light of this text.
James is reminding us that the way we use money is an indicator of whether or not our faith in genuine. That doesn’t mean if you’ve ever been greedy, you’re not a Christian. But it’s another indicator, it’s another symptom of genuine faith. Just like speech, just like our attitude toward our neighbor, just like our use of time, our relationship to money gives us a window into the reality of our soul.
The longer we walk with Jesus, the more we should like like Him and less like the person we used to be. One of the reasons I love this letter is because it pokes at so many areas where we tend to still look a whole lot like the old “me” and not so much like Jesus.
And here’s the first way that it reveals that—do you view yourself as financially blessed? It’s so easy to get caught up in looking at how much all the folks around us have that we forget how much God has blessed us with. God has placed us in the very upper crust of material blessings in the history of the world, church, but have we spent more time thanking Him for what He has given this week or have we spent more time asking for more? Asking God for things isn’t bad, but what does it say about our hearts when we do more asking than thanking? Are we marked by greed or gratitude?
The way we view money and the way we use money provide a clear window into our souls. The way we steward all the material things God has blessed us with tells us a ton about who we really are. The way we’ll walk through this text is by looking at the characteristics of false faith. Remember, James has shown a concern in this letter for those who look like Christians on the outside, but their true life is very different. So he teaches from the negative.
Genuine faith is reflected in the way we live. That’s the heart of this letter. And to illustrate this difference here, James shows us the example of false faith. In verses 2-3 we see that false faith stores up earthly treasure.
False Faith Stores Up Earthly Treasure
2 Your wealth has rotted and your clothes are moth-eaten. 3 Your gold and silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have stored up treasure in the last days.
Don’t hoard stuff and don’t hoard money. That’s the summary of those two verses. The amount of stuff we have might be an indicator of where we’re storing up our treasure. And recognize, church, that we can only store up treasure in one place. We don’t get to allocate some of our resources for here and some for heaven. Everything we have here will pass away. Our money and our stuff isn’t treasure in heaven. It isn’t treasure at all, ultimately.
Your wealth has rotted, your clothes are moth-eaten, your gold is worthless. Those are all indicators for James’s original audience of someone who hoarded wealth her on earth and never put it to work for any good purpose. God gave you blessings, clearly, but you sat on those blessings and did nothing with them.
Everything we have belongs to God and God doesn’t give it to us to hoard it. He allocates His Kingdom resources to us for our good, for the good of those around us, and ultimately for His very own glory.
Randy Alcorn wrote well, “God prospers me not to raise my standard of living but to raise my standard of giving. God gives us more money than we need so that we can give generously.”
If we hoard the things God has given us, we aren’t properly deploying the wealth God has given us. The point of life for a Christian is not to die with the biggest bank account.
If we hoard wealth for ourselves it reflects that we’re finding our peace, finding our comfort, maybe even finding our hope in something other than God—and that’s idolatry.
Hoarding wealth forgets the point. This life isn’t about this life. Does that make sense? What we do in this life should be driven more by eternity than by Tuesday. How we work should be driven more by eternity than by retirement. God means something much more for you, church, than for you to work 30 years, retire, and have enough money to live out your days in comfort. That isn’t bad! But it’s not nearly all that God has for you.
Good money management and wise financial planning alone is not Christian stewardship. We sometimes equate financial acumen with Godliness. James shows us here that just piling up money in a brokerage account somewhere isn’t necessarily holy. If we’re just hoarding wealth for the sake of having it or for the sake of safety or to pass on to our kids then we might not be looking at money in a very Godly way at all.
We need to manage our resources well, but we can’t let good management turn into greed. That’s where James takes us in verse 4. False faith feeds greed with money.
False Faith Feeds Greed with Money
4 Look! The pay that you withheld from the workers who mowed your fields cries out, and the outcry of the harvesters has reached the ears of the Lord of Armies.
This gets pretty specific. It’s another marker that leads me to believe that James knew his intended audience pretty well. He’s condemning holding money in higher esteem than people. People are more important than stuff. People are more important than money. And when given the choice between the two—more money or caring for people—often the choice we make tells us something about our faith.
The accusation here is of dishonesty and dishonorable dealings with people in business and financial settings, especially for those who have less than us. Some of us, this will apply directly to. Because you have employees or you’re in a management setting. But the general application here is to care for those who are in need.
The outcry of those in need reaches the ears of God. Does it reach the ears of His people? We invest our money wisely into things, but do we invest it in people? Jesus did say, ‘Go and make.’ But he didn’t follow that up with more money. He said go and make disciples. Are we investing in those in need with an eye toward making disciples?
Jason Bohn knew how to invest in the thing he wanted. He wanted to be a pro golfer. And he was well on his way. He was a sophomore at the University of Alabama playing on their golf team. Thirty-one years ago this month, in November of 1992, the Alabama golf team played in a charity tournament. Events like that have several little side contests where they can raise more money. This one featured a closest-to-the-pin contest. You get to hit a drive on a par 3 and the closest person to the pin wins. If you hit a hole-in-one you get a $1 million.
Bohn had to borrow $10 to enter the competition. He took a couple of deep breaths, hit his 9-iron, and sure enough the ball bounced, rolled, hit the pin, and disappeared into the hole.
Jason Bohn won $1 million as a 20-year old. But his goal was still to be a professional golfer. So he invested it in himself. He took his payment over 20 years and gave himself a salary of $50,000 per year while he pursued his goal. He had to quit the golf team because he didn’t qualify as an amateur anymore, but he stayed in school and stayed focused. His investment paid off. He made the PGA Tour in 2004 and he has been playing on it ever since.
He knew where he wanted to be and invested the best way he could to make it happen. Church, if you’re called to glorify God to make disciples, are you investing in a way that will make it happen?
In a sense, that is what Jesus calls us to do. We have been entrusted with resources—time, ability, opportunity— and we decide how to use them. Our challenge is to see those resources as an opportunity to invest long-term. “Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven,” is how Jesus put it in Matthew 6:20. Those protected treasures cannot be destroyed nor taken away, Jesus assures us.
Think of your resources: talent, time, knowledge. These are temporal and limited. But if you invest them with an eye toward eternity, these temporary things can have enduring impact. What is your focus? Now or forever? Invest in the future. It will not only have an eternal impact, but it will also change the way you view life each day.
When we’re only investing in ourselves or our interests, we run the risk of feeding the grid that is naturally in our hearts. In fact, that’s where James takes us next. In verse 5 we see that false faith uses money to feed our fallen hearts.
False Faith Uses Money to Feed the Sinful Desires of Our Fallen Hearts
5 You have lived luxuriously on the earth and have indulged yourselves. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter.
James is going after a life that lacks self-denial here. Jesus said deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me.
Denying yourself is necessarily going to involve denying your comfort and your luxury at some point. It’s going to mean giving up things that folks who are only living for this live indulge in. Do we need the newest gadget? Do we need the biggest truck? Do we need another gun, gentlemen? That one was for me.
When we think about money we think about how much we give. That’s good. But do we think about what we give up?
If our spending and our giving doesn’t have a component of self-denial, then we’re in sin. That’s what James is saying here. If we’re never telling our heart ‘no,’ then we’re in sin. Because our heart is sinful and giving it what it wants all the time isn’t going to lead to good things happening.
We get that one some level as parents, don’t we? Even if you’re here and have never had kids, you understand that parents have to say ‘no’ sometimes, right? Boundaries are necessary when it comes to discipline. Have you set boundaries for your heart when it comes to material things?
If we’re never self-restraining, if we’re never self-denying, then we’re in sin. It’s just that simple.
No matter where our level of income is, if we’re not denying ourselves from time to time, we’re in sin. And frankly the more you have, the harder it is to deny yourself in that way.
Because the tendency of our sinful heart is not going to be to use money to bless others. It’s going to be to use money to push others down, verse 6.
False Faith Uses Money to Push Others Down
6 You have condemned, you have murdered the righteous, who does not resist you.
What God gave us as a blessing can be used to harm other people. The language is strong here, “You have murdered the righteous.” Our sinful view of money can lead to our own condemnation, church. It can lead us to do things to other people that will ruin our lives and the lives of those we love.
The worst miscarriage of justice in human history, in fact, was caused by greed. That’s what James is referencing here. And in it, we also find our hope.
There was once a man named Judas, who all the gospels tell us. He betrayed Jesus for money. He was a greedy man. He put to death a righteous man because of his love of money. That righteous man didn’t resist, because His mission was bigger than money. How dangerous is greed, church? It was the sin that initiated Jesus’s path to the cross. Judas betrayed Jesus for money. Greed nailed Jesus to the cross.
That temptation is there. The temptation to let our desire for more come on the backs of other people is real. If you’re up for a promotion or a new job and you have the opportunity to say something about someone else or blame them for a problem and make yourself look better, would you do it? Would you take credit for someone else’s work if it makes you look better?
Would you harm someone else to set yourself in a better financial position? That’s what Judas did. But in that betrayal, we find our hope.
Because our hope, church, isn’t in better financial stewardship. Our hope isn’t even in being more aware of the needs around us. Our hope isn’t in our generosity, it’s in the Lord’s generosity to us.
While we were still greedy, angry, bitter, and selfish, Jesus died for us. We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We deserve eternal separation from God. But Jesus died so that we can live both now and forever as God’s children. He willingly gave Himself up as a substitute sacrifice for everyone who will ever call on Him for salvation.
And it’s that sacrifice that changes how we use our wealth. Money isn’t evil. Money is morally neutral. It’s what we do with it that reveals our hearts.
You see, wealth itself is not sin. Sin comes in in three ways. First, it comes in in how we get our wealth. Do we get our wealth at the expense of our neighbor? Secondly, it comes in in our heart attitude towards wealth. Do we love wealth too much? Do we love it at the expense of loving God? Third, it comes in in our use of wealth.
When we apply the gospel to our outlook on money, we’ll look for ways to deny our own selfishness and bless others. It’s all God’s money anyway. The way we look at money is a window into our own souls. Genuine faith views money as a means to glorify God. False faith uses money primarily to store up treasure, push down others, and feed the sinful desires of our fallen hearts. Where do you land, church?
Questions for Further Discussion & Reflection
How were you taught to view money growing up? Was your upbringing helpful in seeing stewardship through the lens of the Bible?
How does the story of the man who hoarded money under his mattress illustrate the dangers of a misguided attitude toward wealth?
How is it helpful that James isn't addressing a specific income level but rather a heart attitude about money?
Why does James call on the rich to weep, wail, and repent? What is the significance of taking stock of how wealth is used in light of God's Kingdom?
Read Jesus's parable of the talents from Matthew 25. How does it relate to James 5?
In what ways does false faith store up earthly treasure, according to verses 2-3 of James 5?
What is the significance of the phrase "you have stored up treasure in the last days" in James 5:3?
Based on the text, what would you say is the reason God allows His people to be financially successful?
Using the example of Jason Bohn, how can financial resources be strategically invested to pursue Kingdom goals?
How does the concept of self-denial apply to our attitude toward money, and why does James see it as crucial in avoiding sin?
In what ways can wealth be used to push others down, as mentioned in James 5:6?
How does the sermon tie the worst miscarriage of justice in human history (Judas betraying Jesus for money) to the theme of hope in the sermon's message about money?