James Week 9

Sermon Transcript:

All right, well, I want to add my Happy Memorial Day. Welcome to those y'all in the room. Those y'all that are watching online, I trust. It's been a good weekend for you so far. And that thank you for spending some of it here with us. We're in the book of James, we've been there for the last several weeks. In fact, this is our ninth week next week, we'll finish up the book. I'm all together. And really the longest series that I've taken since I've been your pastor here at Life Church has just been so good and practical and helpful. I trust it has been for you, as it has been for me. One of the reasons we do this is so that we can see how the scriptures fit together. One of the words that we use is the continuity of the Scriptures, the Bible, the Old and New Testament and all throughout all 66 books, we can see how different parts reflect other parts and how they tie together. And now do the the Bible's without air. But we also believe that it is has continuity that it's able to reference each other and that it has consistency through it, same message. Well, we're gonna start out with something that can be tough. James all throughout the book has been one of those books at times that hits us kind of right between the eyes hits us right where it hurts and that whole idea of oftentimes, that's what the Scripture does, then picks us back up and helps us to know the way in which we should go and says a gun happened this morning. I think as we look right from the outset, because a lot of times even as a pastor I'll look at the scriptures aren't me and God do you have to really say it, that direct and and he knows what he's doing. He's wiser than us. And so here's what he does right from the get go of James chapter five, beginning in verse one. says this right here. Look here, you rich people weep and groan with anguish because of all the terrible troubles ahead of you. Your wealth is rotting away and your fine clothes are moth eaten rags, your gold and silver are corroded. The very wealth you are counting on will eat away your flesh like fire, this credit treasure you have hoarded, will testify against you on the Day of Judgment, for Listen, hear the cries of the field workers whom You have cheated their pay the cries of those who harvest your fields have reached the ears of the Lord of Heaven's armies. You have spent your years on earth and luxury satisfying your every desire, you have fattened yourselves for the day of slaughter, you have condemned and killed innocent people who do not resist you. Well, what's going on here? And I think, again, we talked about from the get go that we often have times have to look at other passages to see what is the message that the Bible really wants to tell us about wealth? There's a lot that said throughout the scriptures, James is one of them. But a lot said and so we're going to start off by going to the book of Matthew, chapter 19. We're going to talk about a story that maybe you've heard before. And here's the way the story goes. A person a man comes up to Jesus says, Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And he calls Jesus good. And Jesus real clear. Hey, listen, no one's good, but our Father in heaven, but I'll answer your question. And you to eternal life. If you want to receive that, keep the commandments, man asked, Hey, which ones. And Jason? Well, you know them, you know, the 10 commandments, he says, Don't commit murder, don't commit adultery, don't steal, don't lie on your father, and mother and love your neighbor as yourself. Man's, like, have done all this, what else I need to do? Do you said, you need to sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you'll have treasure in heaven, then come and follow Me. And says in this moment in the scriptures that the young man went away sad, because he had great wealth or many possessions. And then comes a famous passage that you may have heard it's culturally sort of known in our day and age, which is, Jesus says it's harder for a rich person to enter. It's very hard for rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven, I'll say it again, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. Now that would have hit with a punch in Jesus day, just like it hits in our day. It's like, Wait a second. These are some impossible things. You're talking about a camel through the eye of a needle and rich and we all think we're rich. We all know someone who's rich, we all think we may be rich or someday be rich. And so this is a hard saying that was true then, and his disciples, His followers thought so as soon as Jesus said those words out of his mouth. So they asked, well, then who in the world can be saved? Jesus looked at them and said humanly speaking, it's impossible, but with God, all things are possible. And then Peter, the one who is often the mouthpiece for the disciples, remember that oftentimes when hard things were said, here's like, where else are we gonna go? You have the words of life. Oftentimes, you'll think that right? When you hear hard things of Christianity, you're like, I don't know. I don't know if that's true. I'm about to slip into this. I don't know if I want to do this, yet to ask yourself what often Peter and his followers asked, which is what else we're gonna go. But he asked the question in this moment, Lord, we've given up everything for you, what will we get in return? And Jesus replied to Peter and the disciples, I assure you, when the wall is made new and the Son of Man sits on his throne, you'll sit there with me and you'll help judge and all that. But he says, listen to this, verse 29, of chapter 19, book, Matthew, for everyone who has given up houses or brothers or sisters, or father, or mother, or children or property, for my sake, receive 100 times as much in return. So in some ways in this life, and will inherit eternal life, the many are the greatest now be the least important then and those who are, are seeing the least important now will be the greatest thing. You see how the Kingdom is always topsy turvy, the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven is always topsy turvy from the kingdom or the ideas of this world. Because this doesn't make any sense. From an earthly perspective. Now we're starting to get an understanding of money. Because this again, was a hard passage we just read from the book of James. So let's get a holistic idea of what finances are talked about in the old New Testament. Here's another way that is talked about, we often will take the book of James and we'll go back to the Sermon on the Mount, because that's where Jesus sat down with people who would listen and tell him, tell them about

himself and the way the kingdom works. Matthew, chapter six, beginning in verse 19, middle of Sermon on the Mount says this Don't store up treasures here on Earth, where malls eat and rust destroys them. Sounds familiar, right from the book of James, and where thieves break in and steal, store up your treasures in heaven, where moth and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal for Wherever your treasure is, there, the desires of your heart will be also now that's a true statement. So if you're sitting here and you're thinking, I don't know about Christianity, I don't know if this is true. What is true about all of us in this room right now is we can know where the desires and the treasures of our heart is by how we utilize our money or possessions, says this goes on and says, later on, he says you and I can't serve two masters. We cannot serve God and money, you should be devoted one and you'll despise the other. Then he goes into this passage about worry, maybe you're familiar with this says we shouldn't be worrying about all these different things and he goes to the very end, what we need to do is seek first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness or live righteously and he will give you me everything we need. Don't worry about tomorrow, tomorrow has enough words of its own. So what we're finding out about money is that it's a faith based decision and how we utilize it, how we are stewards of what God has given us. That's what I love about Joy's testimony, our hosts when she was talking about the fact that, humanly speaking, if one in your household loses a job, then maybe you ought to cut back on what you give to God. But from a kingdom perspective, we just trust and have faith that if we do the right thing, if we live righteously, if we give to God that which is already his that he'll take care of us and there won't be a moment which we miss a meal or find ourselves out on the street. So in order to combat that, what we know in our hearts, which we love our stuff, we need to make sure that we're people who spend our years on earth. Not satisfying every desire of our heart, this first point I wants to see this morning, let's not spend our years on Earth, satisfying our every desire. This is what's easy to do. This is what's easy to do. And it's easy to do it now more than ever, because of the way advertising works. Think about it. When you and I were children, if you're around my age, when we would get up and watch cartoons. They knew how to get to us in terms of advertising, certain cereals, certain toys that you would want and desire. In the evenings. They knew how to get to our parents to television, certain advertising that they knew would hit the demographic of 35 to 55 on certain nights of the week. Now we have our smartphones that we realize that if we start talking about something or even scarier when we feel like we just thought about it, it gives us what very tailored advertising to say that we need some sort of product that now pops up in our social media feed. What is going on there? It is what we are the product I say this oftentimes smartphones realize that we're the product, and that they're trying to always sell us something say listen, you need every every desire you have every amount of money you have, we want you to spend it on all these different things. Now again, let's be balanced and all this we know that we're supposed to have rest we know that we're supposed to work. We know that if all we do is rest, then we will Oh, we will get out of whack because we actually are designed to work. Work is actually part of something that happened pre, the fall or pre entering of sin into the world. We also know that if all we do is work, and we don't ever take time to rest, then we will not be able to enjoy God's good gifts for us. The issue is, where's our heart? Where's our desire? How are we spending this money? Are we just thinking that we need everything? Oh, we're like kids, you remember when we were kids, and we would go to the store. And we thought we needed everything on every aisle. Remember those days, and then maybe your parents would get you to the to the checkout line, and then what you think you needed every single, you know, magazine, or piece of candy or trinket or whatever. That's how we often throw ourselves into adulthood. And what's the saying here is let's not spend our years on earth satisfying our every desire, because the way that we flaunt wealth in the ancient world is the same way that we fought well, today, what will we do will be slavishly right was always have to have the best meals, the best place will always have to think that we have to spend the maximum amount of our income on the best meals that we can afford, or will dress extravagantly. We think we always need to dress to the nines that we always have to have the top design for every occasion for every atmosphere, or will just spin wildly, I got it coming in, this is mine, I'm gonna go out and spend it on whatever I want. I earned this. We have to understand that what James is rebuking and what Jesus did by telling these two different stories that we can read about in Matthew 19. And then that we see also on the sermon on the mount is he is rebuking those who are rich and earthly possessions, but spiritually bankrupt. That's the key point here. That there is ways and healthy ways in order for us to acquire wealth, but to be good stewards of that, obviously, in the book of James, they were doing some shady stuff, right? Because the workers are crying out against them, and all these kinds of things. And they were taking advantage of I get that. But the other point that you just can't miss, when you read the book of James is that they're using all this money that they have acquired to spend on self. And so they're rich in earthly things, but they're spiritually bankrupt. That was the rich young rulers problem, right? He went away sad, because he had great wealth, he wasn't willing to give it up to follow Christ. And that's definitely the case. And we find ourselves storing up treasures here on Earth and not treasures in heaven. What is important is our heart. And our actions. If we learn nothing else about the book of James, or from the book of James, it's that God cares about our heart towards him, that will necessarily lead to different actions, right? What's the main theme of the book of James faith without works is dead, you show me your faith, and I'll show you my faith by my works. And so a lot of times, we'll fool ourselves into thinking, I've got a heart for the church, I've got a heart for the poor, because if someone knocks on my door, I'd give them the shirt on my back off my back if I felt like they didn't have enough clothing, or I would definitely invite them into my house to eat. But we have to ask ourselves, well, when are you doing such things? If you have such a heart for it? When are you giving to causes that you believe in heroes such a heart for it, when are you being with the least among you, or helping people out with having them in your home and those kinds of things, so hearts on necessity, necessarily lead to action? Has to alright, that's the first point we say we don't want to be the people who just fatten ourselves up for self that are ready for slaughter in the last day on Judgement Day. So more of the passage here beginning of verse seven, it says this, here's the other warning, dear brothers and sisters, so he's addressing us all in the room. Be patient as you wait for the Lord's return. Consider the farmers who patiently wait for the rains in the fall and in the spring, they eagerly look for the vulnerable or the valuable harvest to ripen. You too must be patient, take courage, for the coming of the Lord is near. don't grumble about each other brothers and sisters, or you will be judged for look. The judge is standing at the door for examples of patience and suffering. Dear Brothers and Sisters, look at the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord, we give great honor to those who endure under suffering. For instance, you know about job, a man of great endurance. You can see how the Lord was kind to him at the end, For the Lord is full of tenderness and mercy. That maybe you're familiar with the book of Job maybe or not, let's remind ourselves what occurred in that book. Book. A job is an ancient book. It's in the Old Testament it was around the time before scripture. So Genesis type stuff around the time of Noah or something like that. And we have job who is called blameless, blameless doesn't mean sinless. It just means that when charges are brought against you that they don't stick. Because you're a person of integrity, this is who job was, says that he had multiple children, seven sons and three daughters, you know, and 7000, sheep, 3000 camels, 500 team of oxen, 500 donkeys, and have many servants that says He's the richest person in the area in the land at that time. And so they love to have feast and all these things. And so Satan is observing this, and he goes before the throne room of God. And he says, I've been observing your servant Job. And of course, he loves you. Of course, he praises you, you give him all these great things, houses,

notable children's servants and all kinds of livestock. But if you take it away, I think he'll curse you. And so the Lord says, the Satan, once again, this is a great principle that we need to understand here that Satan can do nothing without permission from the Lord. And Satan as Hey, can I can I start taking this stuff away. And he says, yeah. And so that's what ended up happening. And it says, In the book of Job there, as the news started coming in, and you had a messenger come and say, there was a great storm and your family, they're all wiped out, or something else happened. And now all your your cattle and livestock is gone, and, and everything's been taken from you, and kind of gets to the end here. And what happens, maybe, you know, this job, worshipped, go to the ground and worship and he said, This, Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will return the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away blessed, it'd be the name of the Lord. Now, that's crazy talk, right? But why is that? Why does he have that sort of perspective, because he believe the Lord, he actually trusted him in the east. He's enduring under great suffering. And if you want to go back and read that whole book, it's in the Old Testament, it's 42 chapters. And there's a lot of things that go on where his friends offer all kinds of advice, and most of it bad advice. And ultimately, the Lord comes to him and speaks to him and you find that job has to repent in dust. And as you say, Well, why why didn't do a bit what it what was going on, I don't know what was going on in his life. But evidently, the only way that it can be brought to the surface was through suffering. And oftentimes, we don't see, we resist suffering, we resist the hand of God in our life, because we don't see that is the means by which things are revealed, that need to be revealed in our life that need to be taken care of. Now, you may be heard of this. It's like the crucible, it's like the fire. And many of us were going through the suffering of fire, we rightly admit this Annville good. I don't like this Lord. And that's how joke felt as well. But through that, right, we understand that through that testing, what happens when we come out the other side? We're better off for it. And it says very clearly here, what does job get? And what are we to receive the tenderness and the mercy of the Lord? And so what does he do if you read all through these chapters, you get to the end, you see that everything is restored, and then some right, Joe has a family again, and all of a sudden he has his livestock in his house, as it says here at verse 16, the last verse of the book of Job, Job lived 140 years after that, leaving the scene for generations of his children and grandchildren. Then he died, an old man who lived a long, full life, to churches law hardest it is for all of us, we've got to be patient, we have to be patient. And the way that we encourage ourselves is we tell ourselves, Well, if God was there for job, and he's been there for the people of the past, he's been there for believers that I know, then he will be there for me. So all we have to do the Scripture said is to take courage. Do you see that in that passage? Because it's take courage or another translation may say, Take heart, we actually have to preach to ourselves. Do you ever have to do this? I'm not saying that sometimes you think you're crazy, because you're talking to yourself, but it's literally you and I have to tell ourselves truth. Say, it's gonna be okay. Because God's got this, it's gonna be okay. Because God's got me. I know, truth. And therefore, you and I have to speak truth over our own hearts. That's how we take courage, because we know what the truth is. So it says there's, there's two positives, be patient, just like, farmers wait for a long time in the crop. And you and I, we want it instantly, don't we? We were hungry, and we were hungry yesterday, right? And that's how we think about with farming. And then taking courage and strength in our hearts is often hard to do, because we're looking for, well, who's going to encourage me who's gonna come alongside me? And we have to ask ourselves, can we be encouraged by Lord and then can we be the one to encourage? You see some things that the Lord says, Don't do this. One of the things he says don't do is don't grumble don't grumble? Why does it say you don't you and I don't want to grumble because what that leads to is a cycle of grumbling ever been that way. You ever you ever started grumbling and gets members of your household you've been in a family where you start grumbling against one another, you start blaming each other. For other things, what happens? It's a vicious cycle. And it becomes what's often called toxic that's like sort of a modern day psychological word. But what's what's it mean by that we get the heck out of here, this is this is death, or the same thing can happen in a workplace, right? We begin to grumble against one another, our co workers, same thing can happen in in, in small projects. When you're in school, you remember you remember group projects in school, when they put you part of a team, there were always five or six or seven of y'all. And you figured out real quick, who was Dumbo and who was not, you know, just just just, we understood that this was an opportunity for us to grumble and complain against one another. And when we go that route, it's just like what we learned about in previous chapter about judging the judge not lest you be judged, because we understand that we begin to grumble that it often comes back on us. And it leads to our own destruction. So how can you say that? Is it Carmen? No, we don't believe in karma. What we believe biblically, is you and I reap what we sow. Do we believe that? So if we sow in discord and distrust, let's not be surprised when discord and distrust is all around us? Let's look at the last thing it says don't do. So you can see how he dresses us. This is our third addressing in this passage of brothers and sisters. We've considered job we've told ourselves, we don't want to just fatten ourselves up on our on our own wealth and possessions. We're gonna be about the kingdom of heaven. And then he gives us in and he says in this section, the end of this section, he says, but most of all my brothers and sisters, their time to address us, never taken oath by heaven or earth, or anything else, just a simple yes or no. So that you will not sin and be condemned. Now, you know, when we first see this passage, we're a little bit thrown off, because like, what's this? What's this got to do with anything? I live in a culture where I'm trying to take a lot of oaths, where I'm trying to do a lot of things where I think this sort of legal language comes into play. Well, let's let's see it in some context and see if there's implications for us today. Think about how we've already gone back to the Sermon on the Mount several times to understand James, I think this is another good passage for this. Matthew chapter five. When Jesus is talking, he says this, you have heard that our ancestors were told you must not break your vows for carrying out the vows you made to the Lord but I say to you, do not make any vows do not say by heaven, because heaven is God's throne and do not say by Earth, because the Earth is his footstool, and do not say bye Jerusalem, for Jerusalem is the city of our great king, do not even say by my head, for you can't turn one hair white or black. Just a simple yes, I will. or No, I won't. Anything beyond this is from the evil one. Now one of the things we got to recognize is, we just sort of went back and we understood the culture of first century Judaism, let's understand our own culture. Now, culture is neither bad nor good, necessarily. It's a morally neutral term. But we know we have culture, you and I know that we have household culture, the first time we leave our house, you know, I'm talking about, there was a time when you were a little kid, a little guy, little girl, and you left your house and you wouldn't spent the day in someone else's household. And you find out real quick, they do things a little different than maybe in your household. Maybe they cook something a different way. Maybe they go about things a different way. They have different rules in the household, and you understand, oh, wow, they've created a different culture. In this household in mind, neither good nor bad, but but different. And we have a culture here on the borderline. What is a culture culture is a characteristic features of everyday existence, shared by people in a place or time, it's almost agreed upon rules that we don't ever speak out loud or only do it by kind of nods all together. I get that. That's us right. Now, one of the things that is a cultural significant thing that I found out in El Paso Real quick, is El Paso understanding of time, and being on time and being at certain locations, right? You know what I'm talking about? There's El Paso time, and then there's the rest of America time. You know what this is? Right? And so we understand, okay, if I said it'd be there at 10 You know, that means something else. And I'll say several months ago, I was a part of a a group a team. And so we were gonna meet in the meeting was set by an El Paso and for El Paso and so it's the beginning of the week. They told me to be there at nine o'clock in the morning. I was there at nine o'clock in the morning, and guess what? Nobody got there. And it did not get started till 10 I just wasted an hour. Okay. So middle of the week, get another meeting calm bio pasoans for El pasoans. I show up on time, right. An hour later, the meeting begins. Okay. Third meeting,

I was like, hey, nobody's fool. Okay, like Fool me once. You know, shame on you fool me twice, shame on me. So they said another meeting, different group. These are three different groups of people I'm meeting with throughout the city. And they said another meeting and I was like, I'm showing up an hour late, I show up an hour late. I had missed an hour the meeting. And I'm like, what happened? What is going on here, and all of a sudden, they put me something like, Pastor, this meeting has people from Dallas in it, we have to start on time. And so I was like, Oh, they taught me like several things, like in a moment there. And I was like, well, one thing he says is that pastors know how to get somewhere when we need to rise up someone else's involved, we understand American time. And just like this, some service people. So if y'all are in the area, and y'all want to recognize military time, and be very specific, you'll actually tell people, okay, like, what are we on, we're on service time, or, or a passage of time. Now, that's sort of a funny thing to recognize about our culture. But there's other things that bleed into our culture that are not funny, that show a lack of integrity that we all feel. And that is that we often find ourselves a part of people who say one thing, and they'll do another. And so you and I will find ourselves a lot of times ripped off by maybe a certain contractor, or somebody who's supposed to fix our car, or somebody who's supposed to do something for us, maybe in the service industry or some other industry. And we find that what they don't do it or they say they're gonna do it. And they don't do it to say they're supposed to fix it. They don't really fix it, or they fix it shoddy. And I mean, we all have stories right here in the borderlands of where that's occurred to us. Why does that occur in our area? It occurs all over the world. I understand that. But why is it culturally acceptable in the Borderlands, specifically El Paso, well think about our name, El Paso passing through, many people are counting on the fact that they're either passing through, so they can just quickly rip off people or say one thing and do another and keep moving, or they recognize you're just passing through. So you're just passing through. So by the time I rip you off, you're gonna be out of here and you're not going to be able to tell stories about who I am or what kind of person I am. So when you and I are the opposite, because we're, we're Kingdom minded people, man, we stick out. And that's what I want to call us to in our third and final point that I think is the base of this passage here. Let's live lives of integrity. Let's there's lives of integrity, El Paso, let's liberalise them integrity Life Church, why? Because if and when we do that, we will be tangible examples that we're living for another kingdom, we're living for another world. Remember, I said, it's not about karma. It's about reaping what you and I. So if you and I so in dishonesty, guests will always come back to bite us, it will always be a part of dishonesty. And that goes all the way through this entire passage. But if you and I so in righteousness, eventually, in due time, it will reap a reward why? Why are we do this? Why? what motivation do we have to live lives of integrity letter yesterday? Yes, and our no be No. In the midst of a culture, that's okay with us getting away with a lot of things because we know God is watching. We know that there's more to this universe than what we're being told on the street. We know that God is watching, we know that God cares about us. That's a big deal church, that we are the people that know that God loves me, God cares about me. And he cared about job. And he cares about them. That's the other thing we have to realize is that when we're interacting with people, and we get the temptation to rip them off, or to be dishonest, or to not interact with them in a way that has integrity, that we're doing them a disservice, just like we're doing ourselves a disservice. Why? Because their image bearers, they're creating the image of God. And because they're creating the image of God, because I'm creating an image of God, we have certain things that we are obligated to do certain ways that we're obligated to be. And then finally, I'd say about why we would want to live eyes of integrity is even though it's hard, and even though it looks like the people who are doing bad things, get away with it, right? You ever find that yourself? This you and I, we're often like the psalmist, where we look around and say, and this doesn't seem right God, because I know how they're acting and I know what they're doing and I know what they've got. We're the people who are observing the fattened rich people that we're talking about, in that first passage, people that are what morally bankrupt yet somehow financially wealthy are, we're observing people who are doing things wrong, and we're doing things right yet we're worse off than them. And what we have to tell ourselves is he will set all things right. Church, we really have to believe that that's why he always is helping us to look future oriented, to look to the future to say, God will set all things right. So what I saw over and over again, when I looked at the the understanding of what Often when Peter asked questions, you see that over and over again, when James is anticipating the questions in his church, what Jesus is anticipating the questions that we would have. He's always calling us to say, You know what? There's a kingdom. Beyond this. There is a way in which we pray, Our Father who art in heaven want you we just pray that sort of Memorial Day prayer that, but we are the people who have a what a foretaste of heaven. And so we bring that to Earth. That's what that's what the prayer is all about you and I know that right? Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, as what as it is in heaven. So we're reflecting him, him Jesus a person, his values that can run right through us. Let's his lies of integrity. Not only this Memorial Day weekend, but all the days of our life. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for Your Word. We thank you how you don't leave us wandering, wanting to know what should we do that you've given us clear instructions and how we are to live. So Father, strengthen and encourage our hearts today. I pray for patients for those who are enduring great suffering right now. It's hard, it's difficult. We can't see the end. Seems like the enemy is winning. If other I ask that you come with tenderness and mercy in our lives, just like you came in the life of job restore, so Lord, we pray. We asked us in Christ's name, Amen.