James, chapter 5.
You know what, before I read chapter 5,
let's go back to what I read last
week to put this in context, because what
is interesting here, James is talking to businessmen,
remember, you know, about not planning ahead and
don't plan for this and don't plan for
that, and then he goes right into talking
about rich people in chapter 5.
So James 4.13, come now, you who
say today or tomorrow we will go to
such and such a city, spend a year
there, buy and sell and make a profit,
whereas you do not know what will happen
tomorrow, for what is your life?
For what is your life?
It is even a vapor that appears for
a little time and then vanishes away.
Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord
wills, we shall live and do this or
that.
But now you boast in your arrogance.
All such boasting is evil.
Therefore, to him who knows to do good
and does not do it, to him it
is sin.
So again, brief recap, it's God's will versus
my will.
There's nothing wrong with saying, hey, in a
year from now I plan to pay off
my vehicle or my home and we plan
to live here, move here, this is what
we'd like to do.
Lord, would you guide us and lead us
and direct us as we give you our
plans.
That's fine.
What he's talking about here is people boasting,
saying we're going to do this and we're
going to do that and really we're not
too concerned what God has to say about
it because we're just going to do it.
And in that boasting, it's arrogance because you
can't even guarantee tomorrow.
Life is like a vapor if you look
at it through the timeline of history.
It's just here today and gone tomorrow.
And to live like that, to teach us
to number our days, it's a very wise
verse in Proverbs.
Lord, help me to number my days.
Teach me to number my days.
How much more would we appreciate our days
and even live them a little bit more
for Christ if we had a huge calendar
up there and we could check off and
we knew, okay, it's coming to the end
of my life here shortly.
If you take the average year, 70 years,
and how many days are in a year,
and then you have these days that you're
just marking off.
Halfway through your life you see these going
by.
Teach us how to number our days.
So there's nothing wrong with asking God for
direction, but forcing your will and saying, this
is what we're going to do is not
a good direction to be going.
So then he goes right into verse 5,
or chapter 5, come now you rich.
And now remember, there's no chapter and verses
when he wrote this.
So what he was saying, if you back
up, instead you ought to say if the
Lord wills, he shall live and do this
or that.
But now you boast in your arrogance, all
such boasting is evil.
Therefore to him who knows to do good
and does not do it, to him it
is sin.
Come now you rich.
Weep and howl for your miseries that are
coming upon you.
Boy, he's not very popular, is he?
He's not going to really please a lot
of people in these types of messages, but
that was the point.
And I find it interesting that James is
talking to believers.
In his epistle, James is talking to believers,
or those professing to be believers, those in
the church, and he's wanting to hit those
who are rich.
Weep and howl for your miseries that are
coming upon you.
Your riches are corrupt and your garments are
moth eaten.
Your gold and your silver are corroded and
their corrosion will be a witness against you,
and you will eat your flesh like fire.
You have heaped up treasure in the last
days.
Indeed, the wages of the laborers who mowed
your fields, which you have kept back by
fraud, they cry out.
And the cries of the reapers have reached
the ears of the Lord of Sabbath.
You have lived on the earth in pleasure
and luxury.
You have fattened your hearts as in a
day of slaughter.
You have condemned, you have murdered the just,
and he does not resist you.
Boy, I don't know how you feel if
you're one of the people he was talking
about, but that's a very difficult thing to
not only write, but a thing to hear.
James is writing to those who call themselves
believers.
And what we know about wealth is something
very interesting.
Wealth reveals the heart.
How you spend wealth, I guess I should
say, what you do with wealth, with money,
really reveals a lot about our hearts.
The more we hoard and covet and just
keep to ourselves and build and not really
give and not help those in need and
look as idolatry reveals what's going on in
the heart.
Because you know, once God has your heart,
he has your money, usually.
But sometimes, many people, especially if they have
a lot of wealth, that's what he's talking
about here, that it begins to draw them
away from God.
And it's really not about riches, because sometimes
we hear that wealth, wealth, wealth, and you
have two sides of the church throughout church
history.
You can go back to early church fathers,
and it was as poor as you could
be, that the poor you were, the more
spiritual you were.
So if you're, you know, just as poor
as it gets here in the United States,
then you are very spiritual.
Now, of course, we know that's not necessarily
true, because there's a lot of poor people
who do not love the Lord.
And sometimes, big disclaimer here, sometimes, I'm not
going to be one of those people who
say all the time, but sometimes poverty is
a curse.
Sometimes poverty, God will remove things from our
life and bring us to a pover state.
Look at most addicts.
Where do they end up?
Very wealthy or very poor and broken and
lose everything.
So sometimes, poverty can be a judgment of
God.
Not all the time.
There's wonderful people who just, it's hard to
get by.
So we have to look at our heart
and see what's happening.
But then the other side, which has been
lately, is the prosperity gospel.
What's this say?
Wealthy, wealthy, wealthy.
God's going to give you a thousand cattle
on a thousand hills.
Whatever that verse is, right?
You're going to be the head, not the
tail.
The poor are going to lend to you.
Rich are going to lend to you.
You're going to be this.
God's going to give you so much wealth.
And that's a very wrong focus, because you're
serving God for the wealth.
But the more wealth you had, oh, he
must be blessed.
He must be blessed.
But Jesus said it's hard for a rich
man to enter the kingdom of heaven.
It'd be easier for a camel to go
through an eye of a needle, than for
a rich man to enter heaven.
They said, how is that possible?
We thought, even in Jesus' time, they thought
the riches equaled a person being in right
standing with God.
But he clarified that no, riches pull you
away from God.
It's actually not riches themselves, it's the love
of money.
People often misquote that.
They think, well, money is the root of
all evil.
No, it's not.
No, it's not at all.
It's just money is a piece of paper.
You can throw it in the trash, you
can spend it.
It's the love of money that's the root
of all kinds of evil.
So it's not about riches, because you can
look at Abraham, and David, and Job, and
throughout, there's rich people, rich believers in the
New Testament.
I personally believe that God will give people
certain things to be a blessing to others.
He'll elevate certain people so they can give
more to missionaries.
They can support local businesses that are wanting
to do things for God.
So people, God gives wealth so that they
take their wealth, and they bring it out,
and they make a difference.
You look at a lot of, there's investors.
We had one for the church in Lancaster,
a very wealthy company, and they're actually putting
a business here in Palmdale, shortly, and they
would have bought us a church, two, three
million dollar church, and just give us a
building if we can find a building at
a substantial discount.
So God has blessed those kind of people
to be able to be a blessing to
others.
So it's not riches in and of themselves,
but look at what it has done.
They don't see that their life is, their
silver and their gold are corroding.
They obviously haven't took care of their employees
very well.
They've paid their laborers a lot less than
they should have.
They've taken advantage of people, and that's what
wealth does.
If you're chasing that idol, it's an idol
that can never be satisfied.
You remember, I've heard it many times before,
I don't remember who said it, but they
asked a very wealthy man, when's it enough?
And he said, just one more dollar.
Just one more dollar.
And they pursue these things, and it doesn't
pay off.
Riches can lead to a wasted life.
Anybody can waste their life, but it's particularly
disheartening for the wealthy, because life is an
illusion.
Wealth, they have this wealth, they have this
money, they think, look how successful I am.
And when it's all said and done, are
we really that successful if we've amassed a
fortune?
Jesus said that actually it's better for you
to not lose your body and soul in
hell than to chase wealth.
I have the exact scripture here, let me
read it from Mark.
What does it profit a man if he
gains the whole world and loses his soul?
Or what will a man give in exchange
for his soul?
So what he was saying here is, weep,
miseries are coming.
Always James is trying to get the reader
back.
Look, these things that you're chasing, this idolatry,
the silver and the gold that's corrupted, you
need to weep.
Misery is coming.
You will be regretting these decisions.
And misery would lead often to repentance.
People saying, oh my gosh, I've made this
mistake.
God, I've focused in the wrong direction.
That misery and that weeping is often attributed
to repentance if they bring it in the
right direction.
If they don't, then James is saying that
day is coming when God will judge them.
Riches are also deceptive because we don't see
our need for God.
I covered this earlier.
It's easier for the camel to go through
the eye of a needle than the rich
man to go to get into heaven.
So they're deceptive.
They lead to a wasted life.
The sad part about that is most people
think they're wasting their life.
If they are, you know, somebody's addicted or
boy, I really wasted my life.
But the rich person thinks they're very successful
and they haven't wasted their life.
But when they stand before God, they realize
their entire life was wasted.
Can you imagine thinking you're going to heaven?
Thinking you're on God's side, building and amassing
and tons of things and you realize all
of that was wasted.
All of life was wasted.
All that energy, all those resources, all that
money was just wasted.
It says here, the cries of the reapers
have reached the ears of the Lord of
Sabbath.
Now it's not the Lord of the Sabbath.
Some people think that word is hosts.
The Lord of hosts.
God is, he is God of the armies
of the earth and of the heavens.
That term there is the Lord of hosts
that God will come with his armies.
He will judge.
So the cries of the reapers, these people
working for these rich people that are working
hard and being taken advantage of and not
getting paid, their cries actually reach up to
heaven and God, the God of the angel
armies will judge, the earthly armies.
He will judge those who are doing this
and taking advantage of people.
And often we forget, even in Sodom and
Gomorrah, we think of homosexuality or we think
of all these other sins sometimes throughout the
Old Testament.
But often God would rebuke his people because
of how they mistreated the poor throughout all
of scripture.
How they mistreated the poor and the impoverished.
They took advantage of them.
They didn't help them.
And there are strong warnings in that throughout
all of scripture.
So on this topic of riches, I wanted
to go through Proverbs 11 briefly that would
really help.
Proverbs 11, 11.
Dishonest scales are an abomination to the Lord,
but a just weight is his delight.
You know what dishonest scales are?
They used to weigh things on scales.
And they would put things on the scale
or on their things that they used these
weights where they would cheat the people.
Really it doesn't weigh a pound, it really
only weighs 6 ounces.
So they would put it in such a
way that they would be profiting from the
people.
And they are making something appear better or
worse for gain.
Now doesn't this happen to everybody from a
mechanic to a contractor to a politician to
a doctor?
We can make things look better than what
they are or worse in order to make
a profit.
Now have you ever heard the statement, make
sure you get a second opinion.
Before that doctor wants to do surgery and
make $25,000, you might want to get
a second opinion.
You don't always need surgery.
Now am I saying all doctors are bad?
Of course not.
You'd be amazed at what people, how they
take little clips out of here.
Oh, he says we shouldn't go to doctors,
they are all bad.
No, just anybody, a mechanic.
Boy, look at this car, especially when you
go to oil change.
I just did that today.
I didn't know, boy, that rear differential fluid,
it's about $150.
Look at this air filter, it's getting pretty
dirty.
By the time I would have been out
there, it would have been $450.
But it's called suggestive selling.
Now probably do I need those things?
I don't need differential fluid that soon.
And wherever we go, a contractor might really
look at how bad this looks and really
increase it.
That's the same thing, it's no different.
We have dishonest scales often and God looks
at our heart, how we treat people.
Do we have dishonest scales and we make
things look worse than they are in order
to make more.
That's why riches are deceptive.
Proverbs 11, 4, riches do not profit in
the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from
death.
So our riches, our wealth, whatever we have,
will not stand next to us when we're
standing at the judgment seat of Christ, when
our works are being judged, but also when
we're judged in front of God, the great
white throne judgment, two different judgments.
Our wealth is not going to matter.
It doesn't pay off in the day of
judgment, but righteousness, having a right standing before
God, that's why we come here.
We worship Jesus and what he did.
11, 5, the righteousness of the blameless will
direct his way, but the wicked will fall
by his own wickedness.
The righteousness of the upright will deliver them,
but the unfaithful will be caught by their
own lusts.
Isn't that interesting?
They'll be caught by their own lusts, the
wicked and the rich.
The rich and the wicked are often parallel
in scripture.
Verse 7, Proverbs 11, 7, when a wicked
man dies, his expectation will perish and the
hope of the unjust perishes as well.
Verse 8, the righteous is delivered from trouble
and it comes to the wicked instead.
When it goes well with the righteous, the
city rejoices and when the wicked perish, there
is jubilation.
In other words, the city rejoices when the
wicked person dies.
And often the wealthy and the wicked are
joined together, especially if you look at all
the kings in the Old Testament.
Their wealth drew them away from God.
It's one thing, I've already released that article
I wrote about interviewing the Catholic priests.
It's on our website, but Facebook and different
things and we'll send it out.
But if you study and you see how
much of the papacy in Rome and how
much money they've amassed, it's amazing.
We're talking billions of dollars in this system.
And this just fits, the wickedness and riches
often go together because the devil will bless
you too.
He will open certain doors and allow that
wealth to continue to take us away.
Verse 25, the generous soul will be made
rich and he who waters will also be
watered himself.
The generous soul will be made rich.
And what he means by that is not
necessarily physical wealth.
The generous soul will be rich.
Often God would talk about blessings and honor
and riches coming upon a person.
It wasn't just so they would be elevated
and have a million dollars in the bank
and retire by the time they're 50.
An abundant life, a life that's carefree, that
God's got your back, that things are covered,
that you're not stressed out, that God opens
tremendous doors.
He takes care of you.
So when the generous soul is a person
who gives of their time, they go to
the hospital homes like we talked about.
They visit those in need.
They have a generous soul.
They help those.
They buy clothes for people.
They have a generous soul.
God in return will build them up.
He will make them rich and have an
abundant life.
Because we also know that he who sows
also reaps.
You reap what you sow.
As you sow into generosity, God will reward
you in that area.
So if you're struggling, I often tell people
this, if you're struggling financially, there's a couple
things that you can look at.
Now first, let's just throw it out there
that not everybody's struggling financially is this is
going to pertain to.
But often you have to look at budgeting.
How do you spend your money?
It's often not what you make, it's what
you spend.
So you look at a person's money and
if they're going through a lot and you
look at their bills, often you'll see that
they are living above their means.
They're spending on things they don't need to
be spending on.
You also look at are they generous?
Well Shane, I can't be generous because I
have to hold on to everything.
No, the reason you're having to hold on
to everything is because you're not generous.
You have to test God.
God says, test me in this area.
So it's funny and people who are sometimes
struggling in this area, they're not generous.
They don't give, they don't budget.
It's amazing how many people we'll talk to
that need help in certain areas.
Call me stupid, say that on Wednesday nights,
but you don't need to spend $150 at
Starbucks, you don't need $150 worth of cigarettes,
and you can look through and they're not
spending their money on things, they're not being
good stewards, is the word I'm looking for,
of their money.
There's not a budget, it's just a free
for all.
They're not generous, they hold on to everything
and they wonder why they're struggling.
But God's Word says a generous soul will
be made rich.
Verse 28, he who trusts in riches will
fall, but the righteous will flourish like foliage.
Now they can understand this imagery, what is
foliage?
That stuff just grows, right?
You see it out here a lot in
this valley.
When it starts to rain in the springtime
and it just grows, that's what God does.
He pours out His blessings and not just
financially, relationally, filled with the Spirit.
That's the one thing when God says He
will bless you and water you and you
will just grow like and flourish like foliage.
There's health there, there's vitality, you're growing spiritually.
And a person, I've seen and I've known
that a lot of people, if they're not
generous and this time of year, Scrooge, they
don't grow spiritually.
They very rarely grow spiritually because that riches
has still had a hold on them.
Who trusts in his riches will fall, but
the righteous will flourish like foliage.
He who troubles his own house, verse 29,
he who troubles his own house will inherit
the wind and the fool will be a
servant to the wise heart.
And they're tying this in with wisdom and
wealth as well.
When God gives us wealth, He wants us
to be wise about it, to use wisdom,
to be a person that knows how to
invest and knows how to rule his house
well.
It's interesting in Timothy, one of the qualifications
of an elder, a person who is a
group of men who lead the church, one
of the qualifications is that they have to
rule their home well.
They have to be not greedy for money
and greedy for gain.
They have to be able to control wealth
instead of allowing wealth to control you.
The best way you can control wealth, and
I'll say it again, I've said it before,
is you have to give some of that
away or it becomes idolatry.
That's why whatever, I mean there's teachings on,
what do you think about tithe?
What do you say before Abraham, Melchizedek, all
these things.
People like to argue over all these little
things.
Don't use the word tithe Shane, don't use
the word, make sure it's an offering.
But we just know that God loves a
cheerful giver and David said, I won't give
to the Lord anything that doesn't cost me,
so that's why I say a tithe or
10% is a good number because it
hurts.
You're giving, it's like Lord I want to
give 10%, not legalistically or 12% or
8%, whatever it is, Lord I want to
rearrange my life in such a way that
my house is going to be a little
smaller, my vehicle is going to be a
little older, we're not going to go on
14 vacations this year, we're going to budget
and we're going to put you first and
we're going to have a generous, we're going
to be a generous giving family and God
will bless that and that's one way you
get rid of that.
You get rid of that.
Now how does that work Shane?
Well because the person who's making $3,000
and giving $300, as soon as they make
$4,000 a month they're giving $400.
They make $5,000 a month then they're
giving $500.
They make $10,000 a month and they're
giving $1,000 a month.
They give away as this grows and that's
the best way to make sure this area
doesn't encapsulate your life and take you down.
Now what's the number one excuse though?
I can't afford that but that goes, and
this didn't mean to turn into a giving
message.
There's no boxes out today.
We're not concerned.
I'm just concerned.
It's funny about tithing too.
If it's one of the best kept secrets
and it's really not a secret, why wouldn't
we want to talk about it more?
As a living witness, God has totally blessed
us in many different ways because of this
area of giving.
And giving, we don't always have it.
God has come through a hundred times over
and it's a biblical truth.
Test me in this area.
Give.
Paul said God loves the cheerful giver and
you know that God is a rewarder of
those who give.
So you can test God in this area.
He will never let a soul that gives
perish.
Now there will be difficulties.
Your faith might be challenged.
I remember when we went through some difficult
valleys we still gave.
Even though we lowered a little bit, we
still gave and trust God.
So my whole reason for saying that is
that's one of the ways, the best ways
to make sure that riches don't have a
hold on you.
And it will usually happen slowly.
Many times if a person's not doing well
financially and years go by and they start
to do well financially, it starts to get
a grip on them and then a larger
grip and a larger grip and then they
want to save and retirement turns into a
cabin in Vail and a cabin in Big
Bear and a cabin over here and a
house in Ventura and this.
And we start to amass all these things.
I'm not thinking of anybody in here at
all because I don't know if you have
those things.
But the point is that's what happens is
that we begin to start to allow wealth
and it's always, it's a form of idolatry
that's always going to be there unless you
crush it.
It's always compromise knocking on the door, isn't
it?
Isn't compromise knocking on the door?
Oh please, this Wednesday night needs to be
a little bit more honest.
It's going to happen between January and April
when your tax preparer says things like, how
much mileage did you have this year?
We can write that off and that off
and that off and that off.
And we're just, guys, you guys are not
getting it tonight, huh?
But that's what, we're challenged in this area
in wealth because we want to hold on
to as much as we can.
Now there's nothing wrong with using wisdom and
being a good steward.
See you can be a good steward so
you have a generous soul, generous heart.
There's nothing wrong with that.
Actually a wise steward does have a genuine
heart and vice versa.
Generous, when a person wants to give of
their time and their money and their resources.
So at this point you might say, what's
the, how do I fix this, Shane?
Well, the same way James was prescribing.
The cure is humility.
The cure is always humility.
Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God.
Humble yourself and admit this is an area.
And he goes on to say in verse
7, therefore be patient, brethren.
He just rebuked them.
He goes from, you have lived on earth
in pleasure and luxury.
You have fattened your hearts as in a
day of slaughter.
You have condemned, you have murdered the just
and he does not resist you.
Therefore, be patient, brethren, until the coming of
the Lord.
See how the farmer waits for the precious
fruit of the earth, waiting patiently for it
until it receives the early and latter rain.
You also be patient.
Establish your hearts for the coming of the
Lord is at hand.
And he was tying in, I believe, patience
with often wealth.
We want to be in fast forward motion,
don't we?
We want to be going a hundred miles
an hour.
It's got to get it, got to get
it now.
Patience.
God says patiently wait upon me.
I mean, maybe if you're not struggling with
wealth, I bet you're struggling with patience or
both.
That's a double whammy.
Patience, waiting patiently.
Isn't it interesting about patience?
It's the one thing you pray for, but
you don't want God to test you in
this area to build it.
Lord, give me patience.
The only way you're going to get and
acquire patience is being tested by things that
try your patience.
People try your patience.
Kids try your patience.
That's true.
Kids, people, places, work.
Lord, you're not moving quick enough in this
area.
And finances, while we're on that subject, finances
try us too in our patience.
Lord, why isn't this happening?
Why?
I can't understand it.
We want to hurry up.
Many times we want to pull ourselves out
of the fire.
We want to pull ourselves out of that
difficult situation, don't we?
If possible, we want to live in this
nice bubble that doesn't hurt.
There's no pain.
Lord, pull me out of this bad relationship.
Lord, pull me out of this challenging home
environment.
Lord, pull me out of this hard work
environment.
Lord, pull me out of this trying time
where I'm hurting financially.
And pull me all out of this thing
so I can just sit at home and
watch Joanne Gaines and Chip remodel homes and
just sit there in total comfort.
But James says you need patience.
Establish your hearts for the coming of the
Lord is at hand.
And establish your heart there.
He's ending on this, so I'll end on
this.
And then we'll go into the next area
later.
Establish your heart for out of the heart
is all the, it's a wellspring of life.
Out of the abundance of the heart, the
mouth speaks.
Everything comes out of our hearts.
So James says to establish your heart.
It's imagery there in the Greek language of
putting it on a foundation.
You know what a foundation is, right?
They dig down into the dirt.
They pour the concrete.
Out of the concrete, there are these metal
bolts that come out.
And they tie and they put the, they
tie the walls to it.
How they do it, they put holes in
the wood and the frames.
They put those over those big nuts and
they screw down, or bolts, and they screw
down the nuts.
And that holds the wall.
It's established.
So you have to establish your heart in
patience.
Lord, why isn't this happening right now?
Lord, do you want us to do this?
Do you want us to go here, do
that?
Lord, you're not answering.
I can't take this much longer.
Have you ever said that?
Please, somebody say yes.
Don't leave me up here by myself.
I have off it.
Lord, please establish your heart.
And what you're establishing here, you're establishing patience,
but you're establishing your trust in God.
For the coming of the Lord is at
hand.
So when I establish my heart, I say,
Lord, your word says this.
You've promised this.
I know you to be this.
I'm establishing my heart.
I'm building my heart on your promises and
on what you've said.
And that's how I'm going to live my
life.
And that's what he does to establish the
heart.
But for riches and those who are struggling
in this area, humble yourself.
Humble yourself.
And you don't even have to give here.
You could give to Grace Resource this time
of year.
You could give to Care Net Pregnancy Resource
Council.
There's wonderful organizations that you could, you know,
I've got to give some of this away.
It's got to hold on me.
And I don't like it.
It's got to hold.
And I want to give some of its
power away.
Because it loses, riches lose their power when
they're given away.
They maintain their power and that power grows
as we hold it closer.
Like kryptonite with Superman.
He's got to get as far away from
that as possible.
Shane, that's a fictitious story.
I know, but the principle is true.
You've got to get as far away as
you can from that that is going to
pull you away from God.
And the only way to get rid of
it is if God's giving it to you,
save some.
I mean, you know the old saying, give
10%, save 10%, spend 10%, use wisdom, bless
others, and allow God to direct you through
giving in a generous heart.
And I guess maybe I'm just, I don't
know if it even applies to most people
here, but I've been in churches in the
past, where I knew guys that were in
the stock market and very wealthy, very wealthy,
but they were the most stingiest person you
ever knew.
They would nickel and dime a receipt from
a waitress.
This is off 25 cents.
I don't think this cup costs that.
And just, you know, they wouldn't give to
those in need.
They wouldn't help those in need.
And they were Christians.
They held on to this.
They were so happy about their retirement, and
their gold went from $300 an ounce to
$1,800 an ounce.
They could tell you all, I just made
$35,000 in the last two years.
But they're a Scrooge.
And they're Christians, so it happens.
And I've seen a hurt that hurts their
marriage, it hurts their walk with the Lord,
it hurts their relationship with their kids.
Why Shane?
Because that becomes their God.
That becomes their God, and that's who they
worship, that's who they bow down to, that's
who they live their life around.
And the only way to crush that idol
is to give it away.