Sermon Tone Analysis

Reading Ecc 2:4-10

Good morning everyone and thank you for being here today.

I hope you have prepared yourself to receive something this morning.

That you come expectantly to be engaged in the message this morning.

Announcements

Tom 80th Bday

Janitorial Position

Prayer

We come to the 5th chapter of James this morning.

And as we come to this section of scripture we will come to probably that harshest words that James presents to the church.

He has brought up the topic of the rich and poor and he brings up again today.

If you recall in chapter 1 he encouraged the brother of humble circumstances the boast in exaltation because of the high place that they have been put in and the rich boast in in his humiliation because he recognizes that he will pass away like the flower of the field.

The Christian weather rich or poor has a been saved and boast in what the gospel has shown them to be true.

Then in the 1st half of Chapter 2 he condemns the favoritism that was being shown in the church.

They were giving preferential treatment to the wealthy and dishonoring the poor.

He even comes to the point that he says “If, however, you show favoritism, you commit sin...

And in the second half of the same chapter he uses the treatment of the poor as a negative example of faith and works.

James 2:15-17 “15 If a brother or sister is without clothes and lacks daily food 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, stay warm, and be well fed,” but you don’t give them what the body needs, what good is it?

17 In the same way faith, if it does not have works, is dead by itself.”

He returns the the rich and the poor in chapter 5 and this is where we begin today.

Open your bibles and stand with me as we read the Lord’s Words.

Why does James keep coming back to the rich and the poor.

Is it wrong to be rich?

He seems to be pretty hard on those that he defines as rich.

First of all it is not sinful to be wealthy.

It is also not sinful to be poor.

Money in itself is neither good or bad.

Jesus said that it comes down to who or what you serve.

Money and riches can become a mater over a person.

Paul didn’t say that money is the root of all kinds of evil he said.

What he said is:

There are many places in the bible that states that God gave wealth to people but he also took it away for his purposes.

Jesus came and turned the connection of wealth and spirituality on its head.

It was a prevalent belief of the time that the gods would distribute wealth to the virtuous and good and remove it from the those that we not virtuous.

One’s wealth was proportional to their virtue and so the rich thought they were being rewarded for who they were.

What a person had was a symbol of who they were.

This lead to the wealthy to spend abundant amounts of money on projects and showy things to display how good they were.

There was no value in giving to the poor, this would lower a persons wealth and thus have a negative effect.

This shouldn’t have been the same in the people of God.

He always championed the poor, the widow, and others that were marginalized and did not have the means to take care of themselves.

The reality of James is context is that there were only two economic classes.

They were the really reach and the really poor.

Taxation of the poor for the projects of the rich was a huge impact on the people.

On top of that unlike today there were barriers that prevented people from moving from one class to the other.

One resource I found put rough 5% of the population in the wealthy class and they held 50%+ of the trade.

Everyone else, the other 95%, served the top 5%.

95% would be defined at the poverty line and lower.

No wonder they were calling out for a savior to come and overturn the situation that they were in.

He just did not overrun it they way they thought he was going to.

We find that the early church spread though the poor.

There are very few people referenced in the NT that would have been on the wealthy side of the economic class.

But we now there is a portion because James has already addressed them a couple of times.

He has been giving tests so to say to determine who the true believers are and here James is addressing the rich and gives a stark condemnation of them.

He is going to break down the evils that these people were doing with how they were dealing with money and in reality how they were serving the master of money and not God.

He starts with a warning that the rich people need to wake up.

Come!!! now you rich people.

Weep and wail over the miseries coming.

The Old testament calls out the rich in this type of language multiple times.

It should not have been new to the Jewish Christian’s but was probably new to the Gentile Christians.

Who is James speaking of?

Who would be in this group?

Is it everybody with money.

No, he then goes on to tell of the characteristics of the people that fall under this rebuke.

Sinful Storing

One of the characteristics of the rich that James is referring to is that they have horded their wealth for them selves.

James brings up three areas that were used to define a person financial status.

First is food.

It is likely that James is refering to food that has been collected and stored but will in the end rot because they have an abundance that they do not share.

This may bring to mind Jesus’ parable of the Rich Fool in Luke

Like this man there is this idea in these people to store up their food for a day that they can take it easy and drink, and enjoy yourself.

Jesus teaches in the parable to store up treasure for God and not for ones self.

He doesn’t say be poor but he says that the wealth that has been given to you should be used in a way that honors and pleases God.

Food was one of the ways that wealth was defined and if not taken care of it will rot in the end.

Second he says that their cloths are moth-eaten.

The cloths here refer to outer garments such as cloaks, robes, and such.

Many that we dressed up with fine embroidery and jewels.

It these would hve been very expensive due to the time to make them without the aid of modern machines.

If you remember back to the story of Achan.

What did he steal from the battle field that he was not supposed to take.

Or Sampson

Clothes were a status symbol and the more you had and the more elaborate they were the more wealthy your were shown to be but James says this is selfish and has no eternal value.

That it is a waste as the clothes in time will deteriorate and be moth eaten.

And lastly he brings up gold and silver.

Gold and silver were or precious metals were also how a person defined wealth.

James says that these metals will rust and corrode away.

We know that silver and gold don’t rust so what is he talking about.

He could be using this literally.

The gold and silver may not have been as pure as we make it today and the contaminating metals could cause it to rust and loose value.

Or it could be figurative that in the end no matter how much gold or silver you have you cannot buy your way into heaven.

That it is useless if it is only used for the selfish purposes of the life on earth.

Either way James’ main point is that the rich store thing of this world for no other reason than for self.

There is no thought of others or God.

He then personifies these things and they will be a witness against them.

How these people store selfish wealth will stand and testify against them as having a saving faith and that they will even condemn them to destruction in judgement of fire.

The last days refers to the time until Jesus returns.

James rebukes the sinful acts of wealth hording.

Sinful Gain

James continues with the next characteristic of the people he was referring to.

The rich not only horded the wealth they gained for themselves the also gain wealth dishonestly.

The day workers were a part of the working economy of the time.