James 5
Notes
Transcript
James 5
James 5
Good morning Saints! If there was anywhere in the book of James that it was true what some commentators say about the similarities between James and the book of Proverbs it might be this fifth chapter.
As James prepares to close out his letter, he hits on various topics that kind of jump from issue to issue throughout the chapter. In some ways it could be seen as the left overs, and in others it can be seen as final thoughts or last words.
You guys know I have a lot of favorite spots in the bible. And that that sometimes changes as we move through the book. Maybe it has to do with absence making the heart grow fonder, as it does take us a while to make it back to a section once we leave it. James however, is always at the top of the list. It is just so real, and so raw.
In my mind, James separates authentic Christianity from the pretenders. I don’t say that to knock the one that is struggling in their faith, or that may have wandered away, James will actually address that at the end of the book.
But what James does is to completely eliminate the delusion that you can add a little bit of Jesus into your life and continue on living however you want to live. James reminds us of who Jesus is. That He is God. That He is the One that made salvation possible for us, and did so by coming to this earth, and living how we live (except, and this is huge, without sin.) Then He paid the price for your sin and mine, remember that price is death, for the wages of sin is death.
So He was scourged, beaten and whipped, his beard plucked from His face, and then He was crucified on a cross, dying an excruciating death. And then unlike anyone before, or since, He was resurrected to life, never to die again.
In exchange for that He asks that you follow Him. That you live for Him. And James tells us that there is no such thing as a Christian that continues to be ruled by themselves, and is continuously walking in sin. James tells us not to fool ourselves into thinking that is a real faith. He calls it a dead faith. Listen, if you haven’t been with us through this letter, it’s only 5 chapters, read it today.
James says if you have a living faith, not a dead faith, your walk is going to match your talk.
And life might actually be hard at times. In fact, and I’m not going to review the whole letter, but let me remind you of where we began.
2 My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials,
3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.
4 But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
See James doesn’t let us be deceived by our hopes, or even our expectations....see most of us come to Christ looking for what we perceive to be a better life. We think if we turn to God, then more things will go our way. Right? I mean that’s the sales pitch most Christians give us…you’re life is a mess, there is no hope in any of the paths you’ve taken, you need to turn your life over to God, so everything will be peaches and cream and you will be living the dream…and then what happens?
You fall into various trials and you get more discouraged than you’ve even been, because you’re last ditch effort of showing up to church a couple of times a month has now failed you too.
That’s what I love so much about the book of James! James lays reality out there....See we come in hearing verses like...
4 Delight yourself also in the Lord, And He shall give you the desires of your heart.
5 Commit your way to the Lord, Trust also in Him, And He shall bring it to pass.
We hear that or read that and interpret it to mean that God is some kind of Genie, who is going to give me everything my little heart desires. James actually, but not literally explains these verse better than an preacher or Bible commentator I’ve ever heard. James says that a real faith, a living faith is going to change us completely.
It’s going to change how we sound, it will change what we do, and it will change our heart. See James would tell us that if we delight ourselves in the Lord, He shall give us the desires of our hearts, but not how we might think. That doesn’t mean giving us everything we want, it means changing what we want. It means God will plant His desires in our hearts, that what giving us the desires of our hearts means, and that in time, He will bring it to pass…oh, and that might be through some trials and some tough stuff!
See that’s why James tells us to count it joy when, not if the trials come, but when they come. Knowing those trials have a purpose. They will produce patience, or endurance. How much do we grow in our patience or endurance during times of feasting, or blessing, times of ease and comfort? Probably not hardly at all. It’s the trials that drive us to our knees, it’s the trials that cause us to pray without ceasing.
So even when God doesn’t fix the bad stuff, even when all is said and done, we come out on the short end of the stick, we can find joy in knowing that God didn’t let it happen that way without a good reason. He doesn’t have to tell us the reason, but if we continue to trust Him with it, and talk to Him through it, He will 100% of the time, use it for our good and our growth.
So chapter 5 briefly
We can break it down into three major sections....
Verses 1-6 can be looked at as having Wisdom in wealth, verses 7-12 Wisdom in Persevering, and the final section…verses 13-20 Wisdom in Service.
Let’s pray - Lord please speak to us this morning through your Word and help us to get it. Show us Lord what you what us to see and what it should look like in our lives. In Jesus’ name, amen.
1 Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you!
2 Your riches are corrupted, and your garments 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 heaped up treasure in the last days.
How wealth was measured....Food (rotted), garments (moth eaten) members only, alligator shirts, and riches gold and silver...
God doesn’t hate the wealthy....
Abraham, David, Solomon, Barnabas, Zacchaeus, probably Matthew.
But Jesus did say it is hard for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Paul writes in his letter to Timothy that it is the Love of money that is the root or the starting point of all kinds of evil.
In the sermon on the mount Jesus really breaks is down for us.
24 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
Just before this He says…Matt 6:21
21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
There is so much truth to that! They say you can tell much about a person by looking at their checkbook. Now I know there are lots of you in this room that probably have no idea what a checkbook is, that’s OK, what it means is where you actually spend your money says something about your heart. If you don’t believe me take your tax return this year and invest it in a stock of your choosing. Perhaps you’ve never cared about the stock market, or never really cared about the stock you chose, but someone told you it was a good one.
That happened to me a few years back. Someone told me about a great stock in a up and coming company that I would be a fool to not invest in. So I bought some stock. And although I never cared about his company before, or the products they sold....I started reading about them, researching them, started check the stock every week, sometimes every day, and what I never cared about before I put my treasure in it, kinda became a bit of an obsession. Fortunately, the company went completely bankrupt so I don’t have to worry about that anymore.
What I want you to see here is that James is not bashing the wealthy, but he is being straight with those who are wise with the way they have acquired their wealth. Lets keep going...
4 Indeed the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.
5 You have lived on the earth in pleasure and luxury; you have fattened your hearts as in a day of slaughter.
6 You have condemned, you have murdered the just; he does not resist you.
This luxury and live of pleasure that you have lived has done no more for you than to fatten you up for the slaughter. True wealth is not measured by our possessions, but rather by our position with God. We are children of the King.
7 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.
8 You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.
9 Do not grumble against one another, brethren, lest you be condemned. Behold, the Judge is standing at the door!
10 My brethren, take the prophets, who spoke in the name of the Lord, as an example of suffering and patience.
There are all kinds of examples in the bible of the suffering of the prophets. It’s kind of funny when you look at the church today and people self proclaiming themselves to be prophets. I can’t think of a single old testament prophet that was received and loved and elevated in his time. I don’t just mean that they were mock and rejected by the lost world, they were messengers of God, often to the people of God and were rejected. Jeremiah was thrown in jail.
Hosea was asked by God to marry a prostitute that continued to be unfaithful to him. Wicked King Ahab and his wife Jezabel wanted Elijah dead and he feared them so much he ran for his life. Elisha that was a man of miracles, specifically the miracle of healing, yet died himself of a painful illness.
But they remained faithful and were an example to the angels and an example to us in suffering and patience. Verse. 11
11 Indeed we count them blessed who endure. You have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the Lord—that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful.
12 But above all, my brethren, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath. But let your “Yes” be “Yes,” and your “No,” “No,” lest you fall into judgment.
Do what you say you’re going to do and let what you say be true. Now this last section is what we labeled wisdom in service, because James lists out a bunch of different situations of types of people that you are going to have in any church that you serve in.
13 Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms.
14 Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.
Notice who the responsibility lies on to ask.
15 And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.
Now on the prayer of faith. We sometimes don’t pray a true prayer of faith, because we don’t know what God might do, or might not do. Pray in faith and let God worry about His own reputation.
16 Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.
First confess our sins to God
9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Then Go to the one we have sinned against, that’s a great place to start.
This doesn’t mean that we have open mic night at the end of every service where we come up one by one and confess our sins to everyone.
But there is an element of value in doing this and the enemy wants sin to isolate us from others and keep it a secret. Confession exposes us and that is a good thing.
17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months.
18 And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit.
I kings 18 says he prayed 7 times, but the point was that he prayed until God answered the prayer.
19 Brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back,
20 let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.
Notice no goodbye, no ending, just this instruction to get to work.
Grace and Peace