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So now, if you've got your Bibles, open them up.
We're at James chapter 5.
We're going to start reading in verse 1.
Read verses 1 through 6 this morning.
James says,
Come now, you rich.
Weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you.
Your riches have rotted, and your garments are moth-eaten.
Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you,
and will eat your flesh like fire.
You have laid up treasure in the last days.
Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud,
are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the
Lord of hosts.
You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence.
You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter.
You have condemned and murdered the righteous person.
He does not resist you.
So as we read this, as we dive in, I don't know if you're like me, but a lot of times we
read scripture, and immediately it's like, all right, how is this relating to me?
And then we hear, come now, you rich.
And so we're like, whew, not me today, right?
Well, maybe it is.
Maybe it is you.
Maybe it is me.
As we dive in, as we look at this.
Because what I want us to get to is that while we can begin to think that that money is going
to be the target of the message this morning, that money is going to be the target of James
as he pens this, is that money is not the target at all.
And so what I want us to do this morning as we get into this, I want us to take just a few
moments this morning and begin by debunking the money and the wealth myth that oftentimes is held
by believers.
And it's going to give us some of the importance of what it means as we talk about this, of
reading scripture in context, all right?
The importance of reading the entirety of scripture, of working through and understanding what God's
word says.
Because if we read this on a surface level, we can walk away from here by saying, well,
if I'm not wealthy, if I don't have a lot of money, then this isn't about me.
Because this is about the wealthy, this is about money, and that's not me.
All right?
But that's not at all what James is getting us to.
So the first myth that I want us to kind of work out and understand that this isn't true,
myth number one, is that money is evil.
Money is not evil.
In fact, look at scripture.
Right?
First Timothy 6.10.
For the, what love of money is a root of all kinds of evils.
It is through this craving that some have wandered away from faith and pierced themselves with
many pains.
So, so Paul writes to Timothy and he says, look, here's what you need to understand.
For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evils, plural.
And that people have wandered away from the faith because of this.
Jesus looks at his followers in Luke 16.13 and says, no servant can serve two masters.
For either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise
the other.
You cannot serve God and money.
So is money a cautious thing for us as believers?
Yes.
You and I, with what we do in accountability, you and I, with what we do in integrity, you
and I, with what we do with God has blessed us with, need to be mindful when it comes to
things of money.
But the truth is, you can be broke and still idolize money.
You can be not a penny in the account this morning with no hope of another penny to come
in tomorrow and still fall into the pattern of sin where we idolize and love money.
I used this illustration a few weeks ago, and I'm going to use it again.
Money is like a hammer, right?
It's what you do with it.
Hammers build houses.
They don't fix computers, right?
The illustration, a guy named Tom McCullough, was my first small group leader that I ever
had.
And Tom, a little bit older than me, Tom, brilliant mind engineer, but that man hated computers.
And I was sitting there one day, and we were talking.
I was like, yeah, I had some issues at work today.
My computer's not working right.
And he's like, well, bring your computer to me.
I can fix it.
Now, I know here's what Tom can do.
Tom can build anything.
He can fix tractors, cars, like the man is a plumber, like he's got it all.
And for a moment, I was really impressed.
I was like, Tom, of all the things that you can do, you can fix computers too.
He said, absolutely, I only need one tool, a hammer.
And if you give me a hammer, I can promise you that computer will never be an issue for
you again, right?
So, Tom, that's not fixing it, buddy.
That's not what I need, right?
Hammers for building houses.
Hammers don't fix computers, right?
We're going to see that money is not the issue.
Money can be used for a lot of good in this world.
Money can be used for the sake of the gospel in this world.
But money can also be used in the love and pursuit of money for a lot of evil in this world
as well.
So, what we'll be able to understand, right, is that money isn't evil, but that the love
of money is, and it matters whose hand it's in, and the condition of their heart, right?
Myth number two, rich people are evil, right?
Rich people are evil, right?
We see this, we hear this, we get the feeling for this.
All of a sudden, we see people with wealth, and we think greedy.
We think cheaters.
We go back to, like, the Robin Hood days, right?
They're just taken from the poor of what's there.
That rich people, if you are rich, then you've got to have a past that's a little bit sketchy
to get you where you are today, right?
That's what we begin to feel and think oftentimes, but it's not the case at all.
Just as many instances in life today and in Scripture, right?
Boaz, from the story of Ruth, right?
Wealthy, wealthy man.
He's his kinsman redeemer for her.
Provides and cares and is good and is righteous in who he is.
You see, Joseph of Arimathea in Matthew 27, a very wealthy man.
And after the crucifixion of Jesus, when everyone's running away and everyone's hiding and everyone's
afraid, they don't want to be arrested, what does he do?
He goes to Pilate, asks for the body of Jesus, prepares the body for burial, and placed Jesus
into his family's tomb.
A man of wealth, a man of power, but a man who loved Christ, right?
We see Lydia in Acts chapter 16, a wealthy business one from Thyatira who was saved under
the teaching of Paul in Philippi.
And a lot of early church historians suggest that she and her funds were a lot of what could
take place to help spread the gospel and to fund missionaries during the days of the early
church.
And this is what we see.
We see in King David.
We see in King Solomon over and over and over again, we see people of wealth, people with
money, but who were using it for the means who glorify God.
So where do we get this from?
Where do we begin to get these things, these notions in our head that money is evil and that
if you have a lot of it, then you must be evil too?
Well, oftentimes we as believers get this because we take scripture out of context.
We don't understand what is happening.
So if you've got your Bibles open, hold where you're at in James 5, but jump over to Matthew
19.
It's an interaction that Jesus is going to have.
We're going to look at his interaction with his disciples first.
And then we're going to jump back a few moments before that happened and look at his interaction
with someone else.
So Matthew 19, verse 23.
And Jesus said to his disciples, truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich
person enter the kingdom of heaven.
And we're like, well, pause.
That's all we need right there, right?
Verse 24.
Again, I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than for
a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.
When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, who then can be saved?
But Jesus looked at them and said, with man, this is impossible, but with God, all things
are possible.
What Jesus is doing in Matthew 19, 23 through 26, is he's explaining to the disciples what
just happened.
He's explaining to them what just took place, what they observed as they would have been
shocked to watch Jesus' conversation with a man that most of us know as the rich young
ruler or the rich young man.
There's this individual a few verses earlier, and he comes to Jesus, and he asks Jesus a question.
And his question is, what good deed must I do to inherit eternal life?
And Jesus, in this dialogue with him, asked him about the word good.
And he says, well, what is good?
What good deed must I do, the rich young man says.
And Jesus says to him, well, there is only one who is good.
And then Jesus used the words, keep the commandments.
Now, here's what this means.
If you've ever broken one, if you are breaking one, or if you ever will break one, then you're
not keeping, you haven't kept, and you will not keep the commandments.
And so Jesus lays out before him a list, not of all of them, but of some.
And you and I know, yeah, violated that, violated that, violated that, violated that.
But the rich young man looks at him and says, but I've done all.
All of us.
Looks at him, I'm a walking picture of religious perfection is what he claims before Christ.
And then Jesus looks at him and says, right?
He says, if I've done all this, what do I still lack?
And Jesus said to him, if you would be perfect, go and sell what you possess and give to the
poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come follow me.
And when the young man heard this, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
So Jesus, as he looks at his disciples, is explaining to them what just happened before.
And he says, that idol that you have that's in your heart, go and get rid of it, and then
come and follow me.
You see, Jesus' disciples would have been blown away that this conversation is even happening
to begin with.
Because in most of the culture of that time, if you were Jewish and you had a lot of money,
which this guy was Jewish, this guy did have a lot of money, then everyone around you believed
that you were going to heaven.
Not because you could buy your way in, but because it was obvious by your amount of wealth
that you've been blessed by God.
And what Jesus does here, he says, no, no, no, no, no, no, it's about the heart.
It's about the heart.
How you define yourself, where you see, are you pursuing this, or are you pursuing the Lord?
And so Jesus steps right in and cuts to the heart of it.
So while it may appear here that James is going after the wealthy, James is more so attacking
the heart of those who sinfully love their money.
Look back at verses one and three.
One through three.
Come now, you rich.
Weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you.
Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten.
Your gold and silver have corroded and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat
your flesh like fire.
You have laid up treasure in the last days.
So if we're not talking about the sin of money, then what are we looking at here?
And the first thing I think James is addressing here is the love of money and the sin of selfishness.
The love of money and the sin of selfishness.
James begins with a warning here.
If money is at your heart, whether you've got a lot of it or none of it, if money is at the pursuit
of the love that's there, James begins with a warning.
Weep and howl for the misery that is coming.
Those are strong words.
James says, this is who you are.
It's not a brokenness that needs to happen when it takes place, but in every fiber of your being
that this is what awaits you.
And then he describes this sin, that the sin of selfishness that's manifest itself right through
the behavior of hoarding is what we see.
The sin of selfishness that looks at the possessions of what they've accumulated over time and says
this, what is mine is mine.
Ooh.
Is that our mindset?
What is mine is mine.
That's logical.
That's culturally applicable.
But it's just not biblical.
And that's the problem.
The sin of selfishness says what's mine is mine.
And so James defines it here that you have more than you need.
And instead of being generous from the excess, you say, no, no, no, no, this is mine.
So he says this, your clothes, they rot.
Your gold and silver, they corrode.
And what happens is that God is watching.
God is watching.
So what do we do with these things?
If it's not bad to have them, then what does it look like when we have them?
What's the attitude that glorifies the Lord in our life in a calling of being generous?
You know, you have those moments where if you're writing a book, you're going to list these stories that have happened in your life.
At least that's how my mind thinks.
And one of those is a conversation that I had very early on in ministry at the first church that I was serving at with a man by the name of Melvin Lord.
Now, Melvin's gone on to be with the Lord at a young age.
Went in for a simple outpatient surgery, right?
And in that time, the Lord called him home.
But if you were to ask me, like some of the most godly men that God's ever given me the privilege to be around, Melvin and Lord.
Melvin Lord is one of those.
Just what all that God taught me through his kindness and his grace and his generosity just was mind-blowing.
But early on in our ministry at the church there, Melvin said, hey, I want to come by the office because I've got something for you.
I'm like, okay, great, great, great.
So he came by that day and he gave me a gift.
He gave me a gift.
Now, what a gift is, it's not important, but Melvin gave me a gift.
And so I'm sitting there, I'm early on in ministry, not even married yet.
Just getting ready to get married in a couple of weeks.
And I'm trying to parse through in my brain, how do I humbly interact in this moment?
Very generous gift.
And I said to Melvin in that moment, I said, man, thank you so much for this, but I just don't know if I can accept it.
But thank you.
Thank you so much.
And I'll never forget.
You can ask Aaron.
Melvin always smiled.
He stopped smiling.
And he looked at me and he said this, Bo, God told me to do this for you, to give this to you.
Now, what you do with it is between you and him.
But I don't care about being obedient to you.
I care about being obedient to the Lord.
Okay.
Folks, that's generosity.
I'm not who Melvin was being obedient to.
I'm not the focal point of the story.
God is, as Melvin says, what you've told me to do, Lord, I'm going to do.
And what he does with it is between you and him.
But I'm going to live in the obedience of generosity.
Melvin's definition of generosity was not based in my worthiness, but was based in his obedience to the Lord.
So, don't be selfish.
Be generous.
Don't be selfish.
Be generous.
How do we fight against the love of money, the sinful love of money, the sinful pursuit of selfishness?
Be generous.
Your clothes are going to rot.
Your money is going to corrode.
But eternity matters.
Be generous.
Let's keep looking at verse 4.
Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you.
And the cries of the harvesters had reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.
You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence.
You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter.
You have condemned and murdered the righteous person.
He does not resist you.
So, we've seen the love of money, right, through the sin of selfishness.
But now here what we see is the love of money and the sin of stealing.
It's the sin of stealing, right?
So, the sin of selfishness says, what is mine is mine.
And the sin of stealing says, and what is yours is mine.
Now, the illustration that James gives us here is of a wealthy landowner who hires people to work for him.
And instead of paying them what he promised, what is right, he defrauds them.
And he took the money that would have been right to give to them, whether he lied and didn't follow through or he underpaid of what the job was worth.
Both of those are defrauding.
Both of them are defrauding.
And instead, he lived extravagantly with it.
Now, when you and I think of stealing, we kind of think on scales, right?
Right?
We all had it.
We all did it, right?
That on a low scale, it's the sin of the little kid who the cookie jars left out on the counter.
Mom says, no cookies.
What do they do?
Mom's not looking.
Cookie, right?
Chocolate all over the mouth.
You're caught.
You're guilty.
Stop sinning, right?
We think of that.
Or we think of the extremes.
The bank robber.
People breaking into houses.
Taking what's not theirs.
If you've ever been, not a part of the action, but if you've ever been a part of a recipient of someone who's broken in,
it's one of the most violating experiences you can go through.
And we think of these extremes.
But James kind of pulls it down into this dynamic of this social interaction that is seen from employer to employee.
Where, again, I want to emphasize this.
It's either they didn't fulfill what they said they were going to do, or they devalued and defrauded and should have paid more,
but instead, through sinful means, paid less.
And so what we see from this is that James tells us here that if we steal from people within our hearts,
what we're doing is we're seeking to deceive them from our own personal benefit.
Right?
So now, now theft is deception that benefits me.
Theft is deception, not truth, that benefits me.
We're deceiving.
It's what comes from our heart.
So while money is at the heart of this illustration, what we see, the question, what we should look at is,
but are we people who devalue others enough so what we look to do is to defraud and to deceive so that we can benefit from them?
We see these matters of integrity, right?
I read this pastor this week, and he said this.
You can either get what you want in life by using people to get it,
or you can love people in this world by using what God has given you to bless them.
It's the matter and the point of what we see against others,
what we see and how we view them, right?
So what are we doing?
How do we view others?
What is this picture that God is giving us in these moments, right?
It's about our hearts.
The heart of selfishness, the heart of stealing, the heart of greed that we have.
So I want to close with this.
What do we do with money then?
What do we do with it?
So earlier in James 1, we kind of see a glimpse of this.
James 1 verse 16.
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above,
coming down from the Father of lights,
with whom there is no variation or shadow due to its change.
So let's look at what we've received.
Let's look at money.
Let's look at our gifts.
Let's look at our families.
Let's look at our lives.
Let's look at our time and ask ourselves this question.
If it's been the sin, the love of money and the sin that accompanies it,
then let's look at the positive and see the love of God and the call to stewardship.
The love of God and the call to stewardship.
This is what God gives us as God blesses, as God provides in for each one of us as he sees fit.
Because while we've seen the behaviors and the patterns of those who love money and respond sinfully,
what is mine is mine, or what is yours is mine as well.
Stewardship says this, all that I have is God's.
And God allows me, calls me, and commands me to be a manager of it.
To be a manager of it.
So stewardship says, all that I have is a gift from the Lord.
And I want to please him with it.
I want him to see with what I have done and his response to me is that I used it for his name and for his glory.
That I used it not in selfish pursuit of myself, but what I used it was in selfless pursuit of the gospel.
That I was a steward.
And so the illustration that James rolls with is the issue of money.
So let's talk in closing about the behaviors of stewardship when it comes to money.
So what do we do with what we have?
What do we do?
Maybe we're in high school and we've got that first job.
About said Chick-fil-A because it feels like every high schooler works at Chick-fil-A, right?
But it's good, man.
That line's four miles long and you're out of there in five minutes.
I'm just telling you.
I don't know how they do it.
Right?
One day, this is side note, side note completely, but you're going to go to a Clemson, Carolina football game and Highway Patrol's not going to be out there.
But it's going to be a thousand Chick-fil-A teenagers.
And they're going to have everybody out of that stadium in less than five minutes.
All right?
They can do it.
I don't know how.
All right.
So whether you're in high school with your first job, you're getting into your career, you see that check that you didn't know you could make that much money,
or you see that check and you didn't know you could make so little, and you're wondering, wait a minute, wait a minute.
They said this salary, but I see all of these negatives that are on one side of this check, right?
You're retired, living up off of what you've saved and what you're being given.
What are the behaviors of stewardship?
This has been where I just sat down with the Lord this weekend, just wrestled.
Talking and thinking through others that I see this in their life, looking at Scripture, and I found five practices.
This isn't, please hear me, this isn't one of these where it's like, man, just do these and your heart will be good.
But I will say, when I see these existing in the areas of my life is when I know that I glorify God the best.
Amen?
Number one, tithe.
Tithe.
This isn't going to be a message about tithing, but we talk about money and we talk about the Bible, so we've got to talk about it.
Tithe.
10% to the church.
Here's the deal.
We don't command it, God does.
And when you don't do it, it's sin.
That's it.
Tithe.
God says, I give you this, and here's your response back to your church.
Tithe.
And here's the deal.
God doesn't need your money or my money.
But let me tell you this.
I need God to have it.
And I need God to work in that.
So number one, tithe.
Tithe.
Number two, give.
Give.
You tithe your church.
Give to where the Lord leads you.
Give.
As God allows you, as God calls you to, give others to as he leads.
Be Melvin Lord.
I'm not doing this for you.
I'm doing this for him.
And what you do with it is between you and the Lord.
But what I'm doing with it right now is between me and him.
Give.
Live generously.
Have that be who you are in life.
Number three, be responsible.
I think oftentimes people hear, be generous, and they think that's permission to be irresponsible.
No, be responsible.
Be responsible.
Right?
Pay your bills.
If you said that you're going to buy something, pay for it.
Be responsible.
Pay your bills.
And Jesus says, pay your taxes.
You can take that up with him, right?
Be responsible.
Number four, spend less than you make.
Spend less than you make.
A struggle.
I think sometimes we blame a younger generation for this, but studies show, regardless of age,
that this is our tendency.
Spend less than you make, because most times we spend more than we make.
And the freedom that comes when we're not dependent on week to week to run that account to zero,
but to trust God and do what we do.
And find, find the humility and the contentment of that.
And lastly, lastly, save.
Save.
Save and invest.
I love looking and listening to Dave Ramsey.
I know we got some people that are passionate about Dave Ramsey here.
They listen to his podcast.
They've read all his books.
He's all those things.
Like, I'm not there yet, right?
But I love Dave Ramsey.
I love the wisdom that he brings with money.
But what I love about Dave Ramsey the most, it's not that Dave Ramsey has helped marriages,
because he has.
As men and women fight over debt and spending, and we've seen it destroy marriage after marriage
after marriage.
I love that he does that, but that's not what I love the most about Dave Ramsey.
What I love the most about the teaching of Dave Ramsey is this.
He is pro-saving and pro-investing, and he's pro-accumulating wealth.
So when the time comes, you can live a life that blesses others and glorifies God.
That the more that we have, the more that we can give, the more work that we can fund,
the more that we contribute in there, and the more that it's the heart of God for us to do that.
And this is what it means for us to be stewards.
You can't be a steward.
You can't be a steward with what God has blessed you with
if you love the gift that he's given you more than him.
You can't love the gift more than the giver and glorify the giver.
And that's the heart of this.
It's like I started out with you this morning.
This isn't just a warning to the rich.
It's the warning of all of us who have the heart that seeks themselves above the Lord.
Would you pray with me?
God, I come to you this morning.
We're thanking you so much for the power and the truth of the application of your word.
Lord, we've seen so many times in our life,
would the pursuit and the love of money above all things destroy so much?
It weakens the character of the man or the woman who has it.
When there's a deep love for money,
it causes all sorts of pursuits
that are not righteous,
that are not of you.
But God, you give.
You give us so many things.
All good gifts come from you.
And Lord, I pray with what you've blessed us with,
with our money,
with our lives,
with our families,
with our talents,
with our time,
Lord, that we would not be the object of how we use those,
but that you would be.
So with every part
of everything
that we think is ours,
Lord, could we come to you today
and say,
it's not mine,
it's yours.
And thank you for entrusting me with it.
And now let me use it
in a way
that glorifies you.
Let me use it
in a way
that brings people
to know you.
Let me use it
in a way
that reflects Christ.
Let me use it
in a way
that builds contentment
in my heart
with Jesus.
Let me use it
in a way
that shows the world
that I am
a follower
of Jesus Christ.
And Lord,
may we not be
the rich young ruler
who walks out of here sad
because we cling to
what we sinfully love.
But can we be
the rich young ruler
who walks out of here
saying,
Jesus,
I'm gonna
I'm gonna obey you.
Whatever it is
I set to the side
out of the great importance
of following you.
Jesus,
I pray for every
person who's here.
We know the idols
of our heart.
Lord,
I pray that this morning
we'd repent of them.
Seeking to deeper
our relationship.
Seeking to deeper
our obedience to you.
no matter what it is.
And Lord,
I pray that there's
anyone here this morning
that they would say
that they don't have
a relationship with you.
They'd say this morning
that I'm my own Savior.
Religious thought
is my Savior.
That anything else
other than you,
Lord,
that they would surrender
that.
That they would admit
that they're a sinner.
Or that they would believe
that Jesus Christ
is the Son of God
who died on the cross
for their sins
and rose from the tomb
so that we may have
life in Him
and confess Him
as Lord and Savior.
And then in that moment
Lord,
that today would be
the day of their salvation.
And we can celebrate
that with Him.
Let us in Jesus
do we pray.
Amen.
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