O Brother: Wealth

Back to the yellow box podcast this week, we're joined by community pasture in concern.

As we conclude our series.

For more information, please visit [email protected] Christian god.

Lord, remember you can always find us on Sundays at the yellow box, 9:38 AM, 11:15 AM, and 5:00 PM.

We hope to see you there.

Come on in the community.

How are you feeling this morning?

Let me get a little emotional at that moment.

Just then.

I don't know if I'm just tired, but man, that was.

That was such a gift.

And so grateful for the team and the ways that you guys pour into students here.

A quick quiz.

How many of you know what this is?

Anyone for you college students?

You might not see any of this for awhile.

I'm roughly 20 years.

Uh, yeah.

Okay.

So this of course is a dollar.

It's very familiar.

It's very recognizable.

But what you may not know about this dollar is that it's actually not made of paper at all.

Did you know that is actually 75 percent cotton?

Twenty four percent linen and one percent rainbows.

It's true.

That's actually what dollars are made up.

How about this?

Anyone know what a would.

This is one and it was.

You could say it loud.

It's okay.

We're friends.

So this is a penny.

That's right.

This is a penny a.

But did you know though that this penny actually costs more than a penny to make?

According to the US mint?

Each penny costs one point seven cents to make a, which I'm sure there's a sermon in there somewhere, but if you get enough of both of these things though, you amass enough of these, you get what we call wealth and wealth is something that I think is really interesting to talk about because even now I can sort of see the body language of the room shift a little bit did.

Did you know that the 42 wealthiest people in the world have as much as the poorest half of the planet?

40 two people have as much wealth as three point 7 billion people on the planet.

And so you guessed it.

Today we're talking about wealth.

We're in week five is sherry mentioned of our series.

Oh brother.

And we're calling it that because it's written by James, the half brother of Jesus and the each week we've been telling you a little bit about this James Character and who he was and what he was like.

And I didn't know this too this week, but James is actually had another nickname last week we shared a nickname with them about him and this week I found another nickname and his nickname was James, the just James, the just.

And I think when you read this letter honestly, you see that characteristic all throughout that James lives a disciplined life.

And the thing that's so hard hitting about this letter is that it has incredible practical wisdom for each of us.

And so here in James Chapter five in verse one, James Starts off this way.

James Chapter Five, verse one.

Now listen, you rich people.

Okay?

So how many of you just like gave out a sigh of relief?

Like goof off the hook for this one, right?

He is not talking to me.

Well, I'd like to make the case that he is in fact talking to us.

Did you know that if you made$40,000 a year, you're in the top?

Anyone want to guess what percentage of the world you're in?

The top four percent of wage earners in the world.

If your annual income is$48,000 a year, you are in the top and he guesses top one percent of wage earners in the world.

In fact, I thought it'd be interesting to kind of really drill down specifically here that Chicago median annual income is about$66,000.

And if you made$66,000 last year, you were in the top point one, five percent of wage earners on the entire planet.

We are rich.

James is speaking to us now.

A few years ago a money magazine did an interview.

Um, it was really more of a survey of their subscribers.

And the question was this, how much would you need to have in liquid assets to feel rich?

Does anyone know what the answer was?

How much in liquid assets would you need to have to feel rich?

The answer was$5.

Million Dollars.

$5,000,000.

2 million.

No, I'm destitute.

Three million,$5,000,000 in liquid assets to feel rich.

Maybe a way that we could say there's this, nobody's rich, but everyone knows someone who is right.

None of us are, but we all know somebody who's rich and the problem with not realizing that we are rich is that we often don't behave like we're rich.

If we don't know that we're rich, we won't act like we're rich.

And so James, make no mistake about it is talking to us this morning.

In fact, why don't you turn to a neighbor near you?

Just look them dead in the eyes.

I think he's talking to you.

Why don't you just do that?

I think he's talking to.

Yeah, the east.

Okay, so.

So James gets right to the point here in chapter five and read the whole first verse here.

He says, now listen, you rich people, we and wail because of the misery that is coming on you.

It's intense right now.

I don't write the mail, I just deliver it, but he comes right out the gate.

You rich people weep and wail.

And then this next section that we're going to unpack, he issues for a really intense warnings to the rich both of his day, and I believe the rich of ours.

The first warning is this, don't hoard.

Warning number one, don't hoard.

This is what he says in verses two and three says, your wealth has rotted and models eaten your clothes.

Your gold and silver are corroded.

The corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire.

You have hoarded wealth in the last days.

So this, this tone feels a bit different from James, doesn't it?

Some of you are like man weeks one through four were a blast.

I don't know why I came today on this rainy Sunday.

James gets really intense here in chapter five, and I think that there's some specific reasons why did you know that Americans now have two point 3 billion square feet of self storage, two point 3 billion with a b square feet of self storage that's roughly seven square feet for every single person in this country.

And the vast majority of them, the vast majority of these people have either an attic or a garage or storage space.

So really what this tells me is we have all this storage space for all the extra stuff that we don't have space for in our homes.

Then that is what James says here in verse two specifically says, your wealth has rotted and malls have eaten your clothes.

I think that's fascinating, right?

Because like, mobs don't eat clothes that are being worn.

Do they like the food you're eating?

Isn't the food that rots.

So that I thought about that example of specifically, right?

The clothes that we're wearing aren't the clothes that the mas, he does anyone show hands.

Let's have a moment of confession.

You have closed somewhere in your closet or someone in your basement that you haven't worn in a decade.

Anyone, right?

It maybe has sentimental value or you really like sequence or whatever it is.

Like we hold onto it.

And I thought about that this week.

Um, I actually have a sweater that I bought 15 years ago.

Here's a picture of that sweater right here.

And I'm, this is pretty much what all your faces are doing right now.

And this picture doesn't do it justice.

Those eyes are actually jewels.

So.

Oh, it's fancy in my twenties.

Um, I still have that sweater.

In fact I'm going to put it on right now for.

No, I'm kidding.

I'm kidding.

I'm kidding.

I hold onto that because I wore it initially as a joke.

I'm sure it was supposed to be an ugly sweater party even though no one else in the picture is wearing an ugly sweater.

And every time we move and every time we purge I come to that sweater and I go, oh, let's, we can keep that for another 15.

We all have things that we hold onto that we store, that we cling to, that we arguably hoard because of the value that maybe it holds for us.

But I want to ask some of these questions here.

Do I have an extra car though?

Why others need transportation to do I have extra furniture?

Well, people lack of bed.

Do I have extra clothes while others were the same clothes every single day?

That.

Did you know that 1 billion people on planet earth live on less than a dollar a day?

One billion people on planet earth live on less than a dollar a day.

Three billion people live on less than$2 a day.

We are wealthy.

I think James is telling us, don't hoard, be wise, don't hoard.

Be Wise.

Now, James is not against saving.

Please, please don't hear this talk and thank Ian.

Ian Is anti saving or James is anti saving.

I believe James is trying to show us the difference between why is saving and unwise hoarding.

Now, James, the second warning is to not cheat.

Warning number two, don't cheat.

Here's what he says in verse four says, look, the wages you failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you.

The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty.

Now there's a couple of things that are going on here.

In James's Day.

I'm typically day laborers were paid the day they worked.

They were often the poorest of the poor and so the wage that they earned on the day, they weren't went to pay their next meal, and so this guy is clearly, he's, he's wealthy enough to to own some land, to hire some people and he's saying, no, I'm not going to pay you, and in this day there were no contracts.

There were no labor unions.

You could simply look at the work and say, no, I don't think so.

No, I don't want to.

I don't want to pay you.

In fact, much of these day laborers had to keep moving, right, because the work would always kind of travel and so they would only typically be in one place for one day.

So often with these landowners would do is just sort of buy some time, right?

Like, oh, I haven't gotten a chance to look at the work you did yet.

I'll get back to you tomorrow and you push them off and you push them off and you push them off and these people are cheating the poor.

Now this principle, again, I think at first blush, maybe you're thinking like, well, that's good.

I don't.

I don't employ people so this, this verse doesn't apply to me.

I think this goes way deeper than simply the people who employ other people.

Have you ever charged too much for something?

Have you ever sold a used car with problems, but they didn't tell them about have you ever wasted time at work that you knew you were being paid for?

In fact, I think this verse even applies for those of us who are stingy now, there's a big difference between being frugal and being stingy.

So, so let's.

Let's be really clear.

Frugal is using like a two for one coupon at a restaurant, right?

Good on you.

Where to go?

Groupon, stingy is tipping or server based on that discounted meal?

Are We?

Are we tracking?

Frugal and stingy are the same thing as Christ followers, though we are not to be cheap, we are not to be stingy.

We are to be a people of generosity.

Why?

Because God is generous with us.

The point is it.

Well, I don't employ people so this first doesn't apply.

It's looking at everything that we have as a gift on loan to us from God that God says here, you get to have this for awhile, Stewart.

Well, invest in things in people's stuff that matters.

Don't, don't cheat people.

Don't be stingy.

Maybe James would say it this way.

Don't cheat, be fair, don't cheat, be fair.

Maybe we could reflect on the golden rule.

The question that we could ask is, do I treat others the way I would like to be treated or do I benefit at the cost of other people?

Do I benefit the cost of other people?

James is warning us not to value money more than people, not to value money more than people.

He.

Here's the reality.

Next slide please.

We will either love people and use things or love things and use people.

Period.

I believe that wholeheartedly.

We will either love people and then use the things that God has given us in order to love people or we will love things and we will use people to get those things more and more of whatever it is that rages deep inside our heart.

That's brings us to warning number three, don't waste.

Don't waste.

In James Chapter Five, he says this, you have lived on earth in luxury and self indulgence.

You have fattened yourselves and the day of slaughter.

Who fattened yourselves on a day of slaughter?

Anyone growing up on a farm?

I mean probably not a lot of us.

I think it'd be really fun, but I'm probably not realistic in that.

What do you.

What do you do to a hog in preparation for slaughter?

You Fatten it up, right, and I imagine that would be easy if you're like the other hogs and you're looking at like Chubby Chub, Chub over here and you're like, man, he gets all the food he's getting.

He's thinking, man, I'm just living it up, but I'm just getting fatter and fatter and fatter and he's being prepared for what?

For the slaughter.

James and st many of us do the same thing.

We're we're hoarding, were fattening ourselves up and it ultimately leads to destruction.

James is accusing the wealthy of fattening themselves up while others go hungry.

Now, here, here's the reality that I found to be true, that the more money you make, the more likely you are to wasted.

They would find that to be true.

The more you make, more likely you are to waste it.

I remember my senior year of college, I was like trying to sell my plasma like things were that tight.

I'm like selling books before the semester is fully done because I need$40.

Like yesterday, right?

Things were tight.

It was lean, but something happens to us, to our heart door ahead when when things aren't necessarily that tight, we get a little more cotton.

There's nothing wrong with being comfortable with.

The more money we make, the more likely we are to waste it.

Also, the more money we make, typically the less generous we are in terms of percentages.

In fact, if you have a median household income of$50,000, on average, you give about six percent of it away to charity, but that next bracket, if you make$200,000 a year, on average, you give four percent of it away.

In fact, in 2011, the top 20 percent of wealthy people in the United States gave one point three percent of it away to charity.

The top 20 percent of wealthy gave one point three percent of it away.

Now the dollars and some of those instances was a massive right, but Jesus has a number of parables, a number of stories he tells where it seems pretty clear that God seems less interested in dollar amount and a whole lot more about our heart of generosity number, the widow's might and she gave just a couple of coins.

What was his encouragement?

This woman has given more than anyone else present because God looks at the heart.

Money tends to do this to us, doesn't it?

It tends to make us want to huddle closer to store more.

There's a story that I've heard numerous times about John D Rockefeller, who at one point was the wealthiest man in America and there was an interview that I always found kind of haunting where the reporter asked him, John, how much money is enough?

Like at this point he was just.

He was king, right?

He's like, how?

How much is enough, and here's John's answer.

Just a little more.

Just a little more money can often create this insatiable appetite that just sort of screams, if I just had a little more than I would be happy, then I would be fulfilled.

Then I would be generous.

Then I'd start to release and it seems that there's some kind of correlation between our relationship with money and what's going on at the heart level.

Now conversely, the opposite seems to be true about generosity.

There's a pretty famous psychiatrist named Karl Menninger, and here's what he wrote.

I think it's fascinating.

He said, money giving is a very good criteria in a way of a person's mental health.

Generous people are rarely mentally ill people then that.

Not always, but isn't that fascinating that he's not a Christ follower, but he sees a correlation between your, your ability to loosen your grip around your stuff, to care for people more than money.

Carla's seems to believe that there's a correlation between that and our mental health.

The reason for that I think is because we're all hardwired for generosity.

All of us, we were created by a generous God to be generous.

Period were made in the image and likeness of a god who so loved the world that he what he gave, he gave his only son.

He gave something precious.

He gave big.

He gave sacrificially.

That's in his ontology is how God has wired, so if we're made in the image and likeness of that God, wouldn't it make sense then that when we're stingy, when we hoard, when we keep things to ourselves, that that would ultimately not lead to our flourishing, that would not lead to our health because we're not wired for that.

James says, don't get fat.

Other people go hungry.

He says, don't waste but be generous.

Don't waste but be generous.

And then lastly, warning number four, don't buy into the system.

Don't buy into the system.

Here's what he says in verse six says, you have condemned and murdered innocent men who were not opposing you.

So again, at first blush, this one might be an easy one to let yourself off the hook for.

I haven't murdered anyone in a while, right?

Like I, I, this one doesn't apply to me.

I think it was a whole lot more going on here.

Now in James's Day, there were plenty of people who were actually like paying off judges and doing a lot of like shady mafia stuff.

But I think what James is more talking about here are those who oppressed people, systematically.

People who perpetuated systems that kept the poor, poor.

And James This Day, the rich were this Jerusalem elite, these religious leaders who were sort of fattening themselves, um, the sacrifices of faithful Jews in that community.

All the while keeping the system in place that maintain the status quo, that kept them empower for as long as possible, that their affection, their obedience to God was arguably purely pragmatic so that they could remain in their position of power so they could remain where they are at.

They were tarred to keep the status quo and this system was far from just.

And so james the just because after this, now again this, this idea of this culture may feel foreign to us, but we're, we're surrounded by systems too, aren't we like systems that I take away our garbage systems that deliver us food systems that make our clothes and the reality is that most of us don't make the time to really research whether or not these systems are done in a way that like honor people that are, that are done with integrity.

Now.

Years ago I found a website called slavery footprint.org.

A slavery footprint is dedicated to educating people about their consumer power and to end slavery across the planet.

I took the survey and just by punching in like the things that I use in buy on sort of any given month, I found that I employ 64 slaves, 64 slaves somewhere in the supply chain of the things that I buy and eat in use just in an everyday sort of way.

I think a lot of companies they buy from supply chains that employ slaves sometimes knowingly, sometimes unknowingly, and those supply chains employ more slaves today than in any point in human history.

Are we tracking those supply chains often?

The things that we don't pay any attention to at all because it's convenient.

It's right there employee more slaves today than at any point in human history and James Warns don't buy into the system.

It sounds like in some way, shape or form.

We're all in.

We're all in now.

There are some easy ways to be more just in our consumption.

One website that I would encourage you to check out is fair trade certified.org.

A fair trade is sort of this global movement of people and organizations and companies that put people first that do the hard work of figuring out where we are systematically or we oppressing people and how can we make a difference in the world.

You can find products, shopping guides, recipes that are all fair trade certified and I'm not just talking about like clothing.

I'm talking about the good stuff like coffee and chocolate like did you know that there are fair trade options for these things that actually are doing the hard work of making sure the people that made them, the people that are supplying them are actually treated with honor, dignity and respect.

I think that James would say this is a very good first step for us to educate ourselves about what our money does, the way that we purchase, the way that we love others.

I think James would put it this way, don't buy into the system but be just don't buy into the system.

Be just.

He warns us that there are systems all around us all the time and if we don't pay attention, we will be complicit in them.

Now, the possibility of great good that we could do with wealth is amazing.

Please, please don't misunderstand that if you make a ton of money, man, God, God has leveraged you.

He is putting in a position to make an incredible impact in the world.

If you don't make a ton of money, God has wired you specifically to make a huge impact.

Regardless, Jay James isn't against wealthy people, but he is saying wealth will draw your heart in a very specific way.

So as a reminder of James says this, don't hoard but be wise.

Don't sheet be fair, don't waste, but be generous and don't bind to the system.

Be just, I can't help but think that James was saying these things, remembering some of the things that his brother had said, not all that much before and James Adjust draws from his brother who said in Matthew six, he says, don't store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and vermin destroy that sound familiar and where thieves break in and steal.

He's like the stuff that we heard that we gathered.

I mean that's, that's temporal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven where moths and vermin do not destroy where thieves do not break in and steal for where your treasure is.

There your heart will be also.

There it is.

That's what Jesus is ultimately going after.

He knows that what we do with our money is an indication of what's going on in our heart.

The point ultimately isn't dollars and cents.

It's not.

It really isn't.

James and Jesus are both saying, what's going on in your heart?

Do you want to know what matters to your heart?

Look at your bank statements.

Look at how you spend your money because that will give you a far clearer picture than anything else, and so I want to close with this passage in first timothy and it's hard hitting, but I think it's challenging for us.

It's the apostle Paul writing to a young apprentice, Timothy.

He says, this, command those who are rich, which is who, that's us, that's all of us, command those who are rich in this present world, not to be arrogant, nor to put their hope in wealth which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.

Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds and to be what's the word?

Generous and willing to share in this way.

They'll lay up treasures for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.

I love that challenge for us this morning.

This isn't a matter of Ben.

We want something from you.

We want something for you, James and Jesus, and Paul is saying, now when we loosen our grip, so when we live a life of generosity, that's how we take hold of the life that is truly life, a life that isn't obsessed with taking, that taking is the opposite of the Gospel.

Taking froing and elbow, always looking out for number one is the opposite of what we see in Jesus who emptied himself out, who was poor for our sake was obedient to death, even death on a cross, not just so that we can talk about it in the room thousands of years later so that we get at peace with God and peace with others to help more and more people find their way back to God.

So maybe we could all ask what?

What am I doing with what God has given me?

What am I doing with what God has given me?

Whatever that is, but what happened if we became a people together?

Collectively, all of us have radical generosity.

I think people would line up outside this building to be a part of that kind of movement and these people just love everyone so incredibly well, not just with their time, not just with their words, but with everything God has given them.

I want them to be a part of that kind of movement that doesn't hoard, does a cheat, doesn't scamp, doesn't buy into this system, but looks at everything that I have as a gift from a God who loves us and sees us and this it's something way bigger than ourselves to be a people of radical generosity.

Would you pray with me?

God, thank you that you have called us out of the rat race, off the treadmill of constant accumulation.

God, we know that our hope is inclined to migrate at times, but as Paul instructed Timothy to not put our hope in those things, but to put our hope fully in you.

God, help us to do that.

Help us to see the ways that we've bought into the system.

Help us to walk in a better way to loosen our white knuckled grip, whatever it is that you've given us to help more and more people find them way back to you.

Thank you God.

We love you.

We pray all of these things in the beautiful, powerful name of Jesus and all God's people said Amen.