James: The Failure of Greed vs the Freedom of Generosity (5:1-6)

Hello, I'm Pastor Creighton, and thank you for tuning in to New Sun Churches Podcast.

We're a gospel centered church in Port Perry, Ontario, proclaiming the true and life-giving word of Jesus as we love and serve our neighbors.

May God bless you today through his life-giving word.

Our second reading this morning is from the book of James, chapter 5, verses 1 to 6.

James 5:1–6

Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you.

Your riches have rotted, and your garments are muffy.

Your gold and silver have promoted, and their promotion 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 moat your fields, which you kept in the fruit, 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 who does not resist you.

The word of the Lord.

Buckle up, let's pray.

Gracious Lord Jesus, we come before you always needful of your mercy, of your compassion.

You are long-suffering, you are patient, you are gentle and lowly in heart.

And Lord, we come before you, needful of your generosity towards us.

Would you speak that generous word into our hearts?

Would you plant it there such that it bears fruit?

That we would be renewed by the power of your word and Holy Spirit, that we would follow you in newness of life, that we would know true freedom in your name.

It's in your name we pray.

Amen.

Please be seated.

So our passage in James this morning brings to mind a scene from a very, very well-known book, one of those great works of English literature, one of those great works of the Christian faith, Pilgrim's Progress, which follows the protagonist Christian as he makes his way to the celestial city.

And it's an allegory for the Christian life, facing the temptations and trials that we all of us faced.

And from scene to scene, Christian and his companions are faced with temptations, are faced with opportunities to turn away or turn to what's more immediately appealing.

And at one point he meets a man named Demas, who works at a silver mine.

So Christian and his companion hopeful are journeying, and they come to a silver mine near the path that they're taking.

They meet Demas who tries to persuade them to turn aside and see the wealth inside the mine.

Christian's companion Hopeful, the Bunyan is not exactly subtle, his companion named Hopeful is intrigued but wary.

And he asks whether or not this is a dangerous path to take into the silver mine.

And Christian warns him, based on the lessons that they have learned up to this point.

To be sure, Christian says, if he goes to look, he may fall in.

And if he falls in, he will rise no more.

So here's what Christian understands as they peer into this silver mine, into this pit of wealth.

Christian understands that those who pursue riches, instead of faith, never escape the trap.

And they forfeit the destination of the celestial city.

So here we are journeying through James.

And as we make our Christian pilgrimage through this earth to the celestial city, James wants to equip us with wisdom, wisdom to put into action, wisdom with which to live the Christian life and discover life abundant.

And because we're looking to live the whole Christian life and to put God's wisdom into action into all of our life, every part of our life is involved.

Nothing is bracketed off from our Christian faith.

Our Christian faith tentacles into everything and redeems and renews it.

And that includes our attitudes towards our wealth.

Last week, Sunday's text, we looked at James chapter 4, verses 13 and 17.

James 4:13

James is addressing merchants within the Christian congregation and their practices, their kind of self-interested, self-willed desires for securing their own wealth, which James says needs to be submitted ultimately to God's sovereign will.

There is no Christian wisdom apart from that which submits to God's will and purposes for us.

And James continues this thought, but takes it that much further in our passage today.

James wants us to make no mistake, it is easy to mistake greed for freedom.

To peer into the mind, as it were, and to see the pit of riches and think, that's what I need.

That's what brings security, that's what brings status.

Greed, wealth, promises freedom, but James wants us to be clear.

It will fail us.

Greed is futile.

It'll fail us because greed ultimately condemns us, it corrupts us, and it costs us.

I think James wants us to see at least those three things.

Greed will ultimately fail us because greed will condemn us, corrupt us, and cost us.

So a couple of weeks ago, I put out, I wrote a letter to the congregation, and thanking many for their generous contributions towards our ministry and our mission here at New Song, and to others, I wanted to encourage you to consider giving.

And I gotta say, I've been so encouraged by much of the response that I have received.

And I'm so encouraged to be a part of this church family that is a giving family.

And somehow this week I got playing the scenario in my mind, what if instead of the letter that I wrote, I just copied and pasted these six verses and mailed them out?

I mean, a little bit that's what James is doing for his congregation.

I mean, that is a cold cup of coffee that we read, isn't it?

Holy smokes.

James is gonna hit us where it hurts, but sometimes surgery is like that, isn't it?

And this is soul surgery that James wants us to perform.

We're going at that very precious part of our life, our wealth, our attitude of greed that can so easily fester.

And James is, he's got a pastor's heart, is what he has.

He does not want us to mistake the false promises of greed for the genuine freedom of the gospel.

If we go down this pit, we will not escape the spiritual peril that awaits us.

But I think James makes all of these strong words that he uses, isn't it?

But he does not say them apart from the reality of the good news that we know in Jesus.

He does not want us to mistake the genuine generosity that renews and transforms us and leads us to freedom.

And that's what I want us to discover this morning.

You and me both.

Because you better believe if we have some money, we have problems with money.

And that's true for me too.

So let's have a look.

Let's find some genuine freedom here.

Greed promises freedom, but it ultimately fails us.

It fails us because greed condemns us.

Pull out your Bible, pull out your order of service.

Let's have a look at the letter of James.

We've had a look at verse 1 here.

James is making it clear who he's addressing.

And now what is he saying to those that he's addressing?

Let me find my place here.

Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you, James says.

Why is that?

Verse 2 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 up your flesh like fire.

Greed, James understands, ultimately condemns us.

Now here's something, a point we should make right off the bat.

We made it last week, but it bears repeating.

James's attitude towards wealth is much like the Bible's attitude towards wealth, generally speaking.

It would be a mistake to think that what the Bible condemns is wealth itself.

That none of us should have a banking account, that none of us should have savings, that wealth is the problem.

That's not what the Bible condemns.

The Bible instead condemns the misuse of wealth, the inordinate desire to accumulate more wealth, the trust and faith that we put in our wealth to save us.

That's what the Bible goes after.

Let's remember it's not money that's the root of all evil, it is the love of money that is the root of all kinds of evil.

That's an important distinction to make, and that's true for James as well.

What does James understand wealth as doing?

Greed is doing wealth, James says, corrodes.

It decays.

Did you notice that?

Your riches have rotted.

Your garments are moth-eaten.

In the first century context, of course, riches are riches, but garments are also a measure of status.

I mean, they can be for us today if we, you know, want to buy brand names or wear the labels or whatever.

They're a measure of our wealth.

We're putting wealth on display.

That's what James is saying.

Your gold and silver have corroded.

Their corrosion will be used as evidence against you.

The idea is wealth doesn't last, wealth decays.

And it's interesting that he says it corrodes.

My understanding is that gold and silver don't corrode.

Is that the case?

Anyone who knows precious materials, look it up and let me know if that's true.

That's what I read in the commentaries, at least, and I trust what I read.

But that's very interesting if James is overstating his case, he's saying, even those things we trust to last will not last.

That's James's point.

Gold and silver will corrode, they will decay, and our corroded wealth will leave us condemned.

We have misused our wealth for the simple fact that we have accumulated it and kept it for ourselves.

Be a little like this scenario.

This is what comes to my mind.

Imagine you and I get are the sole survivors of a plane crash on a deserted island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and there's no source of water, except for a canteen of water that I brought with me that I've kept concealed.

And I've decided this is my insurance policy, and I'm keeping this for myself.

So I tuck it away, bury it deep in a cave, let's say I know where it is, but you don't know that I have it.

And days become weeks and weeks become months and months become years, and I've left that canteen just sitting there, just knowing that, you know, on a hard day, that's gonna be that's gonna be what gets me through.

That that could be my ticket for survival here.

And let's say one day, after exploring, you find that canteen.

How are you gonna, what's gonna go through your mind?

Let's put it that way.

Not exactly charitable thoughts towards me, right?

Now, not only have I kept that uh tucked away just for myself, just for my own use, what happens if we just leave water still for an extended period of time?

That water becomes undrinkable eventually.

Bacteria grows, algae grows, it gets contaminated.

So not only have I kept that water to myself for my own use and not shared it with you, that water's gone bad, and now it does no one any good.

James wants us to realize that wealth is a lot like that.

If we leave it stored away, we cannot take it with us.

And the good that that could have done either us or someone else, it's not gonna do that good.

Church reformer John Calvin has this to say on this passage.

He says, God has not appointed gold for rust, nor garments for moths, but on the contrary, he's designed them as aids and helps to the human life.

See, we like to value the dollars that are in our bank accounts.

Calvin's saying, what James is saying, the value of the wealth that we have is how it helps others, how it helps us and our needs in life, how it helps those who require it as well.

Wealth is not worth the dollar amount, wealth is worth what it does.

Do you see the difference?

Otherwise, we become consumed by the wealth that we accumulate.

Did you notice that in verse 3?

It'll consume us like fire, like a flame.

So what's James saying?

Is he saying never save a penny?

Right?

A dollar and a hand needs to go out.

I don't think James is saying that because again, the problem is not wealth, the problem is our attitude towards wealth.

It's that inordinate desire to accumulate wealth, to put our trust in our wealth.

And James is saying, don't be foolish.

Don't be foolish with your wealth.

Put God's wisdom into action.

Why?

Because James says these are the last days.

Did you notice that?

You have laid up treasure in the last days.

There is a tragic irony to accumulating wealth for yourself at such a time as this.

Why?

This phrase last days is a prophetic phrase.

We see it throughout the biblical prophets, and it's pointing out the fact that God's judgment is imminent, that Christ will return at any time to judge the living and the dead, and he will bring his glorious kingdom with him, and all of the wealth that we have accumulated ain't going to be worth much in the kingdom.

So why is your greatest desire, James saying, in these last days, when God's judgment is imminent, why is it set above anything else on accumulating wealth?

That's a foolish thing, James says.

Bear in mind the time of day it is.

We are in, if Christ's return is imminent, that has to affect our attitude towards what's in our bank account.

That's what James is saying.

It's not that we ought to be foolish, it's not that we ought to be reckless, it's not that we ought to make no investments.

In fact, one of my favorite quotes from another reformer, Martin Luther, he's asked, well, he says, if I knew the world was going to end tomorrow, today I would plant a tree.

And the idea is what we do now will echo into eternity.

So it's not as though we should be foolish and reckless with our money.

We should, we should plan for, we should well plan for the long term, while we bear in mind that my ultimate hope is not what's in my bank account, is not what's in my investments.

My ultimate hope has to be in Christ.

That's what James is saying.

So I don't mean to belabor this point, but I think we need to bear in mind that what we consider our financial assets can also be a spiritual liability.

That's what James is saying.

Greed can leave us condemned.

That's what James is saying.

Greed can fail us because it condemns us.

Greed can fail us because it corrupts us.

It can turn us into the worst sort of person if we're not careful.

So James is addressing landowners, in particular, those who make their wealth off the labor of others.

And he says, 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 have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.

So in this context, uh day the wages for a day laborer really did mean the difference between life and death.

This was a first century culture without social credit, without welfare.

If I refuse to pay you for your work today and tomorrow and the next day, you might literally have no money with which to buy the bread and necessities that you and your family require.

That can do a lot of harm very quickly, can't it?

And James is saying that that's an injustice.

That perhaps is an injustice that he is seeing take place within the life of the congregation.

Why?

Because wealth is intoxicating, isn't it?

We want to accumulate it for ourselves.

So easy to cheat or be dishonest.

James is challenging that.

There is no room for that in the Christian life.

And the stakes are high.

As he says in verse 6, you have condemned and murdered the righteous person.

Literally, withholding wages can mean you are responsible for someone's life.

But notice the language that Paul, or pardon me, that James is using.

Language like murder.

He's talking about injustice.

He's talking about fields that cry out.

Does this remind us of any biblical imagery if you've been to Sunday school?

Maybe it reminds us of the story of Cain and Abel.

Do you remember that story?

Two brothers.

Abel offers the righteous sacrifice, which is acceptable to God.

And Cain, out of his great anger and resentment, kills his brother in the field.

And when God confronts Cain, he says, Your brother's blood is crying out to me.

An injustice has taken place.

Life is at stake here.

And it's God's warning to Cain that we should bear in mind.

God warns Cain, if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door.

It desires to have you, but you must rule over it.

Cain, the stakes are too high.

Don't give in to your sin.

Don't give in to your self-interest.

Don't give in to your that selfishness that will destroy you from within.

It's like a wild animal crouching at your door, and it just wants to consume you.

And I think James would want to say much the same about our wealth.

If we are not careful, our greed will consume us.

It will corrupt our character.

It will turn us into the worst kind of person, much like Cain was towards his brother Abel.

There's any number of illustrations I could pull from from literature or popular culture.

The one that comes to my mind is Citizen Cain.

Have you seen Citizen Cain?

That's a movie worth watching.

It's been out for a little while, so you know, sorry if I spoil it here.

But Charles Foster Cain builds this enormous corporate empire.

He has everything conceivable that you could ever want, and yet he's left hollow and empty, and greed has corrupted his once happy life into an empty and meaningless and unfulfilled life.

And at one point he's reminiscing, he says, you know, if I hadn't been very rich, I might have been a really great man.

Which is really something to think about.

In everyone else's eyes, what makes this man great is his wealth.

But Charles Foster Cain, in a moment of honesty, knows the truth.

His wealth has corrupted him.

It's corrupted his character.

So there's a warning in this for us, right?

There's a warning for those of us who are in a position to offer payment to others.

Maybe those of us in a management position, maybe those of us who are in charge of a payroll, or even who hire the services of another to fix our car or to fix our furnace or whatever that is.

Withholding payment, withholding honest payment for honest labor is a serious offense.

It's so easy to idolize money, to try and accumulate, and to become miserly.

We can be corrupted.

And therefore the call is to be honest with our money and how it is we use our money.

But I think it can also be a rich warning, not just to the rich or those who would consider themselves rich, but to those who are poor and would say, I don't have the kind of money that would qualify me as rich.

Rich and poor alike, we can both idolize money.

And we idolize money when we assume that money is going to be the solution to all of life's problems.

It's going to be the salvation.

Whether I have too much of it, whether I have too little of it, money is the solution.

Money becomes an idol.

And when money is an idol, it corrupts us from within, whether we have much of it or little of it.

And therefore the call is always to be honest, always to have integrity in the way we use our money.

There's a warning there, but there's also an assurance.

There's an assurance for anyone who has ever experienced an injustice that has had serious financial repercussions.

Perhaps the sort of repercussions that you're still living with today.

The sort of repercussions that has set you into serious debt or set you behind.

God hears the cries of those who have experienced such an injustice.

God has not overlooked you.

God has not forsaken you.

That is his promise towards you.

Money makes no such promise.

Money does not promise to stay with you.

Money does not promise that it will never forsake you.

But God makes that promise to you.

So the challenge for those of us who experience such And justice is where really is our trust?

Do we trust in the money that we don't have and think we should, or do we trust in the Lord that provides?

You see the difference?

Greed can corrupt us if we're not careful, if our heart is set on wealth above everything else.

But greed can also cost us.

It can cost us the great cost.

Let's look at verse five.

You have lived on the earth in luxury and self-indulgence, James says.

You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter.

So wealth, James understands, means short-term gain.

It means luxury.

It means self-indulgence.

And again, are the good things in life that we spend money on wrong?

Not necessarily.

That's not necessarily James' point.

But when we indulge ourselves at the expense of others, that's when our inordinate desire of wealth becomes an idol and begins to fail us.

We have to be mindful.

Short-term gain with wealth in this life might mean risking eternal loss.

What our heart truly values will have eternal consequence.

That's what James wants us to understand.

One illustration of that might be from Luke chapter 16.

Luke 16 · chapter mention

Remember the story of the rich man and Lazarus?

Here is Lazarus, a poor beggar, at the gates of this rich man who day for day is just asking for what it takes to get through the day.

And Lazarus lives in luxury and self-indulgence, and as they both pass away on the same day, and here they are in eternity, Lazarus being comforted by Abraham, right?

This great father and exemplar of faith, and this rich man cast away, right?

Suffering.

And the rich man insists that Lazarus ought to relieve his suffering in some way.

This rich man in life and in death has valued himself, his own desires, his wealth above everything else, and especially above Lazarus.

And again, it's not the fact that this rich man was rich that meant he was cast out.

It's the fact that he clung to his wealth in life as in death, and he followed where that wealth took him.

Our inordinate desire for greed will cost us.

It will cost us eternally.

So Abraham tells this rich man, remember that in your lifetime you received good things while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here.

You are in agony.

James does not want us to make that mistake, to mistake short-term gain for eternal loss.

So the antidote to this has to be generosity.

If greed is ultimately failure and futile, then generosity has to be freedom.

But generosity to whom?

And I think this is where the Bible helps us to identify two ways in particular that we ought to give.

We ought to give to those in need.

Proverbs chapter 22, the generous will themselves be blessed, for they share their food with the poor, they share their resources with those who need it most.

Proverbs 22 · chapter mention

And the Bible continually identifies things people like the poor, widows, or orphans, those in need, those who could use the financial resources that we have been blessed with, or portion thereof for their own good, for their own sustenance.

We give to those in need as a reminder that we ourselves have received in our need.

And God has given us more than enough so that we can share.

We give to those in need, and the Bible continually reminds us we give to the local congregation as well.

In the Old Testament, this looks like tithes and offerings.

In the New Testament, things like the collection for the saints is identified in 1 Corinthians 16.

We give towards the true and life-giving ministry of the Word so that it can go forth in our community, so that folks can come to know the love and life of Jesus.

We give towards loving and serving our neighbors.

Just as Jesus said, it is more blessed to give than to receive.

I wonder if part of why Jesus says that is because he knows that receiving, that is, that inordinate desire to accumulate and accumulate and accumulate can be our greatest spiritual liability.

It can cost us.

And therefore it is blessed to give because we are making that eternal investment.

Jesus, we have to remember, is not just speaking in theory, he is speaking in practice.

He is our model for generosity.

Because even though James wants us to recognize that greed ultimately fails us, it'll condemn us, corrupt us, and cost us, the solution of generosity is not just one that God heaps on us, it is one that God shows us.

He blazes this trail of generosity which leads to freedom.

So verse 6 states the consequences or the stakes very seriously.

You have condemned and murdered the righteous person, the one who has not resisted you, right?

James is certainly talking with the laborers in the field who have done their honest work and have been shortchanged.

But could we not say par excellence that Jesus is the righteous person, the one who did not resist, the one whose sinners condemned and murdered?

And how did Jesus repay those who condemned him and murdered him?

He repaid them with nothing short of a generosity of spirit, the generosity of the gospel.

He has taken our sin and the consequences of our sin and done away with it on the cross, so that he can give us a share in the gospel.

Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians chapter 8, you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you, through his poverty, might become rich.

2 Corinthians 8 · chapter mention

That is the grace of generosity.

It is God's generosity to which we respond, not the other way around.

We don't give, so we expect God to be generous to us.

God has been generous to us.

Therefore, we offer our gifts.

Do you see how that works?

That's the gospel.

So here's Christian and hopeful.

They see a group of travelers who've been led astray by demas and fallen into the mine.

These men symbolize those who are lured by greed, have lost their way spiritually and physically.

Christian remarks, some are slain outright, and others are so maimed as they can never recover to their day of death.

So this tragic image reinforces that idea that covetousness, that inordinate desire for wealth, does not just delay the Christian journey, it can destroy it entirely.

James is not pulling any punches here, is he?

I feel bruised too, frankly, coming out of this week.

I feel bruised because there's a lot of nice things I can do with my bank account.

The vacations I can take.

The fact that I give means that's a couple less vacations in a year.

It might mean I retire a number of years later than I otherwise would have.

There's something about me that always wants wealth and what it will provide.

So I feel bruised when that's what James goes for.

But it's only when I consider Jesus' generous love towards me that my greedy heart begins to feel thawed.

It begins to feel thawed into cheerfulness.

And I begin to be inspired to respond to his generosity with generosity.

That's the only way the gospel works.

We can only respond to the goodness that God has already shown us.

And I begin to see that greed ultimately fails me.

It will condemn me, it will corrupt me, it will cost me, it will cause me to weep and howl.

But while greed ultimately fails me, the gospel does not.

Jesus' generosity meets my misery with grace.

And it's only as we enter into the joy of Jesus' generosity that we ourselves can be transformed.

Amen.

We hope that you've been blessed by God's Word today.

If you live in the Port Perry area, we hope that you'll come and worship with us in person on Sunday at 10 a.m.

If you'd like to learn more about Newsong Church, we'd love to connect with you.

Please find our contact information at newsongportperry.ca and reach out to us.

Newsong's ministry is entirely funded by the generous giving of those who worship and journey with us.

If you feel called to support our ministry with a financial gift, please go to newsongportperry.ca slash giving to make your contribution.

Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.