Good morning. They were short and pithy passages, weren't they? Let's see if we can do something with them. We all have views and attitudes towards wealth and riches. We need James' word to us this morning to hold a mirror to what our views and attitudes are towards wealth and riches. It's interesting how in our present culture, we sometimes value a person by their salary or their income. We evaluate an artwork by how much it might get at an auction. Strange how we sometimes measure natural disasters, not in their human cost, but in their financial cost. We chase money. I was staggered. to look at how much Australians spend on gambling each year. Can you imagine how much? I was shocked. It's $250 billion a year. That's more than the gross budget of 50 countries of the world. That is a staggering amount of money. Now, not all of that is lost. Some people win, so I'm told. But $250 billion is spent on gambling. The CEO of my bank earns $10 million a year before bonuses. What shocks me is not that that's what he gets, but that I'm envious of that. We have very interesting attitudes to wealth and riches. With our kids, there's a fine line, isn't there, between reward and bribery. We use money sometimes for behavioral outcomes. Wealth is not evil. It's how we view it. and how we use it. And that's James's big question today. Last week, we saw that we're not in control of our lives, despite the fact that we think we are. We can trust our sovereign, gracious God to know what is best. And therefore he calls us to submit our wills and our plans and our desires to him. And James comes back this week at the beginning of chapter five here to expose how fragile our faith can actually be. And he does so by pointing to one of the most common and dangerous enablers of our self-centeredness. That's wealth and riches. He doesn't soften hard truth, we've sort of learned that as we've moved through James. He doesn't rush past uncomfortable realities, but he's not an angry outsider throwing stones at Christian people, Christian communities, churches. He's a loving pastor, speaking to people he knows, he loves, and he cares deeply about. It's interesting the passage is not directly addressed to my beloved brothers as other sections of this letter are. And so something that James is not actually criticizing the Christian people he's writing to. Rather he is warning of potential risk by pointing out what happens to other people. But either way, there's a strong challenge here. Even if it's not about the Christian community, it is for the Christian community. James understands something very crucial about God's people, about all people. We live surrounded by incredibly powerful temptations. And those temptations can easily be misused, abused, or trusted in place of God. That's his big point. Throughout this letter, he repeatedly warns us about misplaced power. The power of trials and temptations. The power of knowledge without obedient faith. The power of popularity. The power of position. The power of unrestrained passions. The power of the tongue. The power of self-centered ambition. And now, here, in Chapter 5, the power of wealth and riches. This is not just about money. It's about what money can become. It addresses the terrifying potential of wealth to act as a substitute savior. Something we look to for all of our security, our identity, our control, and our hope instead of looking to God. And we can easily look at this and say, well, this must be for somebody else because I'm not that rich person, right? It must be for somebody richer, somebody harsher, somebody more powerful, somebody more corrupt than me. But James is not writing to someone else. His words are for the church, which means they're for us. And he confronts, not to condemn, but to draw God's people away from false security and back to the grace of God. It's interesting, our present culture finds challenging speech, the sort of thing that James gives us, offensive. We're not allowed to confront people. We're not allowed to critique. It wounds our self-esteem. We prefer affirmation or indulgence rather than warning. But a love that refuses to warn is not actually biblical love. Some years ago, I was running a retreat for leaders. It was a Christian leadership workshop. And I opened the workshop by reading from Colossians chapter one, and particularly verse 28. And this was the verse. Him we proclaim, warning everyone, and teaching everyone that we may present everyone mature in Christ. I had an immediate objection from somebody in the group. And they said, Christians shouldn't warn anybody. Christians should encourage and affirm one another. And I looked at this person and said, well, take it up with Paul, and then take it up with God. You see, God's love is larger than our misplaced sensitivities. A love that refuses to warn is actually horrifically indifferent. Sometimes we think that It's love and hate that are opposites. It's actually love and indifference that are opposites. There is nothing worse than indifference. I don't care. At least hate is an emotion, right? Indifference is, I don't care. And James embodies love, I believe, when he warns us of the false saviors that capture our heart. So his implicit question in these first six verses is, who or what do we really trust? Scripture doesn't merely ask, do you believe in God? It presses a lot deeper. It says, who or what do we really trust? Where do we instinctively turn for identity, meaning, purpose, security, contentment, hope, joy, rest? Where do we turn for those things instinctively? And James is not coming up with a tirade here against wealth. He's still talking about the condition of the human heart. And the human heart, our desires expose the substitutes that we rely upon instead of Christ. And these substitutes were not invented in the modern world. They're not something that have come upon us in the last 100 years or so. They were named centuries earlier as we heard in our reading from Jeremiah. Jeremiah chapter nine says, let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me. I think both James and Jeremiah are talking about a few things here. We're talking about pride, talking about power, talking about performance, talking about possessions. Amazing they all begin with P. Pride is the basis. Pride is the posture underneath them all. Pride says I can do life on my own. I don't need God. That was my life for 25 years. I can live without God. I can do kindly things. I don't need this God. And pride makes the promises of power and performance and possession seem attractive and compelling. But it's wealth and riches, says James, in particular, that enable this. They enable pride and power and performance and possessions to take ownership of our lives. Wealth and riches is the means to indulge our pride. And Jeremiah warns God's people not to boast in these things, not to trust in them, not to rest in them, not to seek life from them, but boast only in knowing the Lord. And James and Jeremiah here are singing the same song in different keys, right? Both expose where our trust naturally drifts. We're not immune from this. Jeremiah uses the language of boasting, James exposes the reality of trusting. To boast in wisdom, strength, or riches is not just to speak proudly about them, but to rely on them. to orientate our life around them, to seek life from them. And in both these passages that we're looking at this morning, the contrast is sharp and clear. Either we boast in what we possess and what we achieve, or we rest in knowing the Lord. For Jeremiah, he tells us that knowing the Lord is relational and covenantal. delighting in the God who acts with steadfast love, justice, and righteousness. And James presses this same truth in chapter five, pastorally. What we love, what we truly trust, will inevitably shape how we live, what we pursue, and how we treat other people. Now the people James writes to are not rich. They are pressured, they're tempted, they're vulnerable, they're new Christians who are not wealthy. He's writing to believers who are under political pressure, who have economic instability, they're marginalized socially, they're tempted to compromise to fit into the communities of which they're a part. And James diagnosed before in chapter four, when we looked at that, what the real problem is. Your passions are at war within you. What you desire is what's going to trip you up. The deepest danger, we said before, is not persecution from outside, but disordered desires of our heart. Are we envious of other people's status? Do we have a longing for comfort? Do we crave recognition? Are we trying to secure a future without God? We're all sitting here saying, no, we don't do that. We do. And it explains why James repeatedly returns to the dangers of riches and the seduction of status. The issue here, as we said, is not money itself. It is the manner in which it's acquired. It's the reason it's required. It's the spirit it tends to foster within our hearts and the way it's used. And they were tempted, the people James is writing to, were tempted just like us to trust false saviors. This is a global issue. This temptation is not theoretical. For more than two decades, Maureen and I have been involved with churches and Christian schools across Indonesia. We've met many delightful, faithful, committed Christian people. However, we've also seen wealthy Christians use their church relationships to enhance their business influence. We've also watched how the prosperity gospel flourishes in poor communities, promising that if you have enough faith, it will unlock riches for you. In both contexts, rich and poor, wealth is seen as the proof of God's blessing and a pathway to security. The rich worship wealth because they have it and want more. The poor worship wealth because they lack it but long for it. And James helps us to see that rich and poor are equally vulnerable to trusting treasures as their savior, rather than receiving treasures as gifts. So pride is not limited to the rich. Poverty does not insulate us from idolatry. The poor can idolize wealth just as fiercely as the rich. and the powerless can idolize power just as eagerly as the powerful. Covetousness, corruption, cruelty are not exclusive to the affluent. So James opens with this pretty stunning sentence, come now you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. That's a sort of gets people in, doesn't it? This command to weep and howl anticipates the grief that comes when those false securities collapse. The miseries that James speaks about are not just emotional regret, but the inevitable outcome of trusting riches to do what only God can do. Wealth cannot shield us from judgment, Wealth cannot cleanse guilt. Wealth cannot redeem the soul. He says your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. Not holding back here. And James is deliberately selecting items that symbolized for the people at the time security and status. stored grain, fine clothing, accumulated resources. And he's not just speaking about the future. Note that those verbs are past and present. Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. What appears to be durable is already decaying. And he says, your gold and silver have corroded and their corrosion will be evidence against you. Gold doesn't rust, you know, we scientists know this, right? But James's point is not scientific, it's theological. Even the most secure assets, he says, will testify against those who trust them for things that they should not be trusted for. What was supposed to save us becomes evidence that it couldn't. He says you've laid up treasure in the last days. So James is not condemning wealth simply because it exists or even because it's powerful. He condemns it because it becomes a false savior. It promises security and significance and control, but it cannot deliver. And it's because the people are living as though this world is all there is. Wealth is treated as something to be hoarded and exploited and relied upon now because there is no meaningful horizon beyond the present moment. This is why James speaks so sharply, so strongly. A heart that believes that this life is everything will inevitably grasp and indulge and exploit. When good gifts become ultimate hopes, they expose the heart and consume the soul. Whenever we falsely make something a savior, it eventually consumes us. It's interesting that the judgment of God is often Him simply giving us what we desire. allowing us to trust our substitute saviours until they consume us. James then turns in verse four or five from corrosion of things we trust to the external consequences of that misplaced trust. So first we look at verses one to three, they expose the emptiness of false saviors and the effect upon ourselves. But first four and five goes a little bit further and exposes the injustice that flows from trusting those false saviors. and the way that we treat others. What we trust will always shape how we relate to people. Verse four, he says, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud are crying out. James says withheld wages are not merely unethical behavior, but also a sin that cries out to God. James is echoing the Exodus story here where the Israelite people were under oppression and the way that they were oppressed, their pain and the sin of the Egyptians towards Israelite people cried out to God. God hears the cries of the oppressed. Economic injustice is therefore never morally neutral. It is covenantal failure. When we fail to care for one another, we've gone wrong somewhere. And this self-indulgence, James says, causes a moral blindness. He says, you've lived on the earth in luxury and self-indulgence. And the issue here you see is not enjoyment. We're meant to enjoy life. And having things aids that enjoyment. That's fine. But the issue here is that people are using their wealth as insulation keeping themselves apart, being self-reliant. And James accuses the wealthy really harshly of fattening their hearts, he says, in a day of slaughter. And the picture here is he's saying the cattle in the stalls, they want more and more and more food and they love eating. not knowing that their next step after the feeding house is the abattoir. Their next step is that they will be slaughtered. That the fatter they are, the more profitable they will be when they're slaughtered. That's a horrible picture, right? They just don't know what lies ahead. And so they're insulated from the truth of what happens next. What we trust privately reshapes how we live publicly. False saviors always distort relationships. If we trust possessions and money, fear and greed dominate our lives. We will sacrifice people to get rich. people become expendable. If we trust power, we'll abuse people to preserve it. We crush others to maintain control, so people become obstacles. If we trust our own performance, we will actually always be anxious. Am I living up to the performance that I should have? And we all demand that other people validate us. We'll be constantly seeking their approval. If we trust pride, failure will devastate us. People become threats. We will ignore people who lovingly critique us. And Jeremiah warned of the same pattern. He said, those who boast in their wisdom and strength or riches inevitably become indifferent to the suffering of others. So James gets to verse six, says something very interesting here. You have condemned and murdered the righteous person. This shocking statement, I think, has a double meaning. First, it describes economic and legal injustice against vulnerable people. The people that he's talking about here, the labourers who are not being paid, are people who were reliant on day-by-day income. And that income was being withheld from them. In other words, they were actually in danger of dying. But secondly, there's a deeper point. It echoes the ultimate rejection of righteousness in the crucifixion of Christ. False saviors do not simply fail us. They oppose the true savior. Think about this. Jesus was betrayed for money. Jesus was opposed by religious pride. Jesus was executed by political power. Jesus was rejected by people obsessed with status and performance. These are not small things. But through that perceived tragedy, as always, grace shines. The displaced righteous one in Christ is the one who saves us. The ignored saviour is the one who intercedes for us. The Lord we distrust, is the one who gives more grace. And grace frees us from trusting in the wrong things. Grace makes it possible to live differently. Because grace works in the opposite direction to pride. Grace melts our pride by bringing us back to dependence. Grace loosens wealth's grip on our hearts and frees us to be generous. Grace awakens compassion as we see the Father's heart, the Father of all compassion. Grace makes justice merciful. So when we love money, we will use people. When we love God, we will serve people. And as James exposes this misuse of wealth, he is not condemning having resources. He is condemning trusting resources as God. His point is simple. Whatever rules our heart rules our life. The gospel's alternative, Christ is the only true savior, the only one we can trust, the only one who brings hope. False saviors offer false promises A stability that is fragile, that is temporary, that can fail us, but Christ offers unshakable certainty. Paul says in Colossians 3, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Our security does not rest on what we can accumulate, on what we can hold on to, but on the one who holds us. Pride says, define yourself. Power says, assert yourself. Performance says, prove yourself. Possessions say display yourself. Christ says, you're mine. So in union with Christ, our identity is received, not achieved, given as a gift, secured forever, and held by grace. And that's the only security. that will never corrode and never fail us. Let's pray. Our Father, we come to you again as your children. We desperately, Lord, want to be dependent upon you, and we realize just how difficult that is for us. that we are tempted by other things. Lord, your word searches us and encourages us because you love us. Father, you see how easily our hearts drift towards things that seem to promise security and happiness, but cannot truly save. They're not fully dependable. Forgive us when we trust in our wealth or our comfort or our control, instead of resting in you. Lord, where our lives have been shaped by self-indulgence or indifference, will you soften our hearts? Teach us to hold what we have with open hands, to act justly and to love mercy. Lord, we need you moment by moment to turn our eyes to Jesus, our true treasure, our faithful saviour, who gave himself for us. Lord, and as we live in this time, as we wait for his return, help us to live with humility and generosity and hope, confident that our life is secure in your gracious care. Lord, thank you that you care for us. In Jesus name. Amen.