We've got some building work going on at the church at the moment, so we're doing our midweek Bible study from down in the study, and we're going to be looking together at James chapter one, and we come to verses nine through 11. James chapter one, verse nine through 11. Let the lowly blood brother glory in his exaltation, but the rich in his humiliation, because as a flower of the field he will pass away. For no sooner has the sun risen with the burning heat than it withers the grass. Its flowers falls and its beautiful appearance perishes. So the rich man also will fade away in his pursuits. Amen. Let's begin with prayer. Gracious God we thank you for your holy word. Thank you for every opportunity we have to spend time thinking and meditating in these truths and we pray that you do us good this night as we think upon these words of James that you would help us to understand them clearly and that you would enable us to be doers of the word and not hearers only. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. The wedding of English Prince William and his bride, Kate Middleton, took place at Westminster Abbey, 29th April 2011, and it was attended by heads of state, leaders of Commonwealth countries, members of foreign royal families, senior diplomatic and military figures, as well as some stars of screen and stage. But also sitting in the church that day was a village butcher named Martin Fiddler and his wife Sue, postman Ryan Naylor and Indian-born shopkeeper Chan Shingajam and his wife Hash, all from Kate's home village in Buckinghamshire. They too received a gold embossed invitation letter and were to be found seated in Westminster Abbey that day. Now, of course, most of those people weren't Christians, but in a way the church, especially the church in New Testament times, such as the one that James is writing to, materially and economically would have had a composition similar to that. Some within their midst would have been very affluent and very well-to-do. Others would have been less so. They would have been more impoverished, not so well-to-do. And yet there in the church you'd find them sitting side by side. And that is of course one of the glorious things about the Christian church, that all of those things which serve to separate us and divide us and to keep us apart outside of the church, they no longer apply when we come into the church. They don't have the same relevance in the church as they do out in the world. Here in the church, whatever background we come from, whether it's a rich or a poor one, there's a parity. or at least there should be, a unity that we enjoy in the church. Now having said that, that's not to say that there aren't tensions that can develop sometimes. There are, and there were in this particular church that James is writing to. There was some real friction developing there between rich and poor, and James seems to allude to that in this letter. And so what do you do at a time like that? How do you handle a situation like that? What you need in those situations is wisdom. You need wisdom to appreciate who we really are as believers. What is our real position and our real status in Christ? And that's what James is doing in this section of the letter. laying out for them something of that wisdom, the wisdom that's needed by God's people, both rich and poor alike, to enable them and us to serve and worship together in a peaceful and God-glorifying way. So that's going to be our focus then for the next couple of weeks as we look at these verses, James chapter 1, 9 through 11. We're looking at wisdom then, wisdom for handling our wealth or lack of wealth, whatever our situation. And there are three main points that we can draw out from this passage. We're going to think about the man in poverty, the man with plenty and then the main priority. So for this evening we're just going to look at that first point that is the man in poverty and the title for the message is the poor man's riches. Let's just remind ourselves of what's been happening here. James is a pastor in the early church in Jerusalem and he's writing a letter to Jewish Christians, the 12 tribes scattered abroad he calls them. So these would be largely converted Jews, men and women from a Jewish background who've come to faith in Jesus Christ, but they've been dispersed, they've been scattered abroad due to persecution. And so James here is writing to them to help them to face some of the hardships and the difficulties that they're experiencing. And he deals with it right away, doesn't he? Straight at the beginning of the letter, right off the bat there in verse 2, he jumps in with trials. Consider it all joy when you fall into various trials. The opening verses of the letter is all about how to handle trials and what you need to do in trials. And he tells us here you need to think. You need to step back and you need to consider and call to mind all that you know about trials, that they're certain and they're sudden and they are very assorted. They come in all different shades and types and different degrees of intensity. And so remember that, he says, but also think about the positive benefits and the positive effects that trials can have. And that's what he says in verse four. He reminds us how trials prove our faith. They promote progress and endurance in the faith. And with that also, they perfect our faith. They make you to be a well-rounded, durable Christian. That's the effect, the long-term consequence of trials. Now, of course, the problem is we don't always see it that way at the time. We don't always get that. That sort of perspective can elude us when we're in the midst of a trial. And so what we need, then, James says, is wisdom. Wisdom helps you to see that, helps you to appreciate that. And we were looking at this last time, the need for wisdom, because as he says there, some may lack wisdom. And if that's the case, then if you're in a trial and you lack wisdom, then what do you need to do? Very simple, you ask God. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God and it will be given to him. So we were thinking about this last time. God, who's the giving God, he delights to give to his people. It's almost something of a preoccupation, an obsession he has with giving, giving, giving to his people. And one thing he delights to give is wisdom. 1 Kings chapter 3 we see there Solomon he lacked wisdom he asked God and God gave him he gave him liberally an abundant amount of wisdom and so ask God for wisdom he says because he delights to give it without finding fault. Now how about in the church then what about in the church you've got a different mixture all these different people from all their different socio-economic backgrounds what do you do when you've got tensions and arguments beginning to develop. How do you handle that? What's the best way? Well, you need wisdom. Again, it's wisdom. Wisdom, as we said last time, is the Swiss army knife of the mind. You know, the perfect tool which we can use in every different situation in life. trials in our own life or trials in the church, trials spiritually, trials materially. Wisdom again is the tool, it's the vital gift and grace that you need to help you understand your situation aright. And so again, James here is giving us help by showing us what wisdom does in a situation like this, how a person with wisdom would respond in this kind of situation. So he addresses a word to both types of person, to the man in poverty and also to the man with plenty. And as I said at the beginning, we're just going to think about the man in poverty this evening, or the lowly brother, as James calls him there. Let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation. And by lowly brother, he's referring to his position, socio-economic position. He's not referring to a general disposition of lowliness or humility. It's his material economic position that he's referring to. He's a poor man, basically. This is a man of limited means. The man who, in terms of his financial wherewithal, he's right at the bottom of the pile. And there were many people in that situation in those days. We've said that before, haven't we, how many Christians suffer very greatly because of their faith. They could be ostracized and excluded because of their faith. Many of them, the ones that James is writing to here, were Jewish converts. And as a result, they could be disinherited, cut out of the family fortune and inheritance because of their faith. They could lose their jobs, be shut out of trades guilds so they couldn't find work because of their faith. Acts chapter 4, we read there about the practice of many believers in the early church, how they came together, and this was probably out of financial necessity, they pooled their resources and shared whatever it was they had. That was the situation many of them faced. Very real hardship and privation. And so what do you do then if you're in that situation? How were the believers there to regard themselves in regard to perhaps wealthier Christian brothers who were there in the same congregation? You know, what do you do if you're there on a Sunday morning and in walks a man with a very nice, long, richly embroidered robe and a waft of Armani cologne following him in and he sits himself down beside you. What do you do if you're in that situation? How do you respond to that? How do you view your own more impoverished and much perhaps less fragrant situation? What do you do then? What does James say here? What advice will James give us? What imperative will James give us here? Remember this is the epistle of the imperatives. James is the... the sergeant major, the drill sergeant, firing out the verbs, the doing words here in this epistle. What verb will he give us here? Will he say, well, you need to work and you need to strive, you need to work much harder so you can bring your income level up to the level of that richer brother who's sitting next to you? That isn't what he says, actually. That isn't the command he gives. He does give an imperative, but it's not that. He doesn't say work and labor. He says glory. This is what you're to do, you're to glory, let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation. And the Greek word there is a word that means to boast. And the form of the verb there denotes a continual kind of boasting, a continual rejoicing and glorying in a very intense way. One commentator says it's a boasting that bespeaks a joy outwardly expressed as well as inwardly felt. So it's a very deep, intense, profound rejoicing and boasting in his high position. Even though he may actually be the poorest member of the church, his boasting ought to be such, says James, that actually you might think he was the richest. Blanchard, in his commentary on James, paraphrases it. Let the brother who does not rise far above the ground take pride in the height he has reached. So no, he may not have much above the bread line financially, but spiritually, because of his faith in Christ, he's actually been lifted up to the very highest place of all. He belongs to Christ. He's joined to Christ. He lives in and through Jesus Christ. Christ has come to indwell him by his Holy Spirit and gives to him each and every day all the supplies of grace and strength he needs to serve and worship him. And so you think about that, what wealth that is, what riches he has for time and for eternity. There's an inexhaustible, limitless supply stored up for him in Jesus Christ. And so that's cause for rejoicing. That's cause for boasting. Boasting, isn't it? And you know how Paul uses that word, boasting? Some of the scholars, some of the more modern scholars, try to pit James against Paul and say that there are odds with each other in what they write. But they're not at all. They perfectly complement each other. And here we see James using a word that's a favourite word of the Apostle Paul's. You think about how often Paul speaks about boasting. Not of himself, of course, he's boasting in Christ. Romans 5.1, we have peace with God, he says, through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access into this grace wherein we stand and we rejoice, we exult, same word, we boast in the hope of the glory of God. And so that's what the poor man should do when he thinks about who he is, and where he's come from, and what's happened to him, that the riches that through Jesus Christ have now been bestowed upon him, he has been made rich. He really does have, spiritually, he has a rags to riches kind of story. I read one of these in the newspaper a few years back about a homeless man in Salt Lake City, Max Molitzer was his name, and he'd been living on the streets for almost 30 years, and his brother, Morris, had died about a year before, and they hadn't seen each other for the previous 15 years, but his brother, Morris, had made quite a bit of money in the legal profession, and when he died, it turned out in his will, he'd left quite a bit of his estate to his brother, Max, But nobody knew where Max was, so the family hired a private investigator to try and track him down. It took him the best part of a year, and eventually he found him pushing a shopping cart around a park in Salt Lake City. And this private investigator found him and went over to him and told him the news that his brother had left him $100,000. And apparently both of them went off and had a seafood lunch immediately after that. But you see, it's a sort of a rags to riches story. There's this sudden, very dramatic transformation in his condition. And that's us if we're Christians. Spiritually, we're beggars. Spiritually, we are down and out. Our righteousness, Isaiah says, is like filthy rags. how wretchedly impoverished our spiritual condition is and was. And yet now, because of our older brother and his death for us at the cross, now we have an inheritance. Now we have riches, a vast immeasurable fortune made over to us. And the New Testament writers like James and Paul, they come to us a little bit like that private investigator came to that man, Max, and they come to us and they say, you are rich. Paul says that 1 Corinthians 1 verse 5, you have been enriched in every way by God's grace and mercy. You've come into a vast, immeasurable fortune. And so what reason you have for rejoicing and boasting, though materially you may have very little, spiritually you're loaded. You've got stacks. Rich beyond your wildest dreams. So glory in that, James says. Boast in that, though materially you're poor. Bless God, praise God. Boast in God for the fact that spiritually you have become immeasurably, eternally rich. Now that doesn't of course mean to say that poverty in and of itself is necessarily a good thing or that if we've got a reasonable amount of wealth that we now need to go and give it away in order that we can better appreciate our spiritual wealth. Well no, not necessarily, because the Bible does say there are dangers and snares that can come with poverty as well. You think about Proverbs, refers to this doesn't it, the poor man there who because of his condition might be tempted to steal in order to relieve that situation. Proverbs chapter 19, the early verses there talk about the kind of strain that can be placed on relationships. poor man experiences with his friends and family members. Maybe there's anxiety or stress, discontent can come in. Loneliness, ostracism, those kind of things can come about because of poverty, can start early on in life. In school, I don't know if this was your experience, I know it was at my school, if there's perhaps a boy there who doesn't have the right sneakers, the right kind of trainers, the cool trainers that all the other kids are wearing because perhaps his parents can't afford to buy them for him, then that boy can be, he's excluded, he's not in with the in crowd. And that's something that actually can, well, starts in school but goes through life. Think about the prodigal. He had a lot of friends, first of all, didn't he, the prodigal, when he had money, when his wallet was stuffed full of his father's cash. But after he'd blown his way through all of his inheritance money, then all his friends disappeared with it. And he's got no pals after that, just the pigs. The pigs were his eating and drinking pals after that. And poverty can do that too. Poverty can make you a lonely person. Whereas money, on the other hand, if you've got some and especially if it's money you're throwing around and you're willing to give it to everybody else, then that will make you very popular and the world will be your friend and everybody will want to know you and you'll be invited to this, that and the other. Everyone's going to want to know you. You've got clout, you've got influence, they're going to want to bring you in on their projects and all of that. But if you haven't got money, if you haven't got resources, then you're on the outside and you're a nobody. You haven't got the cool shoes on and nobody wants to know you. That's the way it can be. And so that being the case, then poverty and the person who finds himself in that position can be prone to all kinds of spiritual maladies. Things like self-pity, perhaps, can start to come on, or maybe feelings of bitterness and resentment, anger, maybe angry outbursts of defiance against God. These things can be a temptation for the man or woman in poverty. And so we have to say that, don't we, that being poor in and of itself isn't intrinsically, inherently a good thing. There are spiritual dangers that can go with it. And so what James is saying here is that though the poor man is undoubtedly disadvantaged in that way, yet he shouldn't let that become his focus. It's not to become his preoccupation or the subject of his conversation. Rather, his speech should be joyful and exuberant and boastful, even though he doesn't have much in the world's eyes. Nevertheless, far more importantly, he is rich, eternally, immeasurably rich in God's eyes. Blessed are you who are poor, said Jesus, for yours is the kingdom of heaven. Leon Morris in his commentary explains that. He says, So that's what poverty does. It reminds you, it causes you to look away from yourself, to look away to the Lord. To remember that all that you have and all that you need in life is found in Him. You may be in a low place down here, but spiritually you're in a high place in Him. Like Lazarus, for example. Lazarus, He was a poor man. He was a beggar. Didn't come much poorer than Lazarus. The sidewalk was his home. He lay there and the dogs, the mangy mutts, came and licked his sores. He had nothing in material terms. And yet in reality, spiritually, he was rich, rich beyond his wildest dreams. He was the son of a king. He was loved by God from eternity past. One of those given by the Father to the Son. made to be an heir, a joint heir with Jesus Christ himself, seated with Christ in the heavenly realms, that's his position. And that's what James is talking about here, let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation, or the NIV puts it, in his high position. It doesn't come any higher than that, does it? Seated with Christ in the heavenly realms. There is no place higher than that, there is no address, no earthly address compares with that, no street address compares with that. Sunset Boulevard, Fifth Avenue, Mayfair, Park Lane, Manhattan, none of those can even be mentioned in the same breath. as the heavenly realms, seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, the right hand of the majesty on high. That's Lazarus's home address. That's his zip code. Him and every other believer in Jesus Christ, no matter how impoverished their means, no matter how mean and lowly their earthly location, that's there, that's our spiritual location, that's our spiritual zip code. Ephesians 1.20, seated with Christ in the heavenly realms. And that's what James is reminding his readers here. As he says in the next chapter, Listen, my dear brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised to those who love him? Isn't that what he's done? Isn't that your real condition? You're rich. Don't you see that? You're rich beyond even your wildest dreams. Your monetary account may be running a little low, but The bank of heaven, you have spiritual resources in Christ that are limitless and will never run out. And so James says, remember that and rejoice in that. Boast in that, he says. Another commentator says this... That's what he's saying here. You may not be in fortune magazine. You may not be on the Forbes list But if you're a believer, then your name is on the lambs list and your name is in the lambs book of life And there are riches made over to you which make all of those earthly riches pale by comparison all things are yours Paul says that, doesn't he? All things are yours, the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come, all things are yours. You have an inheritance, Peter says, that can neither perish nor fade. That's what James is saying here. And when God's people come to really understand that and lay hold of that truth, then it causes them to rejoice. We had the privilege of going to Botswana a few years ago, and I was preaching in a church there. We stayed with a pastor and his family, and they didn't have very much. He took me and showed me his library. He had just a shell full of books, well-worn, thumbed books, and it humbled me when I thought about how many books I have in comparison. And then we went to their home for dinner, and we had a corn on the cob. Now, you know, in the USA, you can buy four or five corn on the cob, can't you, in the summertime for a few bucks. Doesn't really put much of a dent in your weekly budget. But for them, that was all they had. Materially, they had very little. And yet to be with those African believers, to spend time with them, to worship with them, to hear them sing, to see the love and the joy of Jesus Christ in their faces, you could see they had something. They had spiritual riches that this world knows nothing of. And even something we Western, affluent Western believers could learn many things from. the joy they had in their union with Christ, they knew that spiritually they were eternally rich in him. The hymn writer says, how vast the treasure we possess, how rich thy bounty, king of grace. The world is ours and worlds to come. Earth is our lodge and heaven is our home. Amen.