Weep and Howl, Then Wait

May 4, 2014 · James

Series · James · Week 3 of 23

Scripture referenced 7 passages

The passage this message was preached from, in full, with every other passage it reached for.

Psalm 100 read aloud at the opening to prepare hearts for worship

1 Shout for joy to Yahweh, all you lands!
2 Serve Yahweh with gladness. Come before his presence with singing.
3 Know that Yahweh, he is God. It is he who has made us, and we are his. We are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
4 Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, into his courts with praise. Give thanks to him, and bless his name.
5 For Yahweh is good. His loving kindness endures forever, his faithfulness to all generations.

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1 Chronicles 29

David's prayer of thanksgiving after the temple was built, used to frame the offering time

1 David the king said to all the assembly, “Solomon my son, whom alone God has chosen, is yet young and tender, and the work is great; for the palace is not for man, but for Yahweh God.

2 Now I have prepared with all my might for the house of my God the gold for the things of gold, the silver for the things of silver, the brass for the things of brass, iron for the things of iron, and wood for the things of wood; also onyx stones, stones to be set, stones for inlaid work, of various colors, all kinds of precious stones, and marble stones in abundance.

3 In addition, because I have set my affection on the house of my God, since I have a treasure of my own of gold and silver, I give it to the house of my God, over and above all that I have prepared for the holy house,

4 even three thousand talents of gold, of the gold of Ophir, and seven thousand talents of refined silver, with which to overlay the walls of the houses;

5 of gold for the things of gold, and of silver for the things of silver, and for all kinds of work to be made by the hands of artisans. Who then offers willingly to consecrate himself today to Yahweh?”

6 Then the princes of the fathers’ households, and the princes of the tribes of Israel, and the captains of thousands and of hundreds, with the rulers over the king’s work, offered willingly;

7 and they gave for the service of God’s house of gold five thousand talents and ten thousand darics, of silver ten thousand talents, of brass eighteen thousand talents, and of iron one hundred thousand talents.

8 People with whom precious stones were found gave them to the treasure of Yahweh’s house, under the hand of Jehiel the Gershonite.

9 Then the people rejoiced, because they offered willingly, because with a perfect heart they offered willingly to Yahweh; and David the king also rejoiced with great joy.

10 Therefore David blessed Yahweh before all the assembly; and David said, “You are blessed, Yahweh, the God of Israel our father, forever and ever.

11 Yours, Yahweh, is the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory, and the majesty! For all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, Yahweh, and you are exalted as head above all.

12 Both riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all! In your hand is power and might! It is in your hand to make great, and to give strength to all!

13 Now therefore, our God, we thank you, and praise your glorious name.

14 But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly as this? For all things come from you, and of your own have we given you.

15 For we are strangers before you, and foreigners, as all our fathers were. Our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is no remaining.

16 Yahweh our God, all this store that we have prepared to build you a house for your holy name comes from your hand, and is all your own.

17 I know also, my God, that you try the heart, and have pleasure in uprightness. As for me, in the uprightness of my heart I have willingly offered all these things. Now I have seen with joy your people, who are present here, offer willingly to you.

18 Yahweh, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Israel, our fathers, keep this desire forever in the thoughts of the heart of your people, and prepare their heart for you;

19 and give to Solomon my son a perfect heart, to keep your commandments, your testimonies, and your statutes, and to do all these things, and to build the palace, for which I have made provision.”

20 Then David said to all the assembly, “Now bless Yahweh your God!” All the assembly blessed Yahweh, the God of their fathers, and bowed down their heads and prostrated themselves before Yahweh and the king.

21 They sacrificed sacrifices to Yahweh, and offered burnt offerings to Yahweh, on the next day after that day, even one thousand bulls, one thousand rams, and one thousand lambs, with their drink offerings and sacrifices in abundance for all Israel,

22 and ate and drank before Yahweh on that day with great gladness. They made Solomon the son of David king the second time, and anointed him before Yahweh to be prince, and Zadok to be priest.

23 Then Solomon sat on the throne of Yahweh as king instead of David his father, and prospered; and all Israel obeyed him.

24 All the princes, the mighty men, and also all of the sons of king David submitted themselves to Solomon the king.

25 Yahweh magnified Solomon exceedingly in the sight of all Israel, and gave to him such royal majesty as had not been on any king before him in Israel.

26 Now David the son of Jesse reigned over all Israel.

27 The time that he reigned over Israel was forty years; he reigned seven years in Hebron, and he reigned thirty-three years in Jerusalem.

28 He died at a good old age, full of days, riches, and honor; and Solomon his son reigned in his place.

29 Now the acts of David the king, first and last, behold, they are written in the history of Samuel the seer, and in the history of Nathan the prophet, and in the history of Gad the seer,

30 with all his reign and his might, and the times that went over him, and over Israel, and over all the kingdoms of the countries.

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James 5:1-12

the main passage preached, covering scolding of the rich and calls to patience and simple speech

1 Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming on you.

2 Your riches are corrupted and your garments are moth-eaten.

3 Your gold and your silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be for a testimony against you, and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up your treasure in the last days.

4 Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you have kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of those who reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Armies.

5 You have lived in luxury on the earth, and taken your pleasure. You have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter.

6 You have condemned, you have murdered the righteous one. He doesn’t resist you.

7 Be patient therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. Behold, the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient over it, until it receives the early and late rain.

8 You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.

9 Don’t grumble, brothers, against one another, so that you won’t be judged. Behold, the judge stands at the door.

10 Take, brothers, for an example of suffering and of perseverance, the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.

11 Behold, we call them blessed who endured. You have heard of the perseverance of Job, and have seen the Lord in the outcome, and how the Lord is full of compassion and mercy.

12 But above all things, my brothers, don’t swear— not by heaven, or by the earth, or by any other oath; but let your “yes” be “yes”, and your “no”, “no”; so that you don’t fall into hypocrisy.

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James 1

referenced as the opening theme of counting it all joy through trials, producing patience

1 James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are in the Dispersion: Greetings.

2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you fall into various temptations,

3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.

4 Let endurance have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

5 But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach; and it will be given to him.

6 But let him ask in faith, without any doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven by the wind and tossed.

7 For that man shouldn’t think that he will receive anything from the Lord.

8 He is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

9 But let the brother in humble circumstances glory in his high position;

10 and the rich, in that he is made humble, because like the flower in the grass, he will pass away.

11 For the sun arises with the scorching wind, and withers the grass, and the flower in it falls, and the beauty of its appearance perishes. So also will the rich man fade away in his pursuits.

12 Blessed is the man who endures temptation, for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord promised to those who love him.

13 Let no man say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God,” for God can’t be tempted by evil, and he himself tempts no one.

14 But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust, and enticed.

15 Then the lust, when it has conceived, bears sin; and the sin, when it is full grown, produces death.

16 Don’t be deceived, my beloved brothers.

17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation, nor turning shadow.

18 Of his own will he gave birth to us by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.

19 So, then, my beloved brothers, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger;

20 for the anger of man doesn’t produce the righteousness of God.

21 Therefore, putting away all filthiness and overflowing of wickedness, receive with humility the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

22 But be doers of the word, and not only hearers, deluding your own selves.

23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man looking at his natural face in a mirror;

24 for he sees himself, and goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.

25 But he who looks into the perfect law of freedom, and continues, not being a hearer who forgets, but a doer of the work, this man will be blessed in what he does.

26 If anyone among you thinks himself to be religious while he doesn’t bridle his tongue, but deceives his heart, this man’s religion is worthless.

27 Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

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James 4

referenced to connect wanton pleasure of the rich to earlier warning about pleasures causing strife among believers

1 Where do wars and fightings among you come from? Don’t they come from your pleasures that war in your members?

2 You lust, and don’t have. You murder and covet, and can’t obtain. You fight and make war. You don’t have, because you don’t ask.

3 You ask, and don’t receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.

4 You adulterers and adulteresses, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

5 Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who lives in us yearns jealously”?

6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

7 Be subject therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

9 Lament, mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to gloom.

10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will exalt you.

11 Don’t speak against one another, brothers. He who speaks against a brother and judges his brother, speaks against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law, but a judge.

12 Only one is the lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge another?

13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow let’s go into this city, and spend a year there, trade, and make a profit.”

14 Whereas you don’t know what your life will be like tomorrow. For what is your life? For you are a vapor, that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away.

15 For you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will both live, and do this or that.”

16 But now you glory in your boasting. All such boasting is evil.

17 To him therefore who knows to do good, and doesn’t do it, to him it is sin.

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Hebrews 11:35-38

quoted to describe the suffering of the prophets as the basis for calling believers to patience

35 Women received their dead by resurrection. Others were tortured, not accepting their deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection.

36 Others were tried by mocking and scourging, yes, moreover by bonds and imprisonment.

37 They were stoned. They were sawn apart. They were tempted. They were slain with the sword. They went around in sheep skins and in goat skins; being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated

38 (of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts, mountains, caves, and the holes of the earth.

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Job 42

Job's reply to God after his suffering, used to illustrate the outcome of endurance and seeing God more clearly

1 Then Job answered Yahweh,

2 “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be restrained.

3 You asked, ‘Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?’ therefore I have uttered that which I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I didn’t know.

4 You said, ‘Listen, now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you will answer me.’

5 I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.

6 Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”

7 It was so, that after Yahweh had spoken these words to Job, Yahweh said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “My wrath is kindled against you, and against your two friends; for you have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job has.

8 Now therefore, take to yourselves seven bulls and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and my servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept him, that I not deal with you according to your folly. For you have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job has.”

9 So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went, and did what Yahweh commanded them, and Yahweh accepted Job.

10 Yahweh turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends. Yahweh gave Job twice as much as he had before.

11 Then came there to him all his brothers, and all his sisters, and all those who had been of his acquaintance before, and ate bread with him in his house. They comforted him, and consoled him concerning all the evil that Yahweh had brought on him. Everyone also gave him a piece of money, and everyone a ring of gold.

12 So Yahweh blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, one thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand female donkeys.

13 He had also seven sons and three daughters.

14 He called the name of the first, Jemimah; and the name of the second, Keziah; and the name of the third, Keren Happuch.

15 In all the land were no women found so beautiful as the daughters of Job. Their father gave them an inheritance among their brothers.

16 After this Job lived one hundred forty years, and saw his sons, and his sons’ sons, to four generations.

17 So Job died, being old and full of days.

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Recap

The message in order, in a few minutes of reading.

The pastor opened James 5:1-12 by sketching four kinds of people, defined by two axes: temporal wealth and eternal standing. From there he walked through a hard passage aimed at the rich unbeliever, then a call to patience for the suffering believer, and finally a brief word about honest speech.

What was said

Before getting into the text, the pastor noted that the whole letter of James has been addressed to believers, mostly people who were once comfortable in Jerusalem but were scattered after Stephen's stoning and had worked through whatever wealth they carried with them. That background matters, because the opening section of chapter 5 is a rare departure. He could not find a single commentator who argued that verses 1-6 are addressed to Christians. This section is aimed at unbelievers who are wealthy in this life and poor toward God.

The language James uses is some of the strongest in the New Testament. He calls the rich to weep and howl, warns that hoarded gold and silver are corroding, and says that corruption will be a witness against them. The specific sin James names is withholding wages from field laborers while living in luxury. The pastor pointed out that tarnish forms on things that sit unused, so the corroding wealth is itself evidence of hoarding. The outcry of those workers, James says, has reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth, the Lord of angel armies.

After that scolding, James turns back to the believers and calls them to patience. The pastor said this is not a new theme. James opened his letter with "count it all joy" when you fall into trials, because trials produce perseverance. Here in chapter 5 he is returning to that same note. The coming of the Lord is the anchor point, and the farmer who plants and then waits for the early and late rains is the model: there is real work involved, but the outcome depends on God sending the rain.

James then points to the prophets as people who paid a steep price for speaking truth in the Lord's name. The pastor read from Hebrews 11 to fill in what that suffering looked like, including stoning, being sawn in two, and wandering in caves. He connected this to Stephen's final speech in Acts, where Stephen asked whether there was a single prophet his audience had not persecuted. The point is that these scattered, impoverished believers stood in a long line of faithful people who endured precisely because they were faithful.

Job is the other example James reaches for. The pastor walked through the divine council scene where God permits Satan to strip Job of livestock, servants, and health. When Job comes out the other side, the pastor emphasized that his greatest blessings were not the restored flocks but a deeper knowledge of God. Job's own words make that plain: "My ears have heard of You, but now my eyes have seen You." Temporal poverty, for a time, produced eternal gain.

The final section, verse 12, calls for plain speech. The pastor explained that the oaths James has in mind are not the same as affirming truth in a courtroom. The cultural habit he is pushing back on was swearing by a deity to mark off one corner of your talk as reliable, which implicitly admits that the rest of your speech cannot be trusted. He quoted a line to that effect: uttering "I swear by God" is really announcing that people expect you to lie and you need heavy artillery to be believed. Jesus said the same thing. Let your yes be yes and your no be no.

The pastor closed by noting a symmetry in the passage: six verses to the temporally rich and eternally poor, and six verses to the temporally poor and eternally rich. The first group receives four warnings and the second receives four commands, patience, strengthening the heart, no complaining, and no swearing. James the Just, the man whose knees were said to be calloused from constant prayer, is calling believers to walk out their faith in ordinary daily speech and steady endurance, because the grace and joy Christ has given them is the very reason such a life is possible.

Doing a Bible study?

Here is a guide we have prepared for you: the passages in order, questions for the group, and room to write.

Pastor Mark described four types of people based on external wealth and internal spiritual condition. Which of those four categories do you find yourself most tempted to misidentify yourself with, and why?
James uses strong language to describe wealthy people who hoard and withhold wages from workers. What does that passage say to us about the difference between having money and how we use it?

and 3 more questions in the guide

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0:00 Speaker 3Alright. Good morning. Good morning. Looks like it's about 09:00, maybe 09:01. Let's we're gonna read, Psalm 100 this morning just to get us our hearts prepared, wake us up a little bit.

0:16 Psalm 100 says, shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness. Come before him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his.

0:30 We are his people, the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and praise his name for the Lord is good, and his love endures forever. His faithfulness continues through all generations. Amen.

0:48 We'll sing.

0:50 Speaker 1Well, good morning. Y'all can have a seat and I have a few announcements this morning. The announcements are in your bulletin. The normal ones, the things we do every week but I'm going to just give you the weird announcements again like I've been doing lately and the weird announcements honestly are stacking up around here. There are lots and lots of weird and I'm not sure if people are getting to do weirder things to have weird announcements or if we're just that weird.

1:17 Awana, the Awana store is tomorrow night. So that is a weird thing. We don't have those every time. We just have them once a semester. So the Iwana store is tomorrow night.

1:26 This is this lady has been an institution here in Jackson for many, many years. You see, she was born in 1921 to 2014. Sia Lamb died this past Friday morning early in the morning, 01:17 in the morning. So her funeral will be here on Thursday this week. And she was absolutely joyous every single day.

1:52 So I'm glad to I'm glad to be involved in that. The family will be here are already here and that's happening at 10:00. There will be a viewing ten to eleven and then the funeral will be here and then in term at Aspen Hills and a light lunch afterwards. So please feel invited. You are invited to come to the to the funeral for Seal Lamb.

2:13 And if you knew her, she is quite a cut up and she would not mind being called weird. So, Next Saturday, May 10 is a church workday. We have not one done one of these in a while but you can see that'll be cleaning, maybe some painting, all kinds of different tasks that are that need to be done from ten to two. That actually coincides with with the town's cleanup day, the town of Jackson has a cleanup day the same day. And I know some of y'all are involved in highway adoption and all sorts of stuff that you do that, but it's a great time of year to do it.

2:45 So Mark Hull, May 10, ten to two. Felix and Mark will be in charge. Felix didn't know that until just then. The men's ministry, Saturday, May 17. Y'all don't have to read all that fine print.

2:58 I put it up there so that I would remember everything that's going on. Do y'all know Jeff Zender? Another one that would not mind being called weird. Jeff is great. Absolutely great and last year in August, I rode down and saw an earth lodge that he was building.

3:12 He's building it out of huge, you know, lodgepole pines and the men's ministry is taking a trip down there on the seventeenth. They're going to get here about 7AM to the church, go down, and just spend time together. It'll be a a mile and a half hike back in there. Prepare breakfast over an open fire. Planning to help Jeff with firewood.

3:34 Mainly, it's just being together, but there are some work tasks that need to be done. We'll be standing around grunting, I'm sure. Cooking things over a fire, making chili. Each guy will be given an ingredient to bring, and we'll throw it all together and cook that up. And there will be activities such as shooting shotguns, archery, horseshoes, and hatchet throwing just for fun.

3:54 So if that's not a weird announcement, I don't know what is. But seven in the morning, we'll plan on being back by 06:30 or seven that night. And it should be a barrel of monkeys. So please plan. If you're a man, plan on being there.

4:07 Baby bottle campaign. We have been doing this for quite some time, but at first b, we seldom put, deadlines on things like this. We did not tell you any kind of a deadline. Therefore, they're just out there in the ether. So I'm I'm putting a deadline on it.

4:22 If we need one, a due date, May 27. So the baby bottle campaign for Turning Point Crisis for Turning Point Pregnancy Resource Center, and the baby bottles are out there. We have a ton of them still left. If you haven't picked one up, please do. If you have picked up, you can pick up another one if you want to.

4:41 Fill it with change or cash or checks and then bring them back here. You can turn them in here or you can turn them in at Turning Point. And the reason I said May 27 as the due date is because May 27 is when the Turning Point does their annual fundraising event at the Bar J. So that makes sense to me. Anyway, 05/27/2014, it'll be the regular Bar J show, but with the additional silent auction and kind of a state of the clinic address from Judy Basie who is now in charge at Turning Point.

5:15 Judy is now the the director. So that's happening May 27, and that's that's a lot of fun too. Nights at Columbus put that on, and it's the same times as every other night out there. So, the gates open at 05:30. Show starts at seven but there is a silent auction so you want to get there early.

5:34 You can buy tickets from Diane in the church office. Thank you. There is a sign up table out here and in the foyer of vestibule, Narthex, depending on your tradition. For the workshop of Wonders Vacation Bible School and it's over there with a toolbox and there's some little cards that if you'd like to help out with bringing stuff in for that VBS, you can grab one of those cards and then bring that back here to the church too. And if you need to talk to somebody about it, Krista Klimmer is right there.

6:03 Dancy, would you stand? Just wave. You're not in charge this year? You still know who to talk to. Alright.

6:10 Dancy or Krista Klimmer. Actually, Krista probably be the one to talk to about that. And we have a baptism this morning. Actually, we have two baptisms this morning. When we came in this morning, I plan on having one.

6:23 And last week, Pascal was planning on being baptized with Lauren Fry and she was sick so she didn't get a chance to last week. Pascal, would you come up? And Maddie, would you come up? So, this morning when Maddie got here, she just had one set of clothes with her and we had this left over downstairs. This is a baptismal robe like the ones we used to use way back when and I think it's cute as a button because Maddie just had one set of clothes with her but she has accepted Christ.

6:54 She's put it her faith in him. She knows the scripture. She knows all of the pertinent information but she has accepted it for herself and Paschal has too and so, I'm going to baptize these two little gals. Right now. Maddie, do you wanna go first?

7:13 Alright. I will mention to the rest of y'all if there are deep gasps. Last night, this baptistry was full and warm. This morning, this baptistry was empty. Now, it is cold.

7:25 Alright, you just stand on that step right there. How about that? Maddie, have you put your faith in Jesus Christ as your savior? Yeah. And do you do you intend to live the rest of your life for him?

7:38 Yes. Fantastic. Well, upon your profession of faith in Jesus as the Christ, I baptize you, my sister. Whoo. In the name of the father, the son, and the holy ghost.

8:07 James tells us that the Christian life is marked with suffering. It begins at the beginning. This one is a little different and special to me because there are very few places where I read scripture and I have this this really close connection with God but at Jesus baptism, the voice of God said, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased and I want to say, this is my beloved daughter in whom I'm very well pleased. Paschal, have you given your life to Christ and accepted him as your savior? Do you plan to live your life in his service?

8:46 You do. Then I baptize you, not just my daughter but my sister. In the name of the father and the son and the holy ghost. Buried with Christ. And raised to walk in newness of life.

9:15 Y'all can stand if you

9:17 Speaker 3God, we, we just come before you and and, just praise your name that your love indeed does does not does not end and it, it and it never fails us lord no matter what we do. And and we we turn and, and just and, thank you for for that love and we also acknowledge that that's that's what you're after with us, Lord, is our our love for you. And, we know that you're after our hearts, not after our works, and, we just pray that, you would remind us of that today. In the name of pray. Amen.

9:51 Speaker 2I was looking at first chronicles 29 this week, and this was David's

9:57 Speaker 1prayer of

9:58 Speaker 2thanksgiving after the temple was built. And I wanna share that with you because I think David got it right when it comes to our resources and what God has given. Just listen to this. He says, O Lord, the God of our ancestor Israel, may you be praised forever and ever. Yours, O Lord, is the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory, and the majesty.

10:23 How's that for adoration? Everything in the heavens and on earth is yours, oh Lord, and this is your kingdom. We adore you as the one who is over all things. That's God's sovereignty. Wealth and honor come from you alone for you rule over everything.

10:41 Power and might are in your hand and at your discretion, people are made great and given strength. Oh, our God, we thank you and praise you for your glorious name. But who am I and who are my people that we could give anything to you? Everything we have has come from you and we give only what you first gave us. We're here only for a moment.

11:03 Visitors and strangers in the land as our ancestors were before us. Our days on earth are like passing shadow, gone so soon without a trace. Oh Lord, our God, even this material we have gathered to build a temple to honor your holy name comes from you. It all belongs to you. I know my God that you examine our hearts and rejoice when you find integrity there.

11:28 You know I have done all this with good motives and I have watched your people offer their gifts willingly and joyously. Isn't that great? I love that part. Examines our heart and rejoices when he finds integrity there. And that the people were offering their gifts willingly and joyously.

11:47 Let's pray together. God, may that prayer describe us as we come to you as the in this worship of giving. We know God that all things come from you and I pray that you would examine our hearts and that you would find integrity there. And Lord may it be our joy to willingly give as all things that are ours come from you and they're yours to begin with. So we thank you.

12:16 May this offering bring joy to you and joy to us as well. In Jesus name we pray.

15:40 Speaker 1Usually, while she's playing, I recognize, hey, kiddos, y'all can go. I remembered as they reminded me. Peak Children's Church is downstairs starting now. Usually, you're playing, I know exactly what it is. I'm singing along in my head.

15:56 I I didn't know that. It's very pretty. Stomped him. This week, I want to start out with I actually I read something this week as I was I was I was studying for the last verse we're going to cover today. I read something this week that I thought fit this pretty well.

16:17 I read James five is where we are. That's where we are in our study. So, we're up to that point and I stopped shy last week of just really scolding the rich. That's what James gets to. That's what we're going into to begin with this week is is that passage about the rich but I want to start off with something that probably fits better towards the end.

16:39 We're going to go verses one through 12. One through 12 is what we're looking at today and I want to read something. This was several years ago. Fred Holloman who was a preacher. He was a chaplain of the Kansas Senate.

16:54 The Senate of the State of Kansas and he stood up when he was open in the senate session and he said, this prayer. He goes, omniscient father, help us to know who is telling the truth. One side tells us one thing and the other just the opposite and if neither side is telling the truth, we would like to know that too. And if each side is telling half the truth, give us the wisdom to put the right halves together. In Jesus name, amen.

17:28 Ain't that good? Our nation is so polarized right now. Incredibly polarized and when I'm talking through the gospels all the time when I was talking in the gospels, I would stand on this side and I'd say, the sadducees over here and then I'd run to the other side and say, the Pharisees over here but y'all all know. We're in a society that is pretty much split. Two sides and the further we get to the extremes, the less we believe anybody on the other side believes anything they're talking about.

17:59 James is speaking to two disparate groups of people today. They are completely distinct groups of people. There are at least four types of people in the world. Now, class is a fairly new thing. Middle class is a concept that has not been known for too terribly long.

18:20 I'm going to go with at least four types of people. One of them is the poor externally and poor internally. That is somebody who does not have any material wealth and they also do not have God in their life, Christ in their hearts, they are not surrendered to him, okay? So, it's poor both externally and internally. That's one group of people.

18:42 We have the rich externally and rich eat internally. So, that would be somebody who does have plenty to do, plenty of material wealth, but they also have Jesus in their life. They also run their life according to scripture. We have the poor externally but rich internally, and we have the rich externally but poor internally, okay? Those four groups of people make sense to you.

19:12 There's no middle ground on the second part. You can't just be middle class here. You're either rich or poor there. You've either got Jesus or you don't. So that makes sense?

19:21 Now, here, you might argue with me that, well, I'm not poor but I'm not rich. Okay. That's fine but I want you to know, this part, there's no middle ground. There is no middle ground there. You could also put it this way, poor temporally and poor eternally.

19:37 The same for all those temporally and eternally are the four are the two different types and four different types of people I'm going over. James primarily has written this book. The whole book has been to those who are poor and temporal means that don't have material wealth but they're rich eternally. In fact, a lot of these people had been fairly wealthy in Jerusalem but after Stephen Stoning and the scattering, these Jewish background believers were scattered and they're scattered with whatever they could carry with them. So, a lot of them had worked through by the time he writes this twenty years later, eighteen, twenty years later.

20:12 A lot of them had gone through their wealth and they were poor temporarily. Still rich eternally because they put their faith in Christ. This next section that James is going to go over five one through six verses one through six is written to the rich temporarily but the poor eternally. Does that make sense? It's written into unbelievers who have plenty of wealth and it is serious.

20:39 So, I have a trio today of alliterative emphases. Yes. I love it. I don't know if anybody else loves it, but I love it. This is a scathing, scolding to the scandalously upscale.

20:56 And it really is. It is probably the some of the strongest language used in the New Testament. Come now you rich. Weep and howl and howl when we say howl in English. That's why we have the word howl.

21:11 It's an poetic word. It sounds like it sounds. Howl. Howl. That's what it is.

21:19 In Greek, it's also that way. The word there is a loud wail. Weep and howl for your miseries which are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted, your garments have become moth eaten, your gold and your silver have rusted. I don't know why we continue to translate that rusted.

21:40 It can mean rusted, corrupted, or tarnished, and gold and silver don't rust, but a lot of translations use rusted. The word in Greek means rusted, corrupted, oxidized, tarnished. Gold and silver have rusted. Silver definitely oxidizes and tarnishes. You might argue gold doesn't.

22:00 I think he's saying though that your gold is tarnished. Gold doesn't tarnish. What you think you have, you don't even have. And their rust or their tarnish, their corruption will be a witness against you and will consume your flesh like fire. That's heavy language.

22:20 That's very very heavy language to the rich unbeliever. Their tarnish will be a witness against you and will consume your flesh like fire. When you use a bowl, does it tarnish? No. When you use an item, does it tarnish?

22:40 No. What he's saying is that they have hoarded. They have hoarded and gotten way way more than they need. They've built up a treasure of gold and silver, of wheat, of garments. It is the last days that you have stored up your treasure.

23:06 Behold, the pay of the laborers who mowed your fields and which was has been withheld by you, it cries out against you and the outcry of those who did the harvesting has reached the ear ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. This is hard preaching from James. Now, the whole rest of the book, he's been preaching to believers. You know, he said, brothers, brothers, brothers and sisters and he's been saying that. This is an aside.

23:32 I I could not find a single commentator that said, no, he's talking to believers here. He's talking to people. He's given a break. He's been I've been saying he's been beating us up. Every week, I feel like we he's been giving us a hard hard lesson but it's good practical stuff but he's been saying that and he gets to this point and he says, the whole time.

23:52 He says, you'll know that you're a Christian by your actions and the actions of these people are showing to him that they are not. Behold the pay of the laborers who mowed your fields and which has been withheld by you. They held back. They have plenty but they're withholding. It cries out against you and the outcry of those who did your harvesting has reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.

24:14 Sabaoth means the Lord of hosts, the Lord of armies, angel armies. He is the leader of angel armies and you might think you're doing well now but their outcry has reached the ears of the guy who's in charge of the host of heaven. You have lived luxuriously on the earth and led a life of wanton pleasure. What did he say just a chapter ago? In chapter four, he said to Christians, he said, why is there war and strife and struggles among you?

24:48 Is it not the pleasures of your heart? It's going after the things that give you this pleasure, wanton pleasure. You have fattened your hearts in the day of slaughter. Do you all deal with pigs? Anybody in here ever deal with pigs?

25:04 When they're fattening up a pig, you can put a pig in a small cage, small pen where he can't get around much, and if you keep on feeding him, he'll keep on eating and he'll keep on eating and he'll keep on eating and if he throws up, he'll eat that. That's the truth. It's bad but true. In the days of Nero, which is right around this time, you know, just before Nero, this is just before Nero, ten or twelve years, probably thirteen years before. This is gross.

25:36 Most they ate themselves to the point of being sick and had a place to throw up so they could eat more. While there were plenty starving. So this is the culture that he's speaking into. You fattened your hearts in the day of slaughter. You've condemned and put to death the righteous man.

25:56 He does not resist you. A lot of people put a capital H right there. I think that that's reasonable. He's saying that you are the very ones who killed Christ or he's saying, you kill a lot of righteous people by the way that you act. They starve to death because of the way that you act.

26:13 You've condemned and put to death the righteous man and he does not or he cannot is not able to resist you here on earth. But lord of Sabaoth has heard his cries. So that's the first of the trio of the alliterative emphases, the scathing scolding to the scandalously upscale. And now, it gets ridiculous. Seven through 12 is a is James persuading people to patience and persistence premised on the prodigious plotting of the plowers, planters, and prophets.

26:49 Remember that. It's my professors told me to do something that was easy to remember. Isn't that easy to remember? No. He is persuading people though and he has a basis for his persuasion.

26:59 That first part gives a little bit of a break and it almost sounds like class warfare. It almost sounds like James is saying, oh yeah, come on now. We're the we're the chosen ones. We're the good ones because he doesn't call for a chance for those people to repent. He does not see that happening and the letter is not to those people.

27:19 The letter is to these people. The letter is to those who are poor temporally but rich eternally and he calls for them to have patience and persistence. What's the first part of the book of James? James one, it's about counting it all joy. Right?

27:37 James two, count it all joy. When you fall into various trials, you're going to go through these things but it produces patience and patience perseverance. So, he's going back to that note again. He's hitting that theme one more time. So, in verse seven, he says, therefore, be patient brethren until the coming of the Lord.

27:59 That in itself is enough hope right there. He could've stopped right there until the coming of the Lord. The farmer. I call them flowers and planters just to, you know, be a little too. The farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil.

28:17 Being patient about it until it gets the early and the late rains. You too, be patient. Strengthen your hearts for the coming of the Lord is near. So not just is the Lord coming but it's near. The farmer waits for the precious produce.

28:36 He doesn't just wait though. There's a lot to farming. There is plowing, cultivating, there's the planning, there's all of the stuff that goes into it and he has to be on a steady path. But the early and late rain show that it's not all about the farmer. It's dependent upon God.

28:55 God almighty is the one who brings the early and the late rains and no amount of work that you do is going to have that precious produce come up if God doesn't send those early and late rains. He's saying, trust in the Lord. His coming is near. Be patient. Am I missing some of that verse right there?

29:18 Verse nine, I think I am. Yes, I am. Just a second. The first part of verse nine reads, Do not grumble against one another or do not complain. Brothers, that you yourselves may not be judged.

29:48 Behold, the judge is standing right at the door. As an example, brothers, of suffering impatient, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. We count those blessed who have endured. We count them blessed, not happy, who have endured. You have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome of the Lord's dealings that the Lord is full of compassion and is merciful.

30:18 So, I want to go for just a second to James. I mean, to the perseverance of the prophets. Hebrews eleven thirty five and thirty eight. This is this describes the prophets. He's using the prophets as the basis for which he's telling for them to have telling them to have patience and it this is Hebrews speaking of the prophets.

30:38 Others of the prophets were tortured and refused to be released so that they might gain a better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging while still others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned. They were sawn in two. They were put to death by the sword.

30:54 They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted, and mistreated. The world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains and in caves and in holes in the ground. For speaking in the name of the Lord. That's why the prophets had that.

31:11 For speaking out, having the audacity to say the truth of the Lord. James is asking them and he's basing it on this. He's basing it on that. Does that sound like something that you say? Take heart, fellas.

31:26 You're just like the prophets. They were already experiencing the fact that they were just like the prophets. Do you think of Steven? Steven said, towards the end of the speech, his classic speech we went through in Acts when he tells all the whole history of Israel and how the line of God goes throughout. All of this, the line of blessing of God goes throughout and then, he stands and one of the last thing he says before they stone him and says, is there even one of the prophets you didn't persecute?

32:00 And that was what made them grind their teeth and stone him. He's saying, you stand in a line of people who have been mistreated but it is for a good cause. Good and righteous just cause. You've heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome of the Lord's dealings. What is the outcome of Job?

32:25 The perseverance of Job So, in the divine gathering, God and Satan get together Satan says, I want Job. You can do anything but this. You can't hurt him and so he takes away everything from him. 7,000 sheep, 500 yoke of oxen. All of these wealthy 500 donkeys, multiple servants.

32:59 He was healthy. All of that. And it was taken away. It was temporal riches that were taken away. Then, he started in on God said, that he could have him and he could cause boils and cause the illness, all of that stuff.

33:16 So, he's taking away his health but God was allowing Satan to do this. He was allowing him to go through a very very difficult time but he was getting him to a good end. I want you to hear when Job came out of the backside of all of this hardship and difficulty, when he came out of the backside of it, his primary blessings were not temporal. They were spiritual and eternal. Job replied to the Lord, I know that you can do all things.

33:47 No plan of yours can be thwarted. You ask, who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge? That was Job asking the questions of God. Surely, Job says to God, I spoke of things I did not understand. Things too wonderful for me to know.

34:07 You said, listen now and I will speak. I will question you and you shall answer me and my ears, Job says, my ears have heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore, I despise self and repent in dust and ashes. I turn to you. Now, will we see Job in heaven?

34:26 Absolutely. No doubt about it. Did he have a greater understanding for having become temporally poor for a time? Yes. He absolutely did.

34:39 So, we're going to go on from there. The trio ends up simply Sanctioning simple speech. 12. Oh, I don't know why we're losing that, Renzy. Verse 12 says, but above all my brothers, do not swear either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath but your yes is to be yes and your no, no.

35:10 So that you may not fall under judgement. He's just telling them the same thing that Jesus said earlier. Let your yay be yay and your nay be nay. You do not need to call into effect any kind of an oath. El Subuntivo is the hardest part of Spanish to learn.

35:28 Absolutely, the hardest part of most any language to learn because there are so many different rules that apply to this. The major rule of determining whether something should be in the subjunctive mood or not. I'm a grammar guy. Y'all know that. The major rule is if there's more than one will involved.

35:45 If there's more than one will involved in something, then you have to leave room for that other person's will or that other being's will. Whenever you pray, you do not pray in the indicative mood where you just say, God, this will be so. That would be presumptuous. Would that it were so? You add in the possibility for God not to be thinking the same thoughts that you're thinking because his thoughts are higher than our thoughts, right?

36:17 Oaths, this has been misrepresented a lot. I looked this up in classical Greek this week and there are tons and tons of this word, the oath that I was talking about, the swearing an oath. That is not exactly the same thing as us putting our hand on the Bible in the court of law and saying that we will tell the truth. You swear or affirm that you'll tell the truth. It's not the same thing.

36:41 The normal thing for this culture would be to swear by Zeus or swear to Zeus. It was usually swearing by a deity of some sort that you will do an action of some sort or that deity will do this to you. In fact, I thought of a guy that I went to high school with that was sort of a ladies' man. This is the first thing I thought of. I was on the basketball team with him and this guy had multiple girlfriends.

37:19 Not a nice guy. And one of the girls' boyfriends was very upset with him and came to him and was going to beat him up. And this scene is playing out in my head. And he'd melt down and he said, I swear for God, he may strike me dead if I mess with your girlfriend and everybody knew that he messed with that guy's girlfriend. Everybody knew it but he said, I swear for God.

37:48 That's what I'm he's talking about. He's saying, don't do that. You don't have to do that. When you do that, you are bracketing off one point of your speech that you're, let me just read this. Whenever I utter the formula, I swear by God, I'm really saying, now I'm going to mark off an area of absolute truth and put walls around it to cut it off from the muddy floods of untruthfulness and irresponsibility that ordinarily overruns my speech.

38:14 In fact, I'm saying even more than this. I'm saying that people are expecting me to lie from the start and just because they're counting on my lying, I have to bring up these big guns of oaths and words of honor. Jesus and James are telling us that we must never use the big guns of oath like I swear on my mom's grave on in heaven or on earth or anywhere else. I swear, as God is my witness, May he strike me dead. May lightning strike if I do such and such.

38:48 By the beard of Zeus. I read some ridiculous Greek ones. All of our speech should be like courtroom speech. True. Radically true.

39:02 And that's what he's saying. I have heard of of people that would say, well, I won't do that because I don't want to take an oath. And last week when Gary was up here doing the covenant ceremony, I thought about that. A covenant is not the same thing as an oath. It's not saying, I swear before God that I will do everything I can to help out this church or this organization or whatever.

39:26 It's not that. It is just letting your yes be yes and your no be no. Will you allow this church family in? Yes. Amen.

39:36 Will you do the best you can to help them out too? Yes. Yes. Yes. No.

39:42 No. And then I look back over this again yesterday and I saw that there was a symmetry here. I had seen it in those three parts. It's one to the rich, one to the poor, and then it was that last one about not swearing but the more I thought about it, I thought there's a certain symmetry here. Versus one through six are to those rich, temporally, poor, eternally.

40:05 The non believers, especially the non believers who have mistreated the poor and then, six through twelve, six verses also was for the poor temporarily but rich eternally. Same ones that he has given. The four warnings to the first part is that hoarding does not pay. Things turn. Moth and rust destroy.

40:27 Riches offer no relief in eternity. Your unjust acts will be remembered and comfort today is not equal with comfort tomorrow. And then he gives basically four commands to those eternal rich. Be patient, strengthen your heart, don't complain, and don't swear. So aren't you all glad that we're closing in on the end of James?

40:56 I am. I am very very happy. There's not a whole lot of grace and joy in here because he's telling us how to live our normal daily lives because you have grace and because you have joy, because Christ has given you this, this is the way we should be walking out our faith. James the just, the man with camel knees they said because he bent in prayer so often. May we live our lives patiently, strengthening our hearts, not complaining, and not swearing by anything but just walking.

41:24 Yes. Yes. No. No. Now, we've got communion today.

41:30 I'm gonna invite the elders if they will to come forward. On the same night that Jesus was betrayed, he he took bread and he took the cup of wine and he blessed them and he shared them with the disciples. We take this. We've we're doing baptism and a communion today. We take this to be a symbol.

41:58 The baptism is a symbol of his death, burial, and resurrection and this is a partaking in that death, burial, and resurrection continually as we live. Would y'all just go ahead and distribute? I'll pray. Lord, thank you for this group that's here gathered today in your name. For those lord who call you their savior and their lord.

42:20 Would you just remind us in this symbol lord that we live our lives daily and we fail lord but you didn't. You had a lived a perfect life. You. After giving thanks, Jesus took the bread after supper and he said, this is my body given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.

45:13 Thank you lord for your broken body and for your spilled blood. Lord, we ask your blessing on this cup. As we share it. We do so in your your name and your remembrance. Just going through the ringer and feel the pressures of this life.

49:23 God, would you please comfort us and strengthen us? Have us gather around you, your word, your name. Looking forward to your coming lord but hanging on every word that comes out of your mouth. Trusting in your blood and your broken body. In Jesus name, amen.

49:40 Would you all stand? We're going to sing one last song. Blessing and honor, power, and glory forever to our God. Amen.

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Baptism Patience In Suffering Telling The Truth Waiting On God Wealth And Injustice

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