Trials of Poverty & Prosperity

Trials of Poverty & Prosperity

“Trials of Poverty & Prosperity”
(James 1:9-12)
Series: Living the Faith (James)

Rev. Todd A. Linn, PhD

Henderson’s First Baptist Church, Henderson

•I invite you to take your Bibles and join me in the Book of James, chapter 1 (page 812; YouVersion).

A few weeks ago we began a series of messages through the Book of James. We’re going verse-by-verse through this book and James is about real life, practical, down-to-earth daily living. So our series is entitled, “Living the faith” and we pick up today where we left off last Sunday, picking up at verse 9.

•I invite you to stand in honor of the reading of God’s Word.

9 Let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation,
10 but the rich in his humiliation, because as a flower of the field he will pass away.
11 For no sooner has the sun risen with a burning heat than it withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beautiful appearance perishes. So the rich man also will fade away in his pursuits.
12 Blessed is the man who endures temptation (or trials); for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.

•Pray.

Introduction:

If there is but one thing we have learned so far as we have studied the first few verses of chapter 1 each week it is that trials are inevitable. Every one of us can expect to fall into some kind of hardship, difficulty, or trial or trouble.

We know this because of the way James begins the topic in verse 2. He writes: “My brethren (speaking generically; so brothers and sisters), count it all joy when (not if!) you fall into various trials. So we have noted that trials are inevitable.

I think it is very helpful to remember this truth as we go about our lives in this fallen world that virtually anything that can happen to any person can happen to a Christian. Virtually anything that can happen to any person can happen to a Christian.

The idea that somehow because Christians are saved that they are spared from the same difficulties facing non-Christians is a horrible lie that has no basis in Scripture. I suppose if we just read a verse here and then a verse there and we did a sort of “picking and choosing” of various Bible verses that we might read and study only those verses that talk about the good times and miss the ones that talk about the bad times. Virtually anything that can happen to any person can happen to a Christian.

Speaking of quoting Bible verses, I heard about a testimony meeting at a church where the pastor got up and asked the church members to share their favorite Bible verses. One person shared John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His unique, one-of-kind Son,” and another member shared that her favorite verse was Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Still others shared their favorite verses. And then one fella got up and said, “My favorite Bible verse is where it says in the Bible, ‘And it came to pass.’” Several of the church members looked puzzled. They thought, “What an odd thing to say!” It came to pass? Where was that? Many could think only of places in such as Luke 2 where the Bible says, “And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out,” and so on. But just, “It came to pass?” So the man said, “When I have troubles and trials, I just go to the Lord and praise Him and say, ‘I thank You Lord that it came to pass—it didn’t come to stay!”

Well, not exactly the right verse to use, but it is true that when tough times come, they come to pass; they don’t come to stay, but James is teaching something even greater here in chapter 1. He teaches that trials come for a reason. Trials are not only inevitable, trials are beneficial. God uses trials to strengthen Christians and to complete Christians.

And this is why James says that Christians can count it all joy when they fall into various trials—any kind of trial or hardship, whether marital, financial, family, health, hard times, rough times, tragedy—Christians can count it all joy when they fall into various trials knowing, Christians know something, what do they know? Verse 3:

3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience (or endurance; the ability to stand in the face of trouble).

Trials are beneficial. God uses them to strengthen our faith so that we may stand. And James continues in verse 4:

4 But let patience (or endurance) have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.

So the ultimate purpose for which God allows us to fall into various trials and hardships is to perfect us, mature us, to complete us, to make us more like Christ. So without the trials and hardships, what are we? We are immature. We are incomplete. We require still further work before God is finished with us.

So we may look on the outside like we’re good, but we’re not there yet. God is still working in our lives to complete us, building character within us for our good and for His glory.

When you cook a meal or bake a cake or something. You mix everything up and put it in the oven and set the timer. And time passes and then you hear the timer go off. It buzzes or bings or whatever. You come and look at it there in the oven and it looks good, looks like it’s done. But you don’t really know until you stick a fork into it or, in the case of a cake, a toothpick into it to see whether it is really done. Because on the outside it looks done, but you really don’t know because you can’t see the inside and it may require a little more time before it is complete, and perfect, lacking nothing.

And James is teaching that God is doing a work in your life like that. And often we go through the oven of various trials and troubles and you know, “The heat is on,” as we say. And that work is not always readily obvious on the outside because God’s work is done primarily on the inside. God is doing a work on the inside of us, building character within us, teaching us how to stand in the face of adversity. And so he knows how it’s going inside of us and he knows how much more time we need to become mature, complete, lacking nothing. So trials are both inevitable and beneficial.

So in verse 5 what James does is to say, in essence, “Look, I realize this may be a difficult teaching for some of us to grasp and you may need the wisdom of God to help you get through these difficult days of trials and hardships. So he says in verses 5 and following:

5 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, and he goes on to talk about the way to ask God for that wisdom.

So in our passage this morning, the verses we stood to read a few moments ago, verses 9 through 12, James talks about a couple of other trials that qualify as the “various trials” into which Christians may fall, namely trials of poverty and prosperity.

Now I’m not sure we always think of both of these conditions as trials. We may see poverty as a trial; that seems clear enough, but if poverty and prosperity are both considered hardships, and were we to have a choice in the matter we may say, I’ll choose prosperity. Give me that trial! I mean, “Wow, I think I can handle the trial of wealth, you know, “Bring it!”

But the trial of prosperity may be more difficult to overcome, especially to Christians living in a prosperous country. If trials are namely trials because we have great difficulty getting through them, which is to say that we may be tempted to take our eyes off Christ and look elsewhere, like depending upon the world rather than the Lord—the very thing we looked at last week, James’ warning about being a ‘double-minded’ man, a person of divided trust, two minds; one focused upon the world and one focused upon the Lord—then we can see how easily we may stumble through the trial of prosperity.

So here’s the first main point. It’s a matter of perspective. We must:

I. Stay Focused with a Heavenly Perspective [9-11]

James will flesh-out this teaching more fully as we progress through his letter. A recurring theme in this letter is the division between heavenly thinking and worldly thinking. James will say later, for example, “Friendship with the world is enmity with God. Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God (James 4:4).”

So we need to guard against our natural, fallen tendency to have a worldly perspective of success. I’m reading a book right now, for example, by Kent & Barbara Hughes. It’s entitled, Liberating Ministry from the Success Syndrome, and it’s about viewing your ministry not from an earthy perspective, but a heavenly perspective.

James teaches that Christians need to guard against the notion of having a worldly view of riches and ensure that they have rather a heavenly perspective of riches. First sub-point here:

A) God Honors the Poor (showing true Prosperity) (9)

That is verse 9. The text reads, verse 9 in your Bibles:

9 Let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation,

Contextually we see that verse 9 is meant to be contrasted with verse 10 where James addresses the rich. So we know that this word “lowly” or “lowly brother” in verse 9 has to do with “low economic condition,” or poverty.

By the way, in biblical days, in the days of James, there was no middle class. One was either rich or poor. It’s a bit like a documentary I watched on Netflix over the weekend, a documentary on secret video footage of the people of North Korea. Most of you know that in communist North Korea there are just two classes of people: the elites and everyone else. The upper crust and the lower crust. The rich and the poor. And the contrast is huge. The divide is enormous. In other words, you have the very rich and the very poor. There is no middle class.

And this is much like early Christianity in the Mediterranean world. One was either very rich or very poor. There was no middle class, upper middle class, or lower middle class, just rich and poor.

So what would be your natural inclination if you were poor? I mean, you’re a follower of Christ, you’re a Christian. And you have hardly anything. You are dirt poor. Your natural inclination, if you were not careful, would be to go around thinking, “Man, I’m just like the lowest rung on the ladder in this world.” But James comes along and says, “Hey, God sees this thing entirely differently and you need to see this thing entirely differently, too. You’re looking at your situation from a worldly perspective.” You’ve got some, what Zig Zigler used to call, “Stinkin’ thinkin!’”

See your circumstances from a heavenly perspective. Remember our definition of wisdom from last week? Wisdom is the ability to see my circumstances from God’s perspective, to view my life from a heavenly perspective.

From a heavenly perspective, you are not on the lowest rung on the ladder! You have a very high position. You are on the highest rung of the ladder! Verse 9 so, “Let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation.” God honors the poor Christian, showing him his true wealth, his true prosperity.

If you are a Christian who is poor, remember that you are Christian who is rich. You may be poor from a worldly perspective, but you are rich from a heavenly perspective. What could be better than to be saved from the penalty of sin and to gain an eternal inheritance? You are spiritually wealthy.

Very similar to Paul’s teaching in 2 Corinthians 4:17-18:

“Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”

Stay focused with a heavenly perspective. Don’t stumble and fall through your trial of poverty by thinking you are on the lowest rung of the ladder when you are actually on the highest rung of the ladder. “Let the lowly brother or sister glory in his or her exaltation.”

Similarly, James says to the rich, “And you guys, you also make sure you stay focused with a heavenly perspective. You be sure to view your riches with eternity in view and when you do that, you won’t look for your riches to last. You won’t look to your riches for ultimate security and ultimate happiness.

This is probably the challenge for most of us. Most of us are very wealthy when compared to global standards of living. Most Americans are quite wealthy. So James has a warning for us in verses 10 and following. If, verse 9, the “lowly brother” is to “glory in his exaltation,” verse 10, “but the rich in his humiliation,”

So we noted that God honors the poor (showing true prosperity) and, here’s now letter B:

B) God Humbles the Rich (showing true Poverty) (10-11)

See how James address both rich and poor insofar as trials are concerned? The wise Christian understands that God works through the trials of poverty and prosperity to strengthen faith, to strengthen trust, to strengthen our dependence upon Him.

James teaches here that the rich Christian should glory or boast or thank God for—not his exaltation, which is what we may have expected if we were thinking in purely secular, worldly terms—but the rich (verse 10) should glory in his humiliation, his low standing from God’s viewpoint, from a heavenly perspective.

See for many of us we think that riches are nearly everything. You got riches you’re on top of the world. This faulty thinking creeps into the church, even a conservative, evangelical Bible-believing church like ours.

Think about it: Do you have a greater tendency to want to be around wealthy Christians or poor Christians? Do you hope some of their “worldly success” rubs off on you and that’s why you befriend them or go to lunch together? Is there a hidden agenda if even only on the unconscious level that somehow it seems better to be around those who have much than those who have little.

James says that those who have much don’t have as much as you think. What they have may pass away in a moment, because they may pass away in a moment. This is the point of verse 10 and following. James says the rich Christian, the wise rich Christian, humbles himself by understanding that a dependence upon his worldly riches is a recipe for disaster because it is to live for the wrong reason. Our lives are short. We will pass away in the snap of a finger. Verse 10:

10 but the rich in his humiliation, because as a flower of the field he (not the riches, but he himself) will pass away.
11 For no sooner has the sun risen with a burning heat than it withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beautiful appearance perishes. So the rich man also will fade away in his pursuits.

Of course what is true for the rich person is true for every person. Every person will die. And our lives are relatively short even if we live to be a hundred or older. James says our lives are like a beautiful summer day when the sun is shining and it is warm and we smile and everything feels just right—but then, in a moment, it seems—verse 11, “For no sooner has the sun risen with a burning heat than it withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beautiful appearance perishes.”

James is speaking metaphorically, which means he’s talking not so much about the grass dying suddenly as he is talking about people dying suddenly, Christians dying suddenly, not just poor Christians dying suddenly, but also rich Christians dying suddenly.” Last part of verse 11, “So the rich man also will fade away in his pursuits.”

It’s much like the question James asks later in chapter 4, “For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away (James 4:14).”

See what great a tragedy it is for a person to live merely for riches! But it’s a far greater tragedy that a Christian should live for merely worldly riches. This is James’ point here. A Christian man, a Christian woman, should know better. A Christian man, a Christian woman, holds onto wealth loosely, having no issue with tithing, giving to the church, giving to support missionaries, and other kingdom work.

True poverty is not having little in this world. True poverty is not even having much in this world. True poverty is having much in this world and living only for this world.

It’s interesting that James frequently sounds like his half-brother, Jesus. Jesus shared this same kind of thinking in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus says in:

Matthew 6:19-21:

19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal;
20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.
21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

James frequently echoes the teachings of Christ. In fact, in the Book of James, there are at no less than 26 allusions to the words of Jesus.

James’ teaching on the double-minded man? Sounds like:

Matthew 6:24, “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and [money].”

Stay Focused with a Heavenly Perspective and, the other side of the coin now:

II. Stand Firm for a Heavenly Promise [12]

We’ve said before that God means to work through our trials and hardships, testing our faith, strengthening our faith so that we may be perfect, or complete, mature, and lacking nothing. God means to work through our trials to make us more like Jesus, more greatly conformed to Christlikeness.

James repeats this teaching in verse 12:

12 Blessed is the man who endures temptation [better, trials]; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.

Listen to the ESV here:

12 Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.

So no matter how great the trial, remember where you are headed. One day you will receive a crown, not an earthly crown, a worldly crown given to winners of athletic games, nor even a merely golden crown worn by an earthly king, but—verse 12—the “crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.”

This is a different crown, isn’t it? This is not so much a thing to be worn as a life to be lived—eternal life.

There is a reward awaiting Christians who persevere during trials, there is a promise of God to be fulfilled one day, a promise God makes to Christians who stand fast in the face of hardships and difficulties. Stay focused on Christ and stand firm in your trials and one day it will be worth every minute of hardship.

As Paul says in Romans 8:18, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.”
•Stand for prayer.

…Both poverty and riches may tempt us to focus on the world rather than focusing upon the Lord…

…if being a Christian is to know true wealth, then to not be a Christian is to know true poverty. Are you saved?

 

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