Life is complicated. James wants to help. Join us for a 5-week study on the book of James that is sure to provide you with a guide for life you’ll never want to forget!
Pathways Church
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- Hey there, I'm Adam Demetrizian, the lead pastor at Pathways Church in Appleton, Wisconsin. And this is our podcast. I hope this message inspires you, feeds your faith, and ultimately leads you into a growing relationship with Jesus. - Have you ever noticed how trials have a remarkable leveling effect? Doesn't matter your age, color of your skin, your looks, it doesn't matter of your education, your background, career path, your relational status. Trials are the great equalizer among us as human beings, right? Trials, they touch all of us. Now in James chapter one, James the author takes a twist on trials in verses nine through 11. James introduces us to the theme of riches and poverty. Let me show you, he writes this, he says, believers in humble circumstances ought to take pride in their high position. But the rich, they should take pride in their humiliation since they will pass away like a wildflower. For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant, its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way, the rich, they will fade away even while they go about their business. Question, why in the middle of this section on trials does James start talking about money? I mean, doesn't it seem like it's kind of out of left field? He begins the section by saying consider a pure joy, my brothers and sisters, when all kinds of trials, whenever they come against you knowing that they're gonna produce perseverance and perseverance character so that you would be complete mature, not lacking anything. He goes on to talk about God's wisdom and then it's like he shifts, he goes into a completely other gear without touching the clutch, which by the way, do we even know how to drive like stick shifts anymore? That's like a lost art, isn't it? Well, anyways, that's what James does. It seems like it's out of left field, but it's not. Because James being a great pastor, he thinks to himself, how can I make this really personal? And there are a few things in life that are more personal than the area of finances, especially as James understands the given situation, the context in which his church, the people of his church are really living in. He knows that they're struggling. Why are they struggling? Because they're scattered and he understands that finances are at the top of their list. And he thinks to himself, I know both rich and poor have a struggle. So James, what he does is he takes God's wisdom and he's going to apply it to their situation. Well, we're in week two of a message series entitled, Faith Works. And if you missed last week, I just wanna bring you up to speed very quickly. The author of this book is James. He's the half brother of Jesus. He was not an original apostle. In fact, he did not believe in Jesus until he saw Jesus, his brother come back to life. He's a part of a story, his own story, his faith journey from being skeptical to a place of surrender. And maybe you're here today and you're like James. I understand that, we understand that. And so afterwards, James becomes a pastor, the first church of Jerusalem. You can read about that in Acts chapter two and Acts chapter three. And James later in his life, then he writes a book, it bears his name and in this book, there are 108 verses, 59 commands that have implications for you and me. In fact, if you're new to Bible reading, James, this little book, it packs a punch. It's an incredible book. I would encourage you perhaps to read it and to go over it because there's so much wisdom in this book. And last week, I told you about the circumstance of the audience to which James writes. He says this after his title, he says, I'm a servant of God and of Lord Jesus Christ. In his opening introduction, this is what he writes in the second half of verse one. To the 12 tribes scattered among the nations, greetings. James was writing to a Jewish group of individuals who placed their faith in Jesus as their Messiah. These Jews, of course, were a part of the very first church in Jerusalem and James was the pastor. James tells us why they were scattered. Why were they scattered? Because persecution broke out against these Jewish believers because they acknowledged Jesus as their Messiah. In fact, from a historical perspective, Acts chapter eight, verse one says this. On that day, what day is the writer talking about? Well, on that day when Stephen was martyred, when he was stoned to death, the very first person who gave up his life for Jesus Christ. Can you imagine rocks pelting you, hitting you in your head, in your back, you're kind of lowered down historically. You're lowered down into a hole and people stand over you and they just throw rocks on you. Well, this is what happened to Stephen. Persecution on that day broke out against the church in Jerusalem and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. People ran for their lives. What a picture? Think Ukraine when Russia rolled in. People left their home, their businesses. They grabbed only what was essential because they had just seen a man's stone and they thought themselves. Man, if Stephen got stoned, what could happen to me and my family? Don't want that to happen. I'm out. This is who James is writing to. They left to restart their lives, to rebuild and to begin again a life that they had in following Jesus. And this was tough because you must understand that this Jewish group of believers that James was writing to, they were complete. In every sense of the word, they were outcasts. Why were they outcasts? Well, they were outcasts because their fellow Jews had disowned them. The Jewish people were thinking that there was a Messiah yet to come and this little group of people in Jerusalem who had swelled to about 3,000 people, they were among Jews who thought, man, Jesus, he's not the Messiah. And so they were disowned. Families were cut in half, extended families. Oh, did you know that, you know, Uncle Chris now believes in Jesus while we can't talk to him. Have any family situations like that? This is exactly the situation they were living in. They were outcasts because they were Jews. And so it a Roman-dominated society, all Gentiles looked at Jews like, mmm, not so much. The only people that they had to support them was one another, was one another. Many of them were struggling financially. So here's the question. Do you think that this group of Jewish believers were tempted to renounce their faith in Jesus? Would you be? I would. Oh my goodness, following Jesus has done what to me? If I would just simply renounce my faith and say something like, you know, I lost my mind. You know, I don't know what happened there. I just, I lost my mind for a high minute. I, you know, ah, yeah, that Jesus, I don't know, that was a rumor that you hurt. That's not me, I don't believe. If they would have renounced their faith, they could go back and resume their old life. My friends, this is the background, the conditions of the audience that James is writing, is exactly why he comes right out of the gate and he runs to the topic of trials in verses two through four in which we covered last week in the message. And here's what we learned. We learned a key fact, a principle from God's word. We learned that God has a purpose for our trials. But, but there's something very important that I did not share with you in last week's message. And that is this, when we go through trials, what we need is God's wisdom, don't we? Amen, we need God's wisdom. In fact, I'd put it this way too. Trials teach us to lean on God's wisdom. Trials teach us to lean on God's wisdom because in a trial, you and I, we lack God's wisdom. And that's why we're gonna find in this verse in James one, five, James gives us the second command of the 59 commands in his letter. This is what he writes. If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, ask God who gives generously to all without finding fault and it will be given to you. How do we get God's wisdom in the midst of a trial? You ask God, you pray and you say to God, God, I need help in this situation. God, I need to understand what you understand to be true about this situation. 'Cause right now I'm doubting, I'm struggling. This is hard. God, I need your wisdom. It's one of the purposes of prayer that we can gain the wisdom of God. And in verse five, James gives us one of the most beautiful and encouraging promises in all of scripture. What's that promise? If we pray and ask for God's wisdom, God will grant you wisdom. He will give it generously and without finding fault. What that means is, he's not gonna say, oh, I know who you are, I'm not gonna give you my wisdom. No, he says, I'm gonna give it to you generously and I'm not gonna find fault because you're my child. That's who you are. That means that there's room for you in heaven when you pick up the phone and you talk and you dial and you say, God, man, I need to know your wisdom. But here's the deal, friends. It's not automatic. You must ask. Well, here's the logical question. Why don't we ask? Well, when I reflect upon my life, when I look at the lives of many people like yourselves, I think it's very true. And one of the reasons that we don't ask is because we think we can figure our way out of a trial. (audience applauding) Pride. We think we can figure our way out of a trial because we have a good support system. That's great. We think we can figure our way out of the trial because I've been there before, you know, where I got this or I can handle this and maybe it's the pace and the speed at which the trial hits us and we have conditioned our souls in a way that we just pause and we pray and we say, God, I need your wisdom. We think we can figure it out. So we rely on our own wisdom. And what does your wisdom consist of three things, knowledge, perspective, and experience? The problem is that your wisdom is limited. There's limitations in all three of these areas and it leads to your limited wisdom. So whenever a trial comes our way, we realize as we gain maturity in Christ, we realize that we don't know all that is going on. We lack knowledge and we don't see the situation from every single angle. And so therefore our perspective fails us. And we oftentimes lack the experience in what to do. That's why we need God's wisdom. But when we ask, James goes on and he says, we can't be double-minded. What does that mean? Well, in the literal language in the Greek, the term is deep coals. Deep coals, it literally means doubled soul. Have you ever been going through a trial and you feel like there are two of you that live inside? There is the faith side of things and then there's the human, almost the flesh side of things. There's the faith side that says, I want this to be true about this trial and this outcome. But then the flesh side of you says, I'm not sure. You have doubts, you struggle, you rustle with it. And there's this tension. The word conjures up the image is almost as you stagger between two individuals I'm seeing if my camera operators are with me, they're doing a good job, see? Look at that. Man, rewards in heaven. (audience laughing) Don't you feel that way though, sometimes? Don't you feel like you're gone? You're double-sold? See, what we need and this is so much easier to preach than it is to live. Can I just confess that to you? What we need, we need to know what God knows about our trials, amen? And what God knows about our trials, what he knows about your current trial, what you are in, what you've been in, what you're about to get into. What he knows about your trials is this and we need to know this. I read this verse to you last week but it's such a powerful verse. Paul writes, he says, and we say that word with me. We know, we know that in all things, in all trials, God works for the good of those who love him and who are called according to his purpose. We know, so in light of this verse, you must train, there's two things. You must train yourself in prayer to seek and to gain God's wisdom. And the second thing that we need to do from an application standpoint, we need to train and discipline our minds, thought management. I have a staff member that says, I need to capture that. I need to grab that thought. I need to bring that thought. We need, here's what we need to do. We need to place how we feel under what you know. And friends, this is no easy task because you know why we're emotional beings. And emotions play such a powerful thing. All my word, emotions kind of, we stagger 'cause our emotions oftentimes drive us. We're emotional beings. If you remember back in the spring, I did a series called You're Not the Boss of Me. And in that series, I said this phrase that emotions tell us something, but they don't tell us everything. And so we need God's wisdom. We need His Word to help us when a trial comes our way. We must learn to apply God's wisdom to life's trials. And here's the starting point. This is a declaration that I write down about every day. I've been writing this declaration down for months now. And this declaration I think will help you. In fact, if you wanna take a picture of this or you wanna access under a mobile app, this is something very powerful when it comes to our feelings and our knowledge and really submitting ourselves to God's way. Here's what it says. I choose to place how I feel under what I know according to your word and your spirit revealed to me. I choose, in fact, can we say that together? Let's say that in full voice, here we go. I choose to place how I feel under what I know according to your word and spirit revealed to me. Okay, so James is going to go ahead and take God's wisdom in verse five. He's gonna take God's wisdom for the congregation that he's leading and he's gonna apply it to their financial situation. So with that in mind, let me read the passage to you again, verse nine of chapter one. Believers in humble circumstances ought to take pride in their high position. But the rich should take pride in their humiliation since they will pass away like a wildflower. For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant. It's blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way, the rich will fade away even while they go about their business. All right, so what is James saying here? While he's talking to two audiences, right? He's talking to those who are struggling financially and he's talking to the wealthy. And here's the big idea of the passage. What he's pointing to in either given financial situation, James is speaking directly to their worth and to their identity. Now you have to understand context-wise in the first century, there were only about 10% of people in that society that were considered wealthy. 90% of people lived in a status that we would categorize as poverty. And there was no social ladder to climb. So once you were poor, you were essentially poor. Therefore, if you were poor, you had to struggle. And you felt like in many ways that your economic status determined the way in which people viewed you. Your worth, your identity, you couldn't jump. You couldn't get into another class, sound familiar? We do that, don't we? We really begin to tag and label people based on the class that they're in. We have a class system, lower class, middle class, upper middle class, rich, 1%, and then there's like Jeff Bezos, right? But James is saying here, he's gonna take God's wisdom and this is what he's gonna speak to those Christians who are poor. He's saying to the believers who are scattered now, he's writing this letter and he's saying essentially this, your worth is found in a growing relationship with Jesus, not your financial status. James is saying being poor will never be defining characteristic of you as a follower of Jesus. No matter what the world tries to put on you. You know why? Because the world can't take away something that the world didn't give you. And you know what the world can never give you? It can never give you peace in your heart. It can never give you hope for eternity. It can never give you grace. It can never give you salvation. It can never give you the freedom from within. So no matter how poor you are, no matter how much you struggle, no matter the trials that come your way, I want you to know that you are chosen, you are redeemed, you are a child of God. It will never define you, nothing else except the blood of Jesus Christ. (congregation applauding) We sang it earlier, didn't we? We're saying that we're overcomers, that there's space for us, because our trials are gonna create a character and a confidence that resembles who Jesus Christ is. Now to the rich, James, he says that the rich should really pride in their humiliation. What is he doing here? Well, he gives the illustration of a flower in that context. There would be scorching winds that would pass through and there would be flowers that would sprout up and seemingly be beautiful and blossom, but immediately they would die, talking about the fleeting nature of wealth, two things here for rich Christians. Oh, by the way, as Western North American people, on average, all of us considered by the standards of the world today are in this category. Now I get it in our congregation or context here in North America, we have classes, but across the seven billion people, people walk at us and say, "Wow, I wish I could have that." What we take for granted running water, beds, food, what we take for granted other people, not would die for, they do die because they don't have. So here's what James would say to us. When trials come, just remember, money can only provide for you so long. You can only insulate yourself so much. Money can only really deal with some external things, but internally, you need something, you need to remember where your true riches lie. And then the second thing that he says is, "Be careful, be careful, be careful." See, your true riches lie in who you are, in your identity, just like the poor not defined by their financial status, their child of God. To us, to the wealthy, he would say this, he would simply say, "Remember that your true riches lie in your identity also, your identity as a servant, as a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ." That's your identity, because while the world wants to put on you, that you know what? Hey, you have some special privileges. Hey, they wanna make a big deal. Hey, you sit here, you go here. James talks about that later on in his book. Remember, wealth can be fleeting. Now, hear me, there is nothing wrong about being wealthy. Wealth is not evil, loud and clear. Making money and thriving financially, there is nothing evil about that. However, wealth, if not handled properly, it can mess with your heart and it can make you prideful and presumptuous. That's why later on throughout his book, James is talking about wealth. He says this in chapter four, let me just highlight one reference. He says, "Now, listen, you who say today or tomorrow, speaking to the wealthy, we'll go here to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." Well, you don't even know what will happen tomorrow. In other words, don't be presumptuous. You don't know. What is your life? James zooms out and he says, "You are a mess that appears for a little while and then vanishes." All right, so as James takes God's wisdom and he speaks to those who are struggling, whether they're wealthy, whether they're poor, they have trials, they're scattered. He takes God's wisdom and he applies it in verses nine through 11. As your past room friend, what I wanna do today is I want to go ahead and take God's wisdom from his word and apply it to the area of your finances, regardless of your net worth or your financial situation. So here are seven principles that I wanna speak to you about in regard to your area of finances. Seven principles, I'm gonna put them on the screen for you. So if you wanna grab your phone and take a picture, we're gonna put them all together. Now this is not comprehensive, but the seven that I came up with, plot your phone, you might wanna take a picture of this would be very helpful. I'll read 'em to you and then we'll kinda go through them. Break 'em down. Wealth is not worthy of your trust. Wealth is not worthy of your trust. It's exactly what James says to those who are wealthy. God is worthy of your best. Debt can be a threat. Contentment brings peace. Number five, guard your heart. God gives you more so that you can give others more and God rewards those who give to the poor. All right, now, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna give you some scriptural support from multiple translations so that you can get a feel for what God's word, his wisdom says about the area of your finances. So I'm gonna run through these seven financial principles. I'm gonna do that really fast. Rapid fire, ready? Are you ready? Here we go. Number one, wealth is not worthy of your trust. Privateverbs 11.28 says this, trust in your money and down you go. Trust in God and flourish as a tree. Privateverbs 23, four and five says, do not wear yourself out to get rich. Do not trust your own cleverness. Cast but a glance at riches and they are gone for they will surely sprout wings and fly off to the sky like an eagle. Wealth is not worthy of your trust. The second principle from God's word is this. God is worthy of your best. Privateverbs 3.9 says this, honor the Lord with your wealth and with the best part of everything you produce. In the NIV and other translation says the first fruits. It's a first fruit principle. What does that mean? Immediately you give your best your first to God. You say, Adam, I'm kind of new to that. How do I do that? Start somewhere. Start somewhere. Make it a practice, a habit of yours. Build toward a tithe and then learn to be generous financially. That's a path toward honoring God. Third principle for your financial situation. Debt can be a threat. Debt can be a threat. Privateverbs 22, 26 says don't promise to pay what someone else owes and don't guarantee anyone's loan. If you cannot pay the loan, your own bid may be taken right out from under you. Debt can be a threat. Number four, contentment brings peace. Privateverbs 22, 28, 25 says a greedy person stirs up a fight, but whoever trusts the Lord, prospers. Listen friends, don't fall for newer and nicer, bigger and better. You want gains? Then don't be greedy. You want gains? Here's the equation. Godliness plus contentment equals financial peace. Fifth principle is key, really, to your entire life, not just to your financial life. The fifth principle is this, guard your heart. Guard your heart. One of my favorite verses in Scripture is Proverbs 4, 23. And it says, above all else, guard your heart for everything you do flows from it. What flows from your heart? [INAUDIBLE] Everything. Every area of your life flows from your heart. That's why Solomon says, guard it. That's why finances are far more attached to your heart than to your budget. You'll always overrun and blow up your budget if your heart is not aligned with God's wisdom and his word and his ways as related to finances. But you'll have greater success in stewarding a way of godliness and contentment as related to giving and saving and spending when you take your heart and you say, God, I want to understand your wisdom as related to this area of my life. And God cares about your finances. God cares about your finances. That's why he wants you to look in his word and to understand his heart so that your heart can be aligned. Number six, God gives you more so that you can give others more. Proverbs 11, 24, and 25 says this, give freely and become more wealthy. Be stingy and lose everything. The generous will prosper. And those who refresh others will themselves be refreshed, and the final principle is this. God rewards those who give to the poor. I love this verse. When you help the poor, you're lending to the Lord and listen to this part. And he pays wonderful interest on your loan. God will continue to bless you as you bless others. Now, I don't know if you noticed, but in all of these verses, they primarily came from the book of Proverbs. Why? Because Proverbs has a lot of wisdom for us. Just like James said in verse five, ask God for wisdom. Proverbs has wisdom for us. Now, if you're thinking yourself, Adam, like you kind of went through that fast. I need some more help in this area than we have a resource for you. You can get it online. It's free, but before you do that, I just want you to listen to the promotion on this. Check this out. - Well, financially speaking, one of the best quick help now things that you can do to reach your financial goals is to create and follow a spending plan. It's not about restraining you. It's actually about freeing you. The Money Life video workshop entitled Creating a Spending Plan is quick. It's practical help by applying God's wisdom to your finances. In less than two hours, you'll be ready to take your personalized plan from good to great. It's quick, it's helpful, and it's available right now. I hope you'll sign up for the Money Life video workshop today. (upbeat music) - That Money workshop is available to you. It's free through Crown Financial Ministries. And the way in which you can access that is, go to our website at pathwayschurch.us/groups. If you scroll all the way down, you'll need to sign up for something called Right Now Media. It's a free service to you. And you can set up a user and password. You can access that Money workshop. It's about two hours training. And then once you're done with that, make sure you check out our budget workshop that's gonna be taking place this winter live. I think that would be really helpful. Well, as we wrap this up, it makes sense to me as I think about our trials, our finances, how this impacts us, that faith works when it comes to trials. Faith works when it comes to finances. Faith works in our lives. I think about Paul's words when he says, "You know what, hey, listen, "don't be conformed to the pattern of this world. "Rather be transformed, how to the renewing of your mind "with God's wisdom and his will, "because we need his wisdom. "We need his word, we need his knowledge, his perspective, "and we need his experience when it comes "to the areas of our life." Amen? Well, hey, listen, hope you join us next week for part three. As we talk about temptation, be a fantastic weekend to invite a friend or family member as we continue in our series called Faith Works.
Life is complicated. James wants to help. Join us for a 5-week study on the book of James that is sure to provide you with a guide for life you’ll never want to forget!