Sermon Tone Analysis

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*Wrestling with Wealth*
James 5:1-6
 
 
Introduction
 
In an editorial in /Christianity Today/, Harold Myra includes these words about the new materialism:
We see it in every stratum of society, often resulting in preposterous consumption in a desperately needy world.
On TV we see Cher’s $6.4 million mansion, Jill St. John’s $100,000 fur, Aston Martin’s $150,000 Lagonda automobile, and a Paris jeweler’s $300,000 solid gold trinket case—all gushed over as wonders to envy.
As Gil Beers and I were discussing this recently, he told me a story: While at Forest Lawn in California, Gil had asked the mortician at the cemetery, “What was the most expensive funeral you ever had here?”
The mortician didn’t have to search his memory.
A man embittered at his ex-wife and children had left them almost nothing, but had provided bountifully for his own final, ostentatious farewell.
He had assigned $200,000, about a half-million in [1985] dollars.
First a bronze casket was bought for around $18,000, and a beautiful rose window was created for $25,000.
But after these and other expenditures, the mortuary still had about $100,000.
What next?
Their solution was orchids—one hundred thousand dollars worth! And how many attended this $200,000 extravaganza?
Exactly three.
·         We are living in a world where we have little concern for the most part about where our next meal will come from.
·         The concerns that occupy our lives are that of a materialistic society.
·         We have taken wants and converted them into needs.
·         What is it that we really need to live?  Think about that?
·         Then take that list and break it down further, I bet if we are absolutely candid with ourselves even our need list has wants in it.
·         Materialism is part of this world and it is a world that we live in and have often desired.
·         Haddon Robinson writes:
 
If there is one message that comes to us in ten thousand seductive voices, it’s the message of our country and our century that life does consist of things.
You can see it on a hundred billboards as you drive down the highway.
It is the message from the sponsor on television.
It is sung to you in jingles on radio.
It is blared at you in four-color ads in the newspapers.
We’re like the donkey that has the carrot extended before it on a stick.
The donkey sees the carrot and wants it, so the donkey moves toward it, but the carrot moves, too.
The carrot is always there, promising to fill the appetite.
But what it promises, it does not deliver.
·         In the end it is not that we are buying into a new object or gadget, what we are buying into is an emotion.
·         If I get this thing then it will fulfil this emotional need or make me happy.
·         Watch the ads and you will notice that at times they are not even displaying the product, they display the atmosphere and the feeling.
·         They no that you are not foolish enough to believe that one kind of car will get you to work better than another.
But what they are counting on is that they can associate a feeling that you want with having that car.
·         God warns against falling into this materialistic trap of seeking wealth so that we can be our own masters and live our own lives.
·         James teaches us in chapter 5:1-6 that the end result of the preoccupation with wealth and materialism hurts us and others around us.
·         It does no good and only damages the work of God and he gives us a warning of the dangers of materialism.
\\ The Outcome of Materialistic Living (5:1-3)  What is the fate of the Wealthy?
 
*5:1* Come now, you rich!
Weep and cry aloud over the miseries that are coming on you.
*5:2* Your riches have rotted and your clothing has become moth-eaten.
*5:3* Your gold and silver have rusted and their rust will be a witness against you.
It will consume your flesh like fire.
It is in the last days that you have hoarded treasure!
·         As is so common throughout the book of James, he echos the teaching of Jesus.
·         Jesus said in Matt.
19:23 that it was going to be difficult for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God, but why is that?
·         I believe we are given insight by Jesus’ words when he says that a person cannot serve both God and money.
·         Money creates a dependence upon itself, it creates a deception that without it a person cannot survive.
It overtakes the heart and separates us from submission to God.
·         The ability to buy what you need and want fools a person into believing that they can do all things on their own, they become self-sufficient instead of God-sufficient.
·         Does this mean that money or wealth is wrong?
Absolutely not, but what it does tell us is that we should be careful of the consequences of allowing money to replace dependence upon God.
·         James in this passage is addressing those who are materially wealthy.
We are not told clearly if these are people who are in the church or outside of it.
But we do know that James is addressing the church body.
·         It would seem appropriate therefore to see James as speaking to those in the church who may not be believers but are attending the fellowship.
·         So how does this all relate to us?
I believe there is a lesson for all of us in this passage as to the dangers and fate of materialism.
The preoccupation is not restricted to those that have vast sums of money.
Even those who have moderate incomes or are poor can be consumed with wealth.
·         We observe that he gives a strict command for the rich to weep and cry because what lies ahead for them.
James’ words are reminiscent of Isa.
13:6:
 
*13:6* Wail, for the Lord’s day of judgment is near; it comes with all the destructive power of the sovereign judge.
·         To place our lives in the hands of the almighty dollar may for a time seem to provide the security and desires that make this life easy.
We can buy into the concept that happiness comes with just a few more dollars.
Life would be better with a hefty inheritance.
·         We can look at others who have everything and we can find ourselves pitying ourselves because it seems that if we had their money we could have life so much easier.
·         But James says that that pursuit cannot last and in fact should cause the materialistic or rich to cry out for they will have a fate that all the money in the world cannot pull them out.
·         He says in verses 2 and 3 that all that you have will not last.
·         He identifies three areas for which they are wealthy but will not last.
·         There are the riches that will rot away.
This is a reference to the vast storehouses and sumptuous tables of food the rich have.
In the end it cannot be all consumed, in the end they will not be able to take it with them and it will sit in rotting heaps and wasted.
·         In Luke 12:16-21, Jesus shares a parable where he talks about the storing of wealth in the form of food and how it can be so easily taken away from us.
·         He says that their clothes will be eaten by moths.
A poor person may have had only one outer garment to wear but a rich person may have accumulated many find clothes that sit in their closets unused.
These clothes are temporal and fleeting.
All it takes to diminish a person’s wealth is a handful of moths that consume his riches and make it useless.
·         He then identifies a rich person as having gold and silver that will not remain.
It is well known that gold and silver do not rust but James is trying to communicate to his audience in a proverbial way that all their precious metals are not going to help them in the end.
·         Zephaniah 1:18says:
 
*1:18* Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord’s angry judgment.
·         James makes itclear that the pursuit of wealth and materialistic living  do not deliver us to a better life, they do not solve our  problems and they do not deliver the wonderful life they try to portray.
·         In the end materialism consumes us, kills us, separates us from God and leaves us without security.
·         Which ironically were the very things we believed it would give us.
·         Solomon shares wisdom for us from Ecc. 2:4-11:
 
*2:4* I increased my possessions: I built houses for myself; I planted vineyards for myself.
*2:5* I designed royal gardens and parks for myself, and I planted all kinds of fruit trees in them.
*2:6* I constructed pools of water for myself, to irrigate my grove of flourishing trees.
*2:7* I purchased male and female slaves, and I owned slaves who were born in my house; I also possessed more livestock – both herds and flocks – than any of my predecessors in Jerusalem.
*2:8* I also amassed silver and gold for myself, as well as valuable treasures taken from kingdoms and provinces.
I acquired male singers and female singers for myself, and what gives a man sensual delight – a harem of beautiful concubines!  *2:9* So I was far wealthier than all my predecessors in Jerusalem, yet I maintained my objectivity: *2:10* I did not restrain myself from getting whatever I wanted; I did not deny myself anything that would bring me pleasure.
So all my accomplishments gave me joy;
this was my reward for all my effort.
*2:11* Yet when I reflected on everything I had accomplished and on all the effort that I had expended to accomplish it, I concluded: “All these achievements and possessions are ultimately profitless – like chasing the wind!
There is nothing gained from them on earth.”
·         The decay of riches stands as a testimony of how unreliable and useless these physical things are in the final days.
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