Have you ever wished you were in someone else’s shoes?
Examples
Have you ever wished you were in a different family or different circumstances?
James is writing to people in very hard times
v1 – persecuted and scattered
Fear
Many were poor / oppressed by rich land owners
James speaks about poverty and riches
Not just battles without, but battles within
v9-16:
Trials of circumstances: battles without
Trials of flesh: battles within
This is our topic
v9-10: is not a metamorphic verse
A comparison between the poor and rich believer
Look at things differently
James is dealing with extreme circumstances
Prov 30:8 – "give me neither poverty nor riches"
Trial of Circumstances (v9-12)
Poverty
Of course this can be really hard
The rich are proud/boastful
The rich are self-sufficient and have no need of God
It is hard for a rich man to enter heaven – Matt 19:24
Being rich is a barrier
The poor man is in an exalted position
God has chosen the poor of the world (2:5)
Materially poor to be spiritually rich
1 Cor 1:26 – "For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called."
Reading 1 Cor 1:27-29 – "But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence."
We have nothing to boast in ourselves – we boast in Jesus Christ
We are not to glory in ourselves
The shepherds first heard, the disciples were uneducated fisherman
The Rich
Reading James 5:1-6 – "Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you! Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have heaped up treasure in the last days. Indeed the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. You have lived on the earth in pleasure and luxury; you have fattened your hearts as in a day of slaughter. You have condemned, you have murdered the just; he does not resist you"
The rich man can only boast in his humiliation is he lives like this
Riches are fading/fly away
Riches cannot be taken into the afterlife
v10-11 – "…as a flower of the field he will pass away. 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."
Riches will end
People want a celebrity life and think those on the bottom rung should be pitied
The Bible says this is the wrong way round
Example
v12 – blest is the man who endures temptation/trials
The Trial of the Flesh (v13-16)
Do we blame God or make other excuses? – examples
James says ‘how dare we’
God cannot be tempted
He is totally good and pure
He will never tempt anyone or cause evil to come into their life
The age old sin – blaming God
Do you ever blame God for sin?
James describes the process of sin – v14-15
Desire ➜ sin ➜ death
Language of conception, birth and death
Does your mind think about the consequences of sin?
Do you break this process?
Spiritual death
Everyone can be tempted
We can then become trapped in sin
Do not be deceived!
James is sharing these hard truths in love
Do not say ‘it does not matter if I sin’
1 John 5:4 – our faith bring victory over sin
We are to count ourselves dead to sin but alive to Jesus Christ
Do not give way to sin, cut it off at desire, pray to God, take appropriate measures, stop it at the source
Christ sanctifies and wants to sanctify us – to make us holy
