Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you! (2) Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth eaten. (3) 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. (4) Indeed the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. (5) you have lived on the earth in pleasure and luxury; you have fattened your hearts as in a day of slaughter. (6) You have condemned, you have murdered the just, he does not resist you.

Our verses today were written by James, the half brother of Jesus and the head of the church in Jerusalem. He addresses – in the strongest language – the stumbling block of pursuit of wealth and money, power and influence in this world which can become a powerful and destructive force in our lives. Wealth is not in itself evil but when pursuit of material goods becomes an end in itself, faith in temporal security can blind us to the fact that judgment and eternity are ahead. The things of this world are transitory and volatile and the very thing that many live for is corrupt at its core – James warns that the inevitable day of reckoning will come. Pursuit and trust in wealth and power leads to neglect of pursuing God

We live in a culture of greed and materialism. We judge people daily more from their material wealth and influence than for their character with the result that many are discontent with what they have. A popular position today is that wealth translates to success and happiness. On the contrary, material goods will never satisfy; our deepest yearnings are for something else and James is in effect saying that Christianity puts us on the correct track. He also warns that those blind to the sovereignty of God exposes them to divine wrath in language expressing deepest distress. Many who suppose they are accumulating property that may be of use but what they are accumulating is a fearful treasure against a day of final retribution – the crux of the matter is in how property is gained and held. We see signs of the folly in this everywhere.

James is calling Christians to think on those who reject Christianity – those hardened in unbelief. The judgment of God will come upon them and their future is misery arising from the very things they valued which will become a witness against them. I’m closing with Shakespeare from his chronicle of Henry VIII where Cardinal Wolsey, suddenly stripped of power and wealth laments, “Had I but served my God with half the zeal I served my king, He would not in mine age left me naked to mine enemies”.

,

For where envy and self seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. (17) But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. (18) Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. (4:1) Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? (2) You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. (3) You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.

James, the half brother of Jesus, and the head of the church in Jerusalem, wrote this pastoral letter to Christian believers. Our verses today are an introduction to practical problems of conflict – at home and in the church – and he contrasts heavenly wisdom with the spirit of worldliness manifested in selfish ways. We still have our sinful nature – the body itself is not sinful but we are not free of indwelling sinful nature until death. The conflict James addresses is self versus self at heart – an inner war between conscience and corruption that spreads to quarrels with relations and neighbors. Power, pleasures, lust for riches and reputation lead to all contentions in the world from the corruption of our own hearts. We think we will secure happiness and pleasure by following our own eager wishes but worldly pursuits lead to disappointment; ultimately there is no contentment or satisfaction. Pride, vanity and sensuality dishonor God by their ends. If we seek things if this world God is just to deny us.

James tells his readers to judge their motives. We are told to turn from this world and turn our lives over to the sovereign God, humbly seeking wisdom from above. We are to repent our sins and stop judging others. Most importantly, we are to look within for the source of conflict – to take responsibility, to stop blaming others for our problems. The enemy isn’t the other person, it’s our selfish ends.

The main reason we pray for peace is so God will be glorified – we allow God to work through us. We are to move in the direction of peace and to get rid of our selfish focus; to not let the first aim in life to be pleasing ourselves. Where there is envy and strife there is confusion with everything unsettled and agitated. Love and harmony are banished and happiness disappears. We show wisdom by how we live our lives – we will live in harmonious relationships by being submissive to God’s Spirit.

What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? (15) If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, (16) and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? (17) Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. (18) But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without your works and I will show you my faith by my works.

Our verses today, taken from the pastoral letter of James the half brother of Christ, seem to be a contradiction of Paul’s doctrine of justification by faith alone. Rather James and Paul complement each other. Their arguments differ but each makes an important contribution to our understanding of faith. James is saying faith as an intellectual belief that does not produce works is not a saving faith – that it is necessary for believers to act in accordance with faith and proof of real faith is a changed life with the caveat that we are saved not by deeds but for them. Saving faith results in our changed hearts as evidenced by our external transformation.
Salvation – saving faith – comes from God alone and is not due to anything in us but is by God’s grace. It is not a result of good works so that no one may boast. Both James and Paul teach that genuine faith necessarily RESULTS in good works. God changes the heart and the old nature passes away – the change is from within and is a fundamental change.
False faith means there is no accompanying external conversion. Good deeds alone never accomplish salvation which rests on Jesus Christ as revealed in scripture. James is refuting NOT the doctrine of Paul and justification by faith, but is showing the error of those who abuse it. He is saying if there is no evidence of rebirth, man’s faith is of no value – if there is no ministry of faith there is no genuine faith. James is not being abstract in our verses but is saying faith has real effects in this world. We are to behave as we believe.

My brethren, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with partiality. (2) For if there should come into your assembly a man with gold rings, in fine apparel, and there should also come in a poor man in filthy clothes, (3) and you pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothes and say to him, “You sit here in a good place,” and say to the poor man, “You stand there,” or “Sit here at my footstool,” (4) have you not shown partiality among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? (5) Listen, my beloved brethren: Has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who loved Him?

James, the half brother of Jesus and head of the church in Jerusalem, wrote this letter to fellow Christians as a pastoral letter. In the verses we study today, James is addressing the evils of partiality and deference based on outward appearances; judgment based on apparent wealth and material goods and/or position of power – or conversely, judgment based on lack of these things. This can be a subtle evil or sometimes blatant; we can falsely value “our own kind.”
The glory of the New Testament is that in Christ there is to be no distinction between “Greek and Jew”. Making judgments on appearance is wrong and those who do so are using themselves to judge others. . The New Testament consistently says that God chooses the saved apart from any merit or qualification on the part of those saved and God’s choice is based on His grace and purpose. James here is not defending the doctrine of sovereign election but is using this election as the reason why we are not to judge on external or social distinctions; only God knows the hearts of men/women.
Once again I would like to close with c.s. Lewis from The Weight of Glory. “It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all politics. There are no ordinary people.”