James 5:1-20
Tom Shrader examines James 5, addressing the dangers of wealth and the exploitation of workers, calling the rich to weep for coming judgment. He emphasizes the need for patient endurance like Job, maintaining an eternal perspective while waiting for Christ's return. The teaching concludes with practical guidance on prayer for the sick and confession within Christian community.
“We are all in full-time ministry. We're all in vocational ministry. Your vocation may be a mom at home or it may be a CEO somewhere or anything in between. That's your calling.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Blue Jean Theology (2011)
Recorded: 2011
Duration: 43 min
Themes: wealth, patience, prayer, judgment, endurance, suffering, confession, healing, wealthy believers, facing trials, sick person, church elder, struggling financially, waiting on god, dealing with illness, new believer
Scripture: James 5:1-20, James 1:22, James 1:10, James 2:2, James 4:13, Luke 12, 1 Timothy 6:6, John 4:12
Theological Themes: eschatology, last days, divine judgment, intercessory prayer, spiritual discipline, church community, biblical stewardship, sanctification
Full Transcript
The Letter's Purpose and Context
What we're going to do today is cover all of chapter 5 of James. To do that means there are some big sections and a couple of really important things that we won't get to, but that's okay—we'll get the gist of it. If we're going to close down this book, I want to take you through a little bit of a reminder.
James is writing to these 12 tribes who are scattered, and he uses the term "brethren" 13 times in the book. He's giving them some really important information, but it's critical in its nature. Critical—by that I mean not of importance, although it is important—he's criticizing them, he's correcting them, he's rebuking them. He's reminding them: "I'm doing this as your brother, as your friend. I love you, and because I love you I'm going to tell you the truth and tell you these things."
We have to remember one thing. The key verse is in James chapter 1 verse 22: "Prove yourself to be doers of the word, not merely hearers." He says, "I want you to not just hear about the word and understand the word, but I want you to be living it or doing it." He's dealing with certain areas of correction, and when you get to chapter 5, he starts to close the book and comes back and touches kind of summary topics.
A Warning to the Rich
Let's look at this: "Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries which are coming upon you." The first word that we see that jumps off the page—and we catch a version of it again in verse 2—is this idea of "rich."
Historically, at least for me, my experience has been when I use the word "rich," I lose people because of the way we define it. There's obviously a subjective definition, and for most people, the way they define rich is anybody who has more money than they do, which allows them to not live under the burden of the commands and the warning of the rich. But for sake of discussion, in all likelihood, in James' idea of economy, probably all of you are rich or pretty close to rich. Somebody's have more than us—well, we're just going to define it and say if we've got our needs met, and most of you in the room do, then you're probably in this area of rich.
Now he comes right at us and says, "I want you to grasp something." Verse 2: "Your riches have rotted and your garments have become moth-eaten. Your silver and gold have rusted, and their rust will be a witness against you and will continue to consume your flesh like fire. It is in the last days that you have stored up treasure."
The Corruption of Wealth
If you don't know anything, you can read that and go, "That's a heavy tone to it." Eugene Peterson, who gave us a great gift—it's not a translation, it's a paraphrase, but it's really helpful—translates these three verses this way: "A final word to you arrogant rich: Take some lessons in lament. You'll need buckets of tears when the crash comes upon you. Your money is corrupt and your fine clothes stink. Your greedy luxuries are a cancer in your gut, destroying your life from within. You thought you were piling up wealth. What you've piled up is judgment."
What he's saying to you—especially if you grab that phrase, it's really interesting that he puts in the very end of verse 3—"it's in the last days." He doesn't say you're storing up for the last days; it's not a planning issue. He said you're in this time, it's a critical time. We all live in the last days, meaning we're closer—whenever the time Jesus is coming again—we're closer now than we were yesterday. And if He doesn't get back, you are still in your last day; you're still in that in your own life.
He said, "I want you to understand something," and I'm convinced it becomes just an absolute motivator for life. It's very similar to what he said—turn back to chapter 1. He says in verse 10: "The rich man is to glory in his humiliation, because like flowering grass, he will pass away. For the sun rises with a scorching wind and withers the grass, and its flower falls off, and the beauty of its appearance is destroyed; so too the rich man in the midst of his pursuits will fade away."
The Temporary Nature of Riches
He begins to say, "Here's the thing about riches." A parallel passage—if you want to go to it—is First Timothy 6:6. He said here's the thing about riches: there's a temporariness to them. They'll never do for you what only God can do, and we're prone to do this.
I taught the other night—I taught the girls. We do the 20-somethings and they split the boys and the girls, and I like teaching the girls. I'm talking to them about a variety of things, and I'm saying, "I'm going to talk to you because the first time I was with you I said, 'Here's what your dad should tell you, but maybe he didn't, or if he did, you didn't listen. But now here's what God has to say.'" God's a jealous God, and God wants your worship.
This girl came up afterwards—she was really a cute girl, really nice girl—and she said, "I have a problem." I said, "Well, sweetie, we all got problems." She said, "Well, this is kind of a big one." I said, "Okay, it's not too hard to figure out what these things are going to be." She said, "I'm dating this guy and he's not a believer, and I know he's bad for me." I said, "Okay, well that's clear." She said, "More—we're sleeping together and it's just messy. I break up with him and I go back to him, then I break up and I go back to him, and I break up and I go back. I'll bet I've broken up with him eight times in the last two years, and then I go back to him." She said, "What do you think I should do?"
I said, "Well, that's really a tough one. What do you think you should do?" "Probably I know I shouldn't be sleeping with him." I said, "Well, okay, that's a good start. What else?" "I don't even think I should be around him." I said, "Well, that's good." "I don't want to be around him." I said, "Okay, that's good." She said, "I changed my phone number." I said, "Well, that's good." She said, "Then I texted..."
I told him and gave it to him. I said, "Well, that's not so good." You can beat this poor girl up. I mean, this isn't very hard to figure out. I said, "Hey sweetie, this is really tough because here's what's going on. This is really simple."
The first thing I want you to do is not to take pressure off, but to let you know it's universal. Everybody has something like this. For somebody else it's a donut. For somebody else it's a car. I believe you when you say the fact you've broken up with him eight times, ten times, whatever it is. I know you don't want to be with him, but I know you want to be with him. Here's the deal: he's giving you something that you should be finding from God.
You want to be accepted, you want to be loved, you want to be needed. She said, "I just want to be needed." I said, "You know what? He knows that. So you trade your need to be needed and you give that away because he'll say he needs you. Then he gets what he wants, which is the sex." It's really easy. It's not hard, is it, honey? It's just an easy deal, right? She said, "I'm really embarrassed by it." I said, "Well, don't be embarrassed. There's no reason to be embarrassed by it. It's just sin and God knows it. Confess it and ask Him."
Here's the second part: you need to find a girlfriend. Every time you get ready to text this guy, just text her. Every time you get ready to call him, just call her. Say, "I'm really struggling right now. Can we meet for coffee? Can you send me a note back? Will you buy me a flower? Do something." That's what that is, but that world is so strong.
The Power of Money to Replace God
In this case, He's talking about money. He said money begins to take the place in our life of what only God can do. We're supposed to find our security not in anything in this world, but only in Him. Paul talks about the uncertainty of riches, the temporariness. You came in with nothing, you leave with nothing. The more I get that perspective, the better off I'm going to be.
One of the really good things that's happening in the midst of some of the economic difficulties is more and more people are realizing they can really live with less and less stuff. We really are saying, "You know what? Okay, instead of like the Ruth's Chris—I'm not saying that's your deal—I could take that down a notch. I can go to a Kona Grill, or instead of a Kona Grill I can go to a Fuddruckers. Instead of a Fuddruckers I can go to a McDonald's. Won't live very long, but you can go there." Or here's a radical idea: I could stay home and make a burger. There are all sorts of things we can do and have fun, but I really do believe one of the great things God's doing is just pairing these things out.
I was at Fashion Square last night. We were meeting Tim Kimmel actually, so we were meeting Tim and Darcy and having a little dinner. I like Kona Grill, I like to go in there. I'm starting to ask the guys, "What are your numbers?" Well, we're down 20%. I'm talking to a guy that's one of them running the restaurants in town. "We did 10 million a year ago, we're doing seven this year." That's just it. It just is. You can't make it happen.
Those are good things because they remind us this is all temporary. The longer it sits, the more—and I mean this in a good sense—we get comfortable with this and accepting and understanding. Though it doesn't diminish the pain, it reminds us what exactly He's saying here: the uncertainty of riches.
Wealth Creates Class Distinctions
If you get in chapter two, He said one of the other things it does is it makes you look down on people. Chapter two, verse two: "A man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and there comes a poor man in dirty clothes, and you pay special attention to the one who's wearing the good clothes. And you say, 'You sit here in a good place.' You say to the poor man, 'You stand over there and you be my footstool.'" You begin to make distinctions. You just do. We're human beings. We're impressed by status and all that goes with that.
I used to do a study down at the arena, and we were down in the bowels of the arena. It was a great study. It was fun for me to do because a lot of days there'd be shoot-arounds or I'd go to practice or down to the practice court and they'd kind of let me hang out, and I liked it. Every once in a while, one of the players—one specific player—would come to the Bible study. Well, every time he did, everybody would go, "Psst, psst, psst, psst, psst, psst, psst." They couldn't wait to tell their friends.
Every time this guy came, the next week there'd be like twice as many people thinking he would be there again. He didn't. He came like three or four times and that was it. But we liked that. We were walking through the mall the other day and I said to Susan, "Look at that, that's so-and-so." There's nothing wrong with that. I mean, you're a human being.
What James is saying is when I start to begin to show favoritism there, that's what's wrong. I start to go, "Okay, he's wealthy." It's always amazing to me because all the athletes, all the guys who have the money, are the ones who get all the free shirts. And they're like, poor guy like me. But we show favoritism. "You sit here, you get a ticket here. Sold-out concert, you'll be there. Can we pick you up?" James is saying, "I understand that in the world, but it's happening in the church, and that ought not be."
The Illusion of Control
He said here's another thing. Look at chapter four—it's what we saw last week. He said in verse 13, "Come now, you say, 'Today we'll go to such and such a city and spend a year there, engage in business and make a profit.' Yet you don't know what today your life will be like. You're like a vapor that appears for a while..."
Instead, you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, that's what we'll do." But instead, you're boasting in your arrogance. And since boasting is evil, you're supposed to boast not in your strength, but your weakness.
The Warning About Stuff
So James begins this section with a warning about stuff. I come back to it again. When we go to Luke 12, Jesus is asked by a man, "Tell my brother to share my inheritance with me." And Jesus tells him a story about a rich man who had a bumper crop. And then he said, "What am I going to do with all this stuff?" And he said, "I'll build bigger barns. I'll make bigger provisions. I'll do this."
Jesus' response in this parable is, "Well, you fool. This very night, your soul will be demanded of you. What does it profit a man, a woman, a person, if they gain their whole world and lose their soul? You're going to leave it to somebody else."
So again, it's this idea of temporariness. I think the Bible comes back to it because it's the key to being able to hold things here a little more loosely. It's to say everything is transitioning. You don't know if you have tomorrow. And you think you're rich, but in reality, in God's economy, you're struggling.
The Laborers Who Aren't Being Paid
Now, some are on the other side of this. We get back to chapter five, and you're the ones that are getting the short end of the stick. "Behold, the pay of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cries out against you. The cries of those who reaped have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts."
He's saying, here's what the deal is. You're not paying your subcontractors. You're not paying the guys that do the labor. You're stiffing the guys around you. You're saying, "Just sue me. Take me to court." And it's at all levels.
Every time you say illegal immigration everybody's eyes light up and they want to hear it. I don't have to deal with it politically, but you have a human component to it. One of the things you have is you have guys who are driving down and picking up these guys, working them like a dog all day, and then stiffing them and not paying them and saying, "What are you going to do about it?" And what they ought to do is take the guy out and whack him around a little bit for a while and teach him a lesson. That's what they ought to do. Not advocating violence. I'm just saying, just teach him a lesson with a little violence. But that's wrong, stiffing people around you.
God Will Balance the Books
He said, look, you've got this money, you're hoarding it. You've got people who are doing the work for you and you're not paying them. And the challenge is this. Their charges are not against you before a court of law, verse four, but before the ears of the Lord. He's the one who will avenge this.
I don't want that. I want a pound of flesh. I want to get a piece of your action. I want to make you pay. I don't get mad, I get even. The Bible teaches us, listen, that never really helps. It just eats you alive. It just fuels the legal system, locks it up so they can get real cases in there. And you just get stiff.
Here's Eugene Peterson again: "All the workers you've exploited and cheated cry out for judgment. The groans of the workers you used and abused are a roar in the ears of the Master Avenger." That's God. He's going to balance those books.
You read that through scripture and just acknowledge it. And it makes you mad. It should make you mad. It makes me mad. You see people who seem to just cheat and they screw people around and they never shoot straight with you. You always need to go, "Well, what is, it depends on the definition of is." You're messing around with it and you're sliding words and full disclosure. What does that really mean? Well, complete, open, honest, hiding nothing back. Well, maybe in the technicals and you spend all day fighting these things. Here's what He says: God's going to deal with that.
Now that's hard for me because I want to play God in that role. But He said, God will deal with that.
Living Luxuriously While Others Suffer
He stays on these rich guys. He said this: "You have lived luxuriously on earth and led a life of wanton pleasure. You have fattened your hearts for the day of slaughter." I love what Eugene Peterson does here: "You have looted the earth and lived it up. But all you have to show for it is a fatter than usual corpse." You just lived it up. You're the lifestyles of the rich and famous.
There's nothing wrong with material things. I like nice things. People tend to like nice things. He said, the problem is with the nice things come a temptation to abuse others, to become conceited, to play God and to think it's going to last forever.
So Earthly Minded, No Heavenly Good
I hadn't been a Christian very long when I first stumbled in and you come into all these phrases that some guy says and then everybody repeats them and nobody ever goes, "Well, I don't know if that's true." If two or more of you have gathered, let's pray. Two or more of you gathered, you're there. Well, yeah, but He's there when I'm by myself. The two or more deals with discipline, not with me agreeing for a new car.
Well, here's one I heard early on: "Christians are so heavenly minded they're no earthly good." I thought, okay, that makes sense. I get it. Then I hung around with a few of them and I realized that's not true. Christians are so earthly minded they're no heavenly good. They're so focused on this world, this earth, this economy, this stuff that the eternal absolutely fades away.
They're so focused on today and their agenda and they've got the Blackberries and the iPhones. I do too. And they're going through the schedule so I can pull mine up for the day and I can hit that right now and I can hit that calendar.
when I do, I get the date and all I see are just meetings for the whole day. Seven, eight, 15, 10, 15, noon, two, four, five 30, six 30. That's the whole day. Well, here's the problem with that and I got to get stuff done. So I mean, you got to have the meetings and you got to be careful in meetings because meetings are where minutes are kept that hours are wasted. So we have to be careful in our meetings and be stewards of them.
But if my days wound so tight that when you come up and say, "You know what? My guts are falling out. Can you help me?" Well, then we have a problem. That's what He's saying. You lose perspective.
Heavenly Minded for Earthly Good
So here's how I think that phrase ought to go: minded that as a result of that they are of great earthly good. Because I'm heavenly minded I'm now bringing to this earth the things that are good.
So let me talk in just real terms and I'm going to meander a little bit. We need to understand in this world God left us here for a reason and the reason is to glorify Him and to deliver the gospel to the marketplace and to make the world—I know this you're not going to like this—a better place.
So I'm in a meeting the other day and we're talking and all of a sudden the term "necessary evil" starts popping up. Government is a necessary evil. No it isn't. God created government and government is good. Now we got some really schlocky people making some really stupid decisions. But government is not evil.
Well we're all screwed up. I'm with a guy the other day and he said "Tom, to really understand me you need to understand I come from dysfunctional family." And I said "Tell me about it." He said "My parents are really dysfunctional." I said "So are mine." He said "Really?" And I said "Yeah—Adam and Eve."
We're All From the Same Dysfunctional Family
That's where we got here. We're all from a dysfunctional family. Adam and Eve—that's the problem. It's not your mom and your dad, it's their mom and dad dad dad dad back back back back back till we get to these two. That's the dysfunction. And now we live in this goofy world because they're dysfunctional.
But we're here for a reason. We're here to see our lives transformed so that we become a force God uses to transform and inform and reform a world we live in.
So we had dinner last night and we're all done and Kimmel gets in His mind "I want to show you something. Do you have your iPhone?" I said yes. He goes "Get it on the internet." So I get on the internet and so he spent 15 minutes trying to find this and it was just a great article. But there's this guy who's been this ardent cynic spokesman in Britain. He's kind of the Christopher Hitchens of over there. Just ripping Christians, ripping it apart, tearing it apart. Intellectual—one of those really smart guys. Ripping it apart.
Well God saved him on Palm Sunday this year. And he's writing and Tim was reading to me the final part of that article and he was saying one of the compelling things was not even an argument of scripture—it was change to lives. It was people that "I just keep beating and beating and beating up and I embarrass them but they just kept loving me."
You Have a High Calling
Well you're here for that reason and I think that you don't have a high enough view of your calling. I started a thing—I did a little test run with it this spring—and committing to trying to reach a younger generation. So I targeted men 25-ish to 30. Maybe a little bit younger and maybe a little bit older if they're older with the right attitude. Wet cement is the term I use.
Well I'm sitting down there and we're at one of our early meetings and it became apparent—not just by way of inference but by way of their comments—that they're saying what you do is more important than what we do. So I have committed myself to the rest of my life to taking this message to eradicate this message to people like you: What you do is just as important as what I do.
We are all in full-time ministry. We're all in vocational ministry. Your vocation may be a mom at home or it may be a CEO somewhere or anything in between. That's your calling. That's the calling you have on your life.
And I'm talking to a guy the other day—he said "I know I need to share Jesus there." I said "I didn't even say that." I'm not sure that what your office needs is for you to sit in a meeting and say "You know we got some real big issues to discuss today but do you know Jesus died and has a wonderful plan for your life?" I don't think that's necessarily a calling. It's to create an environment where people see that and for you to have the opportunity to then share it. People ought to know that there's something different about you. Here's how: Because there's something different about you.
Living Differently in Business
Some of the biggest screw-ins I got in business were guys who had Bibles on their credenzas. I mean they just shaft you. And I almost get cynical about it that when you see it—I mean why do you have a—I don't mean to be disrespectful but you're in your office, why do you have a Bible on your credenza? You're trying to say something to me there. You're trying to tell me this is important to you. What was important to you—I ought to be getting one heck of a deal from you. I sure shouldn't be getting screwed at the end of this day. I shouldn't get a call on the day of the close going "This commission's—we're just a commission apart. Oddly dipped." How did that happen every time?
God changed your destination but He also changed your destiny here. It sounds so radical. I get such a pushback from people and surprised when I say we feed hungry people because they're hungry. Not because you can lead them to Jesus. You're honest in business because you're honest in business. Not because you're honest in business and go "Now I want you to understand something. I just dealt with you very fairly. You know why? I'm a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ." Yeah I know but you're to be and live in a different way. Why? Because you have a different perspective.
So my brother is a runner. So for His 33rd birthday, let me check time again, for His 33rd birthday
My brother ran 33 miles. Not that impressive. For my 40th birthday I drove 40 miles. I don't think it was any big deal. I had to stop and rest. But I did.
When I talk to runners, not joggers, but when I talk to runners I say why do you do this? And aside from feeling good and all this, they'll always talk about the day of the race. They always talk about showing up in an adrenaline rush and the balloons are out and the bands are playing and the people are cheering and there's a common experience and then BAM the race goes. They put all the guys that are fast at the front because they're going to run fast, and then you're running along. They'll say it doesn't even matter in a way. If I run a six-hour marathon when I'm running through, guys are going "Yeah, go get him! That's incredible! Come on, you can do it, you can do it, you can do it, go!" They're just talking about the pump of that.
In a sense we live for the day of our death because that's the end of this race but the beginning of eternity. That's really big. But what came to me in that illustration is that's the way the church ought to be. You're in that race and that guy's barely getting on, he's slapping along and he's running and you need something to drink and you give it to him. "Come on guy you don't even know, come on you can do it, go!"
But you come into church and a guy goes "I'm really struggling" and the response is "Well you know what, this may not be the place for you. Have you read John chapter 4 verse 12? Do you understand this?" I had a guy call me the other day - I got to clean the language up just a bit - and he said "I got this problem, this problem, this problem. It's sin." I said "Okay." He said "Stop! I called you because I don't want you to give me another fricking Bible verse." I said "Well I don't even have fricking Bible verses, just have regular Bible verses, but I won't even give you a regular Bible verse." You know what he said? "I already know those. I just need somebody to talk to me."
Isn't that weird? We'll champion a guy we don't know at the PF Chang marathon and throw Gatorade at him, and you got a brother and you throw a Bible verse at him and say "It's your problem, not mine." James is saying the key to this whole thing is to get that long-term view.
The Character of Patience
Now he seems to almost be driving that home. What ingredient does a long-term view give me? Character. Verse 7: "Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil, being patient about it until it gets the early and late rains. You too be patient; strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near." Here you go - He wrote this to me. "Do not complain, brethren, against one another, so that you yourselves may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing right at the door. As an example, brethren, of suffering and patience, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. We count those blessed who endured. You have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome of the Lord's dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and mercy."
The word or the character trait that jumps out is patient. Be patient. Wait. Now wait is not passive - it's active. He's not saying "Wait, I'm waiting." He's saying no, you work diligently, you strive, you grind, but you are patient as the Lord works out these results.
Learning from Farmers
He says like a farmer. If you've been around farmers and you see "complain" in the next verse, you got farmers. I mean, every summer I'd go: "Well, we're not having enough rain" - it had rained buckets. "Well, we got too much rain." These guys never had enough rain. They had too much rain. "That's not going to be enough." Prices are too high. Prices are too low. Competition's too much. It's too hot. We need it to cool down. We need a longer, hotter growing season. It doesn't matter what it did - these guys complain. They just did. And probably because it's fragile.
There's a patience to growing. Susan went out and was going to teach the boys about growing sunflowers. So she took out a bag of sunflower seeds and showed him the picture. She said "We're going to plant the seeds and we're going to have sunflowers. This is what we're going to do." So they went out, carved out a little spot in the backyard and they put some sunflower seeds in and got them all planted and got them watered, did the whole thing.
So the next day, the boys get up and they're going out. You know what this is. And what are they looking for? Sunflowers. "Well, sunflowers. Nana, this didn't work." "Well, no, this takes time." "Well, time, what's time?" That's fair because as an adult, I'm trying to grasp the concept of time. "Time, well, it will take days. Ultimately, you're going to have this big, beautiful flower, if we don't screw it up, but it's going to take you time."
That's patience, but it's not passive. You're hoeing. I break down at this point because I don't know what you do. You're hoeing and plowing and watering and feeding and fueling and doing all this stuff.
The Example of Suffering and Patience
Then He adds in verse 10, "Oh, yeah." He said "For an example, brethren, of suffering and patience." Now that takes us full circle back to chapter one when He said "Consider it all joy when you encounter various trials, because the testing of your faith produces endurance." There's a suffering component with this. You're going to be called on to suffer. It's not going to be easy.
It's going to be like the prophets. The prophets - I'm telling you, that was a really crummy job, prophet, because what you do is you blow in to all the religious people and then tell them how screwed up they are and how God's going to judge them and just tear them apart. I mean, you didn't get invited to any Hanukkah parties. You didn't get invited to birthdays or nothing.
Then He said if that's not enough, it's like Job. Now, I didn't even know a Bible when I was a kid. I didn't even know a Bible. I just heard my grandpa and my grandma...
Job as the Ultimate Example of Endurance
Mama, my dad would say, "Oh, she has the patience of Job." I didn't know anything about Job, but I knew Job had patience. What James does is use Job as an illustration. He said, "You've seen the endurance of Job and you've seen the outcome and you've seen the Lord is full of compassion and merciful."
Here's the deal with Job, and I'll give you the story in a nutshell. Satan goes to God and said, "Hey, Job's one of your really good guys." And God said, "He really is one of my good guys." And Satan said, "Why wouldn't he be? You've given him everything. Let's start to take some stuff away."
So pretty soon he loses cattle. Then he loses his kids. Then everything is gone. And Job's hanging in there. Satan said, "Well, sure he's hanging in there." Job's going, "Well, at least I got my health." And Satan's saying, "Well, sure he's got his health. Let's take that." Now he's got boils. Everything is gone, and Job is still hanging in there.
Job's Questions and God's Response
Job has a moment or two where he's kind of losing his patience. He's got a classic moment where he says, "I need to ask you something. What are you doing?" And God says, "All right, Job, I want to deal with your question, but let me ask you a question first."
There's like three chapters of this. "Hey, Job, where were you when we hung the stars? Hey, Job, where do we keep the snow? Hey, Job, how does the eagle fly?" Three chapters of these questions. And then God said, "All right, Job, you had a question. What was it?" Job said, "Well, you know what? I'm going to text you that question because I feel like a doofus right now asking that question."
It's that perspective. At the end of the book of Job, after 42 chapters, Job's life represents what God wanted because Job said, "Before I'd heard about You, now I've seen You." How do you see Him? Right here, patience and suffering. On display was God's compassion, even in the midst of the suffering and the patience.
The Purpose Behind Suffering
That's what's so cool. Right now you're suffering, and somebody comes in and they're really suffering. The first thing we try to do is alleviate the suffering. If you're in an emergency room and a guy's got a brain thing going on, I get it. But when someone comes in and he's suffering, here's the question you need to ask yourself: What is God trying to teach me in this? What's God doing in this? Why did He cause it? Why did He allow it?
Not 12 steps for this and seven ways to get out of it. I'm not saying be a masochist, but I'm saying this suffering has a purpose. You're not random. You're here for a reason. God's doing something in the midst of all this stuff. Let Him do it.
The Eternal Perspective
It has the eternal perspective. C.S. Lewis says this: if you aim for heaven, you get earth thrown in. If you aim for earth, you lose both. So our target is to think heavenly. It's a whole restructuring of thinking.
When we were going through reinventing this and reinventing that, it's a transformation of thinking. Be renewed. Don't be conformed to this world, but renewed by your mind, the transformation of your mind. Don't let your mind be conformed to this world.
Here's our thought process. We feel and think like we're in the land of the living headed to the land of the dead. In reality, we're in the land of the dead going to the land of the living. That restructures things. I cannot take these things with me. It begins to affect my life.
God's Gradual Exposure of Our Hearts
Here you go. I wrote this down. I think it's right. The godliest I should feel is at the point of conversion. That's about the godliest I should feel, because from that point on, God is just gradually exposing your heart to you. And He does it through circumstances.
Two and a half minutes from my house is the intersection of McQueen and Elliott. For some reason, unbeknownst to man, they've torn that intersection up five times in the last three years. There's also a light there with an arrow that if you don't get there fast enough, will not change. So you sit.
I'm there the other day at 4:45 in the morning. The only one there, missed the arrow, and know I have probably another 45 to 60 seconds to sit there. I was so frustrated. You know what that arrow did? It just showed what was in my heart. It wasn't about the arrow.
Personal Encounters That Reveal Our Hearts
We have a new mayor, and he's doing his obligatory trip around to the church leaders. He came in the other day. He was very nice. Very nice guy. And he said, "I really want to help you. Is there anything I can do for you?" I said, "Really? Anything?" Yeah, he said anything.
I said, "Well, I have two things. One, we've spent an awful lot of time down at the town trying to get a variance for our sign because we have a problem. People drive by our church and they can't see it because the stupid laws that we have won't allow us more square footage in a sign. So that'd be helpful." He said, "Oh, that's cool. I hear that a lot." I said, "Good, good. I anticipate change. Anything else?"
At the corner of Elliott and McQueen. I said, "Nah, you're not going to do anything about it. Tell me about it." I said, "No, I just, it's more about me than the corner." That's all that is. That's all that is.
It's All About Your Heart
When you're standing in line at the restaurant and you're losing your patience, what that restaurant line is showing you is what's in your heart. When that spouse doesn't respond the way you want them to respond, and you get mad at them, all they're showing you is what's in your heart.
This is all, for the one time we can say this correctly, this is all about you. All about your heart. The way I change that is to obviously have God do it by changing my perspective and beginning to think eternally.
Prayer for the Sick
I'm going to take two or three minutes just to touch on the section that begins in verse 13 where he talks about if anyone is sick among you, then he must pray. Verse 14 says, "If anyone is sick among you, call for the elders, anoint him in oil" and somehow we get the idea here that he will be healed. There's really some passage there that takes more time.
I'm going to give you just what I'm sure it doesn't say. It doesn't say faith equals healing, prayer equals healing, anointing equals healing, or effective prayer equals healing. You've got all sorts of people that have a lot of faith. I remember Jimmy Carter's sister, Ruth Stapleton, who was diagnosed with cancer and she said, "I'm not going to take any treatments, I just think God can heal me and I'm going to do organic and natural healing." And then they had a funeral six months later. My point is not—I'm not trivializing—I'm just saying faith was not the problem for her.
John MacArthur does a really interesting study on this where he suggests that the sickness here is a spiritual sickness and attached to sin. That word that's translated sick is sometimes also called weary or sin, and the reason you're calling the elders or the senior guys is you're dealing with sin in your life. And then he says, "confess to one another," which is really a picture of what community ought to be like. I'll let you sort that out.
Here's my take on it, because I do think praying for sick is important. We do as elders lay hands on sick if they call us and we do anoint with oil if they ask. Here's my strategy with sickness: Pray fervently on the way to the doctor. Pray for healing, but understand that God uses all sorts of things and He uses medicine. Even the word anointing there—there's a ceremonial anointing and then there's a rubbing, there's a medicinal anointing and some would contend that's what's going on there.
But clearly you can see, even if he was talking about physical healing, Elijah as an illustration is a weird illustration. It doesn't fit. It seems like there's other illustrations he could have used at that point. But regardless, I'm not dying on that hill.
The Heart of James
Regardless of this, it's been an amazing study in the book of James. To say to us, here's a nutshell: you know this truth, now do it. You know the right thing to do, now I want you to go and I want you to do it.