Christ Church Leavenworth
James 5:1-6
October 19, 2025
…
OT READING: Exodus 30:11-16
NT READING: Mark 10:23-27
Threading the Eye of a Needle in a Haystack
READING OF THE TEXT
Our text this morning is James 5:1-6, these are the words of God
Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days. Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you.
The grass withers, the flowers fade, but the Word of our God stands forever.
PRAYER
Our Father and our God, we come before You this morning through Jesus Christ, our Lord, and in the Holy Spirit. Give us ears to hear and eyes to see You as our greatest treasure. Help us now to hoard up Your Word in our heads and in our hearts that we might not sin against You. In Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.
INTRODUCTION
This morning we are continuing our study of the epistle of James. The last few weeks, the context has been worldliness; and today is more of the same. At the end of ch 3, James warned us about a worldly kind of wisdom that comes from below. In ch 4, he first warned us about the dangers of fighting the world with the world’s weapons and then he went on to warn us about the dangers of befriending the world, which amounts to war with God. Lastly, he ended ch. 4 by warning us about the danger of ignoring the world that is while daydreaming about the world of tomorrow. This morning, that last warning is flipped on its head. The warning today is about the danger of being so enamored with this world that you give no thought to the world to come.
In both cases (4:13 and 5:1), James begins with a plea: “Come now!” Listen here, you who spend today daydreaming about tomorrow’s wealth. Lend me your ears, you who spend today’s wealth without giving any thought to eternity. You are on the cusp of converting back to the ways of the world. Take heed. Wake up. Come to your senses. Reconsider your ways. Repent. Stop diversifying your faith portfolio. If the Lord is God, worship Him with all your strength, soul, might, money, and strength. If He is not, why give Him anything? If Christ is risen and ruling at the Father’s right hand, why do you withhold from Him? If He is not, why do you offer Him table scraps? Do not invest something into Jesus. Either invest everything or stop kidding yourself. Do not assume that investing something in Jesus is enough. Do not assume that investing most things in Jesus is enough. “Some” or “most” are poor substitutes for “all.” Jesus doesn’t need anything from you, you need to give Him everything.
This is not the first time James has addressed the rich in the church. Recall back in 1:9-12, he said this, “Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, and the rich in his humiliation, because like a flower of the grass he will pass away. For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beauty perishes. So also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits.” In other words, he who dies with the most toys, still dies. If your hope for tomorrow is in today’s stuff, you will be out of luck tomorrow when you die and stand naked before God without any of your stuff to protect you. Everyone will face Christ empty-handed. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but those who stand on the Word of God will stand forever. We all will become like what we worship. We will either perish like our stuff or we will live forever like our God.
James addressed the rich again in 2:1-7 where he noted that they were being given special privileges which in turn was robbing the poor of basic dignities. Listen to his words, “My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, ‘You sit here in a good place,’ while you say to the poor man, ‘You stand over there,’ or, ‘Sit down at my feet,’ have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court? Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called?”
No one should extend special favors to the rich and the rich should not expect special favors. Notice that James’ warning here is not to the rich directly, but to those who ingratitate themselves to them. That said, the rich are, by implication, complicit in this sin. They could just as easily put an end to the partiality by not receiving it and rebuking those who try to offer it. The temptation for some is to butter up the well-to-do’s, but the temptation of the well-to-do’s is to accept the flattery of others. So, we see that riches can produce a sort of sinful symbiotic relationship where neither rejects favoritism because both benefit from it.
The watchword of the church, however, is “Come and welcome to Jesus Christ” not “Come and welcome to… ohhh who do we have here?” Everyone has to wipe their feet at the door. Men, women, black, white, rich, poor, young, and old… The call to confession is not for a particular type of people, it is for everyone who comes to worship the Lord. And everyone who confesses their sins, repents, and believes in the Lord Jesus stands and hears the same assurance of pardon. No one needs extra pardon and no one gets a special pardon. In Christ, the sins of the poor and the sins of the rich are forgiven. Thanks be to God. That is the immigration policy of the kingdom of Christ. Come all you greedy, shrewd, and lewd. Come all you immoral, angry, and envious. Come all you rich and you poor, but wipe your feet at the door. Come as you are and die to yourself.
With that said, let’s take a look at today’s text. Turn with me to James 5:1-6.
SUMMARY OF THE TEXT
(1) The rich are used to getting their way. One of the privileges of being rich is being able to pay someone else to deal with your problems. Someone else cleans your pool and tends your garden. But God wants the unfaithful rich to know that they have one problem that they cannot throw money at. It is waiting for them. Death is the tax that all men must pay, and there are no loopholes. No accountant, no matter how clever, can get you out of it. (2) If all you have is cash and clothes on the day you are called to reconcile your accounts with Christ, you will come up short. The rule of rust and decay here is helpful. It is a foreshadowing. In this life, our riches rot and thieves break in and steal our earthly treasures. They are not as secure as they seem. (3) Pure gold may not corrode, but compromised gold does. Alloys that pretend to be the real thing can turn your finger green just as a composite of faith and worldliness can turn your soul black. Gold leaf cannot protect a heart of straw. Gold is refined by fire, its impurities, however, are not. The God standard is better than the gold standard and anyone who puts their hope in corrupted gold will go up in flames. God cannot be bought off with fool’s gold. What you treasure will be your measure. If you treasure Jesus, you will be measured by Him: that is, you will be raised from the dead and live forever in the presence of God. If you treasure riches, you will be measured by them: that is, you will rust, decay, and be taken away. What you store up and where you store it therefore says a lot about you. E.g. do you stockpile the Word of God in your heart? Or do you just have a dusty Bible on your shelf? Spurgeon once noted, "There is enough dust on some of your Bibles to write the word 'Damnation' with your fingers.” (4) God knows what everyone is owed. A greedy man can withhold his neighbor’s pay, but the wages of sin is death and God always pays in full. God sees those who have been defrauded and will make sure their work is rewarded. (5) Those who live like kings fatten their hearts for the day of slaughter, but those who live like the King of kings lay down their lives for the sake of their people. The kings of this world killed Christ, but the King of Heaven saved the world. (6) The worldlings walk all over the righteous, but the righteous do not retaliate in kind. The difference between the wicked and the righteous is that the wicked will use a rule as long as it benefits them and abandon it once it doesn’t. The righteous, on the other hand, love the rules because they love the Ruler. The righteous man is not overcome by evil, he overcomes evil with good.
IF RICHES ARE NOT A BLESSING, WHAT ARE?
James’ word to the wealthy is clear: be warned. But why? I thought that wealth, especially generational wealth, was a good thing? I thought leaving an inheritance to your children’s children was a blessing. It is… sometimes. Money can be, and often is, a blessing, but it can also be a curse. In other words, wealth can be nice to have, but it is not automatically good for you to have it. All blessings are like that. Children, for example, are a blessing from God and if you look around you can see that many of us here at Christ Church Leavenworth, myself included, take that VERY seriously. But children need to be raised, trained, taught, spanked, loved, instructed, and educated. They are not arrows for the glory of God by default. No, they are sticks with little knobs and bends in them that need to be directed, sanded down, shaped, and sharpened. David would not have been more blessed by having another Absalom. The world does not need more Ishmaels. So, children are a blessing, but not automatically. Health, wealth, and prosperity are like that as well. They can be blessings, but not by accident – only by faith.
God has designed the world in such a way that faith is required for whatever you do. You have never been in a secular situation or circumstance. All of Christ for all of life. Those who have riches, however, are often tempted to trust in their wealth instead of God’s Word. The poor, not to be outdone, are tempted to envy the rich. So the rich and poor have one thing in common: they both put their faith in riches.
But having riches does not guarantee a good life anymore than owning a gun guarantees you’re a good shot. Anyone can see how having more money could be more fun, but few can see how having more money could be more dangerous. The church went from Peter with no money in his pockets to St. Peter’s Basilica. Was that better? The Pope, pondering the church’s wealth, reportedly once said, “The church can no longer say, ‘Silver and gold have I none.’” One wise soul standing by replied, “And no longer can she say, ‘Rise up and walk.’” Money does not make everything better. It can, in fact, make some things much worse.
As Pastor Wilson once said, “It is only possible to be wealthy and wise if such a person would rather be poor and wise than rich and stupid.” Let me say that again. The wisdom from above is worth more than the wealth of this world. You cannot be rich and righteous until you understand and whole-heartedly believe that.
Consider Matthew 6:32-33. “The Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” Anyone can see the stuff, but only faith can see the kingdom. Even the heathens hope for lots of presents at Christmas, but only the Christians hope in Christ. Without faith you will never see that having one God is better than having more options. Matthew Henry, commenting on Psalm 16, said it this way, “Those that multiply gods multiply griefs to themselves; for, whoever thinks one God too little, will find two too many, and yet hundreds not enough.” Investing everything in Jesus is better than diversifying. The man who puts nothing in Jesus and the man who only puts some things in Jesus are equally invested in diversity. If you do not put everything in Jesus, it does not matter how much you did put in. Jesus cannot be bought off by 70% of your heart, soul, mind, and strength. C’s may get degrees, but they won’t get you to Heaven. Putting your faith in Christ requires putting everything in Him. It is all in or it is nothing.
So, what’s it going to be? If Jesus is God, then worship Him with everything. If He isn’t, then why give Him anything? He does not need your crumbs. You can keep your left-overs. He is either Lord of all or He isn’t Lord at all. “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” (Matthew 6:24)
A SELF IS WORTH MORE THAN MUCH WEALTH
To be fair, the rich do have more stuff which means they do have more that they have to give up. They can give more than most and still have plenty left over. Consider Luke 21:1-4. “Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box, and he saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. And he said, ‘Truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.’” Here’s the point: the image of God is worth more than the image of Caesar. You never give more than when you give yourself. The rich men gave large sums of money, but the widow gave herself. So, if you don’t have much to give, take heart, your self is worth more than someone else’s wealth.
Remember our OT reading from Exodus 30, specifically verses 14-15 which say, “Everyone who is numbered in the census, from twenty years old and upward, shall give the Lord's offering. The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less than the half shekel, when you give the Lord's offering to make atonement for your lives.” Note that the presence of richer and poorer among God's people is simply assumed. Christendom was not then and is not now anything remotely akin to communism. Secondly, and more to our point here, note that there was no distinction made between the rich and the poor with respect to the amount of tax they each owed. The rich person's life was not worth more and the poor person's life was not worth less. The price of atonement was the same for both because their lives were equal in value, even if their bank accounts were not.
But that was then under the Mosaic economy, what about now? In Christendom, is it the same? Yes, there is still only one redemption price for the Jew, gentile, man, woman, and child. 1 Peter 1:18-19, “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life you inherited from your forefathers, no, but you were redeemed with the precious blood of Christ.” The rich do not have to pay more to be saved and the poor do not have to pay less. The only thing anyone needs to be saved is the one thing most people refuse to have: nothing… nothing but the blood of Jesus. As Dr. Bray mentioned a few weeks back, “No one is as empty as those who are full of themselves.” Everyone who thinks that they’re someone thinks too much of themselves. They imagine that salvation is a high jump when in actuality, it is a limbo — faith is not a matter of how high can you fly, but of how low can you go. No one is as full as those who empty themselves before the Lord. All you need is nothing but Jesus. If you have that, you have enough. If you do not have that, it does not matter how much of whatever else you do have, it will never be enough.
Consider our NT reading from Mark 10:23-27, “‘How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!’ And the disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said to them again, ‘Children, how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.’ And they were exceedingly astonished, and said to him, ‘Then who can be saved?’ Jesus looked at them and said, ‘With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.’”
The disciples assumed that wealth was a blessing and subsequently that the wealthy would be as blessed in the next life as they were in this one. But Jesus shocked the disciples by turning that assumption on its head. The wealthy are going to have a hard time with free grace. But why? Because they’re used to being able to pay for things that other people can’t. But Heaven is not like that. It is not a country club for the elite. Besides, those who live in mansions here on earth are not much motivated to move to another one in the sky, even if it is being prepared by Christ Himself. Pearly gates and streets of gold? Been there, done that. Because the rich do not desire a better country, they do not end up in one. Saving the rich is like trying to thread the eye of a needle in a haystack. This idea blew the disciples collective minds. If the rich aren’t blessed, then who is? If they are not getting to Heaven, then who can? Now, if you thought the disciples were shocked to hear that, just imagine how shocked the rich were to hear it “Us not going to Heaven? Preposterous. How dare you?!” And that is why the rich are hard to save.
WHAT YOU STORE UP AND WHERE YOU STORE IT
Look at Jesus’ words in Matthew 6:19-21, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” What you store up and where you store it says a lot about you. Your secret stashes are spilling your secrets.
Consider last week’s NT reading from Luke 12:16-21. “And Jesus told them a parable, saying, ‘The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”
Storing things up is not in itself a sin. In fact, storing things up is inescapable. It is not a question of IF you store things up, but WHICH things you still store and WHERE you will store them.
The rich fool from the parable stored up stuff in his barns to protect himself against the day of disaster, but he had prepared for the wrong disaster. He misunderstood the mission. He understood the concept of storing up and saving in order to be saved later well enough, but he misapplied it. Insteading of preparing his soul for the day of judgment, he prepared his barns for tomorrow’s comfort. And then one day, tomorrow did not come and he was not prepared for that.
Matthew 16:25, “Whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” Those who try to save themselves will lose the self they are trying to save, but those who sacrifice their self for others will gain back their life as a prize. It is good to store up good things for others, but those who only store up good things for themselves end up having to hand them over to someone else in the end anyway. In short, you will live for others. Either on purpose or by accident, but everything you work for will end up with someone else.
So, are you believing the forecasts of podcasters more than the promises of God? Do you put more stock in the doomscrolls of men than you do in the Scriptures of God? One way to know is to look at what you are storing up and where you are storing it. You are going to live forever somewhere. Where you store things up says a lot about where you want to live. As C.S. Lewis once noted, “Aim at Heaven and you will get Earth 'thrown in': aim at Earth and you will get neither.” if you seek the kingdom, you get the earth. If you seek the world, you get neither. The world is like sand, the tighter you hold onto it, the more it slips through your fingers.
In the end, everyone gets what they treasure. If you treasure stuff, then like stuff, you will rust, decay, and rot. If you treasure the Lord, then like Him, you will live forever at the Father’s right hand of favor. If you treasure riches, then like gold, you will be inflated, hoarded, held on to, stolen, devalued, fought over, buried, and hidden away in the darkness where no one else can find you except the dragon that watches over you. If you treasure Christ, then like Him, you will die in broad daylight, but like Him, will also rise from the dead, ascend to the Father’s right hand, and return with Him to rule the world forever.
TAKING IT ALL FOR GRANTED OR WITH GRATITUDE?
Great riches do not often produce great gratitude. 1 Corinthians 4:7 “What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?” The more a man has, the more likely he is to give himself credit for it. He looks around, like Nebuchadnezzar, and begins to believe that he is the source of all this blessing rather than the recipient. Consider Jeremiah 9:23-24 “Thus says the LORD: ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me.” The wealthy are tempted to forget that everything is a gift from God and the poor are tempted to believe the boasts of the rich. Whatever wisdom a man has, however, it is on loan. Whatever might a man may have, it is borrowed. Whatever wealth a man may possess, it is lent to him. There is no wisdom, strength, or wealth outside of God Almighty. Whatever anyone has, it has been given to him. Gratitude, therefore, goes further than self-regard. So, are you taking what you have for granted or are you taking it with gratitude? The battle for the world is a matter of saying, “Thank you.” Those who look up with gratitude in their hearts will inherit the earth, but those who refuse to say, “Thank You” will lose everything they have.
CONTENTMENT IS THE BEST RICHES
That is why we must not envy the wealthy. Satisfaction and contentment are things that cannot be bought. Those who don’t have much may sometimes be tempted to think that, however. “I would be happier if I just had a bit more.” Would you? If you are not happy with what you have, what makes you think you will be happier with what you don’t? Listen to Ecclesiastes 5:10, “He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this also is vanity.” If you are poor, it is easy to think that you don’t have enough money, but God says the rich run into the same problem. Show me the man who says, “I have enough,” and I will show you someone who has something that money cannot buy. That man is rich. As C.S. Lewis once noted, “Contentment is the best riches.”
The apostle Paul agrees. Consider 1 Timothy 6:6-8 – “Godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.” Contentment is greater gain than getting more stuff. Money cannot afford the kind of luxury that contentment can buy. If one of things you have in your bank account is contentment, you can afford to be happy without much else.
Again, hear Paul with regard to this from Philippians 4:11-13, “I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” You cannot sell discontent to a contented man. He is not in the market for envy. You cannot rush him into making an impulse buy. This includes being content to wait for the wicked and wealthy to get what they deserve. A contented man is not eager to buy the lie of cheap justice. Yes, the wicked really do deserve the wrath of God, but the contented man does not take vengeance upon himself. He is not storing up wrath in his heart, like Jonah, waiting for them to suffer. He is storing up treasure in Heaven, like Job, and trusting in God to do what’s best in His timing.
DO NOT ENVY THE WEALTH OF THE WICKED
So, do not envy the wealthy. Do not envy anybody, but if you’re going to envy someone, envy the saints. Envy those who finished well. Envy those in the presence of God as we speak. Envy Charlie Kirk and John MacArthur and Voddie Baucham... That said, if you find yourself tempted to envy the wealthy or to resent the way they flaunt their privileges, you would not be the first. Psalm 73:1-3, “Truly God is good to those who are pure in heart. But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped. For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.” Others have been frustrated by watching the wealthy get away with murder and wondering if justice was ever coming. “Do they really just get to do terrible things on remote islands and walk around scot free? Do they really get to make laws for me and then break all the laws they made?” Psalm 73 again, but skipping down to verses 16-19 “When I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I discerned their end. Truly you set them in slippery places; you make them fall to ruin. How they are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors!”
Remember the end of the wicked and trust in God in the meantime. As James notes in 5:6, “the righteous does not resist the wicked.” If we become impatient and try to rush justice, we only add to the injustices in the world. We are like Uzzah catching the ark of the covenant in order to keep it from hitting the ground. He thought he was keeping the ark pure by keeping it off the ground, but he failed to realize that his hand was dirtier than the dirt. The ark of the covenant would have been cleaner in the mud than it was in Uzzah’s hands. Uzzah forgot that and God struck him dead for it. Let us not like Uzzah seek to clean up the world by adding our sinful lust for vengeance to it. God’s justice will purify the earth and man’s attempts to take matters into his own hands is one of the things that God’s justice will put an end to. So, do not be overcome by evil, overcome evil with good.
Remember the end of the wicked. This is James’ aim for us this morning. Notice that our text does not appeal to the rich to repent. It does, I believe, by implication, urge them to do so, but not by reasoning with them, but by confronting and condemning them and their behavior… in front of everyone. This text serves as a word of warning to those caught up in the clutches of greed and a word of comfort to those caught by their traps. Those being abused, taunted, cheated, worked over, legislated, ripped off, and otherwise taken advantage of by the rich are given these words as a comfort: God is preparing a table before you in the presence of your enemies. This humble table set before you here, this simple table of bread and wine, is going to conquer the world. All those who refuse to humble themselves here will be forced to watch the poor in spirit feast like kings.
So, sleep well, saints, God knows… and lose sleep, sinners, God knows. So, Christian, do not put your faith in their riches. Do not fall into the despair of believing their boasts that they can buy their way out of anything. They can’t. There is only one lawyer in Heaven and He is provided to you pro bono by faith. “Riches do not profit in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death.” (Proverbs 11:4) Your faith in Christ is not in vain, but their faith in their riches is.
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
PRAYER
Heavenly Father, help us to be content with what we have and to work hard for what we want. Help us to be the kind of people who can be faithful with a little now so that we can be blessed by even more later. Give us the world, Father, but not without Your Spirit. We ask these things in Jesus’ name and we offer up the words of the prayer He taught us to pray singing…
