The Boast Of The Rich And The Poor- James 1:9-11

This week Ray Dix told me that the potato farmers in our community have had a rough go of it this season because of all the rain. Apparently they planted their potato crops this spring but then all the rain rotted the seeds while they laid in the ground. After this happened the farmers went out and planted new seeds and the next day it rained some more and the crops are once again in jeopardy.

When you read through the Book of James you realize that our hearts are like the soil in which the seeds of God’s word are planted. Consider James 1:21- Therefore, put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

The Word of God is planted in our hearts and these seeds must survive so many threats that challenge their ability to grow and be fruitful (Luke 8:9-15). In virtually every paragraph of this letter we will read about these threats and the dangers. For example,

• Believers face trials, testings, troubles and tribulations (1:2-15)

• We tend to be hearers of the word and not doers (1:19-25)

• We are prone to show partiality among ourselves (2:1-13)

• We profess a faith but do not present appropriate works of faith (2:14-26)

• We presume ourselves to be teachers and forget how dangerous our tongues can be (3:1-12)

• We are prone to think worldly and have adulterous hearts (3:13-4:5)

• We are prone to speak evil and judge our brothers and sisters in Christ (4:11-12)

• We are prone to be self-sufficient and self-directed and not entrust ourselves to God’s soverignty (4:13-17)

• We are prone to trust in the perishing riches of this world and hurt people to get it (5:1-6)

When we read the book of James and see all the trials, testings, tribulations, troubles and we could easily get discouraged. We could see the reality of all of our sins, transgressions, and iniquities that are addressed in this book and become despondent, doubtful, and discouraged.

Therefore, we might wonder,

• “How can this small seed of God’s Word ever survive all the dangers that come from within, from without and by Satan himself?”

• “How can we expect any grow and be fruitful when there are so many challenges and threats in and around us?”

James understands the seriousness of the threats that a Christian faces and he is not afraid to address these things. James understands that we must be about putting away all filthiness (all things that defile us before God) and rampant wickedness (unchecked, unrestrained, frequent wickedness); so that, we can receive with meekness (gentleness of spirit) the implanted word, which is able to save our souls.

Unlike the potato seeds that have so quickly rotted in the ground this season, the Word of God is the one thing that can endure and even flourish and be fruitful in this harsh environment. (1 Peter 1:22-2:3)

For the first time in this letter James will address a specific sin that must be repented of. This sin cannot be dealt with through the application of worldly wisdom; rather, worldly wisdom incites rampant wickedness and seeks to justify sin. A christian is deal with trials, temptations and sin through good theology, good doctrine, and godly wisdom to address these things.

Application: My friends, how often we have seen within the visible church an attempt to address trials, temptations and sins with worldly wisdom. Instead of helping address these sins, worldly wisdom justifies sin and allows it to grow and mature and this leads to death (1:15). Today we will see that James begins to address this sin with godly wisdom. Those individuals and congregations who are open and receptive to this godly wisdom will experience a harvest of righteousness (3:17-18)

Let’s read James 1:2-12 so that we remind ourselves of the larger context. It says, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

(But) Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, and the rich (boast) 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 James 1:9 we begin to see that the first sin that James has to address and it has to do with something between the rich and the poor. James says in v. 9, “Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, and the rich (boast) in his humiliation, because like a flower of the grass he will pass away.”

When Mindy takes vacation time we will typically go to one of our sister churches within our district and worship with them. The church that we most often go to is a well established church with a good pastor who provides his congregation solid scriptural teaching. Because of this, I was surprised to learn that this church faces some issues that threaten to divide this wonderful congregation.

Rather than submitting to God’s wisdom, there are many people in this congregation who could be characterized by the fruits of worldly wisdom. James speaks of this worldly wisdom in James 3:13-16 when he writes, “Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exists, there will be disorder and every vile practice.”

You may be wondering what sin was threatening the health and well-being of this congregation that externally appeared to be so strong and prosperous?

Apparently quite a few of the members of this church work for competing industries within the community and this is causing friction and tension among its members. These individuals are coming to church and taking sides against those who work for the other industry in town and the root of bitterness is infecting many (Hebrews 12:12-15). What is even more sad is that the pastors of this congregation were being asked to put themselves in the middle of this situation and take sides.

I bet the pastors in this church often thought about Jesus’s words in Luke 12:13-15 when Jesus was asked to step into the middle of a dispute between two brothers over their inheritance. We read, “Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” But he said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?” And Jesus said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”

Jesus goes on to speak more about these things by 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.” (16-21)

For the last three weeks we have talked about how our fallen and sinful natures think and speak like this man does when he says, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” This is how a godless man preaches to Himself! This man is more worldly wise than wise to the scriptures because he ought to say, “A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man.” (Proverbs 6:10-11)

Isn’t it true that our sinful nature thinks that they will be most happy with material, earthly and worldly things?

Isn’t it true that our unregenerate souls believe that we will be most happy when we can simply relax, and eat, and drink and be merry?

This type of wisdom grieves God greatly and provokes Him to respond with a quick judgment against this man. Jesus says, “‘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.”

Jesus did not think this man was wise; rather, he called him a ‘fool’. This probably is not the view that most of the people had of this man. In the worlds eyes, like so much of what we see in our culture today, this man would have been considered wise and successful. He would be given book deals and asked to chair many boards. So many people would want to be around him and be just like him.

Jesus, however, says that this rich man is a fool. In other words, he is senseless, without reason, and unwise. This man’s wisdom is the opposite of the godly wisdom. God does not want His people to be foolish and live according to worldly wisdom which is earthly, unspiritual and demonic (3:15). No, God wants a believer to have godly wisdom because it is “pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.” (17-18) These virtues are sharply contrasted to the wisdom that says, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”

The letter was written to Christians who had allowed certain sins to creep into their congregation which threatened the health and well-being of the church. James does not ignore these sins as if there were no biblical answers or godly wisdom to apply to them. Our founding pastor, Ray Haas, recently said to me, “I do not send the hard cases to someone else to fix.” Well, neither does James!

Ray says this because he believes what James says in James 5:19-20, “My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone (a christian with the Word of God) brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.”

At the very beginning of his letter James addresses a sin that is showing up between the lowly and the rich; between the poor and the wealthy (James 1:9-11). This not the only time James will mention this type of sin in this letter: 2:1-7, 2:14-17, 4:1-10, 4:13-16, 5:1-6.

James says in our text today, “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.” (9-11)

One of the complaints that people have had about the book of James is that it seems at time to be so disconnected. It seems like one moment James addresses one topic and then he quickly turns to another topic that appears to be unrelated. Curtiss Vaughan says in his commentary on James, “James is somewhat miscellaneous. That is to say, it treats a number of seemingly unrelated topics. These topics are: temptations, hearing and doing the will of God, respect of persons, faith and works, dangers of the tongue, true and false wisdom, worldliness, God and business, social injustice, patience and prayer, and restoration of backsliders.”

Perhaps if you have been reading the book of James since we began this study you have made these observations too. One of the goals that I have had as I have started to study this letter is to try to understand James and the reason that he writes as he does. I do this because I believe that his words are the inspired and authoritative word of God and that the Holy Spirit has written these things in the exact way that He intended it to be.

As we come to verses 9-11 we come to one of these passages where James has quickly turned from one topic, wisdom, to the next, economic diversity in the congregation, without much of a warning. This makes me ask, “How does v. 9-11 connect with what has come before or is there no connection at all?”

The connection may not be obvious to us as we read our ESV translation but there is a conjunction, ‘δὲ’, at the beginning of verse 9. This conjunction connects verses 9-11 with what has come before. There are some translations who have added this conjunction into their translation which makes the connection to the previous verses more clear. With this conjunction the verse might say,

• “But let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, and the rich in his humiliation...”.

• Or you can translate it, “Now let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, and the rich in his humiliation…”.

• Or you could translate it, “So let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, and the rich in his humiliation…”.

• Or you could say, “For this reason let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, and the rich in his humiliation…”.

• Or you might say, “Therefore, let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, and the rich in his humiliation…”.

This conjunction, ‘δὲ’, helps us to recognize that James has not broken with the train of thought that he has previously stated but that he is continuing to build upon it. In our text James applies the wisdom of God to this sin. In fact, if we read the book of James and consider all the passages which have to do with poverty and wealth you will discover that James always closely links to these things, either in the immediate context or just outside that context passages that refer to God’s wisdom, the scriptures, the royal law, the law of liberty, etc.

Application: May the Lord give you and I a strong conviction that His Word and His Heavenly Wisdom can provide all we need for life’s hardest problems, for societies greatest ill’s, and for the churches most challenging dilemma’s. So many people believe that the wisdom of God is disconnected and disassociated from reality; however, for the Christian the wisdom of God is wiser than man’s wisdom and is applicable and relevant in all things. (1 Corinthians 1:25-30.)

As James addresses this situation within this congregation we might think that it is just the poor who are desperate and needy who need to pray for wisdom. However, James tells us that the poor and the rich need to pray for wisdom. This is because riches and poverty can produce trials that test our faith which will either lead us into temptation and sin or towards perfection, completeness, and lacking nothing (1:2-4).

As the rich and the poor pray for godly wisdom they are both able to boast! This means that they are both given the ability to outwardly express with joy a grace that is inwardly experienced according to their own situation in life.

• The poor can genuinely and sincerely rejoice, exalt and glory in the fact that they have been exalted by God’s grace to the right hand of Jesus. Though they are poor and needy they have now become children of God and inheritors of an eternal blessing.

• The rich can genuinely and sincerely rejoice, exalt and glory in the fact that they have received such heavenly blessings through Christ that the things of this world have grown strangely dim.

As I have considered how the poor and the rich are to boast of certain things I have often thought of David. There were times in David’s life when he experienced poverty, lack, and lowliness but he rejoiced and exulted in the promises of God. Then there were other times when David was the King of Israel; and yet, he could dance very humbly before all the people as he did in 1 Samuel 6:14-22. When David did this we read of a conversation between him and his wife, “Michal the daughter of Saul came out to meet David and said, ‘How the king of Israel honored himself today, uncovering himself today before the eyes of his servants' female servants, as one of the vulgar fellows shamelessly uncovers himself!’”

Here Michal is disturbed by how the King in all of his wealth and honor boasted in his humiliation before the LORD. David then says to her, “It was before the Lord, who chose me above your father and above all his house, to appoint me as prince over Israel, the people of the Lord—and I will celebrate before the Lord. I will make myself yet more contemptible than this, and I will be abased in your eyes. But by the female servants of whom you have spoken, by them I shall be held in honor.”

We could also consider Paul in Philippians 4:12-13 who says, “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.” Paul had learned the wisdom of God that allowed him to boast in his exaltation in Christ and also in his humiliation as a man who considered all things a loss in comparison to knowing Christ (Philippians 3:8-10).

Or we could consider how Moses reflected these things spoken of in James 1:9-11 by looking Hebrews 11:24-27, “By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible.”

As we begin to conclude today I would like to draw your attention to one final thought. When we look at our text today we may miss the most important message. This is the same message that Jesus spoke of in Luke 12 when God says to the rich man, “‘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.” What does it mean to be rich towards God? It means to be rich in faith and the expression of that faith towards the love of God and our neighbor! (James 2:5)

If someone were to ask you what James 1:9-11 is about you might say that it is about the poor and the rich. You might say that it has to do with money and poverty. In reality it is more about people than it is their poverty or wealth.

Our text does address material wealth or poverty, but it is really about spiritual wealth and poverty. Our text is about eternal things even more than it is about material things. Spiritual wealth is seen in the poor and lowly who are to boast in their exaltation through their faith in Christ. They have been adopted, justified, sanctified and one day they will be glorified where they will receive their full inheritance all by grace!

The wealthy person is to boast in his humiliation because although their wealth may qualify them for special status in this world it will not buy wisdom from God, citizenship in heaven, or status and privilege in God’s kingdom. They rich, like the poor, need a Savior and this only is for the humble and the lowly.

This text deals with the person and not simply their earthly status and wealth. This makes sense since we have been stressing that God’s wisdom is more concerned with eternal, spiritual and godly things than the temporal things of the world. The poor and the rich are both eternal beings made in the image of God. They are more than their wealth or their poverty and their need for salvation is the most important thing.

Because of this James speaks the way that he does in our text, “...and (let) the rich (boast) in his humiliation (this is not simply a reference to the loss of his wealth upon his death but it refers to his spiritual poverty and need), because like a flower of the grass he will pass away (Notice that it does not say that his riches will pass away but he will. The rich man will pass away and his riches will be left to another, they will testify against him, and they will corrode.). 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. (The rich man fades away and cannot stop his death or add a single day to his life. His wealth cannot buy godly wisdom or redemption. In the midst of his pursuits to achieve more wealth he will die and then comes judgment.)”

My friends, what is the condition of your soul today? Are you rich in Christ or impoverished with all the things of this world which may be weights that hinder you in the race that is marked out for you?

On the day of Judgment God could say to us one of two things.

• “‘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.”

• “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’” (Mt. 25:21)

As we learn to live according to God’s wisdom here and as we express joy even in our trials we enjoy and display to the world a joy that will find its fullness in heaven. We find our joy in our Master now, but then we will enter into the fullness of His joy forevermore! Amen.