Sermon Transcript
text. It’s time to have a little texting poll. So everybody get them out. Got a little question here for you as we get started this morning. It’s going to come up here on the screen.
Do you consider yourself rich? Simple yes or no question. So you’re going to text in your answer on your phone. You’re going to text a code to the number 22333. That’s the number you’re going to text to.
And then depending upon your answer, you’ve got 2 options, yes or no. If it’s yes, 96215. No, 96218. And that’s what you’re going to put in the actual message itself, and then we’re gonna get some real-time results. So have some fun with this.
Do you consider yourself rich? Here we go.
Standard text messaging rates do apply. I feel I need to share that disclaimer. People always share that disclaimer. Vote early and often.
Numbers are coming in.
The numbers are coming in. Some people are changing their answers based on how everybody else is.
Yeah. Do you consider yourself rich? Yes or no?
Well, we’re continuing our series in the book of James. And James is nothing if not practical. And if you’ve perhaps been traveling this summer and you haven’t had a chance to be a part of what we’re doing here, or perhaps you are here for the first time, we’re glad that you’re here. Yeah, we’ve been going through James, and today we’re gonna take a look at the book of James, chapter 5, 6 verses. James 5:1-6.
So, see what the results are. Okay. First service had some similar numbers there, although what we found is that a number of the first service folks did not have smartphones. And so, the numbers were a little bit skewed on that one. So we’re gonna keep this up here, and so if you haven’t done that there, we’ll give you about 10 more seconds there, and then I’ve got another little game for us.
Anyone else? Okay. Well, let’s go on to our next slide here, Roberto, because we’ve got a game that I’m super excited about. It’s called How Rich Are You?
And the tagline for this is, if we’re not rich, ain’t nobody rich. Okay? That’s my premise. And you all get to participate because I’m going to read some things. And then at the end, I’m going to say, if we’re not rich, and then you’re all going to say with great enthusiasm, ain’t nobody rich.
So let’s practice this. If we’re not rich, ain’t nobody rich. Okay. Let’s act like we’re from the South. Like, let’s think about Georgia.
Think about Alabama. You might throw a yeehaw or something in there. Here we go. If we’re not rich, Yeah, there you go. Let me share a couple things here with you, and we’re just gonna keep this up here.
Let’s talk about our homes. Let’s talk about the fact that more than 600,000 people in the US are homeless on any given night. More than 600,000. San Francisco’s local homeless coordinating board identified at least 7,300 homeless individuals in San Francisco in their latest count. They take periodic counts on, like, a given night, and they had 7,300 homeless people at least.
In San Jose, an estimated 12,000 people were homeless homeless at some point during last year. 12,000. And it’s difficult to accurately measure world homelessness because you’ve got differing political definitions of homelessness and what that means. You’ve got things like natural disasters and civil unrest. But the latest conservative estimate from the United Nations— by the way, you cynics out there are going to say you can’t use those words, conservative and United Nations, in the same sentence, but I just went there.
The conservative estimate from the United Nations puts the number of homeless at 100 million. Is what they guess conservatively. Guys, we’re so rich we have houses for our cars. Think about that. If we’re not rich, then who are the rich?
Yeah. Do you believe that? What about food? We have pantries and refrigerators full of this stuff. I read a blog just this last week that just reminded me of the fact that we have these magical machines that are in our homes.
Most of you have them. Some are smaller, some are larger. And you go to them and you open them and there’s food in there. It’s amazing, and it keeps the food cold. Isn’t that awesome?
Now, my children sometimes will open up the fridge and they’ll stare, and then they’ll close the door and they don’t grab anything because they say, we don’t have anything to eat. We have things to eat. So maybe you’ve had that happen in your home. Every night, though, 1 in 7 people in the world go to bed hungry. Many of them are children.
Almost 15% of Americans don’t know where their next meal is going to come from. What do we do? When we run out of food, we do what I did last night. My wife’s out of town, we needed some groceries, just hop in the car, 15 minutes, I’m back. Boom.
Have what I need. That’s the same kind of thing you would do as well. But here’s what’s interesting about food. We have pets that eat better than some people in the world. We spend $17 billion annually in the US and Europe— that’s just the US and Europe— $17 billion annually on pet food.
And $9 billion on clean water for all global citizens. Folks, if we’re not rich— I know some of you are like, can we get through with this game, please? Because this is, like, convicting here. How about water? Speaking of water.
This comes out of an odd device that you may have in your home where you flip the switch and water comes out day or night, anytime you want it, unless the state of California says, don’t do that. And sometimes they do that for us. But for the most part, we have water that’s readily available to us. 780 million people worldwide, that’s 1 in 9, lack access to clean water. People around the world, you know this, will travel miles every day just to get a bucket of clean water from a well somewhere.
We have it right there available for us. In fact, we have so much water, we take our water and it comes out of these things that are in the ground and our grass and it waters the sidewalk and the driveway. We have so much water. Amazing. Folks, if we’re not rich, ain’t nobody rich.
I know. Say it with conviction. Clothes. I don’t have any stats on this, except I would just say that so many of us have so many clothes. And some people will actually do this.
Now, I know none of you have ever done this, where you stood in front of the closet and what have you said? I don’t have a thing to wear. Some of us have done that. Imagine that. And yet we stand in front of the closet and say, I don’t have a thing to wear.
And then somebody— I read something the other day. They pointed out not only Do we have clothes? We have work clothes. We have workout clothes. We have after-work clothes and work-in-the-yard clothes.
Folks, if we’re not rich, ain’t nobody rich. Yeah. Couple more of these. Education. Our kids have access to opportunities that are just amazing.
Some of you even came here from another country because of education and the opportunities that we have around here. Some of it’s free education. Some of it’s private education. Good teachers. Good technology.
For the most part, you can be relatively safe in school districts and know that your children will come back to you. They can go on to college and go on to further education. Many of you have done that, giving, giving our bodies and our minds a brighter future. Teachers, sports teams, after-school clubs and programs, and they’re generally safe there. Check this out.
We spend $8 billion annually on cosmetics. $8 billion annually on cosmetics. $12 billion on perfume. $6 billion on basic education for all global children. But oh well, because at least we smell good and look good, right?
If we’re not rich, ain’t nobody rich. I got one more of these. Thanks for abiding with me on this. What about pills? When was the last time you took a look in your medicine cabinet and you see the things that you have?
There are people that would love to have access to what it is that we have in terms of what it is that we’re, you know, we’ve got. I’ve got some melatonin that I take to help me to sleep sometimes. I’ve got a big old thing from Costco that’s like a Tylenol aspirin. Some of you have that. We have Neosporin.
We have Band-Aids. We have things like that. How many of you have health insurance? You’re rich. You’re rich compared to the rest of the world.
And again, we think, I’m not rich. And that’s the thing. I heard somebody share this one time. Nobody’s rich, but everybody knows somebody who is. Right?
It’s always somebody else. Oh, I’m not rich. And then we come up with a dollar figure. Now those people Those people are rich. And yet you ask that person, nah, and they’ll say, I’m not rich.
And we do that, right? None of us are rich. We just— there’s always other people who are. We have health insurance. We are rich beyond anything we could ever ask for or imagine.
So I would contend that we should do this with great enthusiasm here. Folks, if we’re not rich, ain’t nobody rich. All right, end of sermon. No, no, we’re not done. We’re gonna take a look at the book of James, chapter 5.
If you’re not convicted already, James is gonna help us to feel more convicted. Thank you, James. Chapter 5, verses 1 through 6. How did we get here though, by the way? How did we get to this point where we’re looking at it and we’re saying, we’re not rich?
2 things I would share. One is, is I think that excess, our excess impairs our perspective. We lose sight of the fact that we live in the richest pocket of population of wealth in the entire world. If you make $35,000 a year, you’re in the top 4% of wealth in the world. If you make $50,000 a year, you’re in the top 1% of wealth in the world.
And yet we say we’re not rich. Now some of you are going to say, oh Steve, but we’re in Silicon Valley. We’ll get to that in a little bit. We’ll get to that in just a moment. But the fact is is that we don’t necessarily need more stuff.
We, we need our eyes open to the stuff that we already have, right? Look at all that we already have. We’re rich. We’re blessed. But excess kind of impairs our perspective.
We say, no, no, no, no, I’m not rich. And therefore we become ungrateful and then we start coveting what other people have. That’s another story. Another way that we’ve gotten where we are is what I would think of in terms of misplaced priorities. Any of you ever play Monopoly?
Yeah? I don’t like playing Monopoly because it takes too long. I never actually ever— I don’t think I’ve ever finished a game of Monopoly because it just takes too long. Whenever I grew up playing Monopoly, I would play Monopoly very conservatively. And guess what happened?
I lost. Every time. What’s the goal of Monopoly? Money, money, money. It’s acquisition.
If you don’t make a total commitment to acquisition, you will lose. If you go around the board a couple times just sort of picking out the spaces that you want to be on, you will lose. But here’s the greatest lesson. And John Ortberg, the pastor just up the road in Menlo Park, wrote a book about this a few years ago. Here’s the greatest lesson with Monopoly.
When the game is over, it all goes back in the box.
When the game’s over, it all goes back in the box. All the houses, all the hotels, all the property, all the money. The utility companies— don’t pay attention to the utility companies on Monopoly. Spend your time on the railroads. That’s my recommendation to you.
I’m a railroad guy. All of that all goes back in the box at the end.
And yet there’s nothing wrong with playing the game. Some of you are really, really good at playing this game. And I don’t mean just Monopoly. I mean just being successful in life, financially successful. Some of you are really, really good at it.
And there’s nothing wrong with being really, really good at it or even just playing the game to begin with. But the problem with playing the game is that it lulls us into thinking that the game never ends.
And we forget the fact that at the end of our life, the Lord is going to assess our life with what we did with what he gave you and what he gave me. Because at the end, it all goes back in the box. It all goes back in the box. And everything we have is temporary. Your retirement packages, your bank statements, whatever college acceptances that you’ve received, your SAT scores or whatever the test scores that you’re going to have, whatever job titles you hold right now, There’s going to come a day when it’s not going to impress anybody, and nobody’s going to care about how many clothes you had in your closet that went unworn.
Nobody’s going to care about how much you spent on your house payment. Nobody’s going to care about what car sat in your garage. There’s going to come a day when all of that’s going to be rendered irrelevant and unimportant. So what do we do? Here’s my questions for you as we get into James in this passage.
What is— what should be our primary objective when it comes to how we spend? Okay. We’ve heard it said, and many of us may have even bought into this idea, that the more money I have, the happier I will be. Or the more money I have, the more secure I will be. Is that true?
Is there something wrong with being wealthy? Is there something wrong with having money? Is it wrong to spend on myself? Is it wrong to save? Is materialism a blind spot in American Christianity today?
Or more specifically, is it a blind spot in your Christianity today? And what are we supposed to do in terms of our next steps, especially given this idea of the fact that we will live somewhere for eternity? And the fact that our lives are just here today, gone tomorrow. How are we to live? And how do we align our lives closer to what God’s agenda is And further away from what our agenda is.
That’s what we’re gonna talk about today. So look with me, if you would please, to the book of James. We’re gonna look at the first 5 chapters— or the first 6 verses of chapter 5. No, we will not look at the first 5 chapters.
Listen to this intro. This is my all-time favorite intro in the Bible. Now listen, you rich people! I’ve been waiting to say that. I’ve been saying it around the office for the past month, haven’t I, Ryan?
Like, I go into offices just Now listen up, you rich people. I just went upstairs to Burkhart not more than like 15 minutes— well, no, further ago than that, but just at the beginning of the service, and Peter Licari saw me and he said, now listen, you rich people. He knows that I’ve been studying for this passage. Turn to the person next to you and just look at them and say, listen up, you rich person. Just do that for a moment.
Isn’t that fun? Isn’t that liberating? That’s awesome. What a great intro. Now listen up, you rich people, he says.
He’s going to turn Old Testament prophet on us. Weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you. Your wealth has rotted and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire.
You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look, the wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields, they’re crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. Verse 5, check out this comparison. It’s not the most favoring of comparisons.
You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You’re soft. James says, you’re soft. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. Back then, if you wanted to have a celebration, you would take a calf and you’d fatten it up and you’d feed it and you’d feed it and you’d feed it and then you’d slaughter it so you could have extra meat for everybody.
And James is saying, you’re missing the point, folks. You’re overfed yourselves. You just continue to consume and consume and consume and then you don’t share with those around you. You’re like a fattened calf that’s headed to the slaughter. Ouch.
That ouch is not in there. I just threw that in there parenthetically. Verse 6, you have condemned and murdered the innocent one who was not opposing you. And he’s basically saying, because you spent money over here, because you’ve held on to what you’ve had and not shared with those around you, you are in essence harming other people who have less. You have what they need and we’re withholding it from them.
Now I have a question here. This is a tricky one. And but, but But it’s an important one. Who is James writing to? Is he writing to Christians here?
Because you read this and you say this— many people, in fact, many commentaries— I’ve done a lot of research on this in preparation for this. Many people will say, it’s not possible he’s writing to Christians. He speaks with such severity and hostility. There’s no way possible he’s writing to Christians. And then he’s warning them about the possibility of not being able to stand on Judgment Day.
Who’s he writing to? He’s writing to Christians. Who’s the book of James written to? Christians. You go back to chapter 1, first couple verses, he’s addressing it to the churches.
Why would James be writing a letter to people who weren’t there? Why would James be offering comments to people who weren’t going to hear it? He’s clearly addressing Christians.
And as he does so, it seems like the implication is That he’s warning about the dangers of living a fruitless life. That it’s possible that you can have a profession of faith and have Jesus as your Savior, but that’s all that he is. He hasn’t changed your life and you’re not growing in Christlikeness. It’s possible that you and I don’t live a fruitful life and that we would not bear the fruit that God wants us to bear. There’s not evidence of God’s work in our lives.
And James is saying, then you have no right to have the comfort of the assurance of salvation. And that leads to one observation that I want to make here. Observations. I have 2 observations from, from these 6 verses. One is, is that caring for the poor is not the basis of salvation.
Let’s be clear on that. Caring for the poor and the vulnerable and the needy around us is not the basis of salvation. You may have come from a faith background or know somebody who comes from a faith background who says it is the basis of salvation. It’s not the basis of salvation. What is the basis of salvation?
Grace by faith alone. You were You’re saved by grace through faith alone and you don’t add anything to it. It’s all what Jesus did for you. You just have to receive it. Let’s be clear on that.
Nowhere in here does it say that caring for the poor is the basis of salvation. But it is the evidence of it. It is the evidence of it. Jesus would say people would know us by our fruit. You can tell an apple tree is an apple tree because it beareth fruit.
And say, oh look, it’s apples. It must be an apple tree. There should be things in our lives, Jesus would say, that people would look at, particularly love, love for God, love for others, that people would look at and say, that person follows Jesus. And the New Testament writers are united in this fact that they say one of the indicators of a faithful life as a Christ follower, one of the indicators of fruit is material concern for the poor and the needy around us.
We don’t think of it in those terms. If I was to bring up somebody here that was sexually immoral and was living a life that you and I would perhaps, being here in the church and in the Christian world that we live in, might look upon and say, well, that person obviously doesn’t have a very fruitful life. Somebody comes in and says, I don’t give a lick about the poor, and somebody would say, eh. What’s the difference? That’s what James would say.
There is no difference. There is no difference.
Caring for the poor is not the basis of salvation, but it is the evidence of it. Put simply, if you believe that you are a sinner saved by grace alone, the unmerited grace of God, if you believe that you are a sinner who couldn’t do anything except depend upon the Lord to save you, then you will be generous.
You will be. The two go together.
And if you or I are not generous, if we don’t care about the poor or the needy or the vulnerable around us, we don’t get the gospel. We don’t understand it. We don’t understand our need. We don’t understand what Jesus did. It’s that serious.
So while caring for the poor is not the basis of salvation, it is the evidence of it. Another observation that I want to make is when wealth becomes your hope— see, James is writing to people who put their hope in wealth. I know none of us here do that. But when wealth does become your hope, you feel compelled to hoard and you can’t afford to be generous. Many of you are like me.
You’ve watched that show Hoarders, right, where people pile up all this stuff. We say, man, that’s not me. That’s not me. And James would say, it’s you more than you realize, and it’s me more than I realize. We have closets full of clothes that go unworn.
We have refrigerators full of food. Many of us just throw away perfectly good food. We waste water on the ground. We do things— and the Lord has blessed us. And I’m not trying to lay a guilt trip on anybody.
Please hear me on this. I’m wrestling with this myself. I’ve been wrestling with this for about the past month since I’ve been reading through this. But when I read this, it tells me that it is easy to put my hope in wealth. And when wealth becomes my hope, then I begin to wrap my hands around what is mine and what I feel is mine.
Like Gollum in Lord of the Rings. It’s my precious. Sorry for the bad impression there. I don’t do him very well. I do other impressions.
Come ask me. But I don’t do that one. My precious.
And our hands begin to close around what we have. And then we can’t afford to be generous. I can’t give because I’ve got all these things that I’m spending on myself. And again, I know the objections running through your head. We’ll get to them.
We’ll get to them. But when I read this, it tells me that we are not to put our hope in wealth. We’re to put our hope in that which lasts and to put our hope in the Lord. I just want to read for a moment from 3 verses of what Jesus said to us in the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 6:19-21, Jesus said, do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth.
And yet that’s exactly what we do. We store up for ourselves treasures on earth. We’re moths. And vermin destroy and where thieves break in and steal. Instead, store up for yourselves treasures in heaven.
God’s not against us storing up treasures. It’s just what treasures are we storing up? Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven where moths and vermin do not destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Wherever, wherever you’re putting your hope, that’s where your heart is going to be.
And it’s going to be obvious. To the world around you that is watching you, as to where you and I are putting our hope. And when wealth becomes your hope, you start finding your hope migrating to this idea of, I need a certain dollar amount in order to sleep well at night, in order to feel good about myself, and to not feel guilty, so I can check off the box and say I’ve done enough. There’s nothing more that I can do. And it becomes about us and less about the other people around us.
Our hope begins to migrate to wealth when we feel like it’s mine. In this economy that we live in and the standard of living that we live in here in Silicon Valley. And James would say, when wealth becomes your hope, you begin to kind of close your hand around it. Don’t do that. And don’t allow what you own to own you.
Don’t allow what you possess to possess you. So what do we do with something like this? What are our next steps? This is a tricky passage. I had people coming up to me after the first service just saying, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with this passage.
That’s a good place to be. Because if we lack wisdom— and James told us this in chapter 1— if you lack wisdom and you ask God, he loves to give it. Now I’ve got some suggestions for you, and we’ll get into those in just a moment. But I want to offer 2 next steps that are straight from that passage we just read, those first 6 verses. We should always get our application from the passage itself.
Rather than coming up with our own application and hoping that it fits. Always get it from the Scripture, and that’s what we’re gonna do here. But as we do, thinking about these questions of, am I supposed to lower then my standard of living? Is that what James is telling me to do here? Is James telling me it’s wrong to be rich?
Is James telling me it’s wrong to spend money on myself, to save? See, here’s the deal. James never condemns people for saving. He never condemns people for being wise. What he condemns them for is for hoarding and for holding on to things and not putting it to use.
That’s what James is concerned about. He doesn’t condemn them for making money. Some of you make a lot of money. Good for you.
James doesn’t condemn them for being successful. He condemns them for holding on to it and putting their hope in it and thereby not being able to share with people around them and make a difference in the world. So what are we supposed to do with this? Am I supposed to lower my standard of income? What percentage of my income should I live on?
Where’s the line between saving and hoarding? What am I supposed to do with this? Am I supposed to give my money to the first person I come across or to anybody I come across? Let’s get our application from the scripture, and I can tell you with some good confidence that these 2 things are a good place to start. The first 3 verses of chapter 5 give us the first point of application, and it’s that James would encourage us, if this fits you, that we are to repent of greed, we’re to repent of indifference, not caring, or to repent of misplaced priorities.
And if the shoe fits for you, as I know it does for me, then we need to change. We need to do something different. Misplaced priorities. And we need to repent of those things and go in a different direction. And the words he uses there— weep and wail and misery— those are words of repentance.
Those are words encouraging us to really feel in our spirit what God feels. That we would grieve over the fact that there are people around here that if we would eat out less once a month, if we would get a couple cups of coffee fewer, we could, we could make a difference. More of a difference than what we’re currently making. Again, no guilt trip here. But he’s saying that this kind of lamenting is the kind of lamenting that comes about when you feel ashamed, when you feel regret.
We each answer for our own choices. And I don’t know how the whole Judgment Day thing is gonna play out. Believe me, I’ve thought long and hard about this. You have to trust me on this. And I don’t have all the answers about how this is gonna play out.
But if we stand before the Lord and we’re to give an account for what he’s entrusted to us. And if we say, but we live in Silicon Valley, I don’t know how that’s going to play. I don’t know how that’s going to work.
I had somebody after the first service who came to me and said, Steve, but you don’t understand, the government is taking away all of our retirement. I don’t know that that’s going to hold a lot of water as we stand before the Lord.
We’re responsible for what he gives us. That’s it. And you or I may not like what that looks like. We may not like what that means for us. But James here would say, listen, we’ve got to quit politicizing this.
We’ve got to quit pointing the fingers elsewhere. We each answer for our own choices. Oh, but the church— no. Oh, but these people— no. You and I answer for ourselves.
What did we do with what God gave us? That’s it. And if there’s any indication of greed in our hearts as we’re sharing this message, as you read the scripture— listen, I invite you to take this and to wrestle with this some more and to talk about this as a family or with somebody else. I’d love to wrestle through this passage with you because this is very tough.
But for any greed, any indifference, not caring, misplaced priorities, we’re to repent. And then he addresses another point of application, and it’s this: we are to use Our money and our influence— and we got money and we got influence— we’re to use those things to meet others’ needs and to right wrongs around us. Use your money, use your influence to meet others’ needs and to right wrongs around us. That’s what James here is telling us.
Let me ask you this: what are we supposed to do whenever God gives us extra? Why does God give us extra in the first place? Why does he give us more than we need? Because many of us have more than we need. Why does God give us more than we need?
Is it for ourselves? Is it so that we won’t worry? I would submit that it’s not so that we won’t worry, because you want to meet somebody who’s worried, meet a person that’s got money. The more you have, the more you worry.
Is it so that we would spend it on ourselves or just accumulate it for ourselves?
I would submit that as you look throughout the whole of Scripture, going all the way back to God’s provision for the Israelites in the wilderness as they wandered and provided them with manna, that when God gives you extra and when God gives me extra, he gives it so that we can share with those around us.
We are not to neglect our family.
God doesn’t expect us to go hungry.
Unclothed. But the reality is he gives us more so that we can share with others who have less. That’s why he gives us extra.
There’s a word that shows up frequently throughout the Scripture. You won’t find it here in this passage in the book of James, but the book of James just oozes this word, and it’s mishpat. It’s a Hebrew word that means justice. To do justice, to act justly. And James is nothing if it’s not about justice.
It’s about doing justice. Mishpat means essentially caring for the vulnerable around you, treating people equitably regardless of their race, their class, their need. This is what it means to act justly, to care for people around you. And throughout Scripture, God is telling us to take up the care of the vulnerable, to take up the care of the needy, to take up the care of the poor, and to make long-term personal sacrifices For their benefit. Many of us would say, I can’t imagine living with that kind of accountability.
It’s what we signed up for when we professed faith in Jesus. The two go hand in hand. You can’t profess faith and then say, but I’m going to neglect justice over here. So who are we to do justice for? Who are we to act justly for?
Who are we to advocate for? Who are these vulnerable? Who are these needy around us? Scripture has typically 4 categories of people that it focuses upon when it talks about the vulnerable. It’s widows, orphans, which I’m— listen, I didn’t know that the Romanian Choir was going to come here a couple weeks ago.
I think the Lord really arranged that. I think that’s amazing. Praise God for their ministry. Widows and orphans, immigrants, and the poor. Those are the 4 main categories throughout Scripture.
You see again, Some of you hear immigrants, you get a little bit uncomfortable.
These are the 4 groups. And so what we do is we politicize all this and we say, oh, but Steve— and again, I’m not the Lord, so I don’t know how that’s going to play out, but I just want us to be faithful with what it is that we have. And God takes up the care of and the concern of those that lack social power. And those are individuals that lack social power: widows, orphans, immigrants, and the poor. And I would expand that to include now refugees, migrant workers, incarcerated, people with special needs or disabilities, the homeless, the elderly, single moms.
You need more? I can give you more. But we have people all around us. And I read something just last night that was just— it’s like, man, I wish I didn’t read this right before the sermon. Thanks, God.
So convicting.
Somebody was writing about the fact that we in the American church, it’s one thing that some of us don’t care about the poor, but it’s another thing the fact that many of us don’t even know the poor. We wouldn’t know what to do if we were to take something to somebody. Like, who needs this? Many of us don’t know any poor people. I talked to somebody just this morning who said, Steve, I don’t know any poor people.
They’re around us. And one of the things that Pastor Dave and our pastors and our elders are so desiring of us as a church is that we would notice needs around us in a way like we’ve never done before. And instead of just walking by a need, that we would see it. And if all you get out of today, friends, is that if you would just pray, God, help me to notice needs around me, that’d be fantastic. Help me to notice needs and to not just walk by them.
Help me to ask, Lord, is there anything that I can do? And then do it. How liberating, how incredible that would be. Why does God want us to take up the care of the vulnerable? He wants us to take up the care of the vulnerable because that is who he is.
He is a just God. And to withhold justice or to neglect justice is not just a lack of mercy or a lack of charity. Well, you sure are a cold-hearted person. It’s a violation of God’s justice and it’s a sin and it’s wrong. It’s wrong.
God gives us extra so that we can share with those around us. So let me just make a couple practical steps, and then I have a couple that’s going to come up and share here. One is I want to address our spending. Shannon and I have been taking a hard look at our spending the last— well, like really all summer long. She’s reading through a book that’s just been rocking our world, and I’ve been reading through it too.
And so I’m trying to think about spending, and what I’ve just come to the conclusion of is that spending flies under our radar more than we realize. It’s so subtle. And seemingly inconsequential. I run into a store over here. Oh, I don’t have time to make something, so I’ll just go on over here.
And that just individually, it doesn’t make a difference. Accumulated, it’s a startling number how much we spend. So would we be countercultural enough to do one of two things, or perhaps even both? And I’m telling you, this is radical to even consider. One is, is that we would be non-consumers, meaning that we would look at what we have and say, we’re good.
We’ll use what we have already. Or, and it’s part of that non-consumption, would we be countercultural enough to say, there’s something that I spend my money on each month. Maybe going out. Maybe something I spend on myself, that extra pair of shoes.
That luxury item. What if you went without it for a week? And you then took the extra and you redirected it elsewhere. That’d be amazing. It’s countercultural.
It’s different. It’d be amazing. You could do that. You could take the extra that you have and have a garage sale and instead of using it to upgrade your items, you could use that to give to the folks here from Romania. I’ve got some other practical examples that we’re going to get into here in just a moment.
I would love for us to think long and hard about this, to say, how can I consume less or redirect the extra that I have to make a difference in somebody else’s life?
We have some things that we do as a church from time to time that I just want to offer up in terms of suggestions. This Romanian choir is fantastic, and we occasionally bring in missionaries that you’ll hear about. Those are great causes. Here locally, I would also suggest to you to think about the places that we’re already involved as a church. City Impact.
Our YOPROs are going to City Impact later on today, or at least a couple of them are. City Impact is in the Tenderloin in San Francisco. And for $38 a month, that’s basically a meal out if you’ve got a small family, depending upon where you eat. For $38 a month, you and I could sponsor a kid to go to the City Academy there in the Tenderloin. Private school.
Get good education. Safe place. Good stuff. You can go to the City Academy and look at the different ways you can be involved. The next time you see a future trip that’s being planned, come with us.
Experience it. We give food out to other people. It’s outstanding. We pray with them. Share Jesus with them.
What about Freedom House? Some of us have gotten involved in the Bay Area Anti-Trafficking Coalition, which is a movement to stop human trafficking. And the Freedom House provides a safe place for for women, for children, for people who are victims of human trafficking and sex trafficking. What if you were to just go on the website, because we’re already involved as a church in different ways, and just said, you know what, I’m not gonna wait for the next time the church has something. We’re just gonna go do that.
As a family, as an individual, me and my friends, we’re just— my Bible study group, my Sunday school class, we’re just gonna go. We’re not gonna wait. The next time some of us from the church go to St. James Park to go serve food and clothes to the homeless, come with us. And better yet, go again. You don’t even have to wait for us as a church.
Think of an organization that’s near and dear to your heart that would make a difference in somebody’s life. For me and my wife, for our family, it’s issues having to do with adoption, orphanages, and those having to do with disabilities and special needs. Those are near and dear to our hearts, so we tend to jump to those things. I don’t know what it is for you. But find those things and then jump on them.
That’d be fantastic.
But here’s the bottom line in all of this, is that as we come up with all of these different things, that I think God wants us to not just care for the poor and the neglected and the needy around us with our words and with our hearts, but where it actually counts, with our schedule. I know you care about the needy with your, with your heart. Do you care about them with your schedule? Do you care about them with your money? Do you care about them with your budget, with your lifestyle?
Do I care about them? ‘Cause God is able to discern true love from lip service. Let’s put feet to this. That’s what James would want us to do. That’s what the Lord would want us to do.
Here’s the bottom line: to whom much is given— let me hear you say it— much is required. To whom much is given, much is required. Let’s say that all together. To whom much is given, much is required. And when God gives you extra and he gives you much, like he’s given to us, then we are responsible for much.
What if we were known as a church that just took that so seriously to heart? I’m gonna invite up Mark and Tanya Sternberg to come up. They’re a couple in our YoPros group. Some of you guys know Mark and Tanya, and I’ve asked them to just share briefly about what God is doing in their lives as they’ve sort of opened themselves up to these topics. I was talking to Mark a couple Sundays ago, and just hearing how the Lord is motivating them and prompting them, it was very humbling and inspiring to hear.
And I know that these guys put put feet to their faith. So I’ve asked them to share a little bit about what this passage in the book of James has been doing for their lives.
Hey everybody. So I don’t know that we’re anything special, but we really consider our lives to be something that we’ve done a lot of taking leaps of faith. And obviously I’m a risk-taker because I was an entrepreneur. And We met in grad school, got married, and as soon as we graduated, we’re like, let’s leave Phoenix. Let’s move away from all of our family, all of our friends, and go to the Bay Area.
And I thought I was gonna be a successful entrepreneur. So a year later, we spent all the money that we had saved. We actually had $200 in our bank account, and Peter Licari was over helping us with our taxes, and he’s like, go get a job. So luckily, Tanya, I mean, thankfully, Tanya got a job, Within like a month and a half of moving to the Bay Area. So we were able to live, we weren’t dying, but I really had hopes and dreams of being this entrepreneur.
And so a year later, I went and got a real job, and then 2 years later now, we own a house in the Bay Area. God actually has called me to work for Jews for Jesus, and we’ve, we’ve been really touched by what are we going to do with all these amazing blessings that God has given us. And led us in a completely different direction than we had hoped or planned. And I probably would have been a terrible person if I was a successful entrepreneur like I wanted to be, but God actually has made us part of this YOPROs group. We were here the first day David and Cindy were introduced, which I think was amazing timing and definitely God-ordained, not like I had planned that.
And just amazing opportunities. David Brickner came and spoke, one of the first guest speakers. At the church, and that’s how I got involved with Juice for Jesus. He’s the executive director. So it’s just all these things God has really put in our path.
And just like last week, making plans with open hands, like, that’s really what we’ve been focused on. What can we do with what God’s given us and these amazing opportunities? And so we actually, with the house, we’re walking around and we have all these bedrooms that are vacant, and our neighbors were convicting us because they have like 5 families in a house. And they’re like, what are you doing with those rooms? So we were convicted to rent out these rooms at the lowest rate that we found.
So we actually went specifically below the rate that is expected in the Bay Area, and we’re renting it out to people and really serving them. We have tracts and amazing, like, spiritual things all over the house. So as soon as you open the door, you know that we’re spiritual, and you can definitely identify that we’re Christian. With our Bibles sitting right on the dining room table. And so we have these spiritual conversations with people, and it’s not like we’re finding them.
God’s putting them in our lives. I have a Jewish person living with us right now. It’s not like I chose these people. God puts them in our lives, and we have these spiritual conversations around the dinner table that are amazing. And it’s this really intimate experience that we have, and it’s been amazing to see what God has done in our lives.
Putting us in this neighborhood where a lot of them are Hispanic. And so we have this great relationship with Hispanic neighbors that are inviting us over to birthdays and dinners. And just because we care, we’re showing them that they matter to us and that we want to invest in their lives. And it’s making a huge impact. And it’s not anything that’s difficult or anything that we’re doing that’s really special.
We just realize we’ve been blessed in such immense ways. And we’re willing to give back and step out and see what God’s gonna do with that.
I guess there’s not much to add other than— well, when Mark had the idea for us to move here, I didn’t want to move because my family, my friends, my job was in Phoenix. But it was truly a blessing because it was my journey to accept the Lord here at the church. So, um, it’s my faith has grown tremendously. The Lord’s very been very good to us. Um, YoPro has been a huge blessing.
Um, David and Cindy, um, we, I feel like we’ve really grown a lot and there’s one ways that we can give out to help, I guess the Lord, you can’t really help, but you can, um, just Spread the word as much as possible. I do it at work. I do it when we’re at City Impact or we’re handing out tracts. Just any way that you can. It’s not that challenging.
It’s just do the Lord’s work. That’s what we’re here on— here to do is just tell others about Jesus and the love that he has for us and the life that he gives us.
So last week my cousin was here, and she’s a missionary in Thailand, and I was having a conversation with her and just talking about how do we do ministry. And she really struck me with it’s relational. It’s just having relationships with people and being willing whenever there’s an opportunity. If they say something about luck or something that you really don’t agree with, just say I don’t really think it’s luck. I think.
There’s something more to it about life. There’s all these little things people say that it’s really easy to then turn it into a spiritual conversation. And, and God’s going to work through you. He’s going to give you the words to say. And we’re not even going on script here.
I mean, we’re literally just saying what God’s giving us to say. And it’s because we really want to reach people and we’re willing to take that step. And I really just want to encourage everybody here because I know you all have hearts for Christ. And going to City Impact is something so easy, knocking on a door and giving someone food, and they stand there and they cry, and they’re like, that’s the biggest smile I’ve seen all day. You’re making a huge impact by doing something so simple, and it’s actually the coolest feeling that we’ve ever experienced, just being able to serve the Lord, and we want to encourage you.
So let me just kind of close this. One thought that I have is this. Parents— I know there are several parents here in the room. We sometimes will elevate in our minds certain experiences that our young people need before they go off to college in terms of thinking of what are they going to be, you know, in college, and so that they can maintain a faith as they go and get older. And I’m here to tell you that as you think about the different things that they need in terms of Sunday school and a strong youth group, all of those things are great.
I mean, I work at a church, so of course I’m going to believe that what the church has to offer is fantastic. But I would ask that you would sincerely think about the value of doing something together as a family like what we’re talking about here today. Don’t wait for the youth group to do it. You guys do it as a family. Talk about this as a family.
What can you guys do as a family to move the ball down the field in this own— regarding this conviction. Another thing that just came to mind as Mark was sharing was, what if we as a church were known less for what buildings we are in and what it is that we have? Listen, I mean, we’re so blessed and we want to use it to think about our community all around us. But what if we became known for our love? Right?
What if we became known for our generosity? This is a very generous church. What if we became known in this community for knowing people? So I would ask you to consider being countercultural enough this week to say, God, help us to maybe make an intentional reduction in one area of our lives. What’s something we spend money on that we can do without right now?
And if you can’t do without it, then that’s where you’re putting your hope. And maybe that’s what God wants you to do, is to put your hope in him rather than in that. Make do with something less. Redirect the extra that you have. And I would challenge you to even do— I was talking to somebody the other day just about how easy it is for us to, okay, I’m gonna go through my closet and go through the things I don’t wear, and then I’m just gonna dump it off on a third-party group like Goodwill or something like that.
How much better to actually give it to somebody? Put it in the hands of somebody. Whenever we go to St. James Park to feed the homeless, We take clothes with us. Hold on to clothes and then actually put it in somebody’s hands. That’d be awesome.
It’s through relationships, as Mark just said. Can you tell I’m passionate about this topic? I’m really, really fired up, and I’m so glad that I had the chance to share it with you. We’re gonna close differently than what we normally do. Normally we have communion and all those sorts of things, but we just wanted to have a benediction.
And then as you leave today, we’re gonna give you the chance to again pour into the Romanian choir. And thank you, choir, for being here. And they’ve got a table over here that you’re gonna want to check out. Some great things over there. And hope that you all are inspired.
If I can pray for you in any way, I will be in the back. And Barbara Logan is back over there as well. And either one of us is happy to pray with you. If you have some things that you want to get off your chest about the sermon. Let’s brainstorm together about how we can make a difference with what God has given us.
Because when God has given us much, much is required. Let’s pray. God, thank you for this time here today. And I know you’re speaking directly to me. I’m not trying to preach at anybody.
I’m not trying to offer conviction or drum up some sort of sorrow or regret in other people that I don’t already feel in myself. God, help us to look at what’s around us, to be thankful, and to share it. To not close our hands around it, but instead to open up. And to share freely. And in fact, right where you’re sitting right now, as you’re praying, would you just open up your palms to the Lord as just a symbol of your surrender?
Would you just, as we’re just praying, just open up your palms and just in your own words just say, Lord, I surrender. I want it to be yours.
Father, thank you for how you’ve blessed us. As we go from this place, help us to notice needs Help us to not wait to be asked, but to just jump forward and to say, I want to be a part of doing justice in this area. We pray all these things in Jesus’ name. Amen. Amen.
Have a great week.
