You Rich People Series

MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK SERIES

"You Rich People"

JAMES 5:1-8

#JAMESatCCC

INTRODUCTION…elitedaily.com/life/make-rich-other-money/991468

I was doing some reading and came across an interesting article about wealth and feeling rich. The author’s name is Paul Hudson. I couldn’t nail down exactly what he does for a living, but I thought his article was thought provoking. Here is what he said:

“I love money — like a lot. To an extent, it makes life easier. It allows for luxury and higher comfort. It relieves many worries and can also lead to many unique experiences. Most appealingly, it gives you power. It gives you the power to do good things on a very large scale. At the same time, money can prove just the opposite. It can prove to make life much more complicated. It can make a wasteful and overly lavish lifestyle too attainable. The power money gives us can be, and most often is, used for evil things. Money alone is not enough to make you happy, to make you feel rich the only way it matters to be rich. Money is only a means to an end — it’s the end that really matters.”

He goes on to list 8 things in life that cannot be bought that make a person feel rich: (list adapted)

1. Having friends who never fail to support you. Fill your life with people who love you, with friends who will walk through life with you, and you’ll never be poor.

2. Having a family who loves you and knows how to show it. Love your children in a way they actually feel loved, and your whole family will be rich beyond imagination.

3. Having wisdom. Wisdom is not intellect alone, nor is it simply logical thinking. Wisdom is those two things combined with experience — life-information, if you will.

4. Seeing the world. You can have all the money in the world and never actually experience the world. Seeing the world — really seeing it — is incredibly inexpensive.

5. Falling in love. Love is the only currency in the world that is both invaluable and abundant.

6. Pursuing your passions. Some of the wealthiest individuals are, in reality, by far the poorest. You can be the wealthiest person in the world and still manage to hate every second of your life. The only way to live a happy life is to live one pursuing your passions. If you live a life void of passion, then you will never feel like you are living the life you were meant to live. Just keep in mind being happy every hour of every day is not possible.

7. Cherishing memories that make you smile -- and those that make you cry. If you can look back at your life and say you maximized every moment, you squeezed the life out of every opportunity, then you are richer than you know.

8. Having someone to share your life with. Life is meaningless without people to share it with. Friends and family are what make your life worth living.

Honestly… take all my money and give me that instead.

I found his article thought provoking because when I use the word “rich,” I do not mean any of those things, but rather I mean the accumulation of wealth. I mean having a lot of money. When I think of rich I think of a new car every year, a large new house with a pool, clothes with certain brand names, excess money in the bank to do what you want after bills are paid… things like that. I think of “rich” as the ability to give to a cause when I want and how much I want.

ILLUSTRATION… I felt rich when I purchased my second car (p)

I remember a specific time when I felt rich. I purchased a 1987 Ford Taurus in 1996 that was used. It was brown which is my favorite color. I spent all my summer earnings on the car and should have just kept my money. The car broke down the week after I bought it on my way back to college and I had to put a new thermostat in it. It constantly had a leak in the power steering. I put 3 alternators in it. It was always costing me money. A year or so later, my grandmother had friends whose son was drafted into the NFL and he bought them a new car. I bought their car old in 1997. It was a very nice 1990 Honda Civic. The interior was clean and perfect. The best thing about it… it was also brown. That car never once broke down on me. I felt rich every time I got in that car because it was a nice car that ran perfectly.

In a moment, we will read from James 5 and James uses the word “rich” in the same way we normally think about it. He means (Greek: ‘plousios’) “wealthy and abounding in material resources.” He means people who have a bunch of money or land or flocks and herds. In the passage we will read, addressed to “you rich people,” he frames wealth in its proper place in our Christian life. We can learn from what he says even if we do not consider ourselves rich. James lays out some good teaching on truths about money for our walk with Christ.