Season two of Love in Context podcast welcomes you.
Get ready for engaging unscripted conversations with your hosts, Ben and Spencer.
Our mission remains unchanged to explore the Bible through the powerful lens of love.
In this new season, we'll embark on a journey together, unearthing fresh insights and gaining
deeper understanding of how we can love God and live out our faith in practical ways.
So let's dive into this season of Love in Context, where love in the context of the
Bible intersect to transform our lives.
Welcome to the Love in Context podcast.
And you're like, Ben, you sound weird.
I do sound weird because we've talked about this in the past, but children are Petri dishes.
And whenever they get sick, they're always like, Dad, I want to climb in your lap and
sneeze in your face.
Yeah.
And on top of that, like you spend a lot of time over at my place, right?
We do bonfires all the time.
And my house is like the hangout for all the kids.
Right.
So like you come over to my house, it's like you could have two kids or 15 there.
You don't know.
Like, yeah, there's like four houses and all the kids just congregate towards.
Well, to be fair, he does have a trampoline.
Yeah.
And a playground.
Yeah.
And he's almost always has a bonfire going on out there during the summer.
So to be fair, that's like a kid's like, yeah, happy place.
It's like they're.
Yeah.
So this is episode four in the book of James.
And we've been kind of going through and high stepping through James, because obviously
if we went through every single thing going on in here, I'm not sure we would ever get
through this book.
I think that'd be season two, three, four and five, maybe.
Right.
Because well, and especially because as we were referencing more and more is that James
is referencing back to Torah, he's referencing back to these ideals that the Jewish people
would know that the book is written very much in this like wisdom of Ben Sirach or like
a Proverbs type of thing where he's like, hey, these are things that you know that you
should be doing as followers of Christ.
Yes.
And some things specifically you Jews should know as followers of Christ because he's specifically
writing to the Jews.
Now, there's tons of application for the Gentiles.
Yes.
But knowing who his audience is, is important when we're interpreting some of the things
he says.
Yes.
And we're going to we're going to once again talk about the rich again today.
And we've been talking about how James is using this idea of rich, but he's not talking
about necessarily wealth itself.
He's talking about how you get your wealth and what you do with your wealth.
Yes.
And and I and I want to mention that because I think the tendency is to say, oh, if we
have money, then we're the rich oppressors.
No, it's this invitation of like, if you are blessed by God, because Abraham was blessed
by God, Isaac was blessed by God, Israel was blessed by God, and they had a lot of wealth
and all these different things.
But what do you do with it?
How do you accumulate it?
Do you do it off the back of other people like Egypt did?
Or do you do it because of the blessing of God in your life where suddenly your fields
are producing and your animals are reproducing?
Your children are abundant.
Right.
Yeah.
This whole call back to Torah.
Mm hmm.
So you said that we're going to start in verse 11, 11 before.
And we have been reading in NIV.
But why don't we read an NLT?
Just because, as you said, it's it's your it's the best translation ever.
It is.
It is the best translation ever.
Ben, for those who don't know, Ben and I have an ongoing debate or we've agreed to disagree
on this, but that's OK.
He knows I'm right.
Actually, I think we both have agreed that if you really want to get to it, you should
know the Greek and Hebrew.
Yes.
Side note, if you guys are ever like, hey, we want you to do a podcast episode on Bible
translations.
Love to do it.
Would love to do it.
That'd be a great conversation.
There is a lot of really good Bible translations.
And the reality is with very few exceptions, I'm fine with any of them as long as you read
it.
Yeah.
All right.
So anyways, coming back to James chapter four, verse 11, don't speak evil against each other,
dear brothers and sisters.
If you criticize and judge each other, then you are criticizing and criticizing and judging
God's law.
But your job is to obey the law, not to judge whether it applies to you.
God alone who gives the law is the judge.
He alone has the power to save and destroy.
So what right do you have to judge your neighbor?
We ended the last episode on that.
But one of the things I love with that whole sentence is he says, you know when you're
judging your brother and sister, so these are people in the faith, right?
When you're judging your brother and sister in the faith, you're actually judging the
law itself.
Maybe leave that to the lawgiver, not to you.
Which there's another, there's other places in the Bible where it says not to, you know,
allow the master to correct his servants.
Like this whole idea of like God is the master, we're the servants.
It's not our job to tell the servant what they're supposed to do.
No fellowship, life together, a hundred percent all those things.
But what is it that pastor Sarah said in that one episode?
You can't correct without connection.
Can't correct without connection.
Yeah.
And so like inside of connection, there's absolutely this ability to come in and say,
hey, let's have a conversation.
Outside of that, we need to be a lot more careful about the way we talk to each other.
You know?
And I mean, if you jump over to Luke when he actually talks about judging where he says
don't judge or you will be judged, don't condemn or you'll be condemned, forgive and you will
be forgiven.
The phrase that he uses for judge in the first line is the same as you will.
Yeah.
The word he uses for condemn in the second line is same as you will.
And the word he uses for forgive in the third line is same as you will.
So another way that you could actually interpret that is when you judge, you're judging yourself.
When you condemn, you're condemning yourself.
When you forgive, you're forgiving yourself.
Like it's a two way street.
Brings a whole new idea to having grace with each other, right?
Right.
Yep.
You know?
Yeah.
I liken it also, when I was at real life ministries, Aaron Couch, who I have a tag
in this episode just because I like talking about Aaron.
I like Aaron a lot.
Aaron Couch always taught a yearly, he would talk about blessing your children and about
actually taking a time.
He actually had a whole ceremony that he would do once in the child's life where he would
just call out what he saw in their life and where he was hoping they would go.
But he was talking about this idea of being a people that blesses other people and that
we should be people that bless.
And then he talks about how Jesus says to go and pronounce a blessing into these places
that you're going to serve and that if they don't receive it, it's going to come back
on you.
So we want to be really good at our blessings because either one of two things, either they're
going to really influence other people's lives or we get it.
That's the same kind of idea here is like we're going to be really careful where we're
judging because either it's going to help fix somebody's life or it's coming back and
it's getting us.
Yeah.
Right?
And so like, obviously in Luke, Jesus is talking, but and it's not directly correlated with
this, but he's going to talk about the plank in somebody's eye.
Right?
And you want to make sure that there's the there's not the plank in your eye when you're
going to take a look at the spec.
Yes.
Right.
You're like, oh, hey, I got this spec, but guess what?
Right.
Mm hmm.
And I think it's important to when we talk about judging of what does that lead to when
we judge others?
Usually pride.
Yeah.
Usually like pride and it ties into the next part too.
Let's just hang out in this judging for a minute.
Usually pride, usually like a false self-confidence of like, I'm right, you're wrong.
I must defend what I know to be quote unquote true.
And the reality is, is when we judge people, we don't know where they're coming from.
Right.
Right?
Like you could have somebody walk into your fellowship who they have made leaps and strides
in their life from where they used to be through the grace of God, but because where they used
to be was way further down the way further behind than where you started out.
You might be like, man, why don't they have it together yet?
Yeah.
You have, we have, first of all, like this coming back to the thing we've talked about
in the past, we tend to judge people by their actions and other people by ourselves, by
our intentions.
Right?
The same kind of thing as we're like, oh, why don't you do this?
It's super easy.
You can just, you have no idea what that person's life is like.
You have no idea how many kids they have.
You have no idea how physically demanding their job is.
You have no idea the trauma that comes from their history of even being in a church.
And maybe that trauma has nothing to do with their, maybe it was none of their own fault.
Right?
Correct.
Like maybe their trauma was just someone left them, someone died, someone, whatever.
Right?
The list could go on.
Like, so we need to be really careful when it comes to judging.
I remember I had a friend in college who struggled with Baptist churches, not because of any
of their theology, but because he had an uncle that was a Baptist, Baptist, I put that in
air quotes, who was abusive.
Right?
And so he associated every single person in a Baptist church like that.
Now I've known a lot of people in Baptist church, a lot of really good people in Baptist
church.
Same here.
Right?
And I was like, and so like, if they came into your fellowship and you're like, you know,
I'm a Baptist, then you have like this inward cringe moment and it has nothing to do with
you.
It has nothing to do with the denomination.
It has to do with their trauma and their history.
And like, that's why we're gentle with people.
Yeah.
That's why we come with them gentle.
We have a connection with them over time because that's the only way that you can kind of overcome
these things over, over time.
Yeah, absolutely.
So then continuing on in 13, he says, now listen, you who say today or tomorrow, we
will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.
Why?
You do not even know what will happen tomorrow.
What is your life?
You are a mist that appears for a while and then vanishes.
Instead you ought to say, if it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this and that.
As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes, all such boasting as evil.
If anyone then knows the good they ought to do and doesn't do it, it is sin for them.
Okay.
I want to pause here because I think this has been misinterpreted at times.
Well, a lot of pieces have, but so I'm just going to tackle one and then you probably
have some as well.
This idea of you shouldn't make plans for the future.
You should just follow God every in every moment.
So first of all, yes.
But second of all, no.
You just need to make God's plans for the future and not yours.
And then be open for God to change them as necessary.
Because we've talked about this whole idea of thinking generationally.
So we're thinking generation to generation to generation.
We should be making plans.
But we're making plans to grow the kingdom of God, not to go here, go there, make some
money, do all these things.
Because they're not actually focused on the kingdom of God.
Those are focused on selfish endeavors.
I think there's a distinction between the plans that you're talking about.
So on one side, you have the plans of achievement, wealth, personal gain.
And on the other side, you have the plans of generational relationship.
Like in Torah talks a lot about the generational relationship.
About how you're not to oppress those who are beneath you.
Or Deuteronomy talks a lot about welcoming the foreigner in.
And not having generational poverty.
You have the year of Jubilee.
There's forgiveness of debts, so on and so forth.
So there's a big, a lot of times though what we look at is we look at what can we achieve.
And so you can take this passage and you can say, okay, well, what am I achieving?
Is it for my own gain or is it for the gain of the kingdom?
And when we're looking at achieving things for the gain of the kingdom, that is a good
place to be because that allows you to make plans in the sense of how you structure your
life to be a place where you can bring the kingdom forward.
Well, and this is coming on the heels of this whole idea of God opposes the proud, he gives
grace to the humble, right?
And so like the whole, I'm going to go do this and I'm going to do this and blah, blah,
blah.
Like it reeks of pride, right?
It just reeks of pride.
And God's like, hey, no.
Or James is like, hey, no, this is not what we're doing.
Like if you're going to pursue this wisdom that comes from heaven, if you're going to
be doers of the word, not simply hearers, like it manifests itself in not planning like
these opulent things for yourself, but actually planning generation and like, how are we going
to forward the kingdom of God and move forward?
And that we're, we're instead focusing on God, what are you doing in this moment?
Yes.
The bigger thing is it always shocks me how often I have a conversation with people and
they're making a massive decision in their life.
And I said, well, what have you been sensing in your prayer time?
Blink stare.
Like what?
What time?
Yeah.
You know, like it was just shocking.
They're like, well, my wife and I have had this conversation or, you know, me and my
family have had this conversation.
I was like, okay, what, what comes from your conversation with God?
And it's just nothing.
And it seems crazy that if we were going to say Jesus is our King, that we would make
any big decisions without checking in with them.
Yeah.
Right.
I imagine that doesn't go well in a normal kingdom.
Well, I mean, okay, so let's just, let's take marriage for example, right?
If I went to my wife and said, Hey, I sold, we're putting the house on the market tomorrow.
We're moving to this town.
Uh, I don't know what we're going to do for work, but I'm going to maybe pick up a job
here.
You can look at work here, you know, blah, blah, blah, all this stuff.
How well do you think that would go over?
I think I'd go over not well at all.
Yeah.
Right.
I know your wife.
I mean, I think that what would go over well, there'd be this frying pan that go well over
your head.
Uh-huh.
I would be sleeping in the boat for the next few months.
Right.
And I'd be like, cool, you don't want to live in my house.
There's the boat.
Go sleep there.
Yeah.
Like she's like, I have to sign up in order for you to sell the house because we're both
on deed.
Yep.
Um, and so like, but if you went to make a decision like that and didn't include, didn't
include the other half.
Now here's where the analogy falls apart though.
When it's our relationship with God, it's really God making the decisions and he's including
us in that.
Yeah.
Right.
And he's bringing the thing that God doesn't do or he does sometimes, but for the most
part he brings us along with it.
There are times where he says you're going here now and you, and you obey and you do
that.
But for the most part, he brings you along with it and it's a journey that you're going
on with him.
Right.
So, um, again, it's where do you have your eyes?
Like where do you have your eyes set?
Yeah.
Like, do you have them set on the kingdom or do you have them set on your own self worth,
self worth?
And I think, and I think this is a caveat, which we'll jump into here in a minute, but
when it comes to your own self worth, it's okay to have money.
It's just, it's God's money.
And how are you managing that?
How are you stewarding that?
How are you accumulating it?
How are you managing it?
And who do you actually serve?
Do you serve God or money?
Yeah.
Right.
Exactly.
So five, one, this is a very fun passage that I think, uh, five, one through six that I
think has been misinterpreted a number of times.
And so, but let's dive into it here.
So five, one, look here, you rich people, weep and groan with anguish because of all
the terrible things ahead of you.
Great way to start by the way.
You're encouraging.
Yeah.
You're well, it gets better.
Yeah.
Your wealth is rotting away and your fine clothes are light are moth eaten rags.
Your gold and silver are corroded.
Your very wealth that you're counting on will eat away your flesh like fire.
Yummy.
Their corroded treasure that you have hoarded and will testify against you on the day of
judgment for listen, hear the cries of the field workers whom you have cheated their
pay.
The cries of those who harvest your fields have reached the ears of the Lord, of the
Lord of heaven's armies.
Call back to prophets and Taurus with that language.
You have spent your years on earth in luxury satisfying your own desire.
You have fattened yourselves for the day of slaughter.
You have condemned and killed innocent people who do not resist you.
Great way to end the podcast.
Right?
And that's the end of this week's episode.
No, I was just kidding.
Well, but to your point, like misinterpreted, because I think people will read the first
part and they're like, listen, listen to James go after the rich people.
I was like, okay, but he actually defines like what these rich people are doing.
He does.
Right?
He does.
And what James does is in verses, so verses one through three, he's talking about how
all you've accumulated is worthless.
At the end of the day, you're not taking it with you.
Very much ecclesiastical.
Right?
Yeah.
He's very much, he's actually, he is echoing back to ecclesiastics.
Right.
And I think that this thing is meaningless a little bit here.
And so he's saying like, if you just basically take this, you do what the person who was
given the one talent did and bury it in a field, right?
Hide it away.
Right.
Right?
It's just going to rot away.
And then he goes on and he talks about why that is.
And then he talks about how you've cheated field workers of their pay.
Yeah.
Right?
And how you have spent your years in luxury satisfying your own desires and you've condemned
and killed innocent people who do not resist you.
Like, he's talking about how like, okay, you've stolen from the people who work for you.
You've even had them condemned, killed, probably imprisoned if you're talking about that, because
that was a pretty common practice was to imprison those who had massive debts that they owed
you.
Right?
And so there's all these things, like basically you're saying, I'm fattening myself up and
I'm going to like give you a little bit to make make myself look good.
But really, the Lord is here and he's saying, no, everything that you have is mine.
I want to talk about peace.
I think I think that it's a little it's a little too common in the American church.
Now I want to specify.
I know many, many generous people that go to the American church.
Yes.
So like this is not a topic about individual churches or places that I've been.
This is a trend across the across the nation.
Yeah.
A lot of our charitable giving is given out of sometimes out of obligation.
But it's also like to feel better about yourself.
Yeah.
Rather than in recognition of all that God has done in your life.
Like, one of the things about the whole idea of the tides is that you take, you know, let's
just say 10 percent.
We have conversations about how that's actually not what the New Testament is asking you to
do is actually be generous with everything you have.
But let's just take the 10 percent.
Right.
And you take this 10 percent and it's a recognition that, hey, 100 percent of this belongs to
God.
100 percent of this is produced by God.
Every single thing I have in my life is produced by God.
And I'm giving back 10 percent in recognition and appreciation for the other 100 percent
that's been put in my life.
Right.
Instead of like the saying of like, OK, well, if I give you my 10 percent, then what am
I going to get?
Well, you already got it.
Breath in your lungs.
Family at your side.
Some of us a house we can sleep in.
Food in our belly.
Yeah.
Like if you have a job and you're gainfully employed, like you've already got it and you
have the presence of the Holy Spirit inside of you.
Mm hmm.
What do you mean?
What are you going to get?
Mm hmm.
You got a lot.
Yeah.
And it is a height of arrogance to be then be like, well, what else?
How are you going to motivate me for this?
Right.
And then we wonder why God opposes the proud.
Mm hmm.
It's because it's real stinky.
Yeah.
It's real stinky when you're when you are a blessed people, a blessed person, and you
use that blessing to oppress the very people you're supposed to bless.
Yeah.
So going back once again to Torah, Genesis, Chapter 12, God says to Abraham, he says,
I'm going to bless you so that all nations would be blessed.
How repugnant is it then when Israel holds a blessing for themselves?
And how insulting is it to God when God blesses you and you don't bless others?
Right.
Because I mean, backing all the way up to Genesis one, one and two, when it talks about
the creation of mankind, it talks about how we're made in his image.
Yeah.
Right.
So when you withhold that blessing, you're actually insulting the very image of God.
So the other side of that is incredible.
So I want to use a real real life story.
So my son, James, is he's got a really big heart, but he went to.
He went to like a preschool thing.
Right.
And he had gummies and he was with his friends and he opened his gummies and he made sure
each of his friends had a gummy before he ate his own.
Yeah.
Now, I can tell you that that kid gets as many gummies as once.
Right.
Like, because because I see the generosity flow through him.
Right.
And I see the other kid who's like, well, I gave them a gummy.
So now I get three bags.
No, that's not how that works.
Right.
Generosity is is it should be your natural position.
And if you're a person who's generous, then I want to feed into that.
Right.
I want to give you a chance to be generous with your life.
And I think the the same idea is that people who are generous people in and I'm not just
talking about finances, I'm talking about time, I'm talking about help, I'm talking
about skills, people who are incredibly generous and God pours into and everything they do
prospers and through that prospering, they bless the people around them like through
them.
And and it's in but it's not about the prospering.
It's about actually living a life that reflects Jesus Christ and letting it pass through you.
Yeah.
Right.
Sometimes that will be money.
In America, we're very blessed with money.
So in our case, we're going to have a lot of money because of the nation we grew up
in.
And so we should recognize what we're being gifted with.
Absolutely.
And use it to bless those around us.
Absolutely.
I think that there is is a requirement like I'm not gonna say requirement, but there is
definitely a heavier side that we should recognize in our nation because we have so much money.
God will do other things in our lives, too.
But we have so much money.
So we should bless.
Yeah.
I think sometimes this gets taken too far in the sense of like, hey, you're blessed
with a lot, so just give everything you have to the poor around you and then you'll have
nothing but the Lord will take care of you.
Right.
And the issue I have with that is because the Lord's already taken care of you by blessing
you with how much you have.
Correct.
And so so you also have to remember that your family, you're called to bless them.
Like me as a husband and father, I'm called to bless and provide for my family.
Right.
Yeah.
So so we do hold a portion of wealth for our family so that I can bless my wife and bless
my daughter.
Yeah.
And and then out of the excess, we give to other missions and other organizations around
us so that we can be a blessing to them.
If I actually just in conjunction with what he's talking about is beyond the tithe, like
it actually incurs in the in the Old Testament, they talk about being generous givers.
There is a Jewish tradition that you don't tip or you don't bless more with than 30 percent
of your income because if what ends up happening is instead of actually being a blessing to
the people around you, you actually become a burden to the people around you.
So there is there is obviously this thing you have to walk back and forth.
And so like we have obligations as well.
And so being generous doesn't mean to get rid of anything.
Even in the in the beginning of Acts, where it's talking about the apostles and then people
are laying property at their feet and money at their feet.
They were selling things as needs arose.
Yes.
They weren't just selling everything and bringing all the money.
They were saying, oh, Jake from State Farm is here and he needs a place to stay because
he's doing this mission with all the with all the orphans.
And they're like, we need to make sure that we can feed him.
And somebody is like, oh, you know, I have an old car that I can sell.
That's definitely what they're saying in the Old Testament or the New Testament.
Right.
I have an old car I can sell.
I got like six grand that I can bring over.
Yeah, it was a Honda Accord.
Yeah, because they were all in one accord.
There is a kid in our youth group that if he hears this podcast, he's going to laugh
when you say that.
Uh huh.
But, you know, like it wasn't it wasn't, hey, I just sold my Honda because of no reason.
There was a need and I had something that I didn't that I I could do without.
Yeah, I love the way that Francis Chan, I'm going to to turn for a little bit.
Francis Chan talked about when he got the money from Crazy Love.
Then if you guys don't have it out, Red Crazy Love has sold millions of copies at this point.
So that doesn't normally happen, but you get a fairly large paycheck.
And then he turned to his wife and he's like, we didn't need this before.
We don't need it now.
What do we do with it?
And so they started like building like houses and like doing all the starts with stuff in
foreign countries because they were taking their money and they're putting it to work
in the kingdom because they didn't need it.
They didn't they didn't need it beforehand.
They definitely didn't need it now.
And so like that's a that's a very tactile example of like how do you like balance this
in your life?
Yeah.
But that's not who James is talking about or warning about here.
No, he's talking about the other guys who you're making a ton of money and you're not
even paying your laborers.
I had a sat in this conference one time where this the guy was he was talking about David
Pratt's book, Radical of like and the idea of being like the Lord told you to give up
everything and move would you?
Right.
That was the idea.
Right.
I mean there's more to that book but it's a rough idea.
And the amount of opposition I heard from people who were believers who followed who
quote unquote followed Jesus was astounding.
They're like well there's nothing in scripture that says I can't have nice things.
There's nothing in scripture that says I can't be wealthy.
Yeah.
And there's and nothing in scripture says I can't live a comfortable life.
And I'm sitting there and I'm just listening.
But in my head because I'm listening because I'm not leaving this conference.
But in my head I'm thinking I was like okay well there actually is things in scripture
that call you to give up comforts to give up things that you think you should have.
Yeah.
For the sake of the gospel.
There is definitely a very true portion of that that we're called to experience the suffering
of Christ so that other people are blessed.
Right.
Like we absolutely identify in the suffering so that other people can be blessed.
Yeah.
And in this conference like how these people were responding as they were responding I
was like well I have all this stuff and I don't want to give it up but I'm still going
to follow Jesus.
And the speaker handled it really well.
He said well you got to understand the Lord may or may not be calling you to give that
up.
The question is if he does are you willing.
Like if he says hey I want you to sell your house and move across the country or move
to a foreign country or go here do missions work or whatever.
If he calls you to that are you willing to do that.
Yeah and I can say for myself I would do it.
It would not be easy.
It would definitely be difficult.
Like for one thing I don't like when I don't know what people are saying.
So moving to a foreign country would be scary enough to me as it is.
I love going and checking out all these things.
I was like but if anyone was God calling I was like the decisions are being made you
know 30 years ago when I gave my life to Christ.
Right.
So that's not the conversation.
It would actually just be like it would.
But I don't want to pretend like flippingly and be like oh I could just do it because
you know you have to.
There's a lot.
Yeah there's a lot.
There's a lot that goes into that.
Yeah and like I mean we're not talking small things.
But the Lord does call us to big things and the question is are we trusting he's going
to provide in those moments.
The second you start qualifying though.
Yeah.
You're like well you know God just wouldn't do that.
I was like well you know people probably thought God wouldn't split the Red Sea either and
then he did it.
I you know in my my life following Jesus kind of how he's operated in my life as I was like
oh well I don't think God would do that.
Yeah that's kind of a moment where God's like kind of kind of this can be a really bad analogy
and I'm probably get some flack for this but kind of like the three year old really like
hey don't touch the hot fireplace and they're like and then all they can think about is
touching the hot fireplace.
Yeah.
Like sometimes I think that that's what God does in our lives.
I was like I don't think God will do that and God's like and he's like you know what
you don't think I'm going to do it so I'm going to call you to that and stretch stretch
your comfort zone.
Yeah.
Show you that more things are possible.
Well but that's not okay.
Coming back to James one though.
Yeah.
Right.
Consider it pure joy whenever you face trials of many kinds because these are actually designed
to make you into the kind of person that engages in the kingdom of God.
Yeah.
The kind of person that seeks the wisdom of God not the sees the the wisdom of the world
the kind of person who is a doer of the word not simply a hearer.
Right.
The kind of person that submits themselves to God the kind of person that is humble in
their approach does not seek pride for themselves.
Yeah.
And so in this case you know they're the kind of people who seek justice.
Right.
Love mercy.
Yeah.
So like five five one you know this whole idea of these rich people that are like supposed
to be paying their people but they're not like if you are the doer of the word not a
hearer you're going to be enraged by this you're going to be enraged because you're
like hey this isn't who we're supposed to be.
Mm hmm.
This isn't your money is going to actually come back and actually be a story against
you.
Yeah.
So there's this company in Seattle this is just kind of an example I don't know if this
guy is a believer or not but he voluntarily he had this growing company he voluntarily
cut his salary down to 70k a year and said OK I'm going to pay all of my employees at
least 70k a year.
Right.
And everybody thought he's crazy this business model is not going to work all this stuff
but he said I'm going to he's like I'm going to do whatever I can to make sure my people
are compensated well.
All right.
And he did that I think it was six or seven years ago in his company I think has like
quadrupled in size since he's done that since he said OK yeah like I'm I'm going to be yes
I'm still their boss I'm still the owner but I'm going to make sure they're getting paid
close to what I'm getting paid.
Yeah.
Right.
And I'm going to make sure they're fairly compensated.
Right.
They're there is also there's a thing when people see that you're treating other people
fairly that you're treating them with worth that you're treating them with value things
change right.
Right.
Like he he went from creating a company and he's just from the news articles I've read
I've never been there so it's just from what I've read.
So there might be there's probably more to the story I don't know but he went from creating
he went from having a company that was just like any other company to a company where
people wanted to be.
Right.
Because he saw value in them.
Right.
What if like can we as believers take a page from that playbook of like how do we because
if we want to be generous people one of the things we have to do is we have to see the
people around us through God's eyes.
Right.
Because if we see the people around us as beautiful creations of God people who are
created in God's image people who are loved dearly as we are loved dearly it changes our
whole perspective on money.
Well and this is why it becomes really important that you understand the breadth the depth
the width of God's love.
Yeah.
Because I think there are a number of Christians who do I think in their mind see people through
God's eyes but they still see everybody through judgment.
Right.
Like they still see they still see the world through a lens of judgment not of and they
only see the judgment they don't see the the love of God.
Yeah.
And in scripture there's not a disconnect between money and love.
Correct.
Like and I think we often in the church we disconnect those two which I think honestly
is a grave mistake but that's a I think that's a lot of churches nationally.
You unwrap that a little bit.
The disconnect between money.
Yeah.
Sometimes we say hey we love people right and then we then when we get into looking
at the church books we're like oh well we can't actually find ways to support or love
people with our money we need to make sure just make sure our pastors are paid fairly
or we need to make sure the buildings kept up or so on so forth right.
And I think I've talked to you about this too but like if I was given the choice of
going to a church that had a pristine building put on a good show every Sunday or a church
with a rundown building that loves people well I'm going to a church with a rundown
building that loves people.
Right.
Because the reality is the gospel is not tied to how well our building looks it's not tied
to the production we do it's tied to how well we love.
Sure.
And so a lot of times what we do though is I see what you're talking about with the disconnect
between love and money where we say we love somebody but we you know this is what James
was talking about earlier is like listen I really hope you do well.
Bye.
Yeah.
So we're both musicians right.
All right.
Let's let's take this for example we have at our church what it's like a seven or eight
hundred dollar keyboard.
Yeah right.
Okay.
The church if they wanted to could have been like we want the nicest keyboard possible
so we're going to go spend 10 20 grand for a setup or whatever even you spend upwards
of 100 grand on keyboard setups if you really want to.
Right.
For most people for 95 percent of the people they are not going to hear the difference
between a hundred thousand dollar keyboard and an eight hundred dollar keyboard.
Correct.
Right.
So then the question I would pose.
Especially not in the room that we have.
Yeah.
I mean yeah our room is actually pretty horrible for us.
Yeah.
Which most churches are by the way.
Most churches are not designed.
Yeah.
They're not designed for a sound.
Yeah.
So but the so then the question is asked like why would you want to spend 100 100 grand
on a keyboard or 10 grand on a keyboard when eight hundred dollar one is going to do the
job just going to do the exact same job and perform the exact same level of ministry.
Correct.
Yeah.
Right.
Like there's a level of stewardship there.
Now the flip side of that is you don't buy something that's seven hundred dollars that's
not going to do the job.
Exactly.
Like that.
That's actually poor use of money as well.
If it costs a thousand dollars it costs a thousand dollars.
Right.
Yeah.
That's 100 percent right.
And just to unpack this a little bit further I did this I did the math on this one time
for a church because I was because they were talking about like well how can we love people
better.
And we laid out like how many paid hours and volunteer hours go into just producing Sunday.
And I think it came out to like 350 hours total just for just to make Sunday morning
happen and that was every week every week between.
And this was a church is about 800 people.
They had three services like they had a lot going on.
They had a fair amount going on but came out to about 350 hours a week.
That included your children's volunteers Sunday youth minute Sunday morning youth ministries
worship team tech greeting pastor prep time for preaching hope like all of it.
So then the question for the church became like OK how can we lessen this by 50 hours
a week and spend those 50 hours in a community loving those around us.
Right.
So like again that's valuing time.
That's about in time.
You do the same thing with money but you have to connect these all back to how do we love
God well and love the people around us because I know I know plenty of churches where they
put on a great show but the people walk in feeling unloved and they walk out feeling
unloved.
So I'm going to quote something that I heard earlier this week and I I'm going to misquote
it.
It's like originally the church existed as a community and then then it became recognized
as an entity and then it became an institution and now most of what it does is produce out
institutionalized content.
Right.
And so what like you know dealing with the recognition under Constantine and then institutions
isolation institution institutionalizing that's the word in the the Caesars that came
afterwards right.
The Roman the Roman leaders to where that it became like now this it's like this religious
persona that you put on it's no longer driven by community and we took the church out of
the homes and we put it into these buildings.
Right.
The church the Ecclesia is not a building and it never has been a building it's been
a group of people gathered together for purposes that you know they used to all be in their
homes and the apostles would go from place to place to place to place to talk and share
the news so that they would be but they were gathering together for fellowship and prayer
and relationship and they were going out and they were living this out in the way that
they lived.
Now I don't think that there's a there's a issue with us having a Sunday morning service.
I think that's a good way for 100 125 people to get together.
Yeah.
Right.
I think that's a good problem that the church does too full but in a way it's a good problem
that church outgrew the home because that means there are more and more people are coming
to Christ.
Correct.
Where I think we went wrong is we then took the church out of home.
Yeah we said the music speaking the show is church.
That's not church.
Church is the people of Christ actually living the kingdom out into the world and this is
what James is getting back into and like obviously we've got a little bit away from the rich
oppressors idea.
But this is what James is talking about.
He's like he's like you that are like building off the backs of other people and you that
aren't paying your your coworkers like you need to get back to the reality which is living
the kingdom among you getting into those places where you're going to have trials and they're
going to refine you where you're going to be a doer of the word not simply a hearer.
Yeah.
And I think you can actually tie this back into churches because I think there are churches
out there where where the pastor does build it off the backs of volunteers and doesn't
appreciate what they do.
That's true.
All right.
I think that is at least I can think of one church I've been a part of where that was
the case.
There's probably more churches like that than we were.
We are comfortable admitting.
And when you're building it off a church a pastor's persona I heard a heard a statement
once it was a church.
They didn't have a lot of people maybe 60 70 people but this pastor been pastoring them
for 40 years and they said I just don't know what this church is without them.
And I was like well that's a terrible thing to have on your legacy.
Right.
You know I would hope you know a lot of the churches like if they're seeing your pastor
disappear tomorrow I don't know if they know what to do.
And then that's not a place you want to be because that's not a collaborative spirit.
Every ministry I've worked worked for and I've done a lot of interim work in my life
but every ministry I've worked for like my goal has been to build it up to where my jobs
are relevant.
Right.
I should be able to step away from my job and the effect that it'll have on that ministry
is little.
Right because there's enough people taking the reins that they could carry it forward.
And I think one of the things churches and ministry leaders should do a better job at
is appreciating their volunteers.
100 percent.
Right.
I mean I lead a ministry and I struggle with that too.
Like every week how do I better appreciate my volunteers.
Right.
And I think one of the big ways that church leaders can do that is just be more intentional
on just doing life with them.
And doing life with them with no strings attached.
Right.
Like so if those volunteers step out you're like hey I'm still going to do life with you.
Right.
I think that's a huge way.
I heard one pastor years ago say talk about this and he is like church leaders he's like
we have to do better than pizza parties.
Yeah.
Right.
Like we have to do better than the once a year pizza party.
Thank you.
I spent 100 bucks.
Right.
Or 200 bucks or whatever on you.
So you got to find better ways to appreciate.
Well not everybody's gonna feel appreciated with pizza either.
No.
Yeah.
So wrapping this up here I want to hit this last section of James because this last section
before next week of James starting in verse seven.
So this idea of like hey you're fattening yourself up for the day of slaughter.
You've condemned and murdered the innocent one.
Those who are not opposing you.
And so then how do you live in this world where justice is not yet being served.
And also how are you patient for what what God is doing in other people's lives because
it's not going to happen automatically.
So he says be patient then brothers and sisters until the Lord's coming.
See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop patiently waiting for the
autumn and spring rains.
You too be patient and stand firm because the Lord's coming is near.
Don't grumble against one another brothers and sisters or you will be judged.
The judge is standing at the door.
Brothers and sisters as an example of patience in the face of suffering.
Take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.
As you know we count as blessed those who persevered.
You have heard of Job's perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about.
The Lord is full of compassion and mercy.
Above all my brothers and sisters do not swear not by heaven or earth or by anything else.
All you need to say is a simple yes or no.
Otherwise you will find yourself under condemnation.
Okay so that's where we're going to end today because we're going to talk about the prayer
of faith in the next episode.
But this whole idea of like you're living in a world that's not just now.
Now that 100 percent means that we need to stand firm.
We need to go stand in the middle of chaos right.
Which means that we need to bring justice to the world.
But ultimately God is the one who fights the battles where our job is to go stand firm.
That's coming back to Ephesians and Paul talking about the armor of God right.
And our war is never against people.
So stop talking badly about people.
Our war is always with spirits and principalities and you know reigns of evil.
Like stop attacking people.
Stop it.
Yes.
Stop it.
We need to stop it.
I don't have anything besides stop it.
Like it's not our place to stand in judgments.
That's God's job.
There is a growing concern for me in the church where the Christians are trying to do God's
job.
Rather than doing what we've been commissioned to do.
Right.
We need to let God's job be God's job.
There's a reason he's in that job and we're not.
You know.
But this commission we go everywhere we go.
We make disciples.
We teach them to obey the things that God has taught us to obey.
And then we know that he's with us everywhere we go.
And when you judge it speaks more about yourself than the other person.
It so does.
When you stand in that seat of judgment you're taking that on yourself and people are looking
at what you're doing.
They're not looking at what the other person's doing.
And so we need to step out of that seat and just say Lord here like give that seat back
to the Lord.
And we need to step back into the how am I going to bring the kingdom to these people
around me?
How am I going to love them well with the love that the Lord's bestowed upon me.
Yeah.
And if I do have issues maybe I should build a connection with that person and earn the
right to have correction in their life.
Right.
Learn to see life a little bit from their perspective so that I can bring correction
in the place of relationship.
Yeah.
So we got a Q&A coming up pretty soon.
So I want to make make mention of that just so that everybody is aware.
And I'm sure that we've prompted a few questions in this episode.
So if you have any thoughts after listening to this please send us at love and context
at Gmail dot com.
Yes.
You can receive it there or you can comment on any one of our social media posts.
We receive them there too and I usually just write down the questions.
Somebody actually tagged us in Instagram and I saved the tag so that we can talk about
it in a Q&A post.
Yeah.
Awesome.
Yeah.
Love it.
Till next time.
And that's a wrap for today's episode of Love and Context.
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