Show me you’re different
The state of Missouri is known as the “show me” state. The book of James could also aptly be labeled the “show me” book in the Bible: “show me how Christians behave.”
The nephew of a friend of mine, a man in his early twenties, was recently baptized. While describing the service, I noticed an internal uneasiness rising in my soul. He was baptized in a pool in his parents’ backyard, surrounded exclusively by family members. Uneasiness turned to alarm when after asking what local church the young man was attending, I learned that he is not engaged in a local church but looks at sermons online.
A churchless Christian is an oxymoron. Body life, as Paul describes it with his many one-another phrases, can always be seen in relationships in a local body of believers. It is as we are known and relate to brothers and sisters in a church fellowship that Christ is seen in our behavior.
Christ likeness as well as Christ unlikeness is on display in the local church. Where people no longer remain anonymous and reveal themselves, and where others do the same, problems sometimes come to light. Wherever the surface of human life is scratched, difficulties and problems will appear. That is not necessarily a sign of weakness. God can and wants to deal with the problems in our lives. Through His Word and through fellowship with devoted Christians, this can happen.
Destructive behavior rarely arises out of a vacuum; it grows out of certain values that shape our thinking. A church that grows in love changes destructive behavior. It does so by changing its underlying values, because our behavior grows out of our values.
The early churches were no different. Wherever people lived closely together in committed relationships, problems arose. These problems often stemmed from destructive values. James tells us about this. God wants us to say goodbye to destructive values. We will describe these destructive values and then see how we can leave them behind.
James talks about three destructive values in the early church.
Destructive Value Number One: "I Am Valuable Because of what I Have" (Security) (James 1:9–11)
“The brother in humble circumstances ought to take pride in his high position. But the one who is rich should take pride in his low position.”
"If you have nothing, you are nothing. If you have something, you are somebody." That is the extreme attitude James is addressing here. Children of wealthy parents and heirs often adopt this mindset. One millionaire confessed, "If I were to lose my money, I'd have no chance. It would destroy me" (*Der Spiegel*, 1986).
Granted, most of us here this morning are not millionaires. Yet we all own something. Even if our possessions are small and modest, they belong to us.
The question is this: What would have to be taken away from us to shake our sense of self-worth? If we had to give up our car and ride a bicycle or take the streetcar instead, would our self-esteem decrease? Would we think less of ourselves if we couldn't buy new clothes for the next few years? If we had to move from our current home into a small, old apartment in a bad part of town, would we value ourselves less because of it?
The desire to acquire things in order to find security in them ultimately strips us of true security.
James compares the rich person with the grass of the Israeli landscape. In that dry country, grass only grows after rain, and it grows very quickly. But when the blazing heat of the sun beats down on it, it withers away. The same is true of wealth. Everything we possess, however beautiful and flourishing, will pass away like grass under the scorching sun.
"The rich man will fade away even while he goes about his business."
Not only our possessions, but we ourselves will one day pass away—"suddenly and unexpectedly, in the midst of life," as obituary notices often say. The thought here is the same as in Jesus' parable of the rich fool in Luke 12. Right in the middle of securing and expanding what he has acquired, death separates a person from it all. Both possessions and their owner will pass away.
Within a Christian fellowship, this attitude is destructive. Whoever seeks security in possessions will do so at the expense of relationships with others. Relational poverty creeps in wherever we invest all our strength in material well-being. Something has to give, and often it is our relationships with other people.