See The One.

All right, James 5. This is verse one: now, listen, you rich people. Great start.

Weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on 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 are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you.

James 5:1-6

Let's just continue for the next couple of verses.

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.

James 5:7-8

I like that ending more than the beginning, personally.

I don't know about you guys, but when I started reading the first six verses over and over, I felt like I was getting more confused rather than gaining insight, because it has a massive tone shift from a lot of the rest of James. We know James is written to the early church, spread across the Roman Empire. And the way verse one through six starts out doesn't give me early-church vibes. When I think of the early church, I think of poor people, and the people who were wealthy giving all they had for the good of everyone else. I think of a church that would bring in the foreigner, the stranger.

They would let the sick into their homes, to clothe them, to heal them. They would bring in infants who were left out for dead. So I was kind of confused, honestly. I was like, James, my homie, what are you doing here? And then I realized, oh, this probably isn't really to them.

It's written to them, but it's clearly a prophetic warning against rich people who are oppressive. And that's a lot easier to understand once you get to verse seven, which is, now then, or be patient then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord's coming. A very clear shift in the language. Because of that, because it's a different passage, I had to ask the Lord. We do this sometimes in our Dwelling in the Word times downstairs. We'll read a passage and just ask, all right, what do you want me to know?

What do you want me to focus on? Can you guys say the first word of verse four? What's the first word of verse four?

Behold. Look. Yes, exactly.

When I asked the Lord what he wanted me to focus on, for some reason, in my imagination, in my heart, that was the word that stood out to me. As I thought more about this passage, at first I thought, okay, this is probably going to be a message on generosity. It's going to be a message on how to steward our wealth, on how not to be an oppressive person, which is not good to be.

But as I focused more on that word, I started to think more about the theme of sight than I did wealth. Wealth is definitely part of this passage, but I think the greater message is about vision. It reminded me of when I first got to college. Who here went to college, or is in college? Most of you.

Wow. So maybe you had this experience too, but I grew up homeschooled, in a big family. Then I went to public school my freshman year of high school, at a small school, about eighty people in my class. I knew everybody by name, and probably everybody knew me. Then I decided to go to Pensacola Christian College, in Florida. That school isn't huge, but it's about twelve hundred kids in my class. I remember getting to Pensacola with my parents, and it's sunny, and there's this really nice courtyard outside the commons with tropical trees. I'm about to say goodbye to my parents, and maybe it's because I was in my feelings, but I started noticing this guy my age saying goodbye to his parents.

And I noticed this girl saying goodbye to her parents. All of a sudden it dawned on me, crazy that it happened this late in my life, but I thought, wait a second, everything that's gotten me to this point, all those experiences, all those memories, these people each have as many of their own. They all have their own full stories.

The classic moment where you realize you're not the main character. I think the term for it is sonder, to realize that everybody has a full life outside of yours. I bring up that story because I realized how easy it is to not feel that way about people. It's so easy to let people be a bystander in your narrative, to pass over the ones who don't matter to your story and focus on the ones who do. And I think that's kind of what the rich person in James must have been doing pretty hardcore.

So sight, seeing people, that's the theme. If you're taking notes, the title of this message is See the One. See the One. That's part of it.

It's called See the One because, in contrast to the rich people James is writing about, we have an opportunity to see the God who sees, hears, and acts. That was the first slide: seeing God rightly. When we see him for who he is, we can also know who we're supposed to be. And from that place of identity and purpose, we can see the one around us.

So put simply: when we see God rightly, we can see ourselves rightly. And then we can see the people around us rightly.

Seeing God rightly

So first up, seeing God rightly. My voice is kind of destroyed from singing. Maybe that was a mistake.

God made us in his image, which is a beautiful thing. But the problem is, we tend to want to return the favor. We're like, okay, God made us in his image, and now we kind of want to make God in our image. We'll bring in our history, our fears, our overall philosophies and ideas, and we'll form a God who meets all that criteria, which is a little dangerous, to say the least. Every injustice, I believe, begins with an incorrect view of God. Look at all the injustice in verse five. I don't believe there's any chance the wealthy person he's talking to had a correct view of God.

So I want to submit three ideas about who God is today. There are so many more, but we're just going to focus on three: a God who sees, a God who hears, and a God who comes after. First, a God who sees. A story that came to mind for me was in Genesis 16.

Anyone know the story of Abraham, Sarai, and her servant, Hagar? It's a good story, kind of sad, but good at the same time. God had promised Abraham and Sarai that they would be the mother and father of the nation of Israel. They're super old, I can't remember exactly how old, but really, really old. And he tells them, you're going to have a kid, and that kid's going to have kids, and there's going to be a ton of descendants. So they're waiting in the desert for a long time, and nothing's happening. So Sarai has the idea to have Hagar and Abraham have a child together, and use that child as the fulfillment of the promise. That's what they did. Hagar becomes pregnant, and when that happens she starts to feel very bitter toward Sarai, because I don't think it was really Hagar's idea, she probably wasn't super into it, that's my take. So there's a whole conflict between Sarai and Hagar, and Sarai drives her out into the wilderness, a pregnant young mom, alone in the desert, essentially to die. And then this happens:

The angel of the Lord found Hagar near a spring in the desert, the spring that is beside the road to Shur. And he said, Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going? I'm running away from my mistress Sarai, she answered. Then the angel of the Lord told her, go back to your mistress and submit to her. The angel added, I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count. The angel of the Lord also said to her, you are now pregnant and you will give birth to a son. You shall name him Ishmael, for the Lord has heard of your misery. He will be a wild donkey of a man, his hand will be against everyone and everyone's hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers. She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her, you are the God who sees me, for she said, I have now seen the One who sees me.

Genesis 16:7-13

I think that's so great. The first person in scripture to give God a name is a marginalized servant woman. I have now seen the one who sees me. God sees those whom society overlooks. I also thought of a classic story in John 4, the woman at the well. There's a woman there that probably none of Jesus's disciples wanted to meet. She's a Samaritan. She's most likely been unfaithful. She's an outsider. That's what everybody saw. But Jesus saw a daughter of God, a dried-up soul, a future witness. Others avoided her, but he intentionally traveled through Samaria to meet her.

We know that Jesus is the express image of the Father. So every single person in the New Testament that Jesus goes out of his way to see, to notice, that's someone the Father goes out of his way to see and notice. Jesus answered Philip, don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you for such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, show us the Father? So anytime you want more examples of God noticing someone, look to Jesus. He does it all the time.

He doesn't just see, though, he also hears. We saw that in the story with Hagar too, where he heard her cry of distress. This is the confidence we have in approaching God, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.

Mark 10:46-52, this is a really cool story:

Then they came to Jericho. As Jesus and his disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus, which means son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, son of David, have mercy on me. Jesus stopped and said, call him. So they called to the blind man, cheer up, on your feet, he's calling you. Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus. What do you want me to do for you, Jesus asked him. The blind man said, Rabbi, I want to see. Go, said Jesus, your faith has healed you. Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road.

Mark 10:46-52

And then of course, in James 5 itself, we see in verse four: look, the wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty.

So we have a God who sees, a God who hears, but he doesn't stop there. That's a good start, but luckily it's not where he stops. Our God is the one who comes through and shows up. The last name he has there in verse four, Lord Almighty, can also be translated as the Lord of hosts: the God who commands heaven's armies, the God who fights for his people, who establishes justice.

Ever since the first failure of mankind, God refused to leave us. He promised a plan of redemption. He promised to come after us in perfect love and redeem all things. Another thing that stood out to me was the word wages in verse four, the wages you failed to pay the workers, because it reminded me of the ultimate end of things. Whatever your end is, the thing you worship, the thing you direct your time, attention, and focus toward, if it's not God, what does it lead to?

The word wages reminded me of a classic scripture from growing up:

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus our Lord.

Romans 6:23

I was reminded of that because it's so obvious here, that's the natural progression of things. The God you put your trust in will lead you down a path, and everything you could worship or follow except for Jesus leads to destruction, leads to death. It's so obvious in James 5: the rich person believed the wages they withheld would bring them closer to their pursuit of a life fulfilled.

But as we see in the rest of James 5 and in Romans 6:23, all it brings them is destruction. In contrast, our loving God comes into our failure, not with a backward hand ready to punish us, but with the gift of forgiveness, demonstrated through his life, his death, and resurrection. And what does that do for us? If that's our God, what does that make us? How does that change our lives?

Loved, and called his child

This got me thinking about my kids. By the way, I know it's Father's Day. I had no intention of this becoming a Father's Day message, but I feel like anytime you talk about God, it's kind of inevitable to mention his fathering of us. If you know my kids, Jackson and Eden, they bring me profound joy. They don't have to do almost anything. They could literally just be there existing, and it's one of the greatest feelings in the world. It's impossible not to smile when Jackson comes up to me, his thing lately has been this Duplo Lightning McQueen, and he brings it up to me and wants me to take it apart, which makes a lot of sense. Then he goes and gets Mater and does the same thing. I have no idea what he's doing in his brain, but it's so sweet.

There have been times when they're just playing in the backyard, and Abby and I are sitting inside, just watching them play and delight. And the reason that came to mind is because the way I see them is just a fraction of the joy and delight God has when he sees us. When he sees us delighting in his world, delighting in each other, just being a people. He loves it. He eats it up.

And that brings me to the first point about who you are. I think first and foremost, you're loved, but you're loved so much that you're his child. He calls you his child. Some of my favorite scriptures here, Jesus praying to the Father about us:

I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one, I in them and you in me, so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

John 17:22-23

Which is an insane line, that you have loved them even as you have loved me. Jesus and the Father are one. God the Father, the Son, the Spirit, it's this perfect dance of love loving, a community of love. How could we be loved in the same way they love each other? But apparently it's possible, because that's what Jesus said. His love for you is so great, he calls you his child, loved with the same measure of love as his own son. It meets you in whatever place you're in.

Romans 8:38-39, Paul says. You guys know I love 1 John:

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God. And that is what we are. The reason the world does not know him is that it did not know him.

1 John 3:1

So you're loved greatly, so much. At any point in your life, in the worst moment of your life, literally the worst thing you've ever done, you were loved over the top, outlandishly, in that moment. So much so that he calls you his son, he calls you his daughter. You're loved, you're his kid. Those are two amazing things.

Co-rulers, not just spoiled children

But the beautiful thing about the kingdom is that it doesn't just stop there. Our posture is as sons and daughters, but our position gets to be as co-ruler and co-laborer. He doesn't just spoil us needlessly, he pours his love, power, and grace into our lives to rule with him in his kingdom of perfect love.

So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor. For we are co-workers in God's service. You are God's field, God's building.

1 Corinthians 3:7-9

And going all the way back to the beginning, we were first created to rule:

God blessed them and said to them, be fruitful, increase in number, fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.

Genesis 1:28

So very much unlike the wealthy people in this passage, who clearly aren't embracing their identity as a loved son, a loved daughter, as a co-worker, as someone to partner with God and bring in justice and bring in his kingdom, that's exactly what we get to do. We get to bring his kingdom and justice. We get to go after the enemy that is sickness, that is hatred, that is racism. Those are all enemies of God that we get to partner with him in destroying.

Knowing who you are, truly knowing who you are, will change the way you live. It's not going to happen all at once, but day by day. As we steep our minds and our imaginations in the reality of God's love for us, it begins to sink into our hearts. And the fear of not being enough, the desperation of needing more, starts to dissipate.

Instead of grasping for control, we can begin to bow lower and lower, to Jesus and to our neighbor. I love Jesus's vision of leadership, to stoop down at someone's feet and wash them. Can you imagine if the people in power in our world had any imagination for that kind of leadership? How would the world be different? But the great thing is that even though we can't control what they do, we can control what we do, we can control how we do leadership, and that's how we can do it here, which is so amazing.

So the natural progression, once we know who God is, which I'd say is the primary thing we need to get right, once we see him rightly, we can see ourselves rightly. And once we know we are sons and daughters, co-laborers, there's no chance his love won't run through us. There's no chance we won't want to partner with him in loving the world. It's just a natural progression.

Seeing people rightly

So what does he want us to do? How do we see the world? Let's look at what Jesus says about it.

Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law? Jesus replied, love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: love your neighbor as yourself.

Matthew 22:34-39

Very smart, you've got to team up to try to trap Jesus, which never works. So what does God want us to do? He wants us to see his creation as people, all people, the way he does. He wants us to respond to them the way he does, in love. In James 5, the rich saw their fields, their harvest, their profits. They saw what their laborers could do for them, but they completely missed how they could impact their workers. I honestly think they probably weren't even concerned about it. I doubt they were thinking about their workers as people at that point. They just became numbers. Neighbors became opportunities. Image bearers just became another tool you could use in your story. This is the tragedy James exposes.

So how do we see people rightly? How do we not just see them, but love them? I think a good place to start is looking at everything the rich people did and doing the opposite. Their priorities were to accumulate, to live in luxury and self-indulgence, to forsake everything for the growth of their own kingdom.

Our calling is pretty much a 180. It's to live at a pace where we can see those around us. I believe there are definitely seasons where God asks us to sprint, seasons where he has some work for us to do and we've got to grind a little. But I don't think that season is forever. If you're missing opportunities for love or giving around you because you don't have time, because you're too busy, you might be missing something. The pace of the rabbi can be fast, but it's usually pretty relaxed, pretty slow, because you have to have time to see people, and you'll miss everybody if you're sprinting the whole time. If your entire life is a crazy frenzy of work, just ask the Lord if that's what he has for you.

We can live simply enough to free ourselves from the need for more. If you're falling into the constant trap of needing to accumulate, whether it's clothes or experiences or just lifestyle creep, you might just be enjoying this life, which is great, I think God wants us to enjoy this life, he has many good gifts for us. But if you never feel quite at peace or assured of anything except getting more and more, you might be missing something.

And if giving feels impossible, if you're on the opposite end, if you just don't feel like you have enough and don't know how you could give anything more, I think the question is just what you're putting your trust in. When I first read this passage I thought the whole message was going to be on generosity and giving, and it's obviously not, but I do think we should talk about it a little, because clearly the rich oppressor's heart was so after money that I think it was impossible for them to see anything more beautiful than that. And money is tough. Abby and I, when we first came to New Culture years ago, during the pandemic, we had both just graduated college. It was COVID. I was trying to freelance graphic design, and we had pretty much zero money, no money whatsoever.

We were part of this church, and even when I was on staff for at least two or three months, I had no idea how we were going to give anything, because we felt like we had nothing to give. I was like, all right, Lord, the spreadsheet says we'll come up red if I tithe. So you can have all my energy, my time, my talents, I'll do all the serving, you can have every other part, but for now I just can't give you this. I can't give you my finances, which I totally get, I totally see where I was coming from. But at the same time, any area of my life that I'm not inviting God into is a place where he's not there. If you're not inviting God into an aspect of your heart, something else will be there. And that's very dangerous, especially with money, because money has so much power, and therefore it can have so much control. The beautiful thing about giving in the kingdom is that it actually doesn't matter how much you give. That's the best part.

There's a passage in Mark 12 where Jesus and his disciples are in the temple, watching people come in. I don't know if they're watching so they can watch people give, or that's just what's happening, but they're watching these religious leaders, who have a good amount of money, pouring pretty big offerings into the treasury. And then this really poor old woman comes up, walks over, and drops in two copper coins, worth a couple of cents. I want to read it exactly:

Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth, but she, out of her poverty, put in everything, all she had to live on.

Mark 12:43-44

So in God's economy, he delights not only in the amount you give, but truly in the heart in which you give it. I think it's about inviting him into all the spaces of your life. Personally, I don't want to have any compartment of my heart or my mind where God isn't absolutely invited in. That's the challenge I'd like to ask you today. If you're really a part of this church, if this is your church family and you're too tight financially to give something, I want to give you the space to ask the Spirit if that's actually what he wants for your finances. And I don't think you have to start with the classic ten percent. I think he just wants you to give something, because giving something hurts more than giving nothing.

For Abby and me, I think the hardest part of starting to give was literally deciding to give. Once we actually had the money leave our account, I don't really know if we ever noticed it. It's just gotten easier and easier. It's really nice to know there's nothing hidden from God.

Closing: a note of gratitude

If you guys want to come up, worship team. Verse seven and verse eight, I wanted to include those because I think it's a really nice way to end James's thoughts in verses five through six. I think it's more a message of hope to the early church, because they were probably the ones being oppressed, and I think he wanted to end it with even more hope for them:

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.

James 5:7-8

If we just look around at our world, it's very easy to see all of this stuff from verses one through six happening every day, in every nation, every country. It's really easy to get disheartened, easy to believe God isn't moving, that he's not doing anything. But I think that's why James wraps it up assuring them that the Lord's coming is near. There's not a single wrong that Jesus won't right. The Lord of hosts has come, and he will come again.

Today I wanted to give you a chance to end it a little personally. It is Father's Day too, which kind of helps with the idea. There are note cards here, and I think it'd be cool for you to recognize God, our Father, who does see you, who does hear you, who does know you, who does come after you. He doesn't leave you alone. He leaves his flock and goes and finds the one, every time. He's a good shepherd.

So make sure you've got a pen. Bradley and Matthew are going to worship for a little bit, and as they play, I want you to write God a little thank-you note. Just a note of gratitude, whatever comes up for you. It could be a time he saved you from something, yourself, a certain sin, something he freed you from. It could be a time you felt invisible to the world, invisible to your friends, but you felt like he saw you and he had you. Once you write it, keep it somewhere visible all week, and go to it every day, and just give God thanks.

Just a note of gratitude. He's a good God. He's a good father.

We're going to sing one more song to the Lord. As we sing, I'd love for you to really try, with the Holy Spirit, to look in your heart and see if there's anything you haven't laid before him, anything you haven't brought him in your life that he really wants. This song is about laying our crowns before him. Anything of worth we've accumulated on earth, it all goes to him, because he's worthy. But he also wants your failures, your doubts, your fears, your insecurities. He wants the things that to you might not even seem like enough.

So as we sing this, I encourage you to ask if there's anything you haven't laid at his feet. And just lay it down. Let's sing now.