The Poor-Rich

In James 1:2–8, James instructed us that we need wisdom to respond to trials with all joy, so that we may develop endurance, arrive at maturity, and not remain infants.

In the passage now under consideration, James 1:9-11, we learn how to deal with the trials of poverty and wealth. We need to look at these conditions from a godly, biblical perspective, not from a worldly perspective because God’s perspective is the opposite of the perspective of this sinful world. Every believer, both poor and rich, must look at situations in the light of eternity and of God’s divine plan.

A Word of Encouragement

In this passage, Pastor James gives a word of encouragement for all believers, especially those who were suffering from grinding poverty, as most believers at that time did. Paul tells us that not many believers were wise, influential, rich, or of noble birth. He says that “God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things” to shame the high and mighty. He chose the nothings of the world to make nothing of those who claim to be something, so that no one may boast before him. God chose the zeroes of the world so that they may fulfill the scripture that says, “Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord” (see 1 Cor. 1:26–31).

Poor sinners, like the publican and Lazarus, are saved by their God-given faith in Christ. The rich Pharisee, Saul of Tarsus, became poor for Christ’s sake and was saved in the same way: the way of union with Christ in his death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and session. For all eternity, we are vitally united with Christ as a branch is united with the vine. Christ is our life. Nothing can separate us from Christ. In him we live, and live forever.

Jesus Christ is our shepherd, and so we lack nothing. For us, he is the way, the truth, and the life. He is the resurrection and the life for us. By faith in him, we have crossed over from death into life; and it is impossible for us to go back to death.

Jesus said, “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one” (John 10:28-30). He has given us eternal life and we shall never perish. We are in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And, at the same time, this infinite personal triune God dwells in us.

We have been baptized into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. We are eternally secure. We are able to do all things through Christ who gives us strength. We are weak, but he is strong. He gives us more grace, and his grace is more than sufficient.

The poor believer is rich in God. He is rich because he is united with Christ. The world may despise him, but God loves and cares for him. In fact, God has already exalted him and seated him with Christ in heavenly places. The Father paid the highest price to redeem him. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died for his salvation. Poor saint, you are the portion of God, God’s inheritance, as we read, “For the Lord’s portion [the Lord’s share] is his people, Jacob his allotted inheritance” (Deut. 32:9). And not only that, God is our inheritance and portion. In Genesis 15 we read, “After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: ‘Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward’” (Gen. 15:1). The psalmist says, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (Ps. 73:25–26).

Therefore, poor, lowly saint, know that true riches do not consist in material things. Material riches deceive people into thinking they do not need God. Jesus himself said, “The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful” (Matt. 13:22). He also said, “What does it profit if you gain the whole world and lose your soul?” It profits us nothing but eternal hell, to which the rich, proud man who refused to believe in the Messiah descended. He is even now in hell, in torment, in fire, and in agony (Luke 16:23–24).

Rich in God

Poor saint, rejoice! You have been loved by God from eternity. He chose you to salvation, predestinating you to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. In time, he saved you by the gospel and blessed you with every spiritual blessing in Christ. You may be poor in material things, but you are rich in God. You are rich in spiritual things, in things everlasting. So Paul declares, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich” (2 Cor. 8:9). Elsewhere he writes, “For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him” (Rom. 10:12).

Through the incarnational life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we have been made rich. Paul says, “But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith” (Phil. 3:7–9). He also says, “So then, no more boasting about men! All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God” (1 Cor. 3:21–23). He also explains, “Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases? Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life!” (1 Cor. 6:2–3).

Union with Christ

The secret of spiritual riches is union with Christ, who has been given all things by the Father, so we have everything in him. We are the bride of Christ. We are seated with Christ. We are God’s inheritance, his share, his portion. Through Christ, we own all things, and we will judge the world. The devil is subject to us in Jesus Christ. We are God’s children by adoption. So Paul says, “Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory” (Rom. 8:17).

Poor saint, you are a brother in Christ. So James commands all poor brothers, “Rejoice in your height!” (1:9, author’s wording). You are a brother in Christ. You belong to God’s family. You are God’s heir. God himself values you highly as his inheritance. So God commands you to boast, to glory, and to rejoice continually, not in your poverty and low position in the world, but in your height—in the high position God has granted you by grace. God opposes the proud, but he lifts up the humble. The cross of Christ brings down the proud but lifts up the lowly. So rejoice, glory, boast in the Lord in your justification, in your adoption, in your daily sanctification, in your reconciliation, and in your future glorification.

See through the eye of faith, through the eye of the word of God, your exaltation in Christ. Join the holy mother of the Lord, and sing: “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. . . . His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation. He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble” (Luke 1:46–52).

Think not in worldly terms. We recently came across articles by E. S. Williams, Ruth Palgrave, and Phil Johnson exposing modern movements bent on marrying Christianity with worldliness.¹ These movements are led by mega-church evangelicals such as Rick Warren and Bill Hybels; emergent church leaders like Dan Kimball and Brian McLaren; and new Calvinists such as Mark Driscoll, Timothy Keller, John Piper, and Al Mohler.

The brother of Jesus warned about such alliances, saying, “You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God” (James 4:4). The apostle John wrote, “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever” (1 John 2:15–17).

We can join such movements and build a church by the thousands just by saying, “It is okay to live a worldly life and still come to church: just believe! You don’t have to be changed or transformed. You don’t have to be holy.” But what did Paul say? “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Rom. 12:2). (PGM) He also exhorted, “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?” (2 Cor. 6:14).

We must not think in worldly terms. Rather, we must have a heavenly, divine perspective. So James is saying, “Poor saint, glory in God! You are poor; yet in God, you are really and truly rich. If you possess God, why do you need gold? You are given the kingdom of God. It is the good pleasure of the Father to give you, little flock, the kingdom of God.”

Poor, Yet Rich

We need to see the perspective of God. In God’s perspective, we are rich. So James says, “Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him?” (Jas. 2:5). And Jesus himself said to the church in Smyrna: “To the angel of the church in Smyrna write: These are the words of him who is the First and the Last, who died and came to life again. I know your afflictions and your poverty—yet you are rich!” (Rev. 2:8–9). To the church of Laodicea he says, “You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see” (Rev. 3:17–18).

Jesus said to his disciples, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God” (Luke 6:20). What is the kingdom of God? It is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. Look at poor, sick, despised Lazarus. He is in heaven. Look at the despised yet confessing thief nailed to the cross. He is with Christ in paradise.

Jesus, the owner of universe, was characterized by humiliation and poverty in this world. He himself said, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head” (Luke 9:58). Paul writes, “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!” (Phil. 2:5–8).

Jesus was very poor. He was always borrowing. He borrowed the womb of Mary, the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, a donkey, a boat, and a room. His condition was worse than that of the foxes and birds. Jesus was truly homeless. Yet the Father loved him and said, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”

God’s poor saints are truly rich and happy in God. God gives his people every good thing. So the psalmist says, “The LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless” (Ps. 84:11).

Moses spent eighty days in the presence of God without eating and drinking. God himself is the bread of life and the water of life. When we seek first with all our heart the kingdom of God, Jehovah Jireh will surely meet all our physical needs. With God, we are content in every circumstance in life.

The apostles were very poor, yet they were rich. Peter told the lame beggar, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk” (Acts 3:6). Paul said he and other apostles were “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything” (2 Cor. 6:10). Elsewhere he writes, “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” (Rom. 8:32).

Know this, friends: Here we are pilgrims and sojourners. We travel on the highway of holiness to Zion the city of God because our citizenship truly is in heaven. And Paul says, “We eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who . . . will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body” (Phil. 3:20–21).

Poor, lowly, and despised saint: Your God commands you to boast, glory, and rejoice in what you are in Christ and what God has done for you. Glory in your high standing with God. You are precious to God, more than all the gold of the world. He loves you forever.

Poor Nathanael: Don’t be surprised that Jesus saw you when you were sitting under the fig tree (John 1:48). He saw you even before that, for he made you in your mother’s womb. And he saw and loved you even before that—in eternity past. He saw you as a miserable sinner, yet he loved you with an eternal love and chose you to eternal life.

We are God’s people for the praise of his glorious grace. We are poor, yet we are rich in God—God who has no need. And God alone, who is independent, desires to fellowship with us forever. Wonder of wonders!

So, poor saint, do not let your heart be troubled. “Trust in God,” Jesus said, “trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am” (John 14:1–3). Jesus also said, “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world” (John 17:24).

Even now, therefore, we can rejoice in the midst of our pain and troubles. So Paul says, “Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings” (Rom. 5:3). Peter said, “Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy” (1 Pet. 1:8).

But the fullness of our joy and salvation is still waiting. Jesus is coming to take us home to a new heaven and a new earth, where there will be no sin and pain, and wherein dwells only righteousness. John saw this in the Spirit and wrote, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Rev. 21:1–4).

What about You?

Are you poor? Are you weak? Are you despised? Are you a zero in the eyes of the world? Have you trusted in Jesus Christ the King and Savior of the world? Then you are rich indeed; rich in God, not in gold. Yours is the kingdom of God. And Jesus Christ is coming for you and all of us. He is coming for his glorious bride so that we may live with him forever, enjoying the fullness of our salvation. He is coming soon.

In these, the closing days of time,

what joy the glorious hope affords,

that soon, oh, wondrous truth sublime!

He shall reign, King of kings and Lord of lords.

He’s coming soon, he’s coming soon,

with joy we welcome his returning;

it maybe morn, it may be night or noon.

We know he’s coming soon.

¹See http://www.bibleleaguetrust.org/articles/west.pdf; http://bibleleaguetrust.org/articles/response_to_west.pdf; http://www.newcalvinist.com; http://www.driscollcontroversy.com; andhttp://www.gty.org/resources/articles/A362.