Our Church provides a worship services for the residents of the McLoughlin Place, a Senior Assisted Living community in Oregon City. I had the opportunity this month to provide the devotional. We are going through the book of James.

McLaughlin Place Devotional -May 23, 2010: James 1:9-11

“Exaltation and Humiliation”

Over the last couple of month Matt Lyons has been speaking to you from the book of James, and we will continue today to see some of the surprising things the Lord has to say to us. Let us pray that God would speak to us from His word today.

Our Father, we often feel as if we do not have the wisdom we need to live as those who are made complete by your grace and Spirit – We ask that you, the Father of lights, would give us your grace to live patiently in our trials, knowing that you are providing all that we need to enable us to say that we lack nothing. You are the generously giving God – Give us now wisdom live for you, in faith, without doubting that you are willing to give your good gifts to us liberally and without reproach. For we pray in the name of our only Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen.

God works in our lives and in the world generally, in ways that are often a mystery to us. We know that he wants us to be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing – and that He has the power to just say the word and we will be perfect and complete, lack in nothing. But he doesn’t do things that way. He has saved us by His grace, through the faith that He has given us. But, in the perfect wisdom of our heavenly Father – He chooses to test our faith and to make things more difficult sometimes than we would like. But if we remain steadfast in our faith that He is a good Father to us, not doubting that He loves us – He will enlarge our faith in Him and give us patience and wisdom in this world. All the various trials we have in life are often confusing and difficult – but if we have in us His perspective on these trials – we can actually rejoice in the fact that on the other side of them we will know Him and His wisdom better.

In the next section of James he gives us an example of how we can have joy in the midst of testing. James 1:9-11

Let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation, but the rich [brother] in his humiliation, because as a flower of the field he will pass away. For no sooner has the sun risen with a burning heat than it withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beautiful appearance perishes. So the rich man also will fade away in his pursuits.

This is certainly an odd passage, and somewhat confusing. What James is saying is that the brother in lowly or humble circumstances is encouraged to see himself from God’s perspective and glory or take pride in his exalted position before the Lord and in the Christian community. God has lifted him up: James 4:6 and 10 says: “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble…Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.”

Just as we should see trials as a cause for joy (when seen from the perspective of God’s purposes in our lives), so too, the lowly brother should see himself as God sees him: one who is equally a son of God with the rich.

The world views this person as poor (the term ‘humble’ has behind it a Hebrew concept of the humble or oppressed poor) – and somehow less important in the big scheme of things. The poor, those who live in humble circumstances are often despised and neglected, sometimes even by the church and their families. But God has, however, lifted them up – exalted them. God’s view is the truer one and so the person can rejoice in its reality even when their outward circumstances have not yet changed.

If I am not too far wrong – some of you here may feel poor and humbled and less important or significant in the world. God is telling you to glory in the fact that you are loved and cared for by Him – and that he counts you as equal to all the rest of His children.

In contrast, the rich brother should glory in his humiliation. This sounds strange to us, but what we are to learn from this is that those Christians who are rich in this world could be tempted to see themselves are more important than those who are poor. In fact, this sinful attitude is something that James draws attention to later in 2:2-9: But God has shown them that they are not any more exalted before God than any other Christian.

This passage in 1:9-11 teaches that a rich man could properly glory and rejoice in having been humbled by God and brought to associate as an equal with poor Christians. Both poor and rich are exalted by His grace. He opposes the proud – but gives grace to the humble, whether rich or poor.

James is saying that if the rich person looks at the same future as the ‘humble’ brother, he will see that both will fade and die – just as the flower of the field. The glories that accompany riches will fade away – and in the end – only those who are humble before the Lord will be lifted up and exalted in His sight. This is a subject that will get much more attention in the book of James.

This ‘reversal of fortunes’ theme is often found in the scriptures (e.g. 1 Sa. 2:1–10; Lk. 1:46–55). When God acts, the low are raised up and the high are brought down. What God wants us to see is that our exaltation in this world is not about riches – it is a result of God lifting us up by grace and making us exalted as His dear children.

Brothers and sisters – don’t look at your circumstances as the sum of your true standing in Christ Jesus. If you are poor and ill treated in this world – rejoice and be glad that before God you are exalted and dearly loved. If you are rich and well treated – glory and rejoice in the fact that your value to God isn’t reliant on your riches because they will all be gone in the end.

Tags: McLaughline Place, NT - James