Rick Warren - A Faith That Doesn't Need to Hoard (03/14/2024)
This sermon from James 4:17–5:8 addresses financial insecurity, contrasting hoarding with biblical saving. Pastor Rick Warren explains that God opposes greed, not wealth, and that money is a tool to be used for good, not stockpiled out of fear or pride. The conclusion calls for placing ultimate security in God, not possessions, and living with generous, trusting faith.
A Faith That Doesn’t Need to Hoard
Hi, everybody. I’m Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church, author of The Purpose-Driven Life, and the speaker on the Daily Hope broadcast. I want to welcome you to this broadcast, where we’re looking in the book of James. We’ve been going through it now for a long time on «A Faith That Works When Life Doesn’t: Principles for Living Through a Pandemic». In a previous message, I listed five factors that are causing stress all around the world these days during the COVID-19 global pandemic. We’re facing a viral infirmity, that’s the virus. We’re facing social instability, financial insecurity, racial inequality, and political incivility.
As we continue through our study of this book of James, I want us to use two messages to focus on this third issue, financial insecurity. Right now, hundreds of millions of people around the world are out of work during the COVID-19 pandemic, and millions of businesses have been closed for most of 2020. This has created a great economic hardship on many, many families, with single parents and poor families being hit even the hardest. I said at the start of this pandemic that we’re all in the same storm, but we’re not all in the same boat.
Some people are sailing through this storm in a yacht, and they don’t really see what the big deal is. They have the kind of job where they can work from home, and in many ways they’re doing just fine. They may have saved enough money to support themselves for a long time. But other people, particularly those in service, transportation, and hospitality businesses, have little or no income these days. They’re battling this storm in a rowboat, not a yacht. Then there are even others who are homeless, so in this storm, they’re just kind of holding onto a piece of driftwood. We’re going to look at some passages in James this week and next that have to do with facing financial insecurity and managing money.
In my next message, we’re going to look at a faith that handles wealth wisely. We’re gonna look at the specifics of what God has to say about making, using, and investing money. I hope you don’t miss that message. But today, I want us to look at a faith that doesn’t need to hoard. I’m sure you remember in the early days of this pandemic there was a run on grocery stores with panic buying. You can remember the famous shortage on toilet paper and hand sanitizer and pretty much everything else. When that first lockdown occurred, people panicked and began hoarding everything. They weren’t doing this as a statement of faith, but as evidence of fear. They were hoarding out of anxiety, worry, and apprehension about their economic future. As we’ll see in just a minute, there are other motivations for hoarding, too, besides fear.
So when I say a faith that doesn’t need to hoard, what is hoarding? If you look up the definition in a dictionary, it defines hoarding as the excessive accumulation of anything, particularly money or possessions. Remember I told you that James wrote this letter to the Christians in the very first church, which was in Jerusalem. Because of intense persecution, they weren’t allowed to meet together for public worship. Does that sound familiar? Instead, they were forced to scatter and flee all over the Roman empire.
Wealth, Greed, and the Early Church
So James writes this letter that we’ve been looking at now for a long time to encourage discouraged believers in a time of intense stress, and it has sure encouraged us, too. In those days, because of the persecution of the new Christians, many had lost their jobs and their homes. Most important, they had lost contact with each other during this time. Sound familiar? So he wrote to encourage them. In the text we’re gonna look at today, James actually confronts and calls out the wealthy Christians in the church for hoarding their wealth. This was in a time when fellow brothers and sisters in the family of God desperately needed help.
As I’ve studied this book for many months, in many ways the first century AD is like what’s happening in the 21st century. Today, we are witnessing the demise of the middle class. What do I mean by that? In the last 20 or 30 years, the rich are getting richer, while the middle class has been dropping further and further behind. There is greater income inequality today than at any other time in the history of the world since the first century. It’s true. People are very, very rich and people are very poor, and there’s less in the middle.
In the New Testament, there was essentially no middle class. You were either rich or you were poor. In the Roman Empire, the rich used the poor workers to get richer. There were no pension plans, no health benefits, no social programs, so the poor were stuck in poverty. If you weren’t rich, you were poor. James doesn’t pull any punches in this text we’re gonna look at today. He is upset. He’s upset about the selfish attitudes and self-centeredness of wealthy Christians. They didn’t seem to care about the economic inequality or the financial distress that the poor members of the church were going through during that crisis. James just lays it on the line to those who didn’t seem to care about anything but themselves. They were continually hoarding wealth that they could be using to help other people.
Here’s how he starts. James chapter four, verse 17. Let me read it to you, and the following verses. «Remember, my brothers and sisters, that when you know the good thing you ought to do, but you don’t do it, then you sin.» Let me pause here before we go any further to point out a couple of things. First, James is talking to people who know the Lord. He’s talking to Christians, to believers. They know the right thing to do with their time, money, and energy. These are not people in the dark who don’t know right from wrong. Second, there are two kinds of sins: sins of commission and sins of omission.
When you do something that you know is wrong to do, that’s a sin of commission. You know it’s wrong, and you do it anyway. But the opposite is also a sin. When you fail to do the right thing that you know you ought to do, that’s a sin of omission. I should have done it. He says when I hoard any wealth that God has blessed me with, instead of using it to help other people, when I see a need, that’s a sin of omission. Okay, let’s read the whole passage. James chapter four, verse 17, going into chapter five, verse eight.
«Remember, my brothers and sisters, that when you know the good thing you ought to do, but you don’t do it, then you sin. So then you who are rich should grieve and lament because of the impending trouble that’s headed your way. Your wealth is rotting and the moths will eat your fine clothes, and your gold and silver will be worthless. But it will be a witness testifying against you that you have hoarded and piled up wealth in these last days.»
As I read that, can you feel the righteous indignation welling up inside of James? He wrote these words knowing there were wealthy members in his church, the church in Jerusalem, who couldn’t care less about the poor members barely surviving during the crisis of that day. We’re gonna examine these verses phrase by phrase, but first I want you to write this down. Get out a pen and write this down: God doesn’t oppose wealth. He opposes greed. Write that down. God doesn’t oppose wealth. He opposes greed.
Wealth, Greed, and Misunderstanding Scripture
If you were to turn on your television to one of those religious channels and watch several different TV preachers, you would likely be confused by conflicting messages about money. Some teachers teach that God wants everybody to be rich and wealthy and perfectly healthy. If you are poor, they say, you just don’t have enough faith. They’re called prosperity preachers or health and wealth teachers, and they’re on one extreme. At the other extreme are priests and pastors who tell you that to truly be holy, you have to take a vow to live in poverty. They say it’s a sin to be wealthy, and they misquote 1 Timothy 6:10.
I’ve heard this misquoted all my life. They say, doesn’t it say in the Bible that money is the root of all evil? The answer is no, it doesn’t. The Bible does not say money is the root of all evil. It never has said it. The correct verse actually says, «The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.» Money is not an evil. The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Those two extremes—God wants you to be a millionaire and God wants you to take a vow of poverty—are wrong. Jesus never taught either of those extremes. Both are not supported in the Bible. So God is not opposed to wealth.
In fact, if you read the Bible, most of the godly people talked about are quite wealthy. Abraham was probably a multi-millionaire in our terms. Job was the wealthiest man on earth in his time. Joseph became very wealthy as second in command to Pharaoh. David and Solomon were the wealthiest men of their time. In the New Testament, people like Barnabas were wealthy because he could give large amounts to the church. Joseph of Arimathea, who gave Jesus his tomb, was extremely wealthy. So God is not against wealth. Let’s just clear that up right off the bat. He is against greed, but he’s not against wealth.
Proverbs 10:22 in a contemporary English version says this: «When the Lord blesses you with riches, you have nothing to regret.» You didn’t get them in a dishonest way. «When the Lord blesses you with riches, you have nothing to regret.» So if God has graciously allowed you to have some measure of wealth, you don’t need to feel ashamed about that. But you might need to feel ashamed that you haven’t used it correctly, because God is very much opposed to the abuse, misuse, and hoarding of wealth, regardless of the amount we have. That’s why James points out in verse three of chapter five: «You have hoarded and piled up wealth in these last days.»
Now I want you to write down this second truth. Write this down: Money is a tool to be used, not a thing to be hoarded. That’s what the Bible teaches. Money is a tool to be used, not a thing to be hoarded. God says that money is not to be stockpiled where it doesn’t do any good, or just stored up for the sake of having it. God says, «I want all that money in circulation.» It’s a tool to be used. We are to use money and love people. When you get that in reverse, you get a problem. If you start loving money, you’re going to use people. No, people are to be loved. Money is to be used. Don’t get that in reverse. Money is simply a tool. He says, «I don’t want you hoarding. I don’t want you piling up wealth.»
You’re probably thinking, but Rick, doesn’t the Bible teach the principle and the habit of saving? Aren’t we told in scripture that it’s wise to save money? Yes, yes we are. Of course the Bible teaches the principle of both saving and investing. Jesus told a parable about a couple guys who doubled their money by investing it wisely. He said, «You’ve made the most of what you’ve been given, you made it count, you’re a good and faithful servant.» But there’s a big difference between saving money and hoarding money.
The Motives Behind Hoarding
So what’s the difference? The definition of hoarding is an accelerated or extreme accumulation of something, particularly money or possessions. What’s the difference between saving, which the Bible commends, and hoarding, which the Bible condemns? For one thing, there are no TV shows about smart saving, but there are shows about hoarders. The difference between saving and hoarding your money is in your purpose and your motivation. Listen closely. People usually hoard their money for one of two reasons. One, out of fear for their security. Or number two, out of pride for their status. Out of fear for security or out of pride for status.
Let me just talk to you about these for a second. Some people hoard what they own out of anxiety. Every once in a while, you’ll hear a story about some poor elderly person who died in abject poverty. When they cleared out their apartment and moved the mattress, they would find hundreds of thousands of dollars. Yet they were living in poverty. Why did they hoard what they had? Because money had become an idol. It became an end in itself. Holding on to money had become the goal of life. They were so afraid to lose their money that they would not even use it. It represented security.
We all know that’s an extreme, but many people, even Christians who love the Lord, don’t realize they’re doing the exact same thing with their bank account. They’re putting their security not in the Lord, but in their bank account and investments. No matter how much they accumulate and hoard and stockpile, they always have these questions: Do I have enough? Am I gonna run out? Will I need more? How much is enough? Because they really trust their security to what they’ve accumulated—hoarding more than they need—more than they trust God’s promises. They’re trusting their bank account more than God’s promises. They’re always hesitant to give any of it away, either in tithing or in being generous. Why? Because, who knows? I might need that money in an emergency. What would I do without it? What would I rely on?
Hoarding is based on a scarcity mentality. I won’t have enough. Savings is based on a stewardship mentality. I’m saving, but I’m not looking to my savings for my security. A scarcity mentality means I’m scared to death I won’t have enough, so I’m gonna hoard. I don’t want to give it away to my friends, neighbors, anybody else. I want to hold onto it, 'cause I might need it. If you live with a scarcity mentality, you’re always afraid that God’s not gonna keep his promises to take care of you. Then you’re gonna lack the faith to be generous with what God has given you, generous with other people who are in need, because you might be afraid he might not give you any more.
That’s the exact opposite of what God’s promises in his Word say. God has promised almost a hundred times in scripture that if I give generously, it will be given back to me even more generously. You cannot out-give God. I’ve tried that for 40 years and I have failed for 40 years. One of the most popular and comforting verses in the Bible is Hebrews 13:5. God says, «I will never leave you and I will never abandon you.» That’s comforting in COVID-19, when facing economic instability and all the pressures in your life. It’s comforting to know that no matter what I go through, God’s gonna be there with me to help me.
People take that verse, Hebrews 13:5, and put it on posters to hang in their home. But they always leave off the first half of that verse. The first half is about not hoarding money. It is the acid test of how much you trust the promise that God says, «I’ll be with you and I’ll never abandon you.» Let me read the whole promise. Here it is: «Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with whatever you have, because God has said, I will never leave you and I will never abandon you.» The context of God’s promise is about your financial future—that financial instability. Am I gonna have a job? Am I gonna be able to work? God’s promise to you about your financial future is saying, «Don’t hoard, don’t love money. Be content with what you have. Why? Because I will never leave you and I will never abandon you.»
Based on that verse, let me be really frank with you. In what are you trusting for your future financial security? Are you trusting in your possessions, or are you trusting in God’s presence? Your possessions or God’s presence? He says, «Don’t worry about those things. I will never leave you, and I will never abandon you.» If you have a hard time letting go of money, if you have a hard time being generous, you don’t like to give or tithe, what you’re revealing is a lack of faith. You don’t really believe God will keep his many promises to take care of you. You’re living with a scarcity mentality.
The Two Reasons for Hoarding
I once had lunch with a Christian couple who were multi-millionaires. As I asked this businessman over lunch, I asked him frankly, «How much more do you feel you need to make in order to feel secure?» In other words, how much is enough? He thought about it and replied, «Probably, to feel secure, about $10 million more.» And I thought to myself, because of your scarcity mentality, you will never think you have enough. You will always feel the need to stockpile more stuff you can’t possibly use. So the first reason people hoard and stockpile is insecurity. I’m afraid that I’m not gonna have enough, so I want to hold on to it.
The other reason people hoard their money is because they use their money to keep score. It’s the way they validate their value, prove their status, and show off their success. It’s a pride issue. For years, Forbes magazine has posted an annual list of the 400 wealthiest people in the world. That list for many years kept wealthy people from giving any of their money away. Why? Because if they gave any away, they’d go down on the list, and they didn’t want to. But then a few years back, Forbes started another list called the most generous people in the world. It was not who had hoarded the most, but who had given the most away.
All of a sudden, there was another way to keep score. Many of the wealthiest people in the world, like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and Michael Bloomberg, switched to the top of the other list. They didn’t care about who was wealthiest, but who was giving away the most, and they made a pledge to give all they had away. So what is the difference between hoarding and saving? One’s good, one’s bad. As I said earlier, it’s a difference in motivation and purpose. Biblical savings is not primarily for security—because God’s your security—and it certainly isn’t storing up for status. Then why should I save? Not hoard, but save.
There are three other reasons, three other motivations for saving money. These are all biblical. You might write these down. Number one, you save to practice self-control. It’s a spiritual discipline. I save to practice self-control. Whenever you discipline yourself to live on less than you make—you don’t spend everything you make—in order to tithe and save, you’re practicing self-control. You’re strengthening your character and building wisdom. Savings is a spiritual discipline against self-indulgence. John D. Rockefeller, once the wealthiest man, was asked the key to his wealth. He said the 80-10-10 principle: «I tithe the first 10%, I save the second 10%, and I live on the 80%.» By doing that, he was turning things around. Proverbs 21:20 says, «The wise man saves for the future, but the foolish man spends whatever he gets.» So the first reason a Christian saves is the spiritual discipline of learning to live on less than I make.
Biblical Reasons to Save
The second reason for saving in the Bible is to get money working for me. What do you mean by that? Well, either you work for your money or your money works for you. So which is true of you? Do you work for your money, or do you make your money work for you? Any money that you save and then invest is making money for you while you’re sleeping. That’s a good thing. Nobody becomes wealthy working for money. You become wealthy when you discipline yourself to make your money work for you through saving and investing. Ecclesiastes 11:1 says, «Invest what you have, because after a while, you’ll get a return.» Remember the Parable of the Talents, where Jesus praised two men who invested and doubled their money, calling them good and faithful servants.
So why do we save? We save because it’s a spiritual discipline that shows self-control. We save because we want the money to work for us, rather than us work for money. And the third biblical reason is to be able to give to others. If I have not learned how to live on less than I make so I can set aside some earnings for saving, if I’m living paycheck to paycheck and spending everything as soon as I get it, there’s no way I can tithe or be generous. Ephesians 4:28 says if you’ve been stealing, stop it. Make an honest living, work hard, so that you’ll have something to give to people in need. If you save in order to share it with others, that’s what I do. I save in order to share it with others.
2 Corinthians 8:14 will be true of you: «Right now, you have plenty and you can help others. Then at some other time, they can share with you when you need it. In this way, everyone’s need will be met.» So these are the differences between hoarding and saving. Hoarding is selfish stockpiling. Savings is strategic stewardship. In New Testament times, when James was writing, there were only three ways you could hoard your wealth: stockpile food, build a wardrobe of fancy clothes, or collect gold and silver. Those were the only three ways to show off wealth.
That’s why James says in James 5:2-3: «Your wealth is rotting… your moths will eat your fine clothes, and your gold and silver will be worthless.» Stockpiled food eventually spoils, clothes get moth-eaten, and the value of precious metals fluctuates. Your food, your wealth is rotting. What food goes rotten? The food you eat every day? No, it’s the stuff at the back of your refrigerator that’s been there for three months. It is hoarded and unused. At our home, we’ve often created new life forms in our refrigerator because we didn’t throw it out. James says your clothes get moth-eaten. Which clothes get moth-eaten? The ones you wear all the time? No, it’s the ones stockpiled in the back of your closet you never wear. Here’s the point: Whatever I accumulate deteriorates.
Where to Place Your Security
I want to end by reading a story Jesus told in Luke chapter 12 with the same theme. Jesus said, «Watch out. Always be on your guard against all kinds of greed. Real life is never defined by or measured by how much you own.» Then Jesus told them a story: «A rich man owned a very productive and profitable farm, and he thought to himself, 'What should I do with all this surplus? I have no room to store it all.' Then he said, 'I know! I’ll tear down my barns and build bigger ones. Then I can keep all my grains and goods myself. I can say to myself, I’m set for many years. I’ll take it easy, eating, drinking, enjoying myself.' But God said to him, 'You are a fool. This very night you’ll die, and then who will get what you hoarded for yourself? '»
This is Jesus talking. «This is how it will be for those who pile up stuff for themselves, instead of building a rich relationship with God.» Wow. So what is God trying to say? He’s saying don’t put your hope in your possessions, because you can lose all those. You have to put your hope in something that can never be taken from you. If you put your hope in your job, it can be taken away. If you put your security in your bank account, there are many ways to lose that. If you put your hope in your health, you can lose it. If you put your hope in a relationship, you could lose that.
If you’re gonna have solid security, you have to base it on something that can never be taken from you. Everything on this planet can be taken from you, except one thing: your relationship to God through Jesus Christ. Do you know Jesus Christ? If you don’t, I want to introduce you to him, because this is the key to stability and security in your life. I’m gonna close with a couple verses. Proverbs 11:7 says, «When a wicked person dies, his hope dies, too, because the hope he placed in his riches comes to nothing.»
I heard about a wealthy lady who died. Someone said she had taken her life and that she had so much to live for. They said, no, she had much to live on. She had nothing to live for. So do you have somebody to live for? Do you have a security that outlasts your own life? That relationship to Jesus Christ? 1 Timothy 6:18–19 says, «Tell people to use their money to do good. They should be rich in good works and happy to give to those in need, always ready to share. By doing this, they’re storing up real treasure for themselves in heaven.» It’s the only safe investment for eternity, and they’ll be living a fruitful Christian life down here as well.
Finally, Proverbs 11:4 says, «Your riches won’t help you on judgment day. Only righteousness will count then.» As we think about financial insecurity, the tendency is to hold onto what we’ve got, to hoard, to be less generous, to stop tithing, to stop trusting God. James had this same issue with the first Christians in their day of crisis. He said, «Guys, you’re missing the point. You’ve got to trust in God, not possessions. You’ve got to be God-centered, not materialistic. You’ve got to save, but do it for the right reasons.»
If you’ve never opened your life to Jesus Christ, you don’t have the security of that relationship with God needed to handle uncertain times like these. It would be my honor to lead you in a prayer right now. Let’s bow our heads. If you’ve never opened your life to Christ and you say, «I admit I’m insecure about the future,» you don’t need to know what the future holds. You need to know who holds the future. If you have a relationship with him, you’ll have the security you need. So let’s pray. Just say this in your heart:
Dear God, I want my security to be in something that cannot be taken from me. I want my security to be in my relationship to you, that you have promised you will never leave me. You will never abandon me. I want to claim that promise today. As much as I know how, I open my life to you, Jesus Christ. I ask you to come in, change my priorities, my values, my purpose, my direction. Make me the man or the woman you want me to be. I humbly ask you to do this in your name. Amen.