The Great Inversion: Boasting in Your Proper Place Text: James 1:9-11
Introduction: The World's Price Tags
We live in a world that is obsessed with price tags. Everything and everyone has a value assigned to them by the great, impersonal marketplace of public opinion. A man's worth is measured by the size of his portfolio, the square footage of his house, and the title on his business card. A person of humble circumstances, by this metric, is worth very little. He is overlooked, disregarded, and seen as a failure. The rich man, conversely, is lauded, admired, and envied. He is a success. This is the wisdom of the world, the basic operating system of fallen humanity. It is intuitive, it is pervasive, and it is a complete lie.
Into this deeply ingrained system of valuation, James detonates a theological bomb. He doesn't just challenge the world's price tags; he grabs them, turns them upside down, scribbles out the world's numbers, and writes in God's numbers in bold, permanent ink. What the world calls high, God calls low. What the world sees as humiliating, God calls a reason for boasting. This is not a gentle suggestion to be a little less materialistic. This is a command to adopt a completely alien way of thinking. It is a call to look at your bank account, your social standing, and your earthly accomplishments through resurrection-tinted glasses.
James is continuing his theme of trials from the beginning of the chapter. We are tempted to think of trials as external afflictions, sickness, persecution, and so on. But James immediately applies the principle to the most common, everyday trial that every single one of us faces: our station in life. Both poverty and wealth are profound spiritual tests. Poverty tempts a man to bitterness, envy, and despair. Wealth tempts a man to pride, self-sufficiency, and a soul-destroying trust in uncertain riches. Both conditions are designed by God to drive us to the same place, which is to a radical dependence on Him and a right valuation of what is truly valuable. What James gives us here is the divine antidote to both the pride of the rich and the despair of the poor. He is teaching us the grammar of the Kingdom, where the logic is inverted, and the last are first, and the first are last.
The Text
But the brother of humble circumstances is to boast in his high position; and the rich man is to boast in his humiliation, because like flowering grass he will pass away. For the sun rises with a scorching heat and withers the grass; and its flower falls off and the beauty of its appearance is destroyed; so too the rich man in the midst of his pursuits will fade away.
(James 1:9-11 LSB)
The Poor Man's Exaltation (v. 9)
First, James addresses the believer who is on the lower rungs of the world's ladder.
"But the brother of humble circumstances is to boast in his high position;" (James 1:9)
The world looks at the "brother of humble circumstances," the man working a low-wage job, the family struggling to make ends meet, and says, "What a lowly position." James says this brother is to boast, not in his poverty, but "in his high position." This is a staggering paradox. What high position? The world certainly doesn't see it. His boss doesn't see it. Sometimes, in moments of weakness, he himself doesn't see it.
His high position is his standing in Jesus Christ. He is a child of the King. He is an heir of God and a joint-heir with Christ (Romans 8:17). He has been seated with Christ in the heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6). His name is written in the Lamb's book of life. He has an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for him (1 Peter 1:4). The world may see a janitor, but God sees a prince. The world sees a man of no account, but heaven sees a man who has been given the righteousness of God Himself.
So, James says, "boast" in this. The word is not a suggestion for quiet contentment; it's a command to exult, to glory, to rejoice loudly in this reality. When the trial of poverty presses in, when the world whispers that you are a nobody, you are to preach the gospel to yourself. You are to remind yourself of your true status. Your identity is not in your net worth; it is in your adoption. Your value is not determined by the market; it was determined at the cross. This boasting is not an exercise in self-esteem. It is an act of faith. It is looking away from the visible, temporal circumstances and fixing your gaze on the invisible, eternal reality of your union with Christ. This is how the poor brother overcomes the trial of his poverty. He doesn't deny his circumstances; he re-contextualizes them in light of his glorious, unshakeable position in the Kingdom of God.
The Rich Man's Humiliation (v. 10)
Next, James turns his attention to the rich believer, and the paradox gets even sharper.
"and the rich man is to boast in his humiliation, because like flowering grass he will pass away." (James 1:10)
The world tells the rich man to boast in his riches, his success, his influence. But James commands the rich Christian to boast in his humiliation. What humiliation is this? It is the humbling realization that his wealth, which the world sees as his glory, is actually a profound spiritual danger and, in the grand scheme of things, utterly insignificant. He is to glory in the fact that the gospel has humbled him, stripping away his pride and self-reliance.
His humiliation is the recognition that, apart from Christ, he is just as spiritually bankrupt as the poorest beggar. The cross levels the ground. The rich man must come to the foot of the cross with empty hands, just like everyone else. His money cannot buy him favor with God. His success cannot earn him a single spiritual merit. He must be humbled to see that his only hope is the same as the poor brother's: the free grace of God in Jesus Christ. He is to boast in this humbling. He is to exult in the fact that God's grace has shattered his pride and taught him to trust not in his wealth, but in the living God (1 Timothy 6:17).
And James provides the reason for this perspective shift: "because like flowering grass he will pass away." The rich man must learn to see himself and his wealth through the lens of eternity. His life is fragile and fleeting. This is his humiliation. The world sees him as a mighty oak, but God's Word reveals he is a wildflower.
The Scorchingly True Metaphor (v. 11)
James then expands on this metaphor with vivid, sun-scorched imagery drawn from the Palestinian landscape.
"For the sun rises with a scorching heat and withers the grass; and its flower falls off and the beauty of its appearance is destroyed; so too the rich man in the midst of his pursuits will fade away." (James 1:11)
In that dry climate, the spring rains could produce a sudden, glorious carpet of wildflowers. They are beautiful, vibrant, and impressive for a moment. But then the summer sun, the sirocco wind, rises with its scorching heat. In a matter of hours, that beautiful flower shrivels, its petals drop, its color fades, and it returns to the dust. Its beauty was real, but it was temporary.
This, James says, is the rich man. "So too the rich man in the midst of his pursuits will fade away." Notice the detail: he fades away "in the midst of his pursuits." He is closing a deal, planning his next acquisition, admiring his portfolio, and then, suddenly, the scorching sun of God's providence, whether through death, disaster, or disease, rises. And he is gone. His wealth, his plans, his reputation, all of it withers. His life, which seemed so substantial, is revealed to be as transient as a desert bloom.
The rich Christian is to boast in this humiliation. He is to rejoice that he has been delivered from the delusion of permanence. He is to thank God that his eyes have been opened to the fact that his true treasure is not in his fading earthly kingdom but in the eternal Kingdom of Christ. This perspective transforms wealth from a source of pride into a tool for stewardship. It is not his; it is God's, entrusted to him for a short time. And because it's all going to wither, the only wise thing to do is to invest it in that which will not fade away, by being "rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share" (1 Timothy 6:18).
Conclusion: The Gospel's Great Reversal
This passage is a direct application of the gospel. The gospel is the ultimate great reversal. The central event of all history is the story of a rich man who boasted in His humiliation. For our sakes, Jesus Christ, "though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich" (2 Corinthians 8:9).
He was in the highest position, at the right hand of the Father, and He willingly embraced the most humble circumstances. He laid aside His glory, took on the form of a servant, and was humiliated on a Roman cross. He passed away like a flower, cut down in the prime of His life. But in that humiliation, He purchased an eternal glory for all who would believe in Him.
Because of His great reversal, we can now obey the commands of James. The poor brother can look at his empty hands and boast in his high position because Christ's fullness has been credited to his account. He is spiritually rich beyond measure. The rich brother can look at his full hands and boast in his humiliation because he knows that all of it is fleeting grass. He has been delivered from the idolatry of trusting in it. He is free to hold it loosely and invest it for eternity.
Both the poor man and the rich man are called to the same thing: to find their ultimate joy, their ultimate identity, and their ultimate boast not in their circumstances, but in the cross of Jesus Christ. The cross is the place where God's price tags are put on display for all the world to see. It declares that our earthly status is meaningless and that our status in Christ is everything. It is the only perspective that can give a poor man unconquerable joy and a rich man profound humility. And that is the wisdom that overcomes the world.