James - James 2:1-13

The glory of God was in the person of Jesus Christ and yet He was despised and rejected of men, and if Jesus, as He was when He was here on earth, walked into our churches today, the ushers would probably say, "Well, sit back here in the back seat someplace and don't bother too many people."

And now we pray together. Father, as we read the word, it convicts us and we're glad for this. We have areas in our lives where we must grow. But thank you that the word of God also changes us. It transforms us. That in this word is the power to make us more like the Lord Jesus. So help us as we study together. Grant that Your word shall be just a treasure, the food of our souls, the nourishment of our lives. I pray in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.

The emphasis in the letter of James is on practicing our faith. It's not important to talk about it, it's important to walk about it. We should live our faith. You know, I might be able to say, well, I keep my tongue under control, I try to, and I say my prayers and I sing hymns and I try to bear witness for the Lord, so I guess I'm religious. Well, James goes on to say it's good to have a controlled heart and a controlled tongue, but words are no substitute for deeds. Now in James 2, he really gets down to where we live, and in the first thirteen verses, talks about loving faith, that is a faith that is loving, and then James 2:14-26, a faith that is living. Not a dead faith, not a selfish faith. A faith that is loving and a faith that is living. We closed our last study talking about James 1:27, visiting the orphans and the widows, the needy people, but in James 2, these people come to visit us.

What do you use as your criteria when you are looking for a church home? Now in our lives, the churches have chosen us, but when we moved to Lincoln, Nebraska, we had to seek God's guidance in selecting a church. How do you go about choosing a church? Have you ever watched the ushers? Well, you say, "No, we read the constitution, the statement of faith, we meet the pastor, visit a few Sunday school classes, find out if the church is fundamental and orthodox." Well, James says you better watch the ushers, because the ushers might point out to you that that church is not really following the word of God.

James 2. My brethren, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with partiality. For if there should come into your assembly a man with gold rings, in fine apparel, and there should also come in a poor man in filthy clothes, and you pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothes and say to him, "You sit here in a good place," and say to the poor man, "You stand there," or, "Sit here at my footstool," have you not shown partiality among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brethren: Has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Do not the rich oppress you and drag you into the courts? Do they not blaspheme that noble name by which you are called? If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," you do well; but if you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. For He who said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not murder." Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty. For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

That's quite a paragraph, isn't it? James 2:1-13. I wonder if those verses are ever put in any of the ushers' manuals for local churches. Now what is he saying here? Well, he's warning us against the sin of partiality, of making the outside the test of value—the kind of clothes people wear, the kind of jewelry they have or don't have. You know, churches sometimes make statements that are unbiblical. Somebody will say, "You know, they are our kind of people." What does that mean, our kind of people? Are we the standard? "They are just the kind of people we're so comfortable with. But that riffraff that's been coming in, and some of those folks from the other side of town, you know." And in churches, how easy it is to get cliques. Sometimes new members come into a church or visitors come into a church and they get frozen right out. They don't belong to the right clubs, they don't drive the right cars, and James is saying, just a minute, this is a gross and horrible sin before the face of Almighty God.

I remember a pastor saying to me that God had called him to minister primarily to the wealthy people. Well, that's fine. Jesus ministered primarily to the poor people. I'm sure the wealthy people need ministry. The rich man as well as the poor man needs to know about Jesus Christ, but we have to watch our motives. I wonder how many homeless people, helpless people, sometimes drop into our churches and they are totally neglected. I wonder how many people are members of our churches and we're not really caring for them. Every pastor and every elder ought to read what Paul wrote about widows in the local church. Now, their families ought to help take care of them, no question about that, but some of them don't have any families, and some of them have been faithfully serving the Lord. I think not only of widows, I think of lonely single people. I think of missionaries who have served the Lord, now they're retired. Well, you say they have a pension. Perhaps they do, but the local churches ought to be doing something to bring joy and encouragement into the lives of people who are needy. Here you are, you're a pastor, and into the church comes a family visiting, and they are driving a nice car and they do live in a nice section of town and probably would be good givers, and so on Monday you're right over there to visit them. But suppose some poor family comes in that drives in in an old car where the fenders are waving at the pedestrians, you know, and they aren't dressed as well as the other crowd was, and you can wait till oh, Friday or Saturday to visit them. Partiality.

James is warning us about being partial, showing partiality to the rich and humiliating the poor. Now of course it doesn't have to be just a matter of money, it can be many things—nationality, or race, or denomination, or whatever. Well, let's answer two questions from this Scripture. One, what are the consequences of showing partiality? And two, what is the cure? How do we cure ourselves and our congregations of this horrible sin? Somebody might say, "Well James, why spend so much time on this?" Oh, because it's important. Well, why is it important? Because when favoritism and partiality get into God's family, the consequences are terrible. James lists for us four consequences that come when we start showing partiality and favoritism in the church.

Let me say a word to my pastor friends and to those of you who minister in local churches. If there's one thing we must not show in our ministry, it is favoritism. We should not be guilty of this sin. As shepherds, we should take care of all the sheep. We should love all of the people—the rich and the poor, the educated, the uneducated, those who live in the best part of town and those who live in the worst part of town. Our job is to minister to all of the people. And once you let favoritism into your pulpit, or into your nominating committee, or into your church, there is going to be trouble.

Consequence number one, according to James 2:1, we deny the Lord. "My brethren, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with partiality." In other words, showing favoritism to the rich or to the powerful, to those who have position and authority, showing favoritism is quite contrary to the very nature, the very name, the very ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ. Notice the full title there: Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord Jesus Christ. We have trusted Him. You see, the Lord Jesus was poor and despised. He was not known as a rich person. Isaiah 53. "Who has believed our report and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For He, the Messiah, shall grow up before Him as a tender plant and as a root out of dry ground." There’s not much beauty there, is there? "He has no form nor comeliness, and when we see Him there is no beauty that we should desire Him." That's encouraging to those of us who are not handsome and beautiful. "He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and we hid as it were our faces from Him. He was despised and we did not esteem Him." He came from Nazareth. Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? He was a carpenter. He was poor.

And the Lord Jesus Christ is denied whenever we show favoritism and partiality to the rich and the important. I noticed so often in conventions. I get to speak at some of these conventions or I attend conventions. I notice how they bow down to the rich and the famous. Let some politician come in and everything stops while we roll out the red carpet. Let some ordinary servant of God who might have won hundreds of people to Jesus Christ come in, nobody pays any attention to him. We are showing partiality and we deny the Lord. He became poor and was identified with the outcast. And yet, says James, He was God's glory. "My brethren, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with partiality." You can read this, "the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glory." He is the glory of God. The glory of God dwelt in the tabernacle. The glory of God dwelt in the temple. Then God removed His glory, and His glory came down in the person of His Son. John 1:14. "We beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth."

Now He was God's glory, but that glory wasn't shining all the time. The glory of God was in the person of Jesus Christ and yet He was despised and rejected of men, and if Jesus, as He was when He was here on earth, walked into our churches today, we probably wouldn't pay much attention to Him. I read about a very famous movie star who entered a look-alike contest for himself and he came in third. Can you imagine that? The real person was there and came in third. I think if Jesus came into our churches today, the ushers would probably say, "Well, sit back here in the back seat someplace and don't bother too many people." Despised and rejected of men. Jesus did not respect persons. Even His enemies knew that. Matthew 22:16. They said, "Teacher, we know that You are true and teach the way of God in truth, nor do You care about anyone, for You do not regard the person of man." Literally, You do not look at the face of man. They knew that He did not show partiality. Some preachers do. They temper their message lest somebody be offended. They don't dare carry things too far because somebody important in the church might get hurt, and so you have compromise upon compromise, and as a consequence, we're showing favoritism and despising the Lord. He did not respect persons. He mingled with publicans and sinners. He forgave harlots. He rejected the rich young ruler. He would have gotten into our churches in record time. Surrounded Himself with fishermen. Noticed when a poor widow dropped in her offering to the Lord. He spoke to a thief on the cross. He was identified with people you and I might not want to be identified with. We deny the Lord when we show favoritism.

Secondly, we divide the church. He says here, you've shown partiality among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts. James 2:4. How’d they do that? Separating the rich from the poor. You don't build the church on income. You don't build the church on race or nationality or politics or culture. The church is built on the Lord Jesus Christ and the unity of the church is so important. Now God's church is one. God's church is not made up only of rich people or only of poor people. God's church is one church, and we are all together in Jesus Christ.

Galatians 3:28 makes this clear. "There is neither Jew nor Greek"—you can't brag about your ancestry—"neither slave nor free"—you can’t brag about your economic status, your job, your social status—"there is neither male nor female"—you can't brag about your sexuality—"for you are all one in Christ Jesus." That's the church. Paul wrote to the Ephesians and he said, "Now you maintain, you guard the unity of the church, the unity of the body." When we start showing partiality, we become judges. We look at people on the outside. We have evil motives. We say, "Well, here's a rich person, he can help with the building program. Well, this poor fellow over here, maybe we can help him a little bit by giving him a job taking out the garbage or something like that." Well, James tells us that there's no partiality with God.

Deuteronomy 16:19 makes this very clear. God says to the judges, "You shall not pervert justice, you shall not show partiality, nor take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the righteous." Here they are showing partiality to the rich, taking bribes. That goes on today, I'm sure, in some places. God does not show partiality. God is not impressed with our religion, He's not impressed with our reputation. Romans 2:6-11, Paul makes it clear that God's no respecter of persons when it comes to condemnation. Whether you're a Jew or a Gentile, righteous or unrighteous, God's no respecter of persons. We're all condemned. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

Acts 10:34, Peter makes it clear that God is not partial when it comes to salvation. Verse 34, Peter said, "In truth I perceive that God shows no partiality, but in every nation whoever fears Him and works righteousness is accepted by Him." He's describing there what happens when you're saved. God is not impressed with the fact that you're a Jew or a Gentile, a Swede or a German. God says, "I have no partiality when it comes to condemnation—all are sinners. I have no partiality when it comes to salvation—you're saved by grace." There's no partiality as far as reputation is concerned. God is not impressed with us. He sees our hearts and He judges righteously. Now our problem is we pass judgment on people, don't we? And these people are a part of the inner circle of the church, but these others, well, they're just sort of on the fringe. And what about the widows and orphans he talked about up in James 1:27? What about the poor people, James 1:9? What about the folks who aren't being paid properly? He writes about them over in James 5. When we show partiality, we deny the Lord and we divide the church.

And thirdly, we dishonor the poor. The very people that God has chosen. Verses 5 through 7. Now he's not talking about individuals here, he's talking about classes, classes of people. Here are the rich, here are the poor. He says you've shown partiality among yourselves. You've divided your church now. You've dishonored the poor. He says that down in verse 6: "You have dishonored the poor man." Now it's the rich generally as a class, he said back in that day, who sue you and who blaspheme the name of God. You know, it's possible to be poor in this world and rich in the next world, and friend, it's possible to be rich in this world and poor in the next world. God's going to reverse things. And therefore James tells us, don't dishonor the poor. Treat these people the way Jesus Christ would have treated them. We're saved by faith, not by our riches, not by our good works. And so when we show partiality, we are dishonoring the poor. We're not loving people like we should. God has chosen the poor. There are many verses that back that up. You remember what Mary said in Luke 1, her song of joy? "He has put down the mighty from their thrones, He's exalted the lowly, He's filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He's sent empty away." He's done mighty things and great things for me, said Mary. God has chosen the poor to be rich in faith, and God has chosen us all by grace, and none of us can brag about who we are or what we are. Therefore, he says, don't dishonor the poor. They're made in the image of God. Jesus became a poor man. Don't mistreat the poor. Don't divide the church. You see the consequences of showing partiality are so serious. We deny the Lord and we divide the church and we dishonor the poor, the very people for whom Jesus died.