Sermon Transcript

0:00:16.0

Well, regardless of your political philosophy or your political persuasion, you have to agree that the 2008 presidential primary season has been…well, let’s just call it interesting.  Most of the drama that I’ve witnessed and you’ve witnessed as well has taken place inside the Democratic primary.  This year it boiled down to two candidates, each of which had the opportunity to make a little history.  There was a senator from New York, and she was also a former First Lady, that if she receives her party’s nomination, she would be the first female to receive the nomination of her party for President of the United States.  Likewise, there was a senator from Illinois, an African American gentleman, who, if he receives the nomination for his party, he’d be the first black American to receive the nomination for his party as President of the United States.  It really is a remarkable time in the life of our church, regardless of whether you’re Republican, Democrat or Independent.  What’s been interesting- as I’ve been, you know, feeding my political junk food that I like to get every night- what’s been interesting in this conversation is that during the course of this primary, some people have been asking the question, “Is the country ready to elect a female president?  Is the country ready to elect a black president?”  And I’ve found that to be a very interesting question.  You know, in 2008 we’re still asking that question.  I think for the vast majority of Americans it’s much ado about nothing.  We just want the most qualified person in the office regardless of race or gender.  I think that’s what most Americans want.  I don’t care what color they are.  I don’t care what gender they are.  I just want a Commander in Chief and person in the office who can lead our country.  But this primary season and this question has really been a gut check for America.  And it has revealed some of the residual prejudice, some of the residual discrimination, some of the residual bias, respecter of persons- that’s a biblical term- that still exists in our society today.  We’ve come a long way as a nation, but it still seems like we have a little ways to go, doesn’t it?  And, again, regardless of where you are on the political map, I just find it to be a very interesting time in our country.

0:03:12.9

Now, it’s one thing for such attitudes to appear in a political race.  It’s another thing for attitudes of bias and prejudice and discrimination and being a respecter of persons to emerge in the local church, in the body of Christ, among God’s people.  And this is the subject of our study this morning from the book of James, James 2:1-13.  Now, you might’ve thought that the book of James is sort of like a Sunday stroll in the theological park.  I’ve got news for you.  This guy takes on some of the most provocative, some of the most controversial subjects, not only in the first century.  But as we read them and apply them in the 21^st century, I’m here to tell you, James is taking his finger and he’s putting it right into our chest and even poking us into the eye when he brings up this subject in James 2:1-13.  He takes his gloves off.  He dives right into the subject in verse 1.  You follow long as I read it.  James 2:1.  He says, “My brothers,” and sisters are implied here.  He’s speaking to believers.  “As believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don’t show favoritism.”  Couldn’t be any more clear than that.  We’ll talk a little bit more about what he means by favoritism, but he’s really talking about prejudice and bias and discrimination, being a respecter of persons, showing partiality on the basis of externals.  And he goes on to describe a situation that most scholars believe was probably a real situation that emerged in the early church 2000 years ago.  Remember, James was one of the leaders in the early church in Jerusalem.  He was the brother of our Lord who came to faith in Jesus Christ probably during one of Jesus’s post-resurrection appearances.  And he emerged as a leader in the early church, in the Jerusalem church.  And what he goes on to describe in verses 2-4 is a situation that probably occurred on Sunday morning or maybe on a Sabbath day during a worship service.  And James felt compelled by the Holy Spirit to address it in his letter.  Listen to this, verse 2.  “Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in.  If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” and say to the poor man, “You stand over there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet…”  Now, listen to this, “…have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?”

0:06:14.7

Now, it’s not difficult for us to imagine the particular situation that James points to here, emerging not only in the local church in the first century, but perhaps even in a modern day church.  One scholar named Barclay writes, “In its early stages, the church was predominantly poor and humble.  And therefore, if a rich man was converted and did come to the Christian fellowship, there must have been a very real temptation to make a fuss of him and to treat him as a special trophy for Christ.”  It’s not hard for us to imagine that, is that?  A person walks into the assembly of a church that is, up to that point, mostly poor and humble.  This guy is dressed in fine clothing.  He’s got bling bling all over his hands and all over his neck.  He’s dressed in a designer suit.  And the ushers and the leaders of the church say, “Oh, sir, welcome this morning.  Come, sit right here.  We have a special seat for you.”  Maybe they imagine that this particular person could put a nice check in the offering plate.  They begin to pander to him.  They begin to show him special attention, special privilege.  They ask him to serve on the elder board, be the president of this class, be a community coach.  You know, we just want to use this guy here.  Likewise that same day, a rather poor person walks into the church dressed in shabby clothing.  He got his suit at the thrift store, okay.  The only thing going bling on him is the gold in his teeth, okay.  He obviously is not a person of means.  And they say, “Why don’t you take a seat at the back of the bus…or, I mean the back of the auditorium?  Why don’t you sit here at my feet so I can walk all over you?”  No privileged position.  No special attention.  Because, hey, this guy dressed in shabby clothing.  What can he or she do for me, was the attitude.  This was something perhaps that happened 2000 years go in a worship service similar to this.  And James says…he fires off this letter to believers in the Lord Jesus Christ.  And he says, friends, brothers and sisters, this is inconsistent with what it means to be a follower of our glorious Lord Jesus Christ.  One scholar would say all earthly distinctions- black, white, male, female, rich, poor; even in the context of the first century, slave and master- all of those distinctions externally disappear in the presence of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Or as somebody said so eloquently years ago, “The ground is level at the foot of the cross.”  All of those distinctions disappear.

0:09:04.7

Now, what does James means by “favoritism”.  This is the particular word that he uses.  It’s an interesting word from the ancient language.  It literally means “to receive the face”.  And in a positive sense, the word had a history of meaning, you know, kind of to receive something at face value.  You see the external value of it.  You see it at face value, and you receive something or someone based upon what you see in the face, the external part of him.  And as the term began to mature, it took on a negative connotation.  And it meant to show partiality on the basis of external appearances.  To be biased, we would say.  We use terms like bias, discrimination, prejudice, snobbery, elitism, looking down on another person.  James says don’t do this.  That may happen somewhere out in the political realm.  It may happen in the office in which you work.  It may happen in the neighborhood in which you live.  But when you step inside the body of Christ, or when the body of Christ goes out into the community and into the neighborhoods, this sort of attitude of favoritism, this partiality, this respecter of persons, this bias, this prejudice, this discrimination should have no place in the body of Christ.  None whatsoever.  Don’t show favoritism, James says.

0:10:30.6

Now, we show favoritism or can show favoritism in a variety of ways.  There are just numerous ways that we can do this.  Race, religion, age, gender.  Those are kind of at the forefront of our conversations often in our culture today. What about on the basis of education?  There is an intellectual elitism that flows through the veins of some people.  Have you ever met them?  They can’t wait to find out where you went to school.  And if it isn’t a prep school or some kind of Ivy League this or that…I mean, if you bought yourself some discount knowledge from the junior college, you’re just not in their social status.  I got that line from a country western song this week.  It was great.  I was longing for a little Texas, and I tuned into the country western station.  This guy is singing about my discount knowledge from the junior college. That’s great.  Where you got your knowledge…I’m not talking about an employment application, all right.  But I’m talking about social status.  It doesn’t matter, does it?  Whether you went to the community college this or the Ivy League that or somewhere in between.  We discriminate on the basis of politics.  We size people up.  Are you a red state person or blue state person?  I understand the political philosophy and the moral arguments and all of that.  We should leave that at the door of the church, in some respects.  Not that we don’t speak into matters of world view and all of that, but to shun somebody or to size them up because they might have a different political view…how are you going to win somebody Christ?  Are you only going to reach the Republicans or the Democrats or the Independents?  No, the ground is level at the foot of the cross.  How about in the military?  Rank, officer versus enlisted.  Is there any discrimination there?  Any attitudes…we’re really talking about attitude here.  Attitude of favoritism or prejudice or so forth.  This is what James says.  My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don’t do this.  Let’s eradicate the residue of our fallen-ness, which is evidenced in this discrimination and this bias and this sizing up of one another on the basis of externals.  Because God doesn’t do that.

0:13:09.9

There is certainly a difference…since James talks about the rich/poor thing, let me just comment here.  There’s a difference between showing favoritism to the wealthy in a church and ministering to the wealthy.  This is a really tricky thing for a pastor, I want you to know, because people can get a little nervous about the pastor spending too much time with “wealthy people”.  And you don’t want to cross the line and show favoritism in any kind of way.  But, at the same time, we don’t want to miss the opportunity to minister to the wealthy.  I’ve said for a number of years, we need to minister to the up-and-outers as much as we do the down-and-outers.  And I have found that wealthy people have unique spiritual needs.  Paul says in I Timothy, people who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin.  People who are on that path or have wealth or are on the fast track to getting it, we need to be able to step into their unique environment and their lives and minister to them without showing favoritism, okay.  And I’m fully aware of the fine line between that.  But I just wanted to make that distinction this morning.

0:14:34.0

Now, James goes on in his argument to talk about what I categorize as the foolishness of favoritism.  And I use the word “foolishness” because James, remember, is New Testament wisdom literature.  It has a kinship to the Old Testament wisdom literature of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes and Job and Song of Solomon, and the New Testament wisdom literature of the Sermon on the Mount.  Wisdom literature says, more often than not, this is the wise way; this is the foolish way. James is arguing for the foolishness of favoritism in four different ways here as we work out way through the rest of the text.  First, he would say it’s foolish because it says we are evil judges.  Go back to verse 4 with me.  After James describes the situation, he says, “Have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges,” he says, “with evil thoughts?”  Judges with evil thoughts.  Here is James taking his finger and poking our chest with it.  Poking us in the eye, as it were.  He’s taking the gloves off and saying, listen, folks, this attitude of favoritism, this attitude of discrimination is wrong.  It’s evil; it’s evil.  And that word evil is a stinger, isn’t it?  You wake up a little bit.  When President Bush labeled some rogue nations in our world as part of the “axis of evil”, he got criticized.  I suspect James might have gotten a little bit of criticism.  Say, wait a minute, James, you’re coming on a little bit too strong here to say we are evil judges.  But that’s the word he uses here.  Any form of discrimination in any way, shape, or form based upon externals- black, white, rich, poor, male, female; whatever it might be- he says is evil.  And I wonder if James might have had the words of Jesus in mind found in His sermon that He delivered on a mountainside in Matthew 6, 7, and 8.  Matthew 7:1 says, “Do not judge or you will be judged too.  For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged.  And the measure you use it, it will be measured to you.”  When we show favoritism, when we are partial, when we are respecters of persons, discriminatory, biased, prejudiced; if any of that residue remains in us, we are evil judges, James says.

0:17:11.7

Secondly, he says it’s foolish because it is spiritually irrational.  Listen to his argument as he goes on.  Verse 5, “Listen,” he says, “my dear brothers.”  And sisters are implied here.  It’s interesting he tells us to listen up.  Last week he told us to be quick to hear.  So now he assumes we have our ears on.  He wants us to listen.  He wants us to lean into this and listen carefully.  “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?  ⁶ But you have insulted the poor.  Is it not the rich who are exploiting you?  Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court?  ⁷ Are they not the ones who are slandering the noble name of him to whom you belong?”  He says, listen, friend, if you’re going to show favoritism or partiality on the basis of rich and poor, let me tell you something.  God has a special place in His heart for the poor.  And the poor are spiritually advantaged to a certain extent in that they understand their deep need for the saving grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.  They get on board with that right away ‘cause they don’t have much in this world.  The wealthy…and he’s generalizing here…the wealthy, on the other hand, don’t see their need as readily.  They trust in their own wealth.  They trust in their own resources.  They trust in their education and their influence and their…the ways they can work their way through society.  It’s the “haves” and the “have nots”.  If you have not in this society, well, God takes the gospel to the poor, doesn’t He? Not at the exclusion of the wealthy, but Jesus was the one who said it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven.  Why is that?  Because we get so caught up in our riches, (0:19:00.1) don’t we?  It was Jesus who said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  Even if you have great wealth, your entrance into the kingdom heaven- my entrance into the kingdom of heaven- comes through a poverty of spirit.  An acknowledgement that, though I may be wealthy with the material things of this life, apart from Christ I am spiritually bankrupt, poor in spirit.  And God seems to enter into a relationship with the person who has that attitude.  And James says it is completely irrational that you would pander to the wealthy, the very ones who are exploiting you, the very ones who are dragging you into court, the very ones that are slandering the noble name of Him to whom you belong.  He says this is just irrational.  Don’t do it.

0:19:55.3

Now, that’s not to say that God is a reverse-discriminator, and He, (0:20:00.0) you know, puts down the wealthy and, you know, just hangs out with the poor.  But if we are wealthy…and I would say every one of us is in this room.  You know, wealth begins where my income ends.  You know how that goes.  But relative to the rest of the world, every one of us in this room that has a house over our head and two cars in the garage and three meals a day, we are the wealthy.  Whether we are spiritually poor in spirit, that will have a lot to say whether or not God can enter into an intimate relationship with us and we with Him.  He has a special place in His heart for the poor.  I might say it this way.  There is a reversal of portion awaiting the poor in this world who are rich toward God and will find untold treasures for them in heaven.  Let me say that again.  The poor in this world who are rich toward God will find untold treasures waiting for them in heaven.  That’s not to say that the wealthy in this world cannot be rich toward God.  They certainly can.  But you’ve got to be poor in spirit.  You’ve got to acknowledge your spiritual bankruptcy.  

0:21:12.6

So this idea of favoritism, this attitude of bias, is foolish because it makes us evil judges.  It is spiritually irrational.  Thirdly, it shows we don’t love our neighbor.  Read on beginning in verse 8.  And James is just getting warmed up here.  He says, “⁸ If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, which is ‘Love your neighbor as yourself,’ you are doing right.  ⁹ But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers.”  Man, again he pulls no punches here.  “¹⁰ For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.  ¹¹ For he who said, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ also said, ‘Do not murder.’  If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker.”  Now, he appeals to the royal law.  What was the royal law?  Well, it was based upon a conversation Jesus had with a religious attorney who came to Him and said, “What’s the greatest commandment?” Remember that conversation in the Gospels?  And Jesus said the greatest commandment…and as He gave this, He was summarizing the totality of the law, starting with the Decalogue in the Old Testament, the Ten Commandments.  He says if you want to fulfill the law, if you want to fulfill all of the commandments, the greatest commandment is to love God with all of your heart, soul, and mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself.  If you do that, you get an A+.  You’ve fulfilled the law.  You’ve fulfilled the righteous requirements of the law.  Now, nobody has done that perfectly but Jesus Christ.  Every one of us fails.  That’s why we need the cross.  That’s why we need the saving grace of our glorious Lord Jesus Christ.  But James would say that, if we show favoritism, if we pander, if we’re biased, if we’re prejudicial, if we’re discriminatory, if we’re a respecter of persons, then what we’re really saying is we don’t love our neighbor as much as we think we do.  

0:23:13.0

Now, I was thinking about this this week as…I wish I was this smart to think about launching community life and this passage at the same time.  But I’m not that smart, but God is far more providential.  Here we are launching community life on Sunday, June 15th, and here we are in this passage.  And, friends, the whole notion of community life is to take the gospel from the church campus out to the community in a grassroots, geographical kind of way that bubbles up from our neighborhoods.  That we begin connecting with our neighbors, sharing the love of Jesus with our neighbors.  Building relationship of integrity with our neighbors.  And here’s the thing that I think we’ll run into.  You may have a neighbor and I may have a neighbor that we say, you know, I don’t know that I want to connect with this person.  This person is kind of strange.  In fact, this person has a different color skin than I do.  This person comes from a different culture than I come from.  These folks just view life different than I do.  And we begin to size people up.  And the wheels of community life begin to fall off because all we do is create holy little huddles out in our neighborhoods and communities rather than connecting with the world around us and sharing the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.  I think today is a day to pray, “Oh, God, look inside my heart and fill it with the royal law.  I want to love You with all of my heart, my soul, and my mind.  And, God, give me a love for my neighbor just as I love myself.”  

0:24:53.4

James would elevate favoritism to the status of adulterer, murderer.  Did you see the comparison to the Ten Commandments in the text?  This guy is serious.  But I believe the best for Immanuel.  I don’t see vestiges of this at Immanuel.  This place is becoming a wonderfully multiethnic body of believers.  And I say way to go, Immanuel.  I talk to the leaders of the church, and they say, “Man, compared to where we were five, six, maybe seven years ago, God is bringing a diversity of culture, skin color, and other things to this church that are wonderful.”  As together we come under the authority of scripture and worship the Lord and Spirit Jesus Christ, now let’s take this out into the community and love our neighbors in ways that we have perhaps never dreamed before.  It’s gonna require the Spirit of God coming inside us and transforming our hearts in new and fresh ways.  But I think it’s gonna be an exciting time.

0:26:03.2

James says, fourth and finally, this idea of favoritism is foolish because it reveals an unmerciful heart.  Verse 12, “¹² Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom.”  Now, this is verbiage that we’re familiar with in James now.  He’s a “speaking out” kind of guy.  He’s a “faith in action” kind of guy.  He talked about last week this law that gives freedom, the law of liberty.  “¹² Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, ¹³ because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful.”  And then he says, “Mercy triumphs over judgment.”  I wonder again if he had the words of his brother, now his Savior, Jesus in mind.  Matthew 5:8, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy.”  It’s an interesting kind of tit for tat there, isn’t it?  You want the mercy of God in your life?  And mercy is not deserving what you do deserve.  Grace is receiving what you don’t deserve, but mercy is the reverse of that.  It’s not receiving the judgment that you do deserve.  We all deserve Hell.  We all deserve judgment.  But God’s great clemency plan was the cross of Jesus Christ.  And the wrath and the judgment of God was satisfied at the cross.  That’s where, ultimately, mercy triumphed over judgment for the believer.  But as a believer, don’t confuse the condemnation of God, which is no longer aimed at us.  Romans 12:1, “There is now therefore no condemnation to those who are in Christ.”  Your sins have been washed.  God’s anger toward our sins has been satisfied at the cross.  But believers will go through a judgment.  It’s called the Bema Seat, the judgment seat of Christ.  And maybe that’s the judgment that James has in view here, where, as believers in Christ, we will be measured by the works that we have done in this world.  Maybe God will say, hey, how well did you do in taking the church to the community, to your neighbor?  And He will measure it based on gold, silver, and precious stone- good job- or wood, hay, and stubble- and it will burn up for all of eternity.  James says here, “Judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful.”  When we show favoritism, when we are prejudicial, discriminatory, there is a sense in which it reveals an unmerciful heart toward another person and how inconsistent that is with believers in Jesus Christ who have received the mercy of God, is what he is saying.

0:28:53.5

It’s a tough message.  It’s no theological stroll on a Sunday afternoon through the park.  It’s a finger in the chest, isn’t it?  And James would tell us, rather than playing favorites with people, let’s play fair.  Whatever that means, as the external differences between us disappear at the foot of the cross and at the door of the church, even as the church goes into the community, what a wonderful picture of what God intended for his people to do and how He intended His people to live.  Let’s pray together.

0:29:35.2

Father, thank You so much for Your Word.  Thank You for James.  Thank You for preserving this text of scripture for us.  And, boy, how timely it is.  The residual effects of our fallenness, Father, still threaten to make us respecters of persons.  And I pray that that would never be true of us here at Immanuel Bible Church.  Oh, may we be “royal law” kinds of people, loving you with all of our heart, with all of our mind, and loving our neighbors as ourselves.  Father, if You were writing a letter to us today, I pray that You would never have to write one like James wrote to his audience in the first century.  That there would never be a situation emerge- whether it’s rich, poor, black, white, male, female, whatever it is- to where favoritism could be placed upon us.  But just the opposite, Father.  May this be a place we’re consistent with what it means to be a believer in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ.  That external distinctions disappear.  Where the ground truly is level at the foot of the cross.  Where the general stands next to the private.  Where the African American stands next to the Asian American and the Hispanic American and the white American.  Where men and women worship Jesus Christ together.  Where the educated and the uneducated feel welcome.  Where rich and poor feel welcome alike as well.  And, Father, give us a taste of heaven and a taste of what James was aiming for in this place.  And, Father, for anybody who is here today who has yet to be called a brother and sister in Christ- they’re still waiting for whatever reason to receive the glorious grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.  God, would you touch their hearts today?  Give them a sense of urgency that today, this moment, is a day of salvation, to open up their hearts to Christ and say yes to Him.  And I pray this in Jesus’s name, amen.

0:32:18.6