James 2:1-13 - Partiality

[SPEAKER_00]: Good to see you all here this morning.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just a couple of opening announcements.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thoughts one.

[SPEAKER_00]: Don and Sharon are under the weather.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're fine.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're on the mend, but they've got a bit of a cold.

[SPEAKER_00]: So tonight's creation class will be canceled.

[SPEAKER_00]: We'll remind you can at the end of the service.

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't show up here because they won't be here to leave the session.

[SPEAKER_00]: So don't miss that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And also, please be in prayer, Matt and I are on our way this evening down to Houston Texas to take part in the Chafer Conference where I am a board member at Chafer Theological Seminary.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have a lot of important discussions and decisions.

[SPEAKER_00]: We could use your prayer for safety and travel.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sweetness of fellowship is always the case, as well as encouragement as we go along the way to keep our eyes fixed on Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's such a blessing that you send us to that we get to as a part of the ministry of this church.

[SPEAKER_00]: Contribute to the edification and equipment of pastors and church leaders at Chafer, as well as being able to be involved in the great sweet ministry there.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you're interested in following a long or confirming that we really are there, you can live stream it, just type in Chaffer Conference on your search engine, Chaffer Conference 2026, and there will be live stream links at Deanbibleministries.com.

[SPEAKER_00]: So please, a value yourself of that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some of our favorite people are presenting this year that we've known and been close to, including E. Dane Rogers and Paul Miles, as well as Morgan Arnold and various other important, oh, and of course, Pastor Dennis Rocksers doing the keynote in the evening sessions.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, for some come for all, and you'll probably see the back of my head and Matt's head.

[SPEAKER_00]: But please do be praying for us in that, and thank you for supporting that ministry through sending us.

[SPEAKER_00]: And with that, we go to our study in the book of James.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's open with word of prayer.

[SPEAKER_00]: Heavenly Father, we thank you and we praise you for the great gift of your love, of your life, we truth.

[SPEAKER_00]: We thank you for that truth as it works its way out in our lives as believers.

[SPEAKER_00]: Please, O Lord, be glorified in this small church family.

[SPEAKER_00]: Be with us and encourage us to live in a quads with your grace and truth.

[SPEAKER_00]: We praise you and thank you for all these things.

[SPEAKER_00]: In Jesus' name, Amen.

[SPEAKER_00]: So many of us will have seen the show Undercover Boss or something like it, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: There's various different ways in which an YouTube channel that have been dedicated to this, you know, these iterations, even John Christ did an undercover senior pastor, skit that was really hilarious if you want to look that up.

[SPEAKER_00]: I won't show it here because I'm not sure what the rules are about showing such things.

[SPEAKER_00]: But

[SPEAKER_00]: It reminded me of the concept, first of all, it was very important if you didn't already understand it.

[SPEAKER_00]: You take a boss, you dress him up, you disguise him, and he gets to see what the employees are actually saying and what is actually getting done, you know, kind of a land, you know, lands I view.

[SPEAKER_00]: of what is going on within his company.

[SPEAKER_00]: What Dickens had this same idea already in his wonderful book, our mutual friend, one of his later novels, in which a person fakes his own death spoiler alert in order to

[SPEAKER_00]: examine or seek after certain elements of a fortune that he was about to receive.

[SPEAKER_00]: So in an odd twist rather than just accepting the fortune, he works it out so that someone also will receive the fortune and he can live as a servant in their house to figure out the character of certain people surrounding, particularly his would-be bride.

[SPEAKER_00]: So really a fun novel, really an enjoyable read as it works through, but it gets this idea of

[SPEAKER_00]: of the boss, nobody knew that this boss who is actually, by, according to the plan that they'd set being terribly treated by the master of the house, but he was really the one who would finally be revealed to be in charge of everything.

[SPEAKER_00]: So in the undercover boss show, right, they get together and hear what the boss has to say and at the end of the show or the video or whatever it is it always says, the boss says, I've learned a lot and that I didn't know about my company and how we can improve and then promptly fires everybody the next day.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the main point of today's message is that spiritual maturity is revealed, not created revealed by how weak treat people who cannot elevate our status.

[SPEAKER_00]: Spiritual maturity is revealed by how we treat people who cannot elevate our status.

[SPEAKER_00]: That could be in terms of our social status, our financial status, or even just our emotional state feeling a little bit better.

[SPEAKER_00]: And what James is pointing out today is that a mature Christian individual and a mature Christian family is going to have this unexpected characteristic or at least uncommon

[SPEAKER_00]: characteristic in human society.

[SPEAKER_00]: We are deeply dedicated to our own selfishness, to our own cause.

[SPEAKER_00]: We identify with people very naturally who are going to contribute to something, at least in our mind or in potential, contribute to something in our lives or make us richer, wealthier,

[SPEAKER_00]: If it's just getting to stand next to someone who looks good, you feel like you can gain something by association and likewise, standing with someone who looks unclean on camped or in some way not put together, we feel like kind of drags us down by association.

[SPEAKER_00]: So James is challenging us to totally rethink

[SPEAKER_00]: the social structure and actions of our lives.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is a profound ask.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is a huge lift.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is not, as we might be tempted to read it, a set of superficial changes in, instead of doing this, I do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is a total overhaul of how you're thinking.

[SPEAKER_00]: Ben already mentioned to me that 13 verses is a lot, particularly for me to cover, but don't worry, as he pointed out, I have a plane to catch this evening, so you're not going to be here too long.

[SPEAKER_00]: Nevertheless, we're going to look at this, I wanted to look at this as one argument because it is one big argument that I would argue is in about five cycles, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: And these five cycles continue to make deeper and wider and broader the impact of this point.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because if James just said, hey, treat poor people better,

[SPEAKER_00]: Then we would not understand the gravity of this issue.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is a theological issue, it is a personal issue, and it is an issue of the glory of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is not just a, oh, maybe we'll get better at that.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's not not very good at that.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is a core and central expression of the faith and the glory of God and the way that he wants to be glorified.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we're going to look in the first verse at Christ's glory, verses human glory, or end human glory, in verses two through four, the exposure, favoritism, and how it reveals the heart, five through seven,

[SPEAKER_00]: We'll look at God's value system, eight through 11, we'll discuss the Royal Law and finally in 12 through 13, the issue of real judgment or judgment that matters.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, moving right along Christ's glory and human glory, will you please read with me?

[SPEAKER_00]: My brethren, to not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory with partiality.

[SPEAKER_00]: How many were partiality and how many were partiality?

[SPEAKER_00]: how many syllables are supposed to be there?

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, so Christ's glory and human glory is our first discussion.

[SPEAKER_00]: James, again, opens up with this family language.

[SPEAKER_00]: I keep emphasizing this and highlighting this because it is so important to the theme of the book.

[SPEAKER_00]: James is not talking to people who he doesn't know if their believers are not, but hopes there are.

[SPEAKER_00]: He is talking to people who he knows personally.

[SPEAKER_00]: He knows the character and quality of their faith, both the challenges and the growth edges and the advantages.

[SPEAKER_00]: He is there to make people who he knows to be born again believers, his brothers and sisters in Christ grow in the faith.

[SPEAKER_00]: So this is something that will hopefully never overlook as we're reading, James is saying, you, brothers and sisters of mine, you spiritually born again, you representatives in the body of Christ learn to live and grow in the way that we're meant to.

[SPEAKER_00]: And, as we point out, again and again, this means that there is a potential in your life in every Christian's life.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're saved, you've trusted Christ, but you are going to make the choice daily, whether you walk with Christ, and that's what makes all the difference.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can be a Christian who lives up to the full potential that God is one for you and is son and provided for you, or you can be a Christian who chooses to go about your own purposes, thoughts, designs, and desires.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's a legitimate possibility in the Christian life.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it is important to James.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is important to every biblical author.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is important to me as your pastor is important to you, hopefully for each other and for your children, that you choose to walk and grow in Christ, because it makes all the difference in the quality of our lives and the quality of eternity and the value that we for which we've been created to bring glory to God.

[SPEAKER_00]: So then he attaches this stunning title to Christ, this idea of the Lord calling him the Lord of Glory.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, this is a huge and weighty phrase that is being pulled upon, that is, I believe, being pulled from Psalm 24.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is one of the Psalms that I believe we're looking at in our Psalms series on Wednesday nights, not this week, but next.

[SPEAKER_00]: But come this week, because it's Psalm 23 if memory serves.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then, yeah, this won't be after that.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is an important part in the Trilogy, the Christological Trilogy of Psalms of 2223 and 24.

[SPEAKER_00]: these three Psalms, give us pictures of Jesus Christ, the suffering savior, Jesus Christ, the good shepherd, and Jesus Christ, the triumphant king.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that is absolutely what we look forward to.

[SPEAKER_00]: The returning reign and triumph and victory of Christ is not some abstract, spiritualized thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is actual, literal, and we look forward to it.

[SPEAKER_00]: to this day.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Psalm 24 is, I believe, written to be read understood as a, as a, as an tiffinol song.

[SPEAKER_00]: In other words, it's got calls and answers.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we're going to do a little exercise.

[SPEAKER_00]: You get to participate.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're always participating when we're doing this, but you get to participate today.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm going to read the bold parts and you're going to read the unbolted parts.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to give you no helper guidance at all.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're just going to see how this shakes out.

[SPEAKER_00]: And hopefully you can see how this antifinal method of being made or being written has such a powerful effect in giving this picture of Jesus Christ, the triumphant king.

[SPEAKER_00]: So here we go.

[SPEAKER_00]: The earth is the Lord's and all its fullness.

[SPEAKER_00]: For he has founded it upon the seas.

[SPEAKER_00]: Who may ascend to the hill of the Lord?

[SPEAKER_00]: who he who has clean hands in a pure heart.

[SPEAKER_00]: He shall receive blessing from the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is Jacob, the generation of those who seek him.

[SPEAKER_00]: Lift up your heads, O you gates.

[SPEAKER_00]: Who is this king of glory?

[SPEAKER_00]: Lift up your heads.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, you gates.

[SPEAKER_00]: Who is this king of glory?

[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for participating in that exercise of shared scripture reading.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hopefully you saw exactly how that saw was designed to function.

[SPEAKER_00]: Person asking questions in the community, shouting back the answer.

[SPEAKER_00]: He is the king of glory.

[SPEAKER_00]: Be up adoring and bring glory to and praise and honor to him and to his name.

[SPEAKER_00]: For us, this is a maybe difficult picture to get into our heads.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, generally speaking, when we think of someone rising or ascending to power, we might think of a presidential inauguration.

[SPEAKER_00]: And essentially, that seems to be a bunch of people standing outside on a cold winter day.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, half the people in the nation go, man, you really like it very much.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of an obnoxious way to celebrate the Ascendants to power, but when Jesus Christ arrives in glory and victory, there will be no dissenting voices, but a world responding in righteous praise and glory to all that he is and all that he brings to the hope and peace and life that he brings with him in his wake and in his train, and we get to be a part of singing and declaring that glory, that's what James is drawing on here.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's saying, that's real glory, that is the real thing, that should fill your eyes and your imagination as you look forward to and think about what's going on in this life.

[SPEAKER_00]: James is intentionally contrasting the eternal radiant glory of Christ and the fading and borrowed glory of human status.

[SPEAKER_00]: partiality means here receiving the face.

[SPEAKER_00]: In other words, judging on appearances alone, he says, don't hold, don't walk and live in your faith in the glory of the king of glory by looking at the fading glory, the fading appearances of superficial man, mankind.

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't judge based upon what you see eternally.

[SPEAKER_00]: You cannot, in consistency, cling to the faith of the glorious Christ, while borrowing the glory of men, while being, or bowing to the glory of men, while being obsessed with, or impressed with, the glory of men.

[SPEAKER_00]: Favoritism is fundamentally a glory problem.

[SPEAKER_00]: It reveals that we're impressed by what someone is.

[SPEAKER_00]: We want to look up to someone.

[SPEAKER_00]: We want to fancy someone as being better, smarter, better looking, more attractive, more valuable in human eyes.

[SPEAKER_00]: Isn't that really what our financial or monetary system is really all about to try to reward the people who are most valuable and say, you are the most important person.

[SPEAKER_00]: So you get the most money.

[SPEAKER_00]: You are the least important person.

[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, you get the least money or your job or your, your, your,

[SPEAKER_00]: Function is not as important as that person and so on and so forth, whether it's certainly an imperfect system But we note here that James is calling us to a new way to see and evaluate Humanity not in relationship one to another, but in relationship to the eternal and enduring glory of God is expressed in the person of Jesus Christ

[SPEAKER_00]: And thus let that dictate how we treat and view one another as humans on this planet.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have to shrink our view terribly in order to be impressed with a human being.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's just like there's a wonderful website because I think there's something the effect of, I can do everything better than your stupid kid.

[SPEAKER_00]: And basically says, hey, look at your stupid three-year-olds drawing.

[SPEAKER_00]: I could do a way better drawing than that.

[SPEAKER_00]: What's the big deal?

[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, look at how your kid can do math.

[SPEAKER_00]: I do math way better than your kid is a ridiculous silly statement, but it is true.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're only impressed with people based upon the expectations that we put around them.

[SPEAKER_00]: In other words, the smaller the scope, the more impressed if you become.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, we get impressed and obsessed with one another, whether that's celebrities or politicians, people with money, power, influence, or some kind of ability, only because we are blind to the glories of heaven.

[SPEAKER_00]: And once we become enamored with Christ, his holiness and his glory, we will be less swayed or interested in human glory, and in fact become interested in others because of the value placed upon them by Jesus Christ at the cross.

[SPEAKER_00]: a love conditioned on his value of them rather than conditioned on the value that they might present to us.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, as we run through this first very brief verse, it sets the tone for everything else.

[SPEAKER_00]: Does someone's presence in the room change how you behave?

[SPEAKER_00]: Someone shows up and, you know, like, does your language and behavior change when your mom walks in the room?

[SPEAKER_00]: When someone is famous walks in the room, I hope not, but maybe it does.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you listen more carefully when someone in the lunch will speak?

[SPEAKER_00]: Then when someone who is deemed being less important, do you feel more honored, grading one person in church or being greeted by one person church than by another?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a tragic reality, you know, if you've owned chickens or seen chickens, there's a thing called a pecking order.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's where the most valued bird for whatever reason that they have in their tiny internal chicken brain gets to be at the top of the heap and get the best of things.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the one at the bottom usually gets pecked to death, finally dying as the bottom of the pecking order.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're not all that different in our sinful humanity.

[SPEAKER_00]: And probably, you have attempted at least as I am to think about where am I at on the pecking order here at our church in our church family.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as it incumbent upon each of us to uproot that thinking entirely, there is no pecking order within the context of the church.

[SPEAKER_00]: There are offices and there are functions for people to serve the church, not for their glory for God's glory.

[SPEAKER_00]: There is authority to be exercised in a gracious and Christlike manner and a servant manner within the church for certain.

[SPEAKER_00]: But the idea.

[SPEAKER_00]: of a social pecking, or in other words, I got this theory that we all went to middle school and it was the worst time in our lives.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we hate ourselves so much that we just keep trying to recreate that middle school lunchroom over and over again, whether it's a work or at home or in our neighborhood, trying to figure out, well, I'm not as popular as that person, but I'm more popular than that person.

[SPEAKER_00]: People, and you know what makes me better than them is.

[SPEAKER_00]: Christ invites you, James invites you to completely scrap that way of thinking, to cease entirely from the action of trying to size yourself up in relationship to others.

[SPEAKER_00]: And even more importantly, excuse you from having to decide which people are worth talking to, and which people aren't worthy of your time or my time.

[SPEAKER_00]: maturity means Christ glory governs our behavior, not human prestige.

[SPEAKER_00]: When we look at one another, do we see our friends who look like us and our enemies who look different than us in any way shape or form?

[SPEAKER_00]: Or do we see people for whom Christ died and longs for us to also love and support and encourage within the context of our church family?

[SPEAKER_00]: So moving from the glory discussion that sets the whole thing, I told you we'd be moving quickly enough that you won't be here all day.

[SPEAKER_00]: James, two, two, through, four, if you can read this, please read along with me.

[SPEAKER_00]: For if there should come into your assembly, a man with cold rings, in fine apparel, and there should also come in a poor man in filthy clothes.

[SPEAKER_00]: 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.

[SPEAKER_00]: So now James being a good teacher and a sermon giver, in fact, this is just a wonderful sermon that was read in the early church with regularity.

[SPEAKER_00]: But he gives this case study, he gives this example of what would happen.

[SPEAKER_00]: A wealthy man walks into church.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, how do you know is wealthy?

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you know, it's interesting over time.

[SPEAKER_00]: There are different ways in which we signify wealth.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, we even have things called status symbols.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a thing that you might have only to impress or primarily, to impress others.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we're very sensitive about where to look.

[SPEAKER_00]: Are we, we know exactly which clothes are expensive or stylish and which clothes are unstilish or uncool

[SPEAKER_00]: or betray our poverty or whatever it is.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're incredibly sensitive to these types of things as they were in the ancient world.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, there is a difference is that culturally speaking, especially in the first century world, no one would be ashamed of being rich.

[SPEAKER_00]: It would be, you were thought, the gods were happy with you or God was happier with you because you were rich.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if you were poor, it was something defect in you.

[SPEAKER_00]: impact of Christianity, and Western cultures affected that, along with a lot of other cultural elements that we haven't the time or I haven't the expertise to discuss, but nevertheless, the reality is that even in a culture that does not necessarily value people walking around rich.

[SPEAKER_00]: or trying to look rich, we still have this reality wherein we are sensitive to who's together, who's cool, and who is not together by our assessment.

[SPEAKER_00]: So in this time, this ring would be an absolute sign of nobility, of position, and security, and society, and the clothes would be a sign of status and wealth.

[SPEAKER_00]: In other words, you wanted everybody to know that you were worthy of their honor,

[SPEAKER_00]: worthy of their respect and everybody should listen to you because you're rich and then if you imagine Right this is rich man enters the church the house because there was house church at this time So they enters the house and everyone's so glad to see you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, sir come in please falling all over themselves To make sure that he feels welcome and comfortable after all He's accustomed to a higher standard of living than we are

[SPEAKER_00]: And then a poor beggar comes in, shabby clothes at the same entrance, same gathering, but receives entirely different treatment, probably smelling a little bit off if not entirely disgusting.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we'll just set you quietly over here.

[SPEAKER_00]: James explains, have you not made distinctions among yourself and become judges with evil thought?

[SPEAKER_00]: See, this is the negative side of the coin of human judgment is that we are going to judge people based upon how they are attractive to us.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that basically means again, as stated, how they might benefit us.

[SPEAKER_00]: What do I get out of this?

[SPEAKER_00]: How do I look better by standing next to this person than this other person?

[SPEAKER_00]: And James condemns this as evil thoughts, which could be translated, corrupted reasoning.

[SPEAKER_00]: think about that for a minute.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can tell why you don't like standing next to this person because of how they look or how on coup they are and how they act, how they smell, how they're socially awkward or difficult to do with.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can make those judgments and defend them from some sort of atheistic corrupted viewpoint and saying it's not

[SPEAKER_00]: Good for me to be associated with you.

[SPEAKER_00]: We see these kinds of social politics happening at the lowest levels in every school, high school, social situation at the bottom of our lives.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it comes all the way through to our adult lives where people select very carefully, those with whom they will associate and those with whom they won't because of the great legitimate understand importance of social standing, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's not pretend like that's not a thing it exists there are people who get better jobs because they're connected to the right people because they were able to identify and stand in the right circles.

[SPEAKER_00]: in a society being associated with the wrong sort of people can cost you money, it could cost you convenience, it could cost you even your life.

[SPEAKER_00]: There are legitimate reasons from a human perspective as to why we select very carefully who we want to associate with and who we want to put out of the circle and James is saying

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a wrong way to think about people.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not the way God wants us to think about people.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not the way God thinks about people.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it's important.

[SPEAKER_00]: in my thinking that we continue to understand why this is a problem because it's so easy to say, oh, yeah, absolutely, we're going to be nice to the poor people.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah, we're going to be nice to the people who are different than us or difficult for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah, no, no, we would never do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we can lie to ourselves until the actual thing comes up and then we situation comes up and then we can say, well, that was an exception.

[SPEAKER_00]: But if you can challenge your thinking to truly see people, if we can challenge our thinking, to truly

[SPEAKER_00]: and will come to a better perspective and thus be able to show the love and glory of Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: So this may be for us about the wealthy person or the poor person.

[SPEAKER_00]: That certainly is still a meaningful thing as a great Eric Clapton saying, right, poor people.

[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody knows you when you're down and out.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what it is.

[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody knows you.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's short people have no reason to live.

[SPEAKER_00]: Poor, which I take personally.

[SPEAKER_00]: But poor, nobody knows you when you're down and out, as the song goes.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it doesn't have to look that way.

[SPEAKER_00]: I can look like well-educated versus uneducated, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: People thinking that they're of just a different cut because of a level of education or academic achievement.

[SPEAKER_00]: How about good looking versus unattractive?

[SPEAKER_00]: Right?

[SPEAKER_00]: We so quickly settle and sort everybody based upon their physical attractiveness.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that might work out in your favor and that might not work out in your favor, but the reality is is that we are all at least at risk of judging people based upon that, valuing the good looking and the less attractive or physically unhealthy to put push back from.

[SPEAKER_00]: What about youth versus the elderly, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: We all, especially in today's world, everybody wants the young, the perfectly right age, young, spokesperson, or representative, or to identify themselves with youth and vitality.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we can easily begin to view folks under that same metric.

[SPEAKER_00]: and we live in a culture that is tragically as disrespectful as any culture has ever been towards the elderly, as impatient as any culture has ever been towards the elderly, and tragically not valuing the wisdom that they bring, and we are suffering for that certainly.

[SPEAKER_00]: But that's another metric that we could judge people on.

[SPEAKER_00]: I really want to see that old guy and wait for him to get his thought out or whatever it is that we become impatient on.

[SPEAKER_00]: What about the generous donor of the versus the single mother who can barely survive, which one do we want to encourage and invite into the church?

[SPEAKER_00]: the able-bodied versus the disabled person.

[SPEAKER_00]: We look at people and gauge them based upon what they can give us, or what they might cost us in order to identify with them.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that subtle favoritism can absolutely look spiritual.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, well, of course we cater to that person.

[SPEAKER_00]: We really need them.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's strategic addition to the church.

[SPEAKER_00]: There are financial or intellectual gifts can truly push our church body to the next level.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so we can spiritualize these strange and wicked lusts and try to cater to the glory of men.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I pray that we don't do that or that we are mindful of the temptation to do that because it's in all of us.

[SPEAKER_00]: James says, the moment we rank souls by usefulness, we've stepped into corrupt judgment.

[SPEAKER_00]: Saylah, think about that for a minute.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is so natural in our sin nature to fall into this corrupt judgment.

[SPEAKER_00]: We excuse ourselves from it, we deceive ourselves about it.

[SPEAKER_00]: We love to push our compassion out to the furthest distances in our intention.

[SPEAKER_00]: and then act in this same corrupted way.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is also affected by the issue of commercial church versus family church.

[SPEAKER_00]: As we mentioned in James's day, churches were family churches.

[SPEAKER_00]: They would be meeting in homes and they would essentially be very knowledgeable, everybody would know one another and there was a certain amount of potential for clickishness,

[SPEAKER_00]: feel excluded, and sometimes it just takes a longer time to get into a social situation, so on and so forth.

[SPEAKER_00]: But church in America is big business.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe we got big money rolling around, not in this church per se, but celebrity Christians are often millionaires and billionaires.

[SPEAKER_00]: Think of a Christian, a popular Christian whose name you know, and you can almost guarantee that person is of significant financial wealth and means.

[SPEAKER_00]: Churches that conduct themselves like businesses, these days change church culture.

[SPEAKER_00]: They are not individuals seeking the salvation of souls and the support and growth of souls.

[SPEAKER_00]: They are rather looking for businesses looking for customers.

[SPEAKER_00]: And often command budgets as large or larger than most secular businesses.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not sure to criticize one way or the other.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is not sour grapes.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is just the reality of what has happened in the church, at least in America today, is that we have a real challenge of how do we, if the corporate business church model is a successful model, how do we address that?

[SPEAKER_00]: And how does that affect the way that we do with our thinking about church?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because that wouldn't happen if Christians

[SPEAKER_00]: Right?

[SPEAKER_00]: You can't blame the people who start those churches because they're filled with people just like you and me who hopefully have trusted Christ and love Jesus And are just trying to do their best, but my goodness, they've got a rock wall for the kids.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my goodness They've got just the best music you've ever heard.

[SPEAKER_00]: Can you believe it?

[SPEAKER_00]: They've got the most beautiful X, Y, and Z.

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't you want to take a part of this?

[SPEAKER_00]: Even more so, into the point, churches may find unity and actually do find unity more so around a cultural or economic grouping.

[SPEAKER_00]: So rather than just being a church that centers on Christ in His Word, it's Jesus plus the fact that we're a hipster church or a yuppie church, or some racial division of church or a political division where the Republican church or the Democrat church.

[SPEAKER_00]: We've cut both of those very clearly stated within five miles of this very building.

[SPEAKER_00]: perhaps they are a church design designated by some sort of subculture, a church of people who are basically of this child-bearing age and love camping.

[SPEAKER_00]: A church who all get together and really think video games are politics is super important, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's problem because that is how we as sinful humans want to organize ourselves.

[SPEAKER_00]: We want to be associated with the cool kids table at the lunchroom

[SPEAKER_00]: And so we wind up making situations tragically in the church that while I believe that God is able to use them in that whatever limited way he can fall short of the design of the church family.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you're looking around and everyone in the church is exactly like you, the same age, the same socioeconomic group, the same academic background, something is wrong with that church, because Jesus did not just come for the people who are in your position.

[SPEAKER_00]: He came for all, rich and poor, intelligent and stupid, gentle and rude.

[SPEAKER_00]: He came for all.

[SPEAKER_00]: And amazingly, any church that lives by this estimation of God's love and care is able to welcome in people from all kinds of background, who know Jesus Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it takes an intentional step away.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as we said, the big business church is presenting what you want, what people want.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the question is, is will we respond, regardless of what church building or a church group we're meeting with, and view people in the way that God wants us to?

[SPEAKER_00]: So the question is, do you prioritize between some believers and others based upon these external issues?

[SPEAKER_00]: For sure, there are going to be people who are easy to relate to, and people who are more difficult to relate to.

[SPEAKER_00]: But are you the one who's willing to reach across the aisle?

[SPEAKER_00]: to introduce yourself, to start that conversation with someone who might not have a lot in common with you.

[SPEAKER_00]: On the other side, leadership side, do we platform charisma above Christ likeness?

[SPEAKER_00]: When we really value what true Christian character looks like, are we so charisma, boggled?

[SPEAKER_00]: that we find the person who is best looking and the best speaker, a best this or the best that, or do we look for true Christ-like character and maturity within the context of those relationships that we want to attach to to build into us and lead us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Feveritism is not just social clumsiness.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is spiritual and maturity in the highest degree.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now we move on to God's value system.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you would read with me, listen, my brother, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, let's start that again, I can't do that, that's awful.

[SPEAKER_00]: One, two, three, go.

[SPEAKER_00]: Listen, my beloved brethren, has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and airs of the kingdom, which he promised to those who love him.

[SPEAKER_00]: But you have dishonored the poor man.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do not the rich oppress you and drag you into the courts.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do they not blaspheme that noble name by which you are called?

[SPEAKER_00]: So here we see, God's value system already placed.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says, and reminiscent of something that the Apostle Paul would write later, has not God chosen the poor of this world to be rich and faith.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can only imagine the sermon on the Mount ringing in James Ears.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now I don't know whether he was there for that sermon or not, the brother of Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: So obviously it was not believing until after the resurrection and yet at the same time surely in these repeated teachings, it would have heard something to this effect.

[SPEAKER_00]: Blessed are the poor and spirit, which Luke would shorten to, Blessed are the poor.

[SPEAKER_00]: He brought about a shocking bit of information.

[SPEAKER_00]: When Jesus says to His disciples, how difficult it is for a rich man to enter in the kingdom of heaven, the disciples were rightly scandalized.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, then who can be saved?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's the rich who have the time, who have the luxury to invest in theological thought or in obedience or in charity, like who else is potential, a potential for salvation?

[SPEAKER_00]: and yet Christ totally upset the apple cart, and stating what was absolutely true and demonstrable throughout church history, as those who have fewer resources to cling to, those who have less to defend themselves with, will inevitably find themselves with an easier path to trusting God alone with their life, with their future.

[SPEAKER_00]: So James brings out this pattern in scripture about how Christ God delights and elevating the overlooked.

[SPEAKER_00]: The mirrors the ministry of Jesus Christ in His willingness to reach out to fishermen, tax collectors, sinners, prostitutes, to the poor, to the broken, to the hurt, to those who needed healing, and opening up the kingdom to them.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's entirely different than what any one of us would have done and quite frankly, it's entirely different than the church behaves in America most of the time.

[SPEAKER_00]: We all want, in fact, I've heard a shamefully heard of a message given at a church leadership contrary to the environment.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we want Johnny and Sally front range.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're exactly this old.

[SPEAKER_00]: They have 2.3 kids.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're the height of their earning potential.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's who we want to minister to, you know, like Jesus did.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's horrifying.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's good strategy.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's good church building strategy.

[SPEAKER_00]: Finding the people who have the least needs and the greatest giving potential in trying to make them feel at home.

[SPEAKER_00]: And therefore, you know, vampirically sucking their finances out through their nose.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's not what Christ did, it's not what Christ modeled.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it seems that this was a temptation even very early on in the churches, James writes as probably one of the first epistles.

[SPEAKER_00]: Early on in the church, the church was already excited to welcome someone who is a little bit cooler, a little bit wealthier, a little bit more influential than everyone else.

[SPEAKER_00]: But what we see through the ministry of Christ is that God does not value bank accounts, he doesn't value human looks, he stands in the midst of the glorious angels pouring fourth glory from his very essence of his beaking that would blind us in terms of its beauty.

[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't value platform, influence, power, or prestige.

[SPEAKER_00]: God is a different value system.

[SPEAKER_00]: By stern contrast, God values humility, dependence on Him, and spiritual maturity.

[SPEAKER_00]: Whenever you see kids interacting, and we've all had this moment that kids go, how is your time with your friends?

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, Johnny's a meanie face.

[SPEAKER_00]: Johnny's your best friend, but today he was a meanie face.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know that they've got a great relationship and that might be best friends forever, but for that day, the immaturity of that child is totally recess or assign Johnny to the meanie face category.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's exactly how we do when we reject God's evaluation of people for our own.

[SPEAKER_00]: Leadership favoritism often reveals that we trust competence more than character, influence more than integrity, strength more than submission.

[SPEAKER_00]: But God chooses the weak to shame the strong.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is a part of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: So in our application question for this little cycle, if God were choosing leaders, solely based on spiritual richness, would our criteria match his.

[SPEAKER_00]: When we look at what we want to encourage in value and others, do we value that humility, that spiritual maturity, and encourage that, or do we value the same things that the world values?

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, fourth cycle, eight through 11, please read with me.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, you do well.

[SPEAKER_00]: but if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.

[SPEAKER_00]: For whoever shall keep the whole law yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.

[SPEAKER_00]: For he who said do not commit adultery also said do not murder.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now if you do not commit adultery but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.

[SPEAKER_00]: So now we are getting into that law issue again and we are not going to rehearse the distinction between law and grace, but we do know that the Word of God was all given for the edification of the believer.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so James rightly quotes Leviticus 1918 in claiming the importance of

[SPEAKER_00]: But why call it the Royal Law?

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it is repeated throughout the New Testament.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus quotes it in Matthew 1919, 2239, Mark 1231, Luke 1027, and then it continues or persists in its importance in Romans 139, Galatians 514, James 28 here, of course.

[SPEAKER_00]: So he calls it the Royal Law, I believe, because it reflects the heart of the King of the Messiah.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is when asked pointedly and directly the second most important commandment of the law and if a person observes this is acting or going to act in a way that truly honors God throughout all situations.

[SPEAKER_00]: James makes this really powerful, logical move.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you show favoritism, you're violating love.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if you violate love, you're violating God's standard, not the law of no Moses, or not limited to the law of Moses.

[SPEAKER_00]: But rather God's ultimate standard of his character, and as he's pointing out, if you break one part, you break all.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is really fascinating.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, absolutely.

[SPEAKER_00]: fascinating that people will leave a church because of the color of the carpet or not getting to choose the color of the paint or something to that effect.

[SPEAKER_00]: They'll get all bent out of shape about things that absolutely don't matter, but then if someone is not rejoicing in the Lord always, in accordance with the direct command of Scripture, we'll add, you know, he's just having a bad day.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some of, if we're unloving, we will say, oh, wow, that's just, let's just, you know, set that aside.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's, that's pretty unrealistic.

[SPEAKER_00]: James isn't teaching sinless perfectionism here.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's teaching a Christian growth and growing moral consistency that reflects the character of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Obedience is not meant to be selective.

[SPEAKER_00]: We don't get to choose which parts of the character of God that we like, that are easy for us, that work for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then, you know, throw the other ones issues of God's character to the side.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's asking for a consistency and using this the law as a comparison

[SPEAKER_00]: Go murder three people and say yeah, but I drove the speed limit to each one of those murders Just doesn't make a difference does it?

[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't really enjoy it although theologically I think it's in question as poetically beautiful.

[SPEAKER_00]: What weren't weird to be had to say on this topic of the royal lies is, why is love thy neighbor called the royal law?

[SPEAKER_00]: For one thing it was given by the king, God the father gave it, gave it in the law and God the son reaffirmed it to his disciples, God the spirit fills our heart with God's love and expects us to share it with others.

[SPEAKER_00]: true believers are taught of God to love one another, but love thy neighbor is the royal law for a second reason it rules all the other laws.

[SPEAKER_00]: Love is the fulfilling of the law.

[SPEAKER_00]: There, says Romans 1310, there would be no need for the thousands of complex laws if each citizen truly loved his neighbors.

[SPEAKER_00]: But the main reason why this is the royal law is that obeying it makes you a king.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hatred makes a person a slave, but love sets us free from selfishness and enables us to reign like kings.

[SPEAKER_00]: Love enables us to obey the word of God and treat people as God commands us to do.

[SPEAKER_00]: We obey His law, not out of fear, but out of love.

[SPEAKER_00]: I appreciate the sentiment here.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that is that we are most free when we learn to love with the love that Christ has put within us.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not about the Christian life, it's not about selecting which parts you like,

[SPEAKER_00]: in which ways you choose to agree with God, or in which ways that God agrees with you, was about learning to see things entirely from his perspective.

[SPEAKER_00]: So what this is challenging us to say, not in a way to make us despairing, or in a way to be condemning, but to be honest with ourselves.

[SPEAKER_00]: If we say, I love the church except for the awkward people, or that one awkward person, then we are not growing.

[SPEAKER_00]: or not exemplifying maturity.

[SPEAKER_00]: We say, I love the body except for the inconvenient one who takes away or bothers me.

[SPEAKER_00]: We say, I love the Lord, but I can't, or I but I favor the influential people.

[SPEAKER_00]: I just would rather spend time with the people who are conveniently, I conveniently benefit me the most.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're missing something.

[SPEAKER_00]: Love that calculates benefit is not biblical love.

[SPEAKER_00]: biblical love is identified or exemplified by Jesus Christ at the cross, who for the love of those who would rebel against him gave his life so that we might be redeemed and restored.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's without a gender, it's without calculation, and it's without social return.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, final cycle versus 12 through 13.

[SPEAKER_00]: Please read with me.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty.

[SPEAKER_00]: For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy, mercy triumphs over judgment.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, as we already said, we've got a judgment problem as human humans.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I don't want to fall into the foolishness, it says, never judge.

[SPEAKER_00]: We are designed and it is demanded that we make judgments about things that are correct, biblically, correct morally and things that need to be pointed out or observed and so on.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so forth.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, we're not saying that judgment is always wrong.

[SPEAKER_00]: But there is an inappropriate or inadequate, correct way to judge.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's judging the value or worthiness of people based upon what benefits us specifically, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: So James is pointed out already that when we get to this wrong perception of people, that has this un-Christ-like rooting that we're going to wind up.

[SPEAKER_00]: being unjust judges and now something is brought into the equation that should give us all pause.

[SPEAKER_00]: James N's, James N's, where maturity must end with accountability to the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is the absolute reality and it's just unavoidable that we are inevitably performing

[SPEAKER_00]: foolishly for one another a lot of the time.

[SPEAKER_00]: We like the idea of getting recognition from a church leader, from the group as a general or just an individual in the group, we like it when someone says something that builds us up and that some level we respond to that performance.

[SPEAKER_00]: performance praise that we might receive or that we hope to receive.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think it was Luis Polau at one point, he said he stopped thanking everybody in his church because the minute you start thanking people, there's someone who did something that didn't get thanked and then they get all sore about it.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's impossible situation, so just never thank anybody.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not ready to be there, but I see the point.

[SPEAKER_00]: because it shows that most of us most of the time whether it's giving generously of money, giving of time, or giving of our own private interest, whatever it is, that we hope somebody's are looking.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the Lord is looking, but we kind of hope someone else is looking to.

[SPEAKER_00]: We sure do like to be praised for the things that we do, the things that we accomplish.

[SPEAKER_00]: And yet the point here is that God is the final judge, not one another.

[SPEAKER_00]: and there will be a judgment of our character at the B.M.A.C.

[SPEAKER_00]: of Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: This will not be a judgment unto pain or unto the punishment because all sin has been paid for at the cross of Jesus Christ, but there will be plenty in the life of probably every believer and certainly in the unproductive believer.

[SPEAKER_00]: that has simply burned up, perishes, shows a wasted life.

[SPEAKER_00]: And yet, showing this kind of humble Christ like love and care for others is always rewardable to God.

[SPEAKER_00]: It matters.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's a standard.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's a point, it's objective, and it's worthwhile.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so here is probably the most important point for the night.

[SPEAKER_00]: The Bima are the morning.

[SPEAKER_00]: The beam of seed is something that we should all look forward to with hopeful joy and praise.

[SPEAKER_00]: And probably the things that get praise will not be the things that you ever thought would get praised.

[SPEAKER_00]: Probably the things that front line or headline will not be who headed up the big mission, who finished the big final book, who worked out the greatest moments in church history.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, as we trudged judge through or worked through church history, there are certainly men and women who are used of the Lord and will receive praise for that or

[SPEAKER_00]: But I suspect that the beam and seat will really explode at all a handful of loving grandmas who gave up their time and their energy to serve and love people, who nobody ever saw and nobody ever noticed.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just to be clear, this is not threatening loss of salvation, hopefully that's been plain enough throughout this, but it's reminding believers that God takes how we treat people seriously, how we treat one another seriously.

[SPEAKER_00]: The statement judgment will be merciless to the one who shows no mercy, triumph, mercy triumphs over judgment sounds extreme, but the point is is that as we understand our need to cry out for mercy, so we are meant to give that same mercy to others.

[SPEAKER_00]: If we understand what Christ has done for us, if favoritism is present, it suggests we have forgotten how much mercy we needed.

[SPEAKER_00]: So the question is, do I treat myself or some people as more valuable than others?

[SPEAKER_00]: Certainly, we are limited in our time and our scope.

[SPEAKER_00]: We don't have the capacity to hear everybody's story, care for everybody, and we're limited.

[SPEAKER_00]: We just only have a certain amount of time in the day.

[SPEAKER_00]: But are you choosing those you will invest in based upon exclusively what you're going to get out of it?

[SPEAKER_00]: Or are you willing to love the people whom the Lord brings into your life and circle in the way that He loves?

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you withhold warmth from those who offer no advantage and would Christ recognize His mercy in our interactions both individually and corporately?

[SPEAKER_00]: Spiritual maturity is revealed.

[SPEAKER_00]: by how we treat people who cannot elevate or status, who don't benefit us.

[SPEAKER_00]: The end of a cover-boss's show is funny because people say things to the boss that they would never say to his face.

[SPEAKER_00]: The boss is not undercover.

[SPEAKER_00]: Christ exists and has his presence here within us, living within every believer.

[SPEAKER_00]: living amongst the lambstands of his local church.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's how Revelation 1, 12 through 20 defines him as the one who is present among us.

[SPEAKER_00]: The boss is here.

[SPEAKER_00]: with all of his love for the people who are poor and needy, wealthy, and advanced, and our desire, and it brings my heart, no greater joy than to say, I see that desire exercised in our little church family frequently.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I want to encourage you to continue, to exercise that Christ-like love.

[SPEAKER_00]: There will be moments where we're tempted to go back to, to grab on to

[SPEAKER_00]: on who is more valuable and who is more important and who is less important, but might we be deeply and regularly reminded of the glory of Christ and our great need in response to that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's pray.

[SPEAKER_00]: Father, how he praise and thank you for the tremendous gift of this time, for the life that you have provided, for the glory that you've revealed in us, give us such humility and wisdom to know the mercy

[SPEAKER_00]: and show that mercy, one to another, might we be an instrument, an organ of your goodness and your love, might we humbly stand before you each and all with the desire to love the unlovable,

[SPEAKER_00]: Please, Lord, give us wisdom, courage to see our self-deceite, Lord humility, to stand in front of where we failed at this encouragement, where we succeeded in Christ's name we pray.

[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.