James Week 4 • James 2:1-13

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Well, good morning again.

If you've got your Bibles, go ahead and open up to James chapter 2.

James 2 · chapter mention

If you do not have a Bible, we would like to give you one, and back there at the table

that I'll be, we have a few paperback copies of God's Word.

And so after the service, please stop by there.

We'd love to get one to you so that you can join us in studying of God's Word.

Well, last week, me, along with a small group from here and a small group of pastors, made

the extremely but wonderful long journey to India, where we were able to serve and to minister.

And I want to talk about that briefly before we dive into James chapter 2.

James 2 · chapter mention

But I also want to say, as we continue on, I want to thank Shane Parker for stepping in

last week and doing a wonderful job of preaching and teaching of God's Word.

Our trip was an extremely successful trip, a wonderful trip, and seeing what God is doing

and what God may have in store for us in the future.

We're able to visit a lot of ministry sites and see a lot of things that at a different

point in time we'll have the wonderful opportunity to go through slideshows and to talk about.

But I do have two different pictures of one I want to show you, because what we were there

largely for was for the pastors' conference, but then also the Bible College graduation.

So if we go ahead and jump to those couple pictures, that's the first one right there.

So I want to kind of show you, you see, we got a couple of members of our team.

There's Mike and Gwen Vaught and Kevin Adams and myself.

And then what you have here is there was 13 graduates from the Bible College.

So what they did is they had them all line up and we got to greet them and congratulate

them as we were walking to a banquet that would celebrate them.

And so you can see some of the men and women who were there.

And then let's go ahead and jump to the next one.

Yeah, that's me in a suit and a tie and the other.

And then there's me with a tie on.

I wore a tie three times, which is like three times more than I've worn this year.

But I wore a tie and a suit.

And so there you see just a privilege and honor that I had to be able to stand with the

faculty and staff of the Bible College and then all of the graduates that are there.

And I shared these pictures with you to continue to lay into our hearts and our minds as we've

come out of a few previous weeks that I talked about with the trials and the temptations that

you face.

And it hits me every time that I see pictures, that I go to India, that I speak to people at

the Bible College, that it's different than it is here.

And when I graduated with my Master's of Divinity from seminary, my family was there.

We celebrated.

We took pictures.

We went to Outback, right?

We told everybody what I had done, what I had accomplished, what God was doing.

The waiters and waitresses were sharing and celebrating with us.

There were other graduates who were there with their family.

We all, in spite of not knowing one another, because we did all of our school online, in

spite of not knowing one another, we celebrated together all of this work that God is doing.

But in the pictures that you saw, we gathered in the basement.

Families weren't there.

Most of their families are not believers.

They can't go back to where they came from out of the fear of what will definitely happen

to them there because people know who they are.

So instead, they will be sent to other villages and other places where they'll proclaim the

gospel away from a lot of the people that they know.

There was no time of going out of public celebration, and instead it was us gathering together.

But you couldn't tell because of the sweetness and the joy that was shown on the face of these

pastors and missionaries and church planners who had graduated with their degrees.

And so it was just a privilege and an honor to be able to be there, to share of God's word,

to encourage, and to know that we were going to come home, right, to our families and to

our friends and to our church congregation, where we don't experience nearly the same level

as persecution that they will face.

And so while you may never make the trip to India, I want you to always remember the pastors,

the missionaries, the church planners that cover not only India, but so many of the other

persecuted countries and places in our world, and that we lift them up and that we pray for them.

It was a wonderful, wonderful time celebrating all that God has done, but we need to remember to

have them on our hearts, right, and to pray for them.

So before we jump into James 2, let's go to the Lord in prayer and pray for these.

God, I thank you so much for the time that you gave us to be in India.

Lord, I thank you for the faithfulness of those who were there.

Lord, I thank you that when they read and they understand, right, Lord, the trials that they

will face, Lord, they know that it could cost them their life, and they still seek to obey you.

Lord, may you encourage them and strengthen them in their faith in spite of what it might call for,

in spite of what it may require.

Lord, could you give us that level of faith to grow us in that point to where we are recklessly obedient to you.

And it's in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

Amen.

Well, we've got James chapter 2.

James 2 · chapter mention

We don't have much time, so I am going to be brief, but we want to go ahead and jump in and look at that.

So look at James 2.

We're going to read verses 1 through 13.

James writes and says,

My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory.

For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly,

and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in,

and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say,

you sit here in a good place, while you say to the poor man,

you stand over there or sit down at my feet,

have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

Verse 5, listen, my beloved brothers,

has God not chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom,

which he has promised to do to those who love him?

But you have dishonored the poor man.

Are not the rich ones who oppress you and the ones who drag you into court?

Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called?

If you really fulfilled the law, the royal law, according to the scripture,

you shall love your neighbor as yourself, you are doing well.

But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and convicted by the law as transgressors.

Whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of it all.

For he who said, do not commit adultery, also said, do not murder.

If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you become a transgressor of the law.

So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty.

Verse 13, for judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy.

Mercy triumphs over judgment.

Well, last week, as Shane shared with us, right, that Christianity is not simply an intellectual pursuit.

Right?

So, so we're not just to hear and to know, we're not just to read and to know, but we are to hear and to do, we are to know and to do.

God's word tells us in James 1, 22, to be doers of the word and not just hearers only.

And so James even gave us three different illustrations of what that looks like tangibly in the life of the believer.

Right?

So our faith is not to just be, here's what I know, sit around Starbucks with a bunch of believers, debate theology, call it a day and go home and we're done.

But what we believe should impact at who we are to our very core, that the truth of God is transforming us and changing us.

Not just the way that we think, but the way that we live.

And it's why as we study through James, it's one of the most practical books of the Bible that we see.

So when we go through here and we're going to see this continue to penetrate through these 13 verses today, right, as we know what God's word says, right, it's easy to say, I want to love God and love others, right?

Almost every church in the world should and does embrace that truth.

We should know that.

We should say that.

But the question comes with James, when we live that, do we live that out?

Is it something that we high five each other with as we're leaving here and it's all about loving God and loving others?

But then when we step out of this place, we become me focused, we become I focused.

It becomes about who we are and not who he is.

And so James begins this section with a command in verse one.

He says, show no partiality as you hold the faith.

No, none.

It's to be excluded from who we are.

And then in verses two through four, he gives an example as to how this command is broken.

He paints the picture.

He says, look, two men come into your assembly or two men come into your church.

One man who comes in is a wealthy, known dignitary, right?

So imagine they come in with their people who are surrounding them.

You hear the rumblings on the streets that they're coming to your church today and you get a little excited.

Make sure the chairs are a little straighter.

Make sure the floor is extra clean.

Make sure the coffee is extra good, right?

Because they are coming to be with us today.

And then when they get here, we say, well, here's the best seat.

Now, I say the seat at the front, but I know that for a lot of us, that's not the seat that you want, right?

But let's just pretend, right?

Let's pretend it's the seat in the front.

We say, come here and sit at the front, right?

The lighting is the best here.

The sound is the best here.

And not to get on a sensitive subject, right?

But the AC is just right, you know?

And we all agree that in this one chair is exactly where it will not be too hot or too cold.

And we've saved this for you.

And so we bring in this wealthy person, a person who's known, a person of power.

And we say, this is what we specially give for you.

But then there's man number two who comes in.

This man is poor.

He's dirty.

He's a beggar off of the street.

In fact, as you got off the interstate, you probably saw him standing there holding up a sign, asking for food, asking for money, covered in filth.

And it was, hey, let's look over here at the road construction and not look over here where he is to eliminate the awkward moment.

But he comes in.

And instead of the best seat for him, he's not received with the same acceptance that the first man is.

And instead, you're going to stand in the back.

Or if you would like to, feel free to sit at my feet.

Which is weird for us, right?

But when James would have written this, this was the place where the lesser would have sat.

The servants would have sat.

So let's remove you because you don't deserve, right, what the other man is offered.

And you don't want him because he isn't worthy of all of these things.

So what have you done?

What have we done if that's our attitude?

What have we done if this hypothetical situation has played out?

Have we been strategic?

Have we used common sense?

We've shown partiality.

We've looked at the soul of an individual and said one is more valued than another.

And we've determined it.

Yes, we've shown one man kindness.

We've shown one man hospitality.

Is that wrong?

No.

But the motive in the heart is what's wrong.

Because we've determined it.

And we've shown the other man the exact opposite.

So I would argue in situation one and in situation two, sin reigns in both.

Both of them are matters of selfishness in the heart of the first, in the person who greets them.

Well, I want to be known by you.

I want to be appreciated by you.

I want to esteem you, but not you.

And the self is what drives that.

And so James paints this hypothetical picture in verses two through four.

But his command in verse one is very important.

You see, the verb that James uses in verse one is not a verb that would be used in a hypothetical situation.

But it is based off of the reality of those who he's addressing.

What James is saying in verse one is, show no partiality because I know that's what you do.

right shane used the phrase several times and i'm just going to take it and keep running with it

right it's like he's reading our mail right it hits right home with them i could see them as

they read this letter and they're like oh yep yep yep yep yep yep yep this is us right and so what

begins to happen in this what james wants him to understand is that partiality contradicts faith

partiality contradicts who we are saying we believe in and what we were saying we believe

look back at verse one show no partiality as you hold the faith in our lord jesus christ

so in this which one are you going to cling to which one are you going to hold on to

what this is going to be show no partiality as you hold the faith in our lord jesus christ right

faith does not create partiality but flesh does flesh within us says i prefer this social class

i prefer this gender i prefer this race i prefer this education i prefer this color of hair i prefer

this word this way of speaking insert whatever begins to register inside of you when you meet

someone who's different than you and you don't want to associate with them

what we see is this classism from the beginning but it reigns true in so many of us in different ways

think about the level of prejudices that we have in race in gender in social status in where you live

and where you send your kids and what cars you drive and where you work and the jobs that you have

we can begin to list them time and time again and when we notice that we find ourselves that we've

fallen into the categories of what james says in this hypothetical situation the wealthy or the poor

this race that race this job that job show no partiality is what james says because he says partiality

opposes god partiality opposes god when we embrace partiality james says in verse 4 right

we become judges with evil thoughts have you ever had somebody tell you you remind me of someone

right you remind me of someone right whenever someone says that to me hey you remind me of someone

i don't ask who i ask why why does that person remind you of me well because they're terrible right

like that's not what we want to hear we want to hear because they're the best looking kindest

nicest person i've ever been around and that's why they remind me of you i've never had that happen

to me so afterwards if you want to say that i would embrace that and thank you for it all right

right that that that comment comes a little bit for me with the nerves because is it positive

or is it negative the bible says james says that when we judge people when we show partiality we are judges

with evil thoughts we are judges with corrupt thoughts that were those who are being paid

off were those who are being influenced and not based on what is right not based on the law james says

this is who we become and and the bible is is clear right we aren't to be the judge god is the judge

god is the only righteous judge and we make ourselves judges right from our fleshly perspective

it's it's it's beautiful what james does is he's writing this in in scripture because he's reiterating

what god said because god said he's chosen the poor to be rich in faith and heirs in the kingdom

and james sets that as his hypothetical so in this when we discriminate them what we are doing is we oppose

the lord and it all to come back to of what james says that we're called to love your neighbor as yourself

love your neighbor as yourself love god love others and that's a hard dynamic for us how do i love

myself who was my neighbor right in luke chapter 10 jesus is asked by an expert of the law who is my

Luke 10 · chapter mention

neighbor and jesus tells them the story of the good samaritan and we're not going to go back and read it

today but i do want to kind of hit some of the high points as we as we see so this man comes i'm supposed to

love god i'm supposed to love my neighbor as myself great question jesus i want to make sure i do this the bible

says he asked the question seeking to justify himself so then god who is my neighbor identify that

give me the list give me the bullet points help me check these off to make sure i'm getting this

right and so jesus tells a story he tells the story of the good samaritan he says listen there was a

man who's traveling from jerusalem to jericho a long distance on a dangerous road and as he's traveling

along he's robbed stripped of his clothing he's beaten and he's left for dead the situation in which he finds

himself is a situation that he cannot get himself out of and is going to be dependent on the kindness of

others and there are those who begin to pass by on this road one is a priest the other is a levite both

religious leaders of the time and both of them when they see the man broken beaten bloodied on the side of

the road instead of running with compassion right they walk over to the other side

they walk over why it doesn't say

it's because they didn't want to get involved it's because they thought it's a sketchy individual

it's because they thought he was where he was

because he deserved it is was it for religious reasons they thought he was dead and they didn't want to

touch the body of someone that was dead or someone that was unclean but whatever it was

they journeyed to the other side but the samaritan man saw him and the bible says he had compassion

he got to the man jesus he took care of his wounds he brought him to an inn and stayed there and cared

for him and then before he left he financially provided for the man's care and so jesus says who do you

think the neighbor is and the man responds to the one who showed mercy the one who showed mercy

you see in this dynamic of what james is trying to get the church to understand

is that you're either going to be a person of partiality of choosing or you're going to be a

person of mercy and kindness and compassion and love and what we want to understand is that that is what

god has called us to mercy not partiality and the understanding of what it means to be doers of the

word is that you and i embrace the calling of what it means to show that level of kindness and

compassion so when the man says the neighbor is the one who showed him mercy jesus says then you go and do

likewise you see it's not about let me figure out who is my neighbor but it's about let me figure out

that my neighbor is anyone whom i can share god's love anyone who i can share god's mercy so we're not

called only to love those who were similar to us love those who were comfortable with love those who we have

positive experiences with love those who we are like-minded with love those who are from the same

neighborhood the same social status the same level of elevation that we want to be considered with

right but we're to show love with with all of who god places in our path and so every moment

in every individual that comes before us is an opportunity that god has given us and if in that

moment your heart is one of partiality then in that moment your heart is one of sin and god says let

it be of mercy let it be of mercy in matthew 5 43 through 47 i apologize this isn't on the screen this

morning jesus says you have heard that it was said you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy

but i say to you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be sons of your

your father who is in heaven for he makes his son rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the

just and the unjust let me pause here for just a second so what jesus says is our heavenly father

in the common grace of this world shows his love and his mercy on them right the sun rises

for those who love him and for those who don't right god blesses both look at verse 46

for if you love those who love you what reward do you have

do not even the tax collectors do the same and if you greet only your brothers what more are you

doing than others do not even the gentiles or some translations say the pagans do the same

so when we embrace partiality when we love those who we determine are worthy of our love

when we extend mercy when we extend mercy to those that we've determined are the ones who deserve

mercy when we give grace to the ones that we've determined give grace

jesus says

tax collectors do that

gentiles pagans do that

but what does jesus do what does jesus do

i heard someone say this past week at the pastor's conference that we were at

the issues and the sins that we struggle with that we can't seem to overcome

oftentimes we chalk them up in a category of what i'm just going to be this way

and this is the this is where i am in my life and they said this they said it's a lie from the pit of hell

and they said when we find those pieces within us what we need to do is aggressively attack it in prayer

that god will change us and transform us we would all say yes and amen with our knowledge and our words

that the power of god can transform us but do we believe that and do we attack those things in our

life here's what i want to say there may be individuals in this world

that is within you is a sense of distrust and distaste

that may have been something that you've been taught

from a child it may be as a child it may be something that comes from an experience a traumatic

experience that you've had in your life it may be something that's a result of the culture that you live in

and what i would plead with you is the heart of god for you to understand that that feeling of

partiality within you is sin and we attack it we attack it through surrendering it to the lord

and that we don't give up and that we persevere and that we lay it down

and we say jesus i need you to do a work inside of me as we go through and continue to go through

james it's wonderful of what we know it's wonderful but are we doing it are we being doers of the word

and not just hearers only and thus deceiving ourselves would you pray with me

lord we thank you so much for this time that we could be here to be in your word

lord i pray for the hearts of all of us who are here the struggles that we face

lord i pray for that your spirit would reveal to us the partiality that we have

the things that cause us when we look at one individual versus another

to think to ourself this person is more deserving than that person

but to see people ward the way that you do

so that we can see past race

we can see beyond

gender we can see beyond social status we can see beyond education we can see beyond careers

we can see beyond the things that the world stacks up and says prefer one over the other

show partiality to one and not the other

lord we can be like the good samaritan

who just wants to show the kindness and mercy in the grace of god

what i know for so many of us

these thoughts of others hit us and we don't like them

and we wrestle with why they're there

and we almost begin to carry it lord as this burden of sin that's just there for us to deal with

on our own but lord you give us the power of the holy spirit within us lord you say that we

not will be victorious but that we are victorious and so lord may we plead with you may we wrestle with you lord

may we proclaim to you lord beg you to take this from us to be able to see

men and women and children that they are made in the image and the likeness of you

made in the imago day and that that's who they are so free us from the mind of partiality

may we see others what you've called us to see them

thanks again for listening to the willow ridge church weekly podcast we hope that you enjoyed

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