James 2:1-13 Sermon Notes

In 1982 I was single, living in inner city Ft Worth with a buddy.

We would sometimes go out onto the streets of downtown to share the gospel and at one time we had three men whom we had met on the streets living with us.

I found out; this quickly became an unpaid nearly full-time job…one we were not equipped to deal with.

We were ignorant as to what it takes to help people with multi-layered problems,  it takes much more than good intentions and lots of effort.

We had, what Proverbs 19 diagnoses as “Zeal without knowledge”

One of the men was mentally ill, and very likely had demons.

I had decided that this man could no longer stay with us (he would not keep any rules) and had scheduled a meeting to talk with him.

He didn’t show up for our meeting and I had to go to work…so I told one of the other men to give him clothes, money, food, and send him on his way.

When I got home, the man who had passed on the message was visible shaken.

I asked him what had happened.

He said he heard two men (different voices) talking to each other on the front porch and when he opened the door, it was just the one man.

That freaked him out.

When told he had to leave he said, “Tell Terry he has no idea who he is dealing with and I will be back to kill him someday.”

I did know who I was dealing with…but I checked the closets whenever I came home for the next several months.

Back up, a bit…I took this same man who threatened me to a church meeting a week before this…I wasn’t a part of that church, I just wanted him to hear the gospel in that setting…they were hosting some outreach meetings.

In the meeting no one approached us or spoke to us at all.

I went back by myself, another day…and several from the church spoke with me.

Using James chapter 2 as my ammo…I passed judgment on that church…pretty much all of them.

They spoke with me (I reasoned); but avoided us when I was with the homeless guy.

But in my judging those folks, I was really violating the heart of what James was saying.

I had become a judge with evil thoughts.

I had engaged the mother of all thinking fallacies…I had jumped to a conclusion.

Let’s read the first four verses

2My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don’t show favoritism. 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. ³ If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” ⁴ have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

So, when I brought the guy in shabby clothes and no one spoke with us…then I came back, and people did speak with me…was I experiencing this passage?

I don’t know…how could I?

I thought I was seeing favoritism…but then what other factors may have been in play?

1. Maybe I was sitting next to people who were hurting themselves.

-Did I talk to them…or just judge them for not talking to us?

-We tend to move through life with “ourselves” ruling our thoughts…judging others for what we ourselves aren’t doing.

2. Maybe they were afraid.

-The guy looked a little scary…he was rough.

-Is it right for me to judge someone for being scared to talk to a guy who looked like he didn’t want to be talked to?

3. We came in late, that was probably a factor.

Truth is, again, I was zealous and foolish.

I was quick to judge others…when they did not respond as I thought they should.

I’m not saying they were not showing favoritism…but how would I know?

So, again, I was the one who was in the wrong…God alone knows the hearts of those people.

*Over the years, I’ve had people say about our church “This is the least friendly church” and “This is the most friendly church”

One time, I heard both of those from two different people regarding the same Sunday.

The truth is, we are probably neither the most nor least friendly church in the world…we are just a church.

Some Sunday’s I’m pretty friendly, some Sunday’s I’m not…who is Terry?…both of those things.

When I invite someone to church and they actually come…I hope others will make them feel welcome…but then, do I scan for potential visitors that someone else has invited to make them feel welcome? Sometimes.

And we all have our filters…we all have our days…we see things through our own perspective…we all ebb and flow.

Of course should seek to get out of ourselves, our fears, our struggles…and consider the needs of others…but we are all a work in progress…no excuse, just reality.

So James 2,  is not about seating arrangements, poverty and wealth…or some other simplistic application…but about changed hearts…gospel perspective on how we are see and respond to others.

In another context, the example may have been reversed…a person who is dressed in fine clothes, is judged and treated poorly as opposed to a person who comes in in shabby clothes.

You ever done that?

“Look at them, dressed like they think they are something!”

Yikes, this can go either way.

In fact, true confession here…over the years we have had people who were well off and locally well-known show up at River and I have tended to avoid them in favor of the ones who were clearly not well off or well known.

I reversed James’ scenario, but violated the core principle.

Rich or poor, obscure or well known…people need Jesus and they are to be viewed as just people who will die someday and take nothing with them…except gospel faith.

We already talked about the irrelevance of poverty and wealth in terms of spirituality when we looked at James 1

The poor are to take pride in their now exalted position in Christ.

While the rich are to take pride in their low position…because, they can’t take stuff with them.

It is an intentional plot twist…designed to re-shape our perspective.

There are godly poor and rich and ungodly poor and rich…whether you have stuff is not the point, the point is whether stuff has you…or whether Jesus has you.

And again, if we make this passage about seating arrangements or poverty and wealth…we will miss the point.

We had to ask a homeless man to move on last Sunday evening at Treat Street…because he was wandering around a large group of children and he didn’t belong there…not because he was homeless…but because it was an event for children.

…we were not unkind and he pocketed a fair amount of candy in the process.

But if someone had shown up driving a nice car and wearing nice clothes…unknown and wandering around our kids…we would have run him off as well.

So don’t miss the point by getting caught up in the plot.

James is going for our hearts…so he gives a principle by using an example.

Here, James is applying what he said earlier(about true riches) to a real life context…this may have been an actual event or more likely a hypothetical one.

Let’s look at again in its context:

First: The statement the principle: “As believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don’t show favoritism.”

Okay, that is the main point.

He uses the phrase “glorious Lord Jesus Christ”…as a very important reminder to Christians who are giving too much “glory” to human beings.  (Douglas Moo, James)

There is only ever one celebrity…Jesus.

Now he gives a scenario to illustrate this main point:

At a church meeting of some kind, in walks a couple of visitors or new converts to the faith.

One is fawned over the other treated with less favor.

The poor man in shabby clothes isn’t as far as we know, homeless, and he isn’t mistreated per se.

He is however treated less differently, than the man dressed to the nines.

The actions demonstrate a heart problem…elevating certain people because of external and temporary factors.

⁵ Listen, my dear brothers:

For James this phrase indicates he is about to shift our focus…he is jumping out of the scenario and driving home his point.

5 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.

James knows that in this church many poor people have embraced Jesus as the Messiah. (most early Christians were poor, partly because most people at the time were poor, partly because of financial loss suffered because of persecution, partly because poverty can reveal true spiritual need)

This harkens back to chapter one where he said the “poor are to take pride in their elevated position in Christ.”

In Christ, the poor are now rich in faith.

However, He is not advocating for trading one form of favoritism for another…poor over rich

We are not to think he saying there is something spiritually advantageous about being financially poor…other than, being rich can blind people to spiritual truth.

And as we discussed several weeks ago…poverty is geographically and chronologically (and perceptually) relative.

You see this fact illustrated in the way James writes, “poor in the eyes of the world.”

There is a spiritual sense suggested here, not just material sense.

Poverty is relative to perspective…to be poor in faith is to have absolute poverty…to be rich in faith is to have absolute riches.

*But this is not how the world sees things.

And when James writes that God has chosen these poor to be rich in faith he is NOT saying poverty is a means to salvation…and the wealthy are excluded.

As we discussed there were wealthy people among the followers of Jesus in the early church.

The poor in spirit are the blessed of God…because they turn in their need to God.

Often God uses difficult life situations to show us our need.

When someone wins the lottery or becomes rich and famous…instead of envy we should feel sorry for them…it just became much more difficult for them to become rich in faith.

James says you have insulted the poor…by treating them differently than the rich.

Again, this doesn’t mean we are to remedy this situation by being unkind to rich people…but we should train our hearts and habits to treat people simply as people.

When we see people as they are…we are neither distressed nor impressed by the presence of the very rich or the very poor.

They are just people…at the end of life…they are not rich or poor…just people taking last breaths, they not counting their money at that point, it has stopped mattering to them.

At the end of the age…it will not financially rich or poor at the judgment seat of Christ…it will be just people seeing Jesus as he really is.

He goes on to give us background information for their setting.

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?

Not all the rich, but some well off people in the time were, as is true today…working the system to exploit those without power.

It was common then, that those without power could lose their lands and possessions through corrupt legal systems.

Then, imagine these ungodly rich meeting at the pub and mocking those stupid Christians, who are following that weak executed criminal Jesus, it’s just so easy to get over on them…”Cheers!”

The point here is not “to despise those awful rich people.”

This is no excuse to dispense of Christ’s command to love those who persecute you.

This is a perspective altering vision…”Why are you so impressed with people who are clearly far from God and true spiritual riches?”

You should be pitying these people not envying them or trying to impress them.

Next, he goes straight to the teaching of Jesus…what he calls the “royal law”

⁸ If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “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. 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.

Here is James’ main point as to why it is wrong to show favoritism…it violates the law of love…the law of Christ

James is talking about treating people as Christ would treat them.

And though it may seem like a relatively minor offense (showing favoritism by giving someone a better seat), if you break one part of the law of God you break all of it.

And you can break God’s law at the heart level, not just at the action level.

Then his example seems rather extreme…”if you DON’T commit adultery but DO commit murder you are a lawbreaker.”

Either James is being Captain Obvious here or he is saying more than meets the eye.

“James, brother, clearly we know that committing murder, even if we don’t commit adultery is to break God’s law…not a helpful example.”

But…James relies heavily in his letter on the teaching of Jesus…of course he does.

So, let’s go to Jesus and see if we can get to the bottom of what James is saying here.

When Jesus was asked what is the greatest commandment in the law he responded, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matt 22:37-40

Jesus’ shaped how Christians made sense out of their New Covenant obligations in light of the OT law.

We talked about this at length when we studied Galatians last year…so I won’t do that again.

The Ten Commandments are divided into two parts, the first four deal with our duty to God and the next six our duty to others.

Jesus, takes these two parts…love for God and then love for others…and makes it more than just keeping external rules.

Look at Matt. 5 “You have heard it was said to those of old, ‘you shall not murder, and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment.” Matt. 5:21

Then, “You have heard it said ‘do not commit adultery” but I say, if you look lustfully at a women you have committed adultery with her in your heart.”

He is not making murder and anger or adultery and lust morally equivalent.

Clearly to be angry is one kind of sin and to murder another.

To lust one kind of sin and to engage in adultery another.

His point is…to merely “not engage in an external act…does not mean you are good to go.”

God is after the heart.

So back to James.

He wrote, be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to be angry…human anger doesn’t bring about the kind of life that pleases God.

Then, don’t show favoritism…you may think this is a minor thing…but its not.

The law is not merely a series of individual commandments…and when we break one, especially a minor one…it’s no big deal.

James writes “HE who said don’t commit adultery…also said don’t murder.”

“He said” not just “It is written”…it is written, the law of God is our authority…but it is written because “He has said so” and God is our authority.

All of the word of God is…God’s word…it tells us of his will and his ways.

Some don’t like the use of authority when speaking of God and his word…they prefer relationship.

It’s not a binary choice…as a child I had a good relationship with my dad who was my authority.

God is my Father (relationship) and God is my authority (King, commander)…his word has authority in my life because it is HIS word.

The law of God, summed up in “Love God, love others” comes from God himself…they reflect his will and his ways.

So, his extreme examples of “adultery and murder” I believe assume that his readers…understand the context of Jesus’ teaching.

He is not being Captain Obvious…he is getting to the heart of things…”To not commit adultery (lust) but to commit murder (be angry) is to break all of God’s law.”

To violate the law of God…is to move in our hearts and lives away from God.

We can’t blow this off as insignificant…to show favoritism, “Not that big a deal”

Just like anger is a big deal, so favoritism is as well.

Every violation of the will and ways of God is a big deal.

Especially since we are all heading in a direction in our hearts…towards or away from God…at any moment in our lives and during larger movements of our lives.

**When we look at someone (rich or poor, like you or unlike you)…and pass some kind of judgment on them…our heart is heading away from God.

Now, will we accept this, nurture this and continue to move away from God…or will we check our hearts, stop, repent?

Will we turn around and head back towards God…both heart and habits.

So James writes…

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. Mercy triumphs over judgment!

The verse tense here is “Always be speaking and always be acting” with an eye on the judgment to come.

We will be judged by how our lives conform to the will of God expressed in Christ’s teaching.

This is similar to what Jesus said in Matthew 25, there he indicated that final judgment, will be to a degree, determined by how we treated others.

This would be very bad news if it were the full story…especially when Jesus said that God looks at what happens in the heart not just what we do…as a basis for judgment.

Who is good enough to survive a judgment that measures both heart and actions?

No one.

In Scripture we find that our behavior is not the basis for God’s justifying verdict.

Thankfully, because our behavior will always fall short (heart and habits) of God’s standard.

Only Christ, whose righteousness is accredited to us, has fulfilled the standard.

But James, Paul, and of course Jesus…clearly teach that our behavior matters in God’s final assessment of us.

Our behavior is an indication of whether we have been born again or not…behavior as in direction not perfection.

God has given us the law of liberty…which we have the obligation and the power and the opportunity to obey.

We must do his will

We are able now to do his will

We get to do his will

The believer will not perfectly obey…but will want to obey, can obey, and as they do obey will live in the freedom of Christ.

The person who consistently over time…doesn’t change, doesn’t care, doesn’t repent and return…likely hasn’t been born again.

The one God has saved…will, in imperfect fashion, follow the law of liberty.

In the end, Mercy triumphs over judgement…in overall context…this means, those whom Christ has saved, will in the end experience his mercy not his judgment.

James holds important realities in tension…like Paul did…but they come at those realities in different ways.

James and Paul are friends with a different focus.

They are applying the same gospel to different settings.

Paul generally writes for those who are focused on working for their salvation.

James generally writes for those who are not focused on working out their salvation.

We must hold these important tensions in place.

Next week we will look at the most important passage in James, and probably in Scripture about this subject…so we will hold off until then.

Let’s make application for today by going back to three verses:

1 My brothers(sisters), as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don’t show favoritism.

4 (when you do) Have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

12 Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom

1. Love for God is always going to show up in how we treat others.
2. This is more than externals; it is a component of the status of our hearts.
3. Christ in us will change our words and actions…this is an obligation, but much more than that…it is opportunity.

You might be tempted to think: “I don’t understand the Bible, or maybe I would obey it.”

There are complex passages in the Bible…this stuff is pretty straightforward.

Will we submit to God’s commands (authority)?

-You cannot think you can outsmart God…he is Lord, boss…settle that.

Now in Christ, we can do what God commands (power)

-You cannot do this by your own good intentions, but there is real power in God’s Word, Among God’s people, and by God’s Spirit to obey

This is not only authority and power…it is freedom.

So…how have you approached others with judgment?

-Rich/poor, loud/quiet, republican/democrat, NPR/FOX

-Perhaps you have used Scripture to judge others…maybe you had the application right…but the direction of the application wrong.

-I should look in the mirror and not forget what I have seen…me, not you.

We don’t shove the mirror of God’s into someone else’s face…we look at it ourselves…then we remember what we see…by doing what it said.

This is obligation this is opportunity and this is freedom.

Ps. 119:32 I run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free.