James Session 6
Tom Shrader examines James 2:1-13, addressing the sin of showing partiality or favoritism in the church. He explains how James confronts believers who give preferential treatment to wealthy visitors while dismissing the poor, calling this behavior a violation of the royal law to love your neighbor as yourself. Shrader emphasizes that breaking any part of God's law makes one guilty of breaking the whole law, and calls believers to engage the world while remaining unstained by it.
“When you break a law of God, you have broken the law of God.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: James (2009)
Recorded: 2009 at Cannon Beach Conference Center
Duration: 55 min
Themes: favoritism, partiality, love, justice, equality, judgment, wealth, poverty, struggling with prejudice, church leader, wealthy believer, poor member, new to church, dealing with discrimination, pastor, mature believer
Scripture: James 2:1-13, James 1:21, James 1:26-27, Deuteronomy 10:17, Deuteronomy 1:17, Proverbs 24:23, Malachi 2:9, Acts 2:42, 1 Corinthians 1:26, Psalms
Theological Themes: royal law, biblical law, sin nature, sanctification, becoming holy, ecclesiology, church practice, biblical ethics
Full Transcript
From Music to Perspective
It's good to see you. By the way, that song "Your Grace is Enough" is one I just love. Evan mentioned I was putting together music for an event, and he was being kind and cryptic because he didn't want to violate a confidence—though it wasn't a confidence at all.
One of the last things I did before leaving town was put my funeral service together. I had a rough draft but wanted to complete the final details, which includes instructions for who speaks, when they speak, the order, the music, and instructions to the band about when to stay on the platform. They have a tendency to wander around aimlessly—they're musicians—so I want to get them in line.
When I finished putting all the music on an iPod and sequencing it correctly, I made two observations. First, they were all Chris Tomlin songs, which I thought was interesting, and I need to change that. I gave a copy to Karen, my admin, in a sealed envelope marked "date to be determined," and another copy to my son-in-law Tyler.
The Problem of Petty Complaints
One of the songs I included was "Your Grace is Enough," and I cannot sing that song without remembering a family in our church who left over it. There's a line that says "remember us," and their point was that since God never forgets, asking Him to remember us is silly. You could start going into the book of Psalms and rip out pages where David says "remember me." Are people just silly? So often it's around things that are not essential to the gospel at all.
We recently remodeled our chapel, which was a really nice building with pews and a marble front, stained glass windows. We took all that out and put in really cool seats. We got rid of everything in the front, so it's just white scrim where we can project any color, figures, or run a movie all the way across. It's really very cool.
Well, people started complaining, primarily that the seats are uncomfortable. A guy comes up to me, gives me a book, and starts complaining about the seats. The book he gave me was on the persecuted church, saying I'd love it and that he admires these people. So he admires guys who are willing to die for their faith but is unwilling to spend an hour and fifteen minutes in a seat in an air-conditioned building without complaining about the discomfort.
A Challenge for Church Members
When you wonder why pastors get discouraged and want to give up, it's because many of these guys really care. I've reached a point where I don't, but many pastors really do care about how you think and feel, even when you think and feel stupid.
One of the things I told the retirees conference is that one great thing you can do after an event like this is go home with new respect and admiration for the pastoral team God has placed around you. At least move to neutral, if not become His champion, but clearly don't become one who stirs things up over superficial things like colors of draperies, chairs, and music.
Moving to James Chapter 2
You can open your Bibles to James chapter 2. As we start today, the heading for James chapter 2 is "Partiality," which is appropriate given Evan's introduction. If you're going to bribe these judges, you need to do it in the next forty-five seconds because we're getting into this quickly.
We left at the end of chapter 1 after spending five sessions there. We can summarize it this way: James called us to count trials and difficulties as joy because we operate not naturally but supernaturally through faith. That's not faith that God will necessarily do something, but faith in who He is—there's no shifting or shadow in Him. Be slow to anger.
In verse 21, he said to put aside all filthiness and what remains of wickedness, and in humility receive the word that's implanted to save your soul. The idea there is the power of God and the power of His word.
Getting a Grip on God's Word
With little kids, we talk about getting a grip on God's word. If I take this Bible and grab it with my little finger, it doesn't last long. With two fingers, I can do a little better job. With three fingers, it's a little stronger. Four fingers give a pretty good grip, but if I can get those four fingers and that thumb, that's pretty strong.
that little finger represents hearing the word of God. It's really important and powerful to hear the word of God, but then I have to add to it. I have to read it. It's not enough just to say it's a cool book and hear it. I have to read it.
Number three is to study it. Now we start to do some work. James tells us to show ourselves approved as a student. What the word means in the context and tools—all sorts of tools available to you. If you go on just the web and you just Google the word "Bible study," you'll have all sorts of tools that pop up. There's one called Bible Study Tools dot net that's really helpful. There's one called Cross Walk. I always get it confused, but it's the one I use most. There's all sorts of tools there.
So I hear it and read it and study it, and then I begin to memorize it. I hide God's Word in my heart. I come back to it again and again. I confess to you I'm not very good at that. I teach a lesson—like I said I'm teaching through 1st Samuel—and I teach a lesson. I'm not kidding, once I'm done, it's like I can't get it in. I can remember that on March 8th, 1971 was the first Ali Frazier fight, but I just can't remember. I struggle with Scripture. I have to really work at it, and the only way I do it is through repetitiveness.
Meditation: The Key to Transformation
So I hear it, read it, study it, memorize it, and then I meditate on it. That's the big thing. I meditate on it. I was getting a tea this morning. I've always had—I say always, but for the last two or three years that I've been here, ever since Seasons has been open over here—I have a little ritual in the morning where I'll come out of the room and go down that way, and I go in there and get a cup of tea and then a cup of hot water to kind of get me through the morning, get it going.
While I was in there, a couple of the girls were outside. They were sitting outside, and I was watching. It was a beautiful sunny day, and they had their lattes or whatever they were drinking, and both of them had journals, and both of them were writing. Now, I happened to peek over and look at what they were writing. I shouldn't confess this, but they were writing... "Perhaps the most inspirational speaker I've ever heard. Awesome, amazing..." No, no, I'm teasing. I don't know what they were writing, but I could see that it was a daily practice of theirs.
Even when we were singing just now, "Your Grace is Enough," one of the girls sat down and grabbed her book, and she was writing something in there. I don't know what the entry was, but I'll guarantee you it had something that triggered the scripture, that triggered the word, that triggered the thought that she kept in front of her. That's what I do on my iPhone. A lot of times I'll have my iPhone, and people think I'm texting somebody, but I'm putting my notes in there to get those in there, so you go back to them again, and again, and again, and again.
I think Clark was saying he'll take a bunch of notes in the course of the year, and then he'll just be going back through his computer again, and again, and again. It's to meditate on it. I've been through the book of James many, many, many times, and yet every time I'm through, I'll see something new. Well, it's that word that's implanted in you. It's that word that's able to save your soul.
The Balance: Hearing and Doing
Now, He says, I'm all for that, but don't just study it, do it. They go together. You can be a hearer of the word, and it's kind of ironic. In all likelihood, the better the church you're in, the more likely you can become a hearer of the word. The better the church, the more you love to study, and more study, and more in-depth, and go deep.
We have to be very careful on this going deep stuff. Oftentimes when people say "go deep," what they mean is there's something either they didn't understand, or it makes them feel bad. "Jesus loves me, this I know"—let me tell you something, that is deep. We have to be careful, but we want to go deep. But I don't want to just be a hearer of the word, I want to be a doer also.
The other side of the tendency—and I know people are in a lot of churches—they tend to be churches where the scripture is perhaps not taught in a systematic, regular basis, and they tend to be doers of the word. They're the ones that are doing it. They're the ones that are feeding the hungry. They're the ones that are out doing it. If you ask them why, they're going to go, "Well, you know, I love Jesus. Yes, I do. I love Jesus. How about you?" And that's the extent of their theology.
Well, I'm not putting down either side. I'm just saying it's a both and. I need to study the word so that I have a theological grid for living the rest of my life.
True Religion: More Than Just Being Pure
He closes when He was talking about real religion. Look at verse 26: "If anyone thinks he's religious, and he doesn't bridle his tongue, but deceives his own heart, this man's religion is worthless. This is pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God: to visit orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world."
It feels to me like most churches get the last part of verse 27, the "unstained by the world" part. Let me just hammer on this a bit. The word Christian is a noun, but we've turned it into an adjective. The word Christian is a noun—describes a person who's a Christ follower, literally a little Jesus. That's what the word Christian means, but we use it most often as an adjective. So we talk about a Christian bookstore, a Christian school, a Christian teacher, a Christian cruise, a Christian comic, a Christian—
The Challenge of Christian Engagement
Golf tournament. It's not an adjective, it's a noun. Part of the reason it's turned into an adjective is because we're afraid of the world. Now I understand that. I had two sweet little girls, and my biggest concern was to make sure that they didn't get a lot of that ugly old dark world on them. But I have to be very careful that I don't get them so afraid of the world that they never engage the world.
I gave up years ago on my generation. We're all screwed up. The one under us, I wrote them off too. I'm down to that generation that's kind of between now - junior high and high school. I do pretty well there if there's a level of maturity with them, but I'm really good with men and women 20 to 30. I love that generation because they are serious about the theology, but they're also serious about the implications of it.
There is nothing wrong with Christian whatever it is, if in fact we're still engaging the world. Some of the best producers in Hollywood ought to be making Christian films with a Christian theme. The best musicians, the best artists, the best dancers, the best newspaper columnists. But we go on a Christian radio station, which is fine and dandy, and talk to a bunch of people who already believe what we already believe. Rather than engage the world, we're just viewed by the world as a goofy little cult that's over here.
The Tension of Being in the World
There's that tension in there. We got to make sure of it. "Just as you sent me into the world, I'm sending them into the world." "Let them see your good works." Well, you have to have contact for them to see it. If we're to be evangelistic and witnessing in our nature, then we have to have around us people who don't share our faith.
That's the challenge, isn't it? To go into the world and be salt and light in the midst of it. To share the gospel, to live the gospel, to remain - here's His term - unstained by the world. What does that mean? Well, I'm taking my value systems, my worldview, and I'm bringing it right into the worldview of ideas. I'm not afraid of it for a second.
If you want to see what a world looks like minus Christ and God's values, look at what's happening in our country. I don't even mean morally. I mean on an ethical basis as well. I think you could argue whether this was ever a Christian nation or not. I would tend to say no. But clearly, the values that drove us were biblical Judeo-Christian values with a clear understanding that those values had to be in place for the system to survive. Whether you could articulate chapter and verse is irrelevant to this discussion. You needed those values. You needed honesty and fairness and trust.
The Call to Cross Barriers
Now, here's what we know. Not everybody deals that way. As the world gets darker, our tendency is to become more and more isolated. That is not what Jesus had in mind. He said, "You keep yourself unstained by the world, but you're engaged with the world."
Here's my version of this. Here's our city right here. Here's a freeway, and on the north side of it is another zip code, 85204. Maricopa County is geographically one of, if not the largest, metropolitan county in the country, bigger than LA County. So it's a big county. We passed a cigarette tax to take the money to support the four poorest counties in the state. This one right here, 85204, is one of them.
It's three miles from our church, but there is the freeway. It might as well be the Berlin wall because culturally we never cross it. We know they will not cross to us. So here's what we've done. We're crossing to there. We're buying a storefront, hopefully, waiting for the elders to approve it. A storefront right there out of which we can teach English as a second language. We can run a clothing store. We can do all sorts of stuff.
Living Out True Religion
We've got staff people who are now buying and renting homes in 85204. It's just a bleak place. Why? Well, because we're to engage this world. Now the call for everybody - I'm not moving there. That's just not my deal, but it's the call for a bunch of people. My call is to support them in their effort as they do that. But for me to be salt and light where He's put me here in 85233, but remain unstained in this process.
For that, He says, "Here's real religion: to visit the orphans and the widows in their distress." That's what part of 85204 is all about. Keep myself pure from the world, but to visit those. God seems to have this burden for those who are the weakest in the society. There are people, when you say pull yourself up by their bootstraps, who can't do it because they don't have boots. There are kids and students that we see all the time that are in the worst possible situations. Well, it's to go there and to help the truly needy, to be salt and light with them.
Defending the Most Vulnerable
I'll just put a plug in here. The weakest of all in the culture are the unborn. We're still killing 1.5 million babies every year. I will tell you something, as you statistically grade this thing out, when you start to survey young people 18 to 25, overwhelmingly, something like 70% of them are pro-life. The reason why, in my view, is purely scientific.
In 1973, we had Roe versus Wade. I remember when Susan was pregnant, we went and said, "We're going to see a picture of our baby." Here's our first picture of our baby. Well, it was like a gray haze with a dot in it. I'm looking at it, going, "Oh wow, yeah, that's cool." It looked like Jimi Hendrix. I mean, I don't know what the thing looked like. It didn't look like a person. Now, they show you pictures.
Pure Religion and the Problem of Favoritism
A girl begins to realize she's pregnant, begins to feel it and miss her first period. By the time you get to that, they'll show you pictures of a child. They can show you pictures of what your baby looks like at that stage. Three weeks, a little heartbeat. After a while, you realize, you know what that is? That's not a fetus. That's a baby. The only thing missing here is time and nourishment.
So mothers say, "I have a right over my own body." Yeah, you do, but not anymore. You got another body in there. And that body trumps your body at this point. We don't even as a society—we're a little off course here—but as a society, we don't even say you have the right to your own body. You can't go down here and stand at Hemlock and be a prostitute or shoot yourself up with drugs. We throw you in jail for that. You don't have the right over your own body when there's another body inside. You have a social contract you've made with a Creator, whether you realize it or not, to protect that child.
We as a body need to rise up in love, not condemningly, but in love. Here's what I know. I guarantee you this: in your church, 20%, 25%, 30% of the women in that church, depending on how old that church is, have had abortions. That's how common this is. Every time I touch on it, we just see a raw nerve.
The Power of Truth in Crisis Pregnancy Centers
My daughter works for Crisis Pregnancy Center, one of the great organizations on the planet. She does the scans when the girl comes in. You couldn't have a better person do it because it's Haley. She's totally disarming. She's so sweet, so kind and perky. She'll get in there and say, "Oh, look! Oh, look, there's your baby. Look at your baby. Can you see your baby moving?"
All of a sudden, the only reason you're there is to try to confirm this oftentimes so you can go to Planned Parenthood because they don't care. But when you're done with Haley, you're realizing you got a baby. So if you're going to Planned Parenthood, here's what you realize, and this is why it's so catastrophic individually: you realize you're about to kill your baby.
She had a guy and girl that came in the other day. They were there for one reason: to confirm this to get an abortion. Haley said he was a hard guy. So she starts to show the girl this and says, "Here's your baby." I'm not sure if the girl said, "Will you go get him," or Haley said, "Let me go get him." He came in all gruff and Haley said to him, "Let me show you your baby. Look at your baby." She said the kid just began to weep and cry and realized, "You know what, we came in here to confirm this, to go kill this thing. We can't kill that. That's a baby."
A Culture of Life
Now at that point in your culture, it introduces a whole new set of problems. But at least we have a culture of life, not a culture of death. Visit the orphans, the widows. There are 10,000 orphans in the Arizona Children's Protective Service—10,000 children, 10,000 orphans. Two million people say they're Christians. If every 200th took one kid, we could empty that place out. Now they're tough kids. He makes that point.
The Problem of Personal Favoritism
And then He shifts gears. That's kind of a heavy start. "My brethren," verse 1 of chapter 2, "do not hold your faith in the glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism."
He's writing about the essence of pure religion and He doesn't focus on a doctrinal matter per se, but on the content of our actions. Not on the faith. He's making an assumption that it's there. This becomes real important—tonight we'll talk about it. This becomes important in our discussion tonight because He's going to talk about works and salvation.
But what He's saying is, "I want to talk about this real faith, but I want to talk about a problem with human nature. And the problem with human nature is that you show favoritism. You're attracted to pretty people and you're put off by ugly people. You make judgments and they're snap judgments."
He's not saying, "You know what, this is discourteous. This just isn't good." Here's what He's going to say to you: when you act this way, verse 9, "If you show partiality, you're committing a sin."
The Depth of Sin We Don't Understand
I am convinced our definition and depth of understanding of sin just isn't deep enough. I don't write enough thank you notes. A.W. Tozer says it this way: "The problem with our theology is this: it does not ascend high enough or descend low enough. It doesn't ascend high enough to let God be God or descend low enough for us to see ourselves as we really are." To see our despicable side.
So that in every moment, in every relationship, we are doing one of two things: either manipulating a person or ministering to a person. That's it. Those are the only two possibilities. I'm either manipulating you to get what I want or ministering to you to help you get or be who you want to be. And my heart is so wicked, I sometimes don't even know which one it is.
Examining Our Own Hearts for Favoritism
I used to do a golf study, a Bible study for a bunch of guys, and one of the PGA tour guys was in there. We just became really good friends. We would hang out together after the study, play golf together, and I'd get a lot of free stuff—clothes and balls and clubs—and just go to golf tournaments. Two years, he took me to Augusta for the Masters.
But I had to really examine this and ask, "Am I showing favoritism? Would I like him as much if he wasn't a golfer, but if he was a garbage man?" I came to the conclusion: maybe. But I asked God to clear my heart, make it as pure as He could.
The Scenario James Presents
He identifies the problem. He says, "Here's the problem." Verse 2: "A man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and there comes in a poor man in dirty clothes."
The Background of Favoritism
That's the background. Here's the problem. You pay special attention to the one who's wearing the fine clothes, and you say to him, "Sit in this good place." And you say to the poor man, "You stand over there, sit over here by my footstool."
So the background is, here comes two guys into the assembly. One's dirty, one's smelly. This is their church service. One is dressed in what he calls fine clothes, and he mentions gold rings. In that culture, a symbol of status was rings. Much as we might go, because most of you probably don't own a tuxedo. So for a special occasion, you would go and you would rent a tuxedo.
Well, they would go and rent rings. And the more rings you had, the more symbol you had of wealth. You rent a Lexus, they rent rings. And they would flaunt these rings. And it was designed to be a display of their wealth and success.
The Church Setting
So they'd come into the assembly. Now, in a church like that, of course, it would be like a fraction of the size of this room. Let's go ahead and say, well, one, two, three, four, five, six. Let's say it would kind of be the area of these first six rows. That's about it.
And in it would be a stool or two, a place to sit, maybe a bench or a half of a bench, pew. And they would put the rabbi there. But everyone else either stood or sat cross-legged on the floor. That's how they would sit for a service.
In comes the rich guy, and they say, "You, you, you, you come right here. Don't have a lot of these seats, but you come right here." Now, remember, they were extraordinarily poor in that church. So to have a rich person come in, most often, in all likelihood, this is a visitor.
Evil Motives Behind the Distinction
It would be one thing if what they were doing was just being kind and courteous, but they weren't. They were showing favoritism to him. They'd say to the dirty person, "You go over there. You sit over here." And he says, you've made a distinction, a total distinction.
And why did you make the distinction? Do you see it there in verse four? What's the source of this distinction? Evil motives. Trying to be thought of well in the perception of this rich guy, or maybe even manipulating him.
The word that is defined partiality, this is what, every once in a while you hit words like this. This is really cool. That word is found in that ancient literature. It is found only in the Christian writings of the time. The world didn't even use the word because this was a totally acceptable practice to them. Isn't that interesting? We're the first ones that were ever saying this, this isn't right. Something's wrong with this.
Understanding Proper Judgment
I always have to stop and talk about judging. Because if you've got somebody who doesn't know any Bible, they know this verse. You go down today to Bill's Tavern, which is a great place to eat by the way, get a great cheeseburger, whatever. You go down to Bill's, get a great cheeseburger. You start talking to people. They say, "What are you doing here?" I'm at the Conference Center. "Oh really? What is that?" It's this Bible, blah, blah, blah. You tell them.
And you say to them, "Do you know Bible?" And they'll say, "Well, I know one verse." Here's the verse they all know. Want to know what it is? "Judge not, lest you be judged." Everybody knows that.
So that the minute you begin to express a point of view, they'll go, "Wait a minute, that's so judgmental. That's not Christian, is it? Judge not, lest you be judged."
When Judgment Is Necessary
Here's what we're saying. We need to be judgmental when it's sin. Isn't that what Paul's doing when he writes to the church at Corinth, 1 Corinthians? He goes, "Listen, you guys got some serious issues. You got a guy in your church who's sleeping with his mom. This isn't good. Even Jerry Springer knows this is wrong." That's what he's saying. You can't have this.
So when we're dealing with sin, we have to be judgmental. When I get back, I'm going to have to deal in a public setting with somebody who is really screwed up. It's not lifestyle, but they did something that's wrong, and it's sin, and it's going to cost them a bunch. And when we deal with it, I'm going to get all sorts of emails about how judgmental, how you're a jerk, all this stuff. And I'm not judgmental or a jerk. I'm not judgmental. But what am I supposed to do with this?
When we deal with sin in the church, that's not judgmental. But it is wrong to be judgmental of others.
Our Double Standard in Judgment
And here's a... I wrote this down years ago, used it in here, and Jeff reminded me of this the other night. He says a whole bunch of quotes. He said, he was really kind of cool. I'll put it on tape because other guys don't listen to it. He said, "I probably have more of your quotes written down than any other speaker that comes here." But he said, "You said this, we judge ourselves by our intentions. We judge others by their actions." That's what we do.
We're in the midst of going, "Oh, I never meant that. I wasn't intending to do that. That wasn't my promise. That wasn't all what I planned." But somebody else does the slightest thing. They don't look at you correctly. They don't smile at the right time. And you judge that action. You don't have the foggiest idea what's going on in their life.
It drives me nuts when people fall asleep when I'm teaching. And I was teaching one day. I'm not sure what the range is. But I was teaching. I was teaching in a setting like this. I don't like being up there. I'd rather be down here. But I also know I'm so short that when I get down here, all the back row goes like this the whole time. So that's not good.
So I'm down here teaching. Well, there's a guy... I'll just take Clark as an illustration. There's a guy sitting about where Clark is, and he's sound asleep. Sound asleep. I mean, he's out like a light. His next stop is going to be after church to the chiropractor. Because that head's just bobbing back and forth.
So I can't handle it. So I'm over there, and I'm going, "Well, you know, like Jesus tells us." And I'm standing like this. Like Jesus tells us. And this guy's just sitting. And he's sitting.
And I'd move away. The minute I'd turn away, he'd fall back. And I'd come back over and say there's no reason. And I would go through this whole thing. And I just couldn't handle it. I was all screwed up.
So the service is over. And this guy comes up to me, and he says, I don't know if you noticed, but I was sleeping. I said, where were you sitting? I was so mad. And he said, I'm really sorry, Tom, because you know, man, I pay attention and take notes. But I hadn't slept much the other day. So last night was going to be a big night of sleep for me. And my neighbor came over. And he and his wife are considering a divorce. I didn't sleep. I was up all night with him. I was exhausted sitting there.
You got to be really careful, man. You judge yourself by your intentions. But you tend to judge others by their actions.
Making Distinctions in Our Culture
What James is talking about here is making a distinction. We can do it in our culture, based on economics, based on education. I'm not an East Coast guy. I've never spent much time out there, not even interested. The people that I meet there from there generally are, I would say, as a group, very unlike me or anybody I'd want to be around. They're harsh. They're in a hurry. They're quick. I just don't like it.
A friend of mine was just out there. He happens to be the president of a huge company. He said in every meeting he was in, they would go, oh, I'm Bob. He would say, well, I'm Fred. They would say, oh, Fred, where'd you go to school? And if that answer wasn't the right school, he said, literally, they'd walk away.
We can make distinctions based on education, distinctions based politically. If you happen to be a Democrat in most churches, you're viewed as a second-class citizen. And I know, because I spend a lot of time talking to men and women who are in Christian circles who are Democrats, and they will tell you it is very hard to survive in the church, not arguing over political ideas, but the way someone else just characterizes them. We make distinctions based on race. There's no question about that, though I think it's a fraction of what it used to be. I think we are very close to judging on the content of our character, not the color of our skin. We make distinctions based on gender, and then you can go on from there.
God Shows No Partiality
To show partiality is serious. Here's what Deuteronomy chapter 10 verse 17: "For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality nor takes a bribe." Meaning, He's not going to accept those sacrifices. You're not going to win Him over with a bunch of sacrifices. Quit burning the candles, knock off the incense, quit working to make Him happy.
Deuteronomy 1:17: "You shall not show partiality in judgment; you shall hear the small as well as the great alike." Proverbs 24:23: "These things also belong to the wise: It is not good to show partiality in judgment." Malachi 2:9: "Therefore I also have made you despised and base before all the people, because you have not kept My ways but have shown partiality in the law."
It's a serious business. It was not a problem in that very first church, right? If you go back to the book of Acts, what are they doing? They're living together in peace and harmony.
The Early Church's Short-Lived Unity
It's short-lived, right? Peter delivers this message, 3,000 people believe. What are we going to do? And they're together in Acts chapter 2 verse 42, and they're studying the Word, and they're breaking bread, and they're praying, and they're having fellowship. They're in Jerusalem, most of them pilgrims who are making this kind of trek there to Jerusalem. They're all out of stuff. They're all out of money. There's no way to get money. People are literally selling things and giving it to others, so they have an opportunity to live.
But by the time James is writing—and let me, you know, I don't think I've said this to you yet, which is not good, and it should be by way of introduction—if we take the book, let's say the New Testament, and we arrange it chronologically, this is the first book that was written of the New Testament. So this is early. We would date this as early as 45-50. So it's the first book written in the New Testament.
By then, James is saying, you already have a problem. You're starting to act like the rest of the world. You got these people coming in fine clothes, again, in gold rings, literally gold-fingered, and you're putting him in this incredible place of distinction. Don't do it.
God's Choice of the Poor
He said, look, I'll give you an example. Verse 5: "Listen, my beloved brethren"—whenever he says that brethren or beloved brethren, he's about to just knock you. Okay. It's like that, Tom, I really enjoy your teaching. What? But, yeah, watch out for that but because that's going to kill you when you get to that one. "Has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him?"
He said, look, God did that. When God began to save people, He didn't take the biggest, the best, the brightest. First Corinthians chapter 1, verse 26: "For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called."
Here's what he's saying, put in our context: not a bunch of PhDs. We won't do the drill, but if I say to you, are there any of you here who have a PhD? Well, we can go ahead and do it, I don't mind doing it. Any of you here have a PhD? Nope. Any of you mighty in power, any elected officials here, anyone elected to the state legislature or to the National Congress? Anyone elected to any position anywhere? Maybe one. We won't do the money thing, but I don't know how to define rich, but you know, it'd be interesting to go, are there any of you who have a net worth of, let's say, I don't know, five million dollars or more?
I mean, it's like this everywhere. If you and I were going to start an organization, think about this, if I came to you—
They said, "We're going to take over the world, my friend. We are going to dominate the world. We have been entrusted with the most precious message ever, and our responsibility—this is our task—is to take this to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the outermost parts of the earth. That's our job."
Now, we need a plan. We need a strategic plan. But in the process of assembling that plan, we need the best and the brightest. The first thing we would do is find somebody with an education and a background in marketing and branding. Then we'd say we need to really be networked, so we'd pull in the powerhouse. Who are the players? Who are the real influential people in Portland? Then we'd say, "Okay, who's got the dough to fund this? Who's the person that's going to pay for it?" Isn't that how we would do it? The answer is yes. I know because I've done it.
God's Opposite Strategy
That's not what God did. He chose—here's how He describes it, by the way, He's describing you here—He's chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. He's chosen the weak things of the world to shame the strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He might nullify the things that are, so no man may boast before God.
In fact, we have this image of Paul as this powerful, mighty speaker, this incredible person. We think if we walked into a room, he'd dominate the room. Here's what Paul says, describing himself when he wrote to the church at Corinth: "I came to you, brethren, and not in superiority of speech or wisdom, but proclaiming to you testimony of God. I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling."
That's the persona, that's what he had from the front. "My message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit, and of the power of the Spirit, that your faith wouldn't rest upon the wisdom of men, but on the power of God." You get what he's saying there? He said when I came in—and we have other writings that indicate it—Paul just wasn't a very impressive person. His letters were much stronger than his persona.
We don't know, but tradition says he was a bull-legged, short, hook-nosed, balding, little Jewish chap, with a thorn in the flesh that some think, though we certainly can't confirm, was this drooling eye. Here's our speaker today. And he said when I spoke, it wasn't persuasive. Why? "I didn't want to get in the way of the message."
Losers Chasing Losers
That's what God does. He chooses. I have a friend whose father is a non-believer, and so he defines missionaries this way: "losers chasing losers," meaning people who can't cut it here going to another culture where perhaps they can make it to chase the losers that are there. And everybody gets all offended. "Oh, that's an insult." Well, that's kind of what it is—a bunch of losers like you and me chasing a bunch of losers out there. We seem so uncomfortable with that description, but it's right.
I know that. I flew in—I think it was Houston, but I'm not sure. I flew in, and this guy picked me up, and he was taking me out to some retreat grounds. I had talked to him on the phone. He said, "I've been listening to all your tapes," and all that. This is before you could live stream or whatever it is we do or see video of me. He said, "I'm really looking forward to meeting you."
So I come out, and he's got this sign: "Tom Schrader." So I walked by. I said, "Are you picking up Tom Schrader?" He's really cool. No, I said, "I'm here." We get in the car, and he's acting really weird. So we're driving out, and we sit down, and I said, "You okay?" He said, "Yeah." I said, "What's wrong?" He said, "Can I be honest with you?" I said, "Sure." He said, "You're not exactly what I expected. I expected a little more than the way you look." I said, "That's okay. That doesn't bother me. I hear that all the time."
I know that. I guarantee if you go back there and you get tapes, I know that. I always think of—and I don't mean this, but I won't give you a name—but I was thinking of one guy. He's perfectly clothed. He's always got his clothes just right. His hair is perfect. He speaks in that voice that if God had a voice we could hear, it would be that voice. He never says, "uh, um, uh." Always brings his notes. When he is done, and you're sitting over at the coach house or you're having a cup of coffee, everywhere I go, I hear, "He is amazing." And he is.
When I'm done, here's what they say: "God is good." Because that's not what I would have picked for this. And I'm okay with that. To me, it's what He said He was going to do.
The Church's Favoritism Problem
But this church—early church, the one that James is writing to—has already fallen into the trap of showing favoritism. So God begins to deal with them. He said, "Look at verse 6. Have you dishonored the poor? Isn't it the rich who oppresses you and personally drags you to court? They're the ones that are taking you to jail. They're the ones that are suppressing you, and you're showing them special treatment."
"However, if you fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. You're doing well." But that's not what's happening.
Partiality Is Sin
To show partiality, look at verse 9. Circle the word "sin." Put it in your front. Remember it. Because when you're doing that list of sins, we got all these big ones. We got the ones—man, if you're gay, boy, that's really, that's a big one. If you're watching porn, doing porn, you're in real trouble. You get divorced, that's the end of that one. We have certain sins that we institutionalize and condone. And one of them is partiality.
He said it's sin. You have been convicted by the law. You're a transgressor. And I think he's shoving it right in their face in verse 10: "For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles on one point, he becomes guilty of all." He said, "Here's what you're—"
You're going, "Well, maybe it's partiality, but that's no big deal." He said, stop. If you break a law of God, you have broken the law of God. I'll come back to it again tonight, but let me drive this point home. Because we have—that's why our view of sin is so small.
Breaking God's Law: The Broken Window Illustration
So let's say somehow this screen represents the whole law of God. But we break this little partiality thing, this little thing right here. And we say, "Well, look at all I kept." And He said, "But look at what you broke."
Imagine playing golf. So you're standing on a tee, you're playing one of these residential community courses. There's homes on both sides of the fairway. So you kind of line up. I have a tendency when I hit it, I hit it right. So I might set up a little left. If I set up a little left and I get that ball forward enough, I'm set up for a pull. So I'll every once in a while—it's ugly when it happens because I'm playing to go left. If I am playing to go left and it goes left, bad things happen.
Now I'm set up to go left. I'll set a little forward. I'll take it back. I'll get about here and I'll start to move on it and pull it. I'll whip my hands. My hands will just whip through. Well, if I hit that shot, it's a low screaming hook. Nothing good can come from this.
Imagine I hit this hook over toward one of these houses and I go up and when I get there, there's a guy standing there and there's a big old plate glass window beside. He said, "Hey man, is this your ball?" And I said, "Well, what is it? Titleist three with the name Tom on it." "It's my ball." He said, "Well, you broke my window." I said, "Oh man, I'm sorry. I need to make it right with you."
And I'd hit it so hard that what had happened is the ball had just absolutely penetrated this window. There's a hole right here. So I say to him, "Man, that's a big old window, isn't it?" "Yeah." "What's a window like that cost?" "Well, $3,000." "Wow. Well, it looks like I got about a square inch of that. I guess I owe you what, 50 bucks or so?" He said, "No, no, no, no, no. Give me a five iron." And then he knocks all the glass out of the window because he said, "When you broke this part of the window, you broke the whole window."
That's the image James has given them. Do you get it? They're saying this is no big deal. It's partiality. I'm just showing a little favoritism here. It's not like murder, not like adultery, not like stealing. And James is saying, "No, when you break a law, you break the law, all of it."
The Unity of God's Law
"For He who said, 'Do not commit adultery,' also said, 'Do not commit murder.' Now if you do not commit adultery, but do commit murder, you have become a transgressor of the law." How? Well, because you do it. It's the same thing with partiality. God said, "Don't show partiality." You do it, you break the law.
"So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. For judgment will be merciless to the one who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment."
He gives us a warning. He said, "Watch out. You have these people who come into your place. They're people who are wealthy people. You can see them. They're the ones who are also oppressing you. But you've overlooked that. You've shown favoritism to them. You've missed what He calls the royal law in verse eight: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' Love God with all your heart, soul, mind. Love your neighbor as yourself."
The Need for Correction
You've made a distinction between them and you based on something that's superficial and it ought not be that way. It needs to be corrected. You need to fix it. You need to understand it's sin. He said, "I want you to look at the law of liberty."
Here's what we're going to do when we start tonight. We're going to talk a little bit about this law of liberty. I've had two or three of you ask me, "Talk more about grace, talk more about grace." Well, in essence, all of this is about grace, but some specific areas of that. I'll give you a couple of books that I've read lately that really had an impact on me. We'll talk about all that stuff tonight. Tie this up.
And then very familiar. Look at verse 14: "What use is it, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him?" And then he illustrates it. And then he comes back to say, "Even the demons believe." Oh yeah. And what about Abraham? Now they'd get that. That's the father. Remember, he's writing to Jews. They'd get that. I want to talk about that when we get together tonight.
Closing Prayer
Let's pray together. Father, let us have in our minds, this word penetrate into our heart and soul. We pray that in us, there would be a desire to love You. And as a result of loving You, would we begin the process of loving others? Father, thank You that indeed we can love. And the only reason we can love is because You first loved us.
I pray that You would peel away scales today to help us see how we show partiality. It's absolutely natural. And even though we are to operate supernaturally, we periodically drift. We act in a way that is natural, sinful. Put our guards up.
Father, help us understand that in every situation, every moment, every time we are either manipulating or ministering. So God, let us be ministers, servants of Your Son, Jesus. I pray for a fun afternoon on the beach. I pray as families gather together to enter into this intense competition, that God, You let them have fun in the middle of it. And God, I pray every sandcastle that's built is a winner in Your eyes because families are together, loving on one another and glorifying You. We pray these things to You in Christ's name. Amen.
All right. You're adjourned. Lunch is at noon. No lunch today. You're on your own.