Blue Jean Theology Part 7

Tom Shrader addresses the problem of partiality in the early church, where wealthy people received preferential treatment while the poor were marginalized. He challenges believers to examine their hearts for worldly value systems that contradict God's perspective, noting that God often chooses the poor and humble rather than the rich and powerful. The teaching emphasizes living under the law of liberty, motivated by love rather than legalism.

“Very, very, very, very, very rarely can a person be successful by the world's standards and by God's standards.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: Blue Jean Theology (2011)

Recorded: 1996

Duration: 43 min

Themes: favoritism, partiality, poverty, wealth, equality, judging, humility, love, struggling with prejudice, wealthy believer, poor believer, church leader, facing discrimination, new to church, mature christian, community member

Scripture: James 2:1-13, Romans 2:11, 1 Corinthians 1, Matthew 18

Theological Themes: ecclesiology, law of liberty, justification, sanctification, biblical authority, christian ethics, social justice, spiritual maturity

Full Transcript

We are in week seven of our study through the book of James. Let me remind you that there are sermon tapes available in the back if you didn't get one on the way in, so feel free to grab one on the way out.

We're working our way through the book of James, and we are now in the second chapter. It's important to understand—and I'm respecting more and more the way God wrote this book—the organization and logical sequence of it.

The Structure of James

James begins by writing to this group of scattered Jews, and he says to them, "Count it all joy when you encounter various trials." He understood that in their setting, as in ours, there were trials and tribulations and difficult times. So he spends a good deal of time encouraging us, saying that it's inevitable when you encounter various trials. You're either going into, coming out of, or you're in the midst of a trial. In any case, these are profitable words: "Count it all joy." Why? Because you know something that the world doesn't know. You know that these trials and testings of your faith produce endurance and ultimately make you mature.

One of the great privileges you can have in your life—and I would encourage you to do it—is to find an old man or an old woman. How old? Old. And an old man or an old woman that's been a Christian for a long time, and take their faith seriously. Buy them a cup of coffee and sit down with them. You sit down with them and say, "Just tell me how you've seen God work in your life." It will be one of the great thrills you'll ever have. There is nothing better than somebody who's walked with Christ for a long period of time. They'll talk to you about the hard times, but they will tell you that the hard times produce the maturity to understand who Christ is.

So that's the first thing James talks about. He talks about trials. Then he says, "Now, I don't want you thinking that when these trials come in forms of temptation, that those are from God."

Key Verses to Remember

James gives us a key verse, and I would encourage you—some of you make a lot of notes, and I have no idea what you do with those notes. My sense is they probably don't ever get read, because of my own way of handling it. I take a bunch of notes and then I typically never look at them again. So here's what I've gone to: in a book, for example, I will do it in the front of this Bible. These are all things that at the point I heard them, I thought they were in that upper tier of stuff that I'd want to go back to over and over again.

I suggest you find a place—front of Bible, back of the Bible is a great place—to put little verses that are key theological verses. I don't mean thought points for action. I'm talking about key verses that theologically you'll go back to over and over again, because as you run into other areas and start to get pulled off course, these will bring you back.

One of them is what James gives us in the very first chapter. We looked at it and identified it as an important verse. In verse 13: "Let no one say when he is tempted, 'I am being tempted by God,' for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone." That's a key verse. As I'm going through these things, I go back to that over and over again.

Trials Versus Temptations

So James says when you encounter trials, understand those are for the producing of maturity in your life. When you encounter temptations, those are to destroy you. A temptation is when something internal matches up with something external. So when you say, "You make me so mad," no, they don't. All they do is just bring out what's already there. That's what that is.

Be Doers, Not Merely Hearers

Well, then he shifts, and this is where we left off last week—verses 19 through 27, the end of the first chapter. He begins that part by just giving us really an introduction or overview of the rest of the book. In a sense, what he says is what Nike uses as a slogan. He basically says at that point, "Just do it." You don't want to just be a hearer.

Now, understand this is very important. When you're reading Scripture, when you're reading a letter, when you're watching a movie or listening to music or a dialogue or whatever it is, you have to put it in context. James is writing, dealing with specific problems that these people were having. They were struggling with their trials, so he hits it head on. Here was another problem these people had: they were studying and studying and studying and hearing and hearing and hearing, but they weren't doing anything.

So James says it's important for you to be a doer, not merely a hearer. He's not saying hearing isn't important. He's saying doing is important as well.

The Tension of Christian Living

Let me just give you what I think is wisdom. Whether it is or not, I have no clue—you be the judge. This is why this Christian life is very difficult, in the sense that you never get the answer to how you should live. Here's what I've discovered: there'll be a time when you're hearing, hearing, hearing, and somebody will come along and say, "You aren't doing." Almost inevitably, you begin doing at the expense of hearing. So now you're six months into this going, "I'm doing, doing, doing, and I'm not hearing." So I'm constantly moving.

There is a tension in the Christian life, a constant tension, to keep these things in some sense of balance. I hate the word balance. I think it's a word that's overused and misused. Not many people accomplish much who are balanced. No one ever looked at the Apostle Paul and said he was balanced.

What a balanced man he is. He said, "I only do one thing, and that's preach Christ." So this balance thing is not what I'm talking about. Understanding all these things need to be present in my life. And human nature is, I'll tend to focus on one and not the other. So I'm constantly moving. I'm saying to you, rest in that struggle because it's inevitable.

Now he begins to shift gears. Apparently, in that early church, there was a problem. What was it? We're going to read these 12, 13 verses, and then come back, and they'll be the basis for our lesson today.

The Problem of Favoritism in the Church

Second chapter of James, first verse: "My brothers, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. For if a man comes into your assembly with a gold ring, dressed in fine clothes, and there also comes a poor man in dirty clothes, you pay special attention to the one who's wearing the fine clothes. And you say, 'You sit here in a good place.' And you say to the poor man, 'You go over there. Sit down here by my feet.' Have you not, at that point, made a distinction among yourselves and become judges with evil motive?

"Listen, my beloved brethren. Did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who loved Him? But have you dishonored the poor man? Is it not the rich who oppresses you and personally drag you into court? Do they not blaspheme the fair name by which you've been called?

"If, however, you are fulfilling the royal law according to the scripture, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself,' if that's what you're doing, you're doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at one point, he has become guilty of all. For He said, 'Do not commit adultery.' And He also said, 'Do not commit murder.' Now, if you do not commit adultery, but you commit murder, you're a transgressor of the law."

And then he ends this section this way: "So speak and act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. For judgment will be merciless to the one who shows no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment."

Identifying the Heart of the Problem

If you don't know a whole lot about scripture and you don't know Greek, you can read this and see that there's a problem that's developed in this early church. The problem that they have is pitting the rich and the poor. Apparently, in this early church, they were succumbing to human nature. The human nature that says, "We're going to run over here and we're going to acknowledge the people that are rich. We're going to shun the people who are poor."

Let's be really honest here. This is a tough problem. It's tough in two senses. Number one, defining the problem is always important if we're going to solve it. It's really hard to define. You get a couple together and they have some problem in their marriage, but the biggest problem I have is getting them to agree on what the problem is. Because when you define the problem, we can start to attack it.

It's the same thing in business. We did lots of negotiations for years, and I happen to think I was a pretty good negotiator. The reason was I was really good at saying, "Here are the problems. Here are the deal points. There's five of them. Now, we've got to figure out how we're going to get these resolved." It's the same thing here. When you define terms, all of a sudden, dealing with the problem is a little easier.

So you've got one problem here. This is really tough to define, especially in our context. The second problem is you're fighting natural human tendencies.

The Challenge of Defining Rich and Poor

Here's what happens. We added parenthetically there the Living Bible paraphrase of the first verse: "Dear brother, how can you claim to belong to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, if you show favoritism to the rich and you look down on the poor?" So he begins with this premise. This is what's going on. This is what's happening in the church.

Here's why I say it's a problem. How do you get a definition of rich and a definition of poor? Let me give you Webster's definition of poor: Someone wanting in material things or goods. Well, I can sit in a $10,000 house with three cars and a cabin at Forest Highlands and a place over at the condo and still want a material yacht. That's a really tough thing.

What's equally difficult to define is rich. Here's historically the definition I've used: Anyone who has more than you. That's how you typically define it. Am I rich? No. But he is. He's got more than I do. And that's how we can get our hands around those terms. See, they're very relative terms.

So I can't get into this. If you talk to a lot of people, they think Bill Gates is rich. Bill Gates says, "I got nothing. Warren Buffett's got it all. I don't have hardly any. I got 12 stinking billion dollars. I got hardly nothing." So we can't begin to deal on those terms.

The Heart Issue Behind Favoritism

As we back out, we start to see how tough this is. See, what he's asking us to do, I think, is to take a look at our own heart and to acknowledge in there the natural pull or the natural tendency to show favoritism to one group or another. And the distinction he has made here is economic.

We could make the same distinction politically. We could make the same distinction as we deal from a power base. We could make the same distinction intellectually. We can make all of those distinctions because that's the way we tend to think. So what he's doing is holding up a mirror and saying, "I want you to take a look at this because in God, there is no partiality." Romans chapter 2, verse 11. That's exactly what it says. There's no partiality with God. That point is made throughout the Old Testament.

Throughout the Old and New Testament, God as He deals is not a God who shows favoritism. Especially in this area of economics, we find something that is alarming to us, very frankly, as a 1996 capitalist in a democracy. God seems to favor the poor more than the rich.

I add this parenthetically. I'm not sure the society that we're in has not distorted the way we look at our faith. Just like the democracy and the business and the entrepreneurship that we see that's so successful in business really doesn't apply to the church. We also don't vote at our church for anything. One of the reasons is it's not biblical.

Democracy Versus Biblical Authority

What drives people away is they think they need to vote, so they'll go to a church where they vote. I don't see where this comes from. Why would I let some guy who's bare minimum entry level, maybe did membership, which only means you're a Christian, vote on who's going to be the leader? You imagine walking in a first grade classroom and saying, "Well, I'm the teacher for today, but I want you guys to elect your own teacher." Doesn't make any sense. It's not biblical. I think it's an outgrowth because typically you are rebellious people living in a democratic society.

Our Struggle with the Poor

Here's the other deal. We have a tendency to have a hard time with the poor. And this is a fine line. We have a tendency to say anybody can do anything they want - this is a great country. Well, that simply is not true. You got a whole class of people who have almost no chance by age twelve.

Most of the people in this room are conservative Republicans. They would have voted for Pat Buchanan, but he's too liberal. Most of you are in that area and you want to take all these things and say, "Listen, the reality is you got a bunch of people around you who haven't got a chance." They are stuck. You could take your kids from Scottsdale and Paradise Valley and my kids from Tempe and put them in that same environment and they are going to struggle like mad. Sometimes we forget that our Savior was born in that environment.

Paul's Conversion and Jesus' Standing

This is one of my favorites. Major Ian Thomas's view of the apostle Paul's conversion. I used to read this about every six months in here, just even if it didn't fit in a lesson, just to get it on tape because I love to listen to it. I haven't read it in a while. Listen closely if you would, and then we'll get after the rest of this, because I think he drives home the point that when Christ came, He would fit in that latter category, that poor category.

Major Ian Thomas speaking as the apostle Paul, talking about conversion:

"There was a time when I, as Saul of Tarsus, made my own independent evaluation of this man called Jesus of Nazareth. I investigated into His life to see if the leader of this Nazarene cult was worth following. I made my own independent evaluation of what He was worth. I was not unfair. I was not unkind. I applied to Him all the normal natural standards by which any life is evaluated in any age.

Jesus' Ancestry and Social Standing

"I looked first into His ancestry and discovered there was a cloud over His birth right from the start. As I investigated, it became quite clear that He was the illegitimate son of a faithless woman who'd been taken in by a kind-hearted carpenter and raised as His own son. But He was an outcast from the beginning, and socially He was worth absolutely nothing.

"I investigated His professional standing, and I discovered that He was born of peasant stock and attended no school. He was raised as a simple carpenter in a village of no standing in Israel, and professionally He was worth absolutely nothing.

Jesus' Theological and Financial Standing

"As Saul of Tarsus, I investigated His theological and ecclesiastical background. I found that He never sat at anyone's feet, that He had never been to seminary, that He had no theological training. In fact, He was repudiated by all the ecclesiastical authorities of His day. He was nothing but an incorrigible street preacher, and as far as His theological standing was concerned, He was worth absolutely nothing.

"Furthermore, I looked into His financial standing. I found that He had no bank account, that He was born in a cave, laid in a borrowed manger, that He lived in other people's homes. He was an incorrigible scrounger, always borrowing things, borrowed money to pay His taxes, borrowed clothes from other people, rode on a borrowed donkey, died on a borrowed cross, and was buried in a borrowed tomb. Financially, from the standpoint of the accumulation of the world's goods, He was worth absolutely nothing.

The Damascus Road Revelation

"So as I investigated and applied to Him the normal standards by which any life is evaluated, I discovered that this man, Jesus of Nazareth, was not worth following. He was worth nothing. But, on the Damascus Road, something happened. There, in a blinding flash, I looked into the face of a man and saw God.

"I discovered that He, who I thought to be worth nothing, was the Lord of everything, that He was the God of glory, that everything that is made is upheld by the Word of His power, that He is behind all things, and He is the very imprint and the very image of God. There, I found that He, whom I thought to be nothing, was everything, and I, who I thought to be everything, was nothing.

The Reversal of Values

"In that moment, I came to a tremendous reversal of all the values of my life. Later, I realized that I, who was nothing, could be filled with Him who was everything, and that would make my life something."

See, that's what I believe James is cutting to here. There is a core tendency, even among Christians, to begin to evaluate people, to evaluate churches, to evaluate nonbeliever and believer alike by a world standard rather than by God's standards. What's happened in this church here that James is talking to is that the rich are getting preferential treatment. The politically powerful are getting preferential treatment.

special privilege. And let me tell you how hideous this is. It creeps even into our own life.

Sarah, my daughter Sarah is a sophomore in high school, and Haley is in eighth grade. Both are involved in cheerleading. We got cheers going all day and all night long at our house. Consequently, I've gone to a lot of basketball games this year, and I've seen a lot of really lousy basketball. I was at a game not long ago where the halftime score was 44 to 5. The team with 44 backed off and the final score was 66 to 5. The kid had a chance at 7.5 seconds left to make two free throws but he didn't. I watched a lot of lousy basketball, but I watched some pretty good cheerleading, which is why I go to games now. It's a reversal of how it used to be.

One of the things that happened is the eighth grade girls decided they wanted to compete in the state competition. Sarah, as a sophomore, decided she would help. She choreographed this whole thing. She spent hours trying to find Christian music with a beat. She spent all this time trying to blend these things together so they could go and do the state competition. She ran it. She drove it. She disciplined these little eighth graders. When it was all done, they finished third in their category in the state, competing against some huge schools. Really a neat deal.

About four or five days later, because I knew I had a teachable moment here, I said to Sarah, "I want you to remember this feeling. Because I didn't have to tell you to work. I didn't have to tell you to prepare. I didn't have to tell you to get them. I didn't have to tell you to schedule the meeting. You wanted to do it. You were there. There was something there that made you want to do it. Whatever it was, find it, define it, and there's your life. This is a huge deal, Sarah. Don't let it pass."

She said to me, which I thought was pretty sharp, since I was 31 before I ever even began to think of this, "I've been already thinking about this, Dad." She said, "I tried to do exactly what you said, and here's what I've decided. I want to be a teacher." And then she said something really interesting. She said, "But I know I won't make a lot of money."

I just sat her down and said, "Listen, Sarah, the money part of it will work itself out. We'll put your mom to work, and she can support you. I don't know how this happened. I don't know how it works out. But I know this." I said, "Sarah, you'll never understand this for another decade or two. I meet all week long with men who are making thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars. They are miserable and miserable and miserable and making no difference except to their banker."

The World Wants to Steal Your Dreams

I just had a chance to talk at the university. Every time I go there, I tell them the same thing. When you graduate, there's a whole society out there that wants to steal your dreams. They want to suck you out of your dreams. They want to make you dry. They're going to take you and shape you into their mold. Everything's going to be bottom line.

At some point, you've got to say, "Screw the bottom line." At some point, you've got to say, "That's not what it's all about. It's not how much money I make. I've got to have a living, and I understand that. But I'm telling you, two people can go a long way on a lot less money when they're happy and when they're doing what God would have them do." That's so simple.

The time to make that decision is now. You're already in bondage and can't do anything about it other than feel guilty. But the time to do that is with these high school and these college kids. There's the message to give them. Because we have that tendency.

The Rich People's Favoritism

That's the problem to defining and understanding. Here's what's happening. The rich people are coming in. They were rich, and He identifies them by what they wore. They wore gold rings. In that day, the amount of rings you wore was a sign of prosperity. People would even rent rings to wear them. Dressed in fine clothes, they said, "Come on, you come up here and you sit down here." Then they would say to the poor people, "You go over there."

They were making an artificial distinction. It was a distinction that was made on not God's value system, but man's. He said, "You've made a distinction among yourselves." You've made a distinction that's artificial, that doesn't flow from God's perspective. God's perspective is very different than man's perspective as He deals with this issue. He comes right in their face.

Love Requires Truth-Telling

Now look what happens in verse 5. This is interesting, I think. He says, "Listen, my beloved brethren." Notice this. He starts verse 1 with, "My brethren." Three times in the first chapter, he says, "My beloved brethren." Here's what he's saying. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. But because I love you, I got to tell you the truth.

James Dobson says the number one mistake people make in raising their kids is thinking that if they love them enough, they never have to discipline them. See, that's your job from the very beginning. If you really love these kids, you will discipline them. We've talked about this before, but we have so many new people. Let's make the point again. You get them when they're young. There's no difference between that and breaking a puppy. It's the same deal. You just break that little spirit. Never the will. You just break that little spirit in them.

If you don't do it when they're two, you're going to do it when they're twelve. If you don't do it when they're twelve, you're going to do it when they're twenty-two. Let me tell you, it gets tougher each year you wait. When you come to our house with two teenage girls, you will find there are essentially no rules. We have no rules. I love that. I hate rules because you got to enforce rules.

And the minute there's a rule, everybody wants to argue about it. We don't have any rules. You know why? Because we had so many rules when they were little kids that they started to understand and define their own limits. If you really love somebody, you're going to tell them the truth. If you really love them, you're going to tell them even the hard things. That's what he says to them.

Now, he said, listen, in this process, as you've made these distinctions, here's what you've done. You've dishonored the poor man. You've made an artificial distinction here. And not only is it artificial, it's contrary to God.

God's Values Versus the World's Values

Listen to what Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 1. Apparently, in the early church, over and over again, they had to be reminded that God's view of man and man's view of man are two different things. So, here's what Paul says to the church at Corinth. He says this, the foolishness of God is wiser than men. And the weakness of God is stronger than men.

For consider yourselves. Consider yourselves, brethren. He uses the same technique. I love you, buddy. I love you, man. That's why I'm going to tell you the truth. There's not many among you that are wise. He's speaking to you, by the way. There are not many who are mighty and there are not many who are noble.

For God has chosen the foolish things of this world to shame the wise. And God has chosen the weak things of this world to shame that which the world thinks is strong. See, when you talk about values in God's economy, you talk about political power and prestige.

The Emptiness of Worldly Power

Look at all these little guys running around. All these little guys endorsing everybody and kissing each other and hugging all together. All they're doing is covering their own nest. Phil Graham goes down and John's over here. Body's not even cold yet. One over here because there may be an opportunity over here. It's all politics. And they think there's power there. It's a joke.

And they think there's power in money. And they think there's really something there. And then their kid gets cancer and they find out, I have nothing I can do. And the world system keeps saying, if your name has a PhD after it, or if your name has a strong financial statement, or if it's recognized in the community, you have value. God said that's absolutely wrong.

Now, let me make this point. God is not saying that if you're poor, you go to heaven. If you're rich, you go to hell. That's not the point that He's making. But He is acknowledging, I think, that for whatever reason, as God has assembled His church, He has taken very few people who have great standing in the community.

Why God Chooses the Weak

I don't know why. I have my suspicion. If you're interested, I'll tell you what it is. If you get a hard-charging entrepreneurial guy and you bring him into the body of Christ and something happens, everybody stands around and says, isn't he great? But you get some guy who doesn't have two nickels to rub together and could no more put together a business plan than fly, and all of a sudden people start coming to Christ through him and he's a teacher and touching people's lives. They look at him and go, he's not so great. That must be God. That's the way it tends to work.

That's why we have a couple guys here from Prison Fellowship. When you listen to Chuck Colson, Chuck Colson, who, by the way, is really an incredibly brilliant guy with all sorts of resume credentials, but the thing that turned his life around was not his strength, but his weakness. It's the way God works. And He does that to strip away our ego and pride and to fight this natural tendency to think you're really something.

The Rich Oppressing the Poor

You need to understand this. He says, listen, don't these people blaspheme the name of God? Aren't they the ones who drag you into court? Here's what was going on in that society. You really had class warfare. In that society that James is talking about, the rich literally opposed the poor. They dragged him to court. No doubt, it was primarily for debt.

At the bottom end of the social scale were people so poor that they could hardly live. And moneylenders were plentiful. They're around all over the place to take advantage of them. In the ancient world, there was a custom of summary arrest. If a creditor met a debtor on the street, he could seize him by the neck of the robe and nearly throwing him, he could literally drag him into court. That's what the rich did to the poor. They had no sympathy. All they wanted was the uttermost farthing.

It was not riches that James is condemning. It's the conduct of the rich without sympathy. So here's what he's saying. You're paying special privilege to these rich people and you're saying, come and sit in this position and they're the ones that are oppressing you. It doesn't make any sense.

The Irony of Favoritism

Not only that, they're blaspheming the name of God. The Living Bible paraphrases it, verse 7, this way. All too often, they're the ones who laugh at Christ. They're the ones who make jokes about this. And you're running your whole church to accommodate them.

Now, James is so good, he understands the response. Wait a minute. It's not that we're showing favoritism. We just love these people. We're showing love. Now, I would have a tendency to say, well, why are we loving them up front and loving these others in the back? That's not what James does.

Here's what he says. Hey, if, however, what you're trying to do is merely show love, love your neighbor as yourself, then if that's the motive here, if that in your heart of hearts is what you're really doing, then bravo. That's good. If that's what you're all about and that's what this thing is really about, that's terrific. But if you're showing partiality, you're committing sin.

The Law of Liberty

See, one of the things to me about the Christian faith that I find so liberating is indeed that I'm under the law of liberty. That He says to me, you judge this. You look at your heart. You figure out where you are on this. I made a statement in one of the studies a few weeks ago, and

I had several people really take me to task for it. So I figured I'll say it again. This time, get it on tape. Because I don't know if it's true or not. I think it's true. My experience says it's true, and I think it bears itself out here. Very rarely can a person be successful by the world's standards and by God's standards. Very rarely.

Now, we want to argue with that. But even today, we cut great slack to those who are financially wealthy or politically powerful or prestigious in the area of academia, even in the church or the body of Christ. We can have a thousand people come to Christ, but if one of them's a rock singer, he's the one we put up front. We don't train him. We don't discipline him. No one goes to him and says, "How's your quiet time? How's your time with the Lord?"

Our Compromised Value System

So here's what we do. Because we have that same value system, we bring it in. So when someone wealthy or someone prosperous becomes a Christian, all we demand from them is their name, that there'll be an honorary chairman, that they can stand up front, but we never ask them, "Where are you spiritually? What do you know?"

I've been on about a five or six-year deal where I've had all these young men say, "I want to be mentored." And here's what I've discovered. I say, "Well, who do you think would be good at mentoring you?" And they'll list a dozen guys. And as I've gotten to know the dozen guys a little bit, I find out they couldn't mentor anybody because they don't know anything. But they've gotten a free ride all the way through. You know why? They're rich, or they're famous, or they're powerful, or they're smart. That's why.

That's how we do it today. We don't say "sit in the front." We do it in a different way. And by the way, that is not condemning. I'm not condemning. I'm just saying that's the natural tendency. If you don't fight that tendency...

And let me tell you, at the same time I understand this. We don't have a study here today if somebody doesn't write checks and pay for this. I understand money is the mother's milk of not just politics, but everything. But the tendency is to deal with this in this secondary level, see? The tendency is to write them and cut them a lot of slack in these areas.

The Reality of Sin

Now He gives us another thing. If anyone keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at one point, he's guilty of all. So here you go. Here's what He asked you to do. Be free from sin.

I'm going through this thing now, dealing with a lot of guys about debt and that's become a hot topic. And I'm running into a bunch of guys that are saying, "I am debt-free except for my house." And I said, "Wait a minute, that's like me saying I'm cancer-free except for my lung." I mean, that debt doesn't count or how's that different? And I'm not putting that down. I have debt on my house. I'm in the process of trying to get rid of it. But it's interesting how we rationalize, "I don't have any debt." No debt? Well, except for my house. Okay. So let's just be honest in here.

And that's like saying, "I don't have any sin except for this one." Here's what God says. If you have one sin, that makes you a sinner. Okay. How many sins does it take to make you a sinner? One at this point. So when you say, "I'm basically good," this is this great argument. Is man basically good or basically evil? This is so easy. He's fundamentally evil and a sinner. Why? Well, because he sins. How many sins does it take? One.

Here's the practical illustration. I don't commit adultery, but I commit murder. When I'm in the process of transgressing, I transgress one law. It's fundamentally the same to me, theologically, as I've transgressed them all. So now I have to deal with this.

The Law of Liberty

And now He actually closes out this segment. Here's what He says. "So speak and act as ones who are judged by the law of liberty." I don't want you going around judging mercilessly.

Let me put a closure on this because I believe you live at a time where these last principles are not very well understood. He said, you and I are to be motivated now by a law of liberty. In other words, we are no longer under the law of do this, do this, don't do this, don't do this, don't do this. We're under the law of liberty. So our motivation now is love. Our motivation now is internal.

So you have all these orthodox Jews you see in the Old Testament going through all of these things, all of these religious rituals, following right down to the letter of the law and they're doing it under the threat of penalty. And God says to you and I as Christians, that's not what motivates us. What motivates us is love. Even when He says, "Here's the great commandment, love God with all your heart, love your neighbor as yourself." The motivation there is love.

Love as Our Motivation

So I begin to respect you. I begin to treat you with dignity. I begin to try to serve you. Why? Out of reward? No. Out of trying to get to heaven? No. That's all done because I love you. Why would I love you? Because I understand His love for me. That's why.

Give me the old Ten Commandments. Those babies are a lot easier than where you are. The Ten Commandments say, "Don't commit adultery." So all I got to do is never go to bed with a gal and I haven't done it. God says, come along and says, "If you've even looked at her, unless that you've committed adultery." Oh, I like that other one a lot better than this. This is way tougher because this is a heart deal. This is a lifelong struggle.

Now, here is what James is not saying. James is not saying don't

The Danger of Misunderstanding Judgment

This brings us to a crucial distinction about judgment that we must understand. There's a difference between judging sin and showing favoritism based on worldly standards. We've got this tolerance thing going on now where we're tolerant of this and tolerant of that. But God was never tolerant of sin. God always judged and dealt with sin, and He expects you to.

In Matthew 18, He prescribes a form of discipline. How would I discipline somebody if I hadn't judged them? Here's the distinction: one area we're talking about sin. Context does everything - context, context, context. The context here is showing preferential treatment to the rich over the poor. Don't be judging on those economic standards.

But He isn't saying that if you have somebody who's involved in adultery, you shouldn't judge it and deal with it. You see that distinction? This is a very important distinction.

When Christians Must Judge

When somebody stands up front saying "God says don't judge, God says be tolerant, God says embrace them all, God loves them all equally" - that misses the point entirely. If I have somebody involved in adultery or stealing or lying or murder or cheating or homosexuality or abortion - whatever the issue is - I'm to judge that thing and then deal with that person under the law of liberty or love. But I'm to judge that.

As a body, we judge. If you have someone in your life who says they're a Christian and they're involved in ongoing sin with no repentance, you're to judge them. Not based on what they have, not based on where they live, not based on what they drive, but based on how they act as it lines up with who they say they are. You see that distinction? Very, very, very important distinction.

The World's Standards vs. God's Standards

Here's what James says - here's the wrap-up. In our world, even as Christians, the tendency is to evaluate people by their bank account, by what they know, by who they know. We tend to elevate and incorporate the world's standards even as we look at the Christian life. Even as we look at the Christian life, we tend to bring into it man's standards. And God says, knock it off.

If anything, Christ demonstrated an empathy with the poor more than the rich. But I would say to you, it's not either-or. It's to love both and to do this out of a compassionate heart that's been touched by Christ. You're transformed, so you see the world differently.

Understanding Poverty and Wealth

I would also say to you, I know how appealing it is to say everybody can pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. I think you need to understand there are some who can't. Until you and I figure out what we're going to do with that, you're never going to solve that problem, and it's never going to go away.

Part of the answer is ultimately always theological - they need a new heart. Part of the answer is they need resources, they need love, they need a chance. Here's something else: just because somebody has a bucket load of money doesn't make them a spiritual giant. In fact, in all likelihood, that bucket load of money is standing ultimately between them and spiritual growth most of the time. Not a very easy message to deliver in Paradise Valley, Arizona, but it seems to me it's true.

And it doesn't get any easier. Next week, James says, "Since I'm talking about this, let me talk to you about faith and works." So next week we'll look at that.

Closing Prayer

Father, thank You for the truth of Your Word. We pray that You take these truths and apply them to our hearts. God, give us a spirit that is not looking to judge the person to our left or right, but to try to understand our own feelings, to see anything in our life that might be displeasing to You and acknowledge it as sin.

Father, give us the wisdom to see the world, to see the things in it, to see the people of the world as You see them - to judge without partiality, driven by love. Father, help us see that and understand that. We ask it of You in Christ's name. Amen.